Editorial

Though obviously not unexpected, the results of the Southern and Western Provincial Council elections are a considered slap on the face of the Camerons and the Michelle Sissons and spokespersons for the State Department, who say that the recent UN Human Rights Council Resolution against Sri Lanka was meant for the people of this country!

Here is a challenge to both Ms. Sisson and Mr. Cameron — say that again if you dare, in the face of the resounding verdict given by the people at the two PC elections just concluded in Sri Lanka’s West and South.

Despite the gamut of the other issues involved, it is a fair assessment that both PC elections held mid term in the President’s second tenure eventually turned out to be a Referendum on the Geneva vote.

Both government and opposition campaigned on the issue of the Resolution, with there being a fine dividing line with those who were nationalist lining up with the government, and those that were anti national lining up with the forces that were gung-ho about Geneva.

The way things turned out, the latter were trounced.

These victories were not by small margins. By way of example, it can be pointed out that rarely has a presidential election for instance been won by more than three percentage points over fifty by any winning candidate in this country.

But the margins here were mammoth; in the Southern province the UPFA scored a massive 58 per cent of the vote and in the Western province, a convincing 53.

This was with the opposition attempting to make the most of Geneva and seeking to convert the heft of the world’s superpower into their own electoral victory — which of course resulted in this ignominy for the joint opposition, but more importantly for the Camerons and Sissons who say that the Geneva vote was on behalf of this nation’s own citizens.

The people have spoken and vox populi, vox dei – the voice of the people, Mr. Cameron, is the voice of god.

This being how a democracy works, common decency demands that David Cameron takes back with all humility his words about the Geneva Resolution being on behalf of the people, unless he wants to turn the bare knuckle basics of democracy on its head.

Or would Mr. Cameron or Ms. Sisson say now that when they claimed the Geneva Resolution was on behalf of the Sri Lankan people, they in fact meant that it was on behalf of some of Sri Lanka’s people, but not the others?

Now, would that be democracy or good governance, the professed love for the Sri Lankan people in fact translating as the allegiance to some who had to bow to the wishes of the many, at a national poll?

So much bad has been done in the name of the people, and whenever the ‘people’ are invoked as by mantra, those who use the name of the masses have to comprehend that the ‘people’ can speak only at an election, and that any other reference to the people is a farce, particularly of course if it comes from outside our shores, from those palpably alien to Sri Lanka and this island’s 20 million or so inhabitants.

It is not a mere majority of the people of Sri Lanka however that are against the Resolution in Geneva, but also the majority of the world’s people, considering that the most populous countries on earth, China among them, voted against the Resolution adopted in Geneva.

Supporting one letter or paragraph of that document therefore would be going against the voice of the people, and unless that is her understanding of democracy — ignoring the wishes of the people of a country, and the world — the US Ambassador should do well to urge the people of Sri Lanka to disrespect this Resolution and treat its content with suspicion, if not outright contempt.

A true democrat cannot do any less under the circumstances and if she has any arguments against that – we’d like to hear them from her, as it would be very curious that someone has anything to say in the face of what has to be the incontrovertible truth; nothing but the truth!

Courtesy: www.dailynews.lk