By Jessica Genauer, Flinders University | – (The Conversation) – Sadly, 2023 has been a violent one on the global stage. War broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis, including many children on both sides. And the bitter war between Russia and Ukraine continued with no end in sight. As a result of the focus on these two conflicts, other countries have dropped off the radar for many people. Some of these nations have been dealing with simmering unrest, however, which could erupt in 2024 and seize
Human rights campaigner and refugee advocate Victoria Martin-Iverson has very publicly challenged Crown Casinos boss James Packer about his decision to go into business with the brutal and murderous Rajapaksa regime.
James Packer:
“Sri Lanka is a beautiful and unique country with a huge tourism potential and I have great confidence in its future and it is Sri Lanka’s time to shine in Asia.”
A tribunal of 11 eminent judges has unanimously found the Sri Lankan government guilty of the crime of genocide against ethnic Tamil people. Sitting in Bremen, from December 7 to 10, the Second Session of the Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka found that the crime of genocide has been and is being committed against the Eelam Tamils as a national group.
This information went to Canberra and had been ignored by government for reasons of policy and politics. This would suggest that both major parties knowingly acted illegally with respect to processing Tamil asylum seekers. How low can we go?
Lower, it seems. I was also informed that the high commission has now ceased briefings from Tamil sources in the north, presumably on the basis of what they don’t know they don’t have to lie about. A form of deniability adopted and refined by Hitler’s Third Reich towards the final solution of the Jewish question.
The tribunal requested that states able to do so should take Tamil asylum seekers as refugees
James Packer’s response:
He excused the decision with the fatuous observation that the International Criminal Court and the UN were too politicised. He expressed disbelief that the criticisms were factual, based on anything other than politics.
Then he mentioned the pending “election”, which he said would be returning President Mahinda Rajapaksa with a substantial majority. The irony of that prediction was clearly lost on him.
Perhaps worried he had been a tad too dismissive of the very real human rights concerns, he went on to observe ‒ rather oddly, I thought ‒ that war is hell and the Middle East (?) in turmoil. He said he and his family were terribly sad about that and noted that few nations were free from allegations of human rights abuses.
Trevor Grant’s explosive new book, SRI LANKA’S SECRETS pulls no punches on
‘How the Rajapaksa regime gets away with murder.’
It’s the book that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his corrupt and nepotistic cronies didn’t want published.
When you read it, you will know why.
SRI LANKA’S SECRETS is a troubling dossier of the horrors and massacres perpetrated upon its own peoples by an absolute Government that masquerades as a democracy — a lie that is shamefully affirmed as truth by many expedient foreign governments, including Australia.
When the Rajapaksa government forces moved in for the ‘final solution’ to the Tamil Tiger problem, they first banned all foreign journalists, human rights monitors and UN observers.
Thinking themselves safe from outside scrutiny, they mass murdered tens of thousands of innocent civilians through bombardment from land and sea … But truth will out …
olddogthoughts 