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Geeze LouiseAsoka WeerasingheGloucester . Ontario CanadaJune 29, 2008 The Editor (Letters) Sir: I know it has been difficult for many Canadians to accept the negative impact that our former Supreme Court Justice Louis Arbour had on the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as its High Commissioner, but Leonard Stern had hit the nail on its head explaining why in his essay ‘Geez Louise’ of June 28, 2008. His statement, “In her previous career as a jurist she displayed a super-sharp legal mind, capable of making subtle distinctions. At the UN she swallowed the company line and pretended not to understand the difference between non-state combatants who celebrate civilian deaths and seek to maximize them, and democratic governments that grieve civilian deaths and seek to minimize them.” How true when it came to her dealing with Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger terrorists, the non-state combatants who were at war with the democratically elected government in wanting their mono-ethnic, racist, separate Tamil state, Eelam, which has killed over 70,000 people in the past 25 years. It was obvious that Madame Arbour decided to change gears to the “Bully”
What she failed to tell the Sri Lankans and their law makers and the world, was how she came to the conclusion that the CFA bore any value at all, when it had been violated over 7,000 times by the Tamil Tigers compared to the armed forces violations of just over 200 times. And 90 percent of the Tamil Tiger violations were of human rights like unlawful killings with impunity of unarmed civilians, arbitrary detention, torture, and abduction and recruitment of children for its Baby Brigade to be trained as Black Tiger suicide bombers. When UNESCO and UNICEF failed miserably to rein in the Tamil Tigers to stop human rights violations who thumbed their noses at the UN institutions, Madame Arbour’s impetuous statement and veiled threats on the Sri Lankan government certainly weakened her position as the Head of the OHCHR, and has shown by her staff who were unqualified and inept to monitor Human Rights in Sri Lanka. As for the United Nations which celebrated its 59^th anniversary some months ago, and its Charter which was established with the spirit of co-operation and mutual respect for all nations and peoples of the world, Madame Arbour and her staff have embarrassed this institution, and more so having taken the arrogant “Bully” mode against sovereign Sri Lanka and not against the real Human Right violators the Tamil Tiger terrorists who are exploding bombs in buses and trains killing hundreds of innocent civilians during rush hours. With such a record, it is not difficult to agree with Vic Toews, Parliament’s Conservative MP and President of the Treasury Board, who really thought she was a “disgrace” because of her comments on Israel and failing to take any public action on the UN’s endemic anti-Semitism as reported by *UN Watch.* Asoka Weerasinghe |
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