My Dear Hillary,

I thought I must write to you because you seem to be in the news always-and that too about Sri Lanka-and getting involved in one controversy after another.

Do you know, Hillary, there was a time when most Sri Lankans remembered you affectionately, especially after you visited our country as the First Lady of the most powerful country in the world, accompanied by your daughter? Most Sri Lankans had fond memories of that visit and felt honoured to have you here-until recently when you started making all sorts of indecent noises.

Of course by that time, you were long past being just the First Lady of the United States. By then, you had become a Senator in New York, challenged Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination and lost and gone on to become the Secretary of State of the United States.

That was when you first started making remarks that were uncalled for, Hillary. We found it difficult to understand why you were supporting a group which was listed as a terrorist organisation in your own country-but then, weren’t there rumours that some Tigers had funded your presidential bid?

During the height of our battles with the Tigers here, you said you were concerned about waging war against them and claimed that negotiations and a ceasefire were a better option. In fact, at one stage, you called for an end to the war-although, strictly speaking, it was none of your business. Of course, there were others like Miliband of Britain and Kouchner of France who said much the same thing.

Why is it, Hillary, that these kinds of arguments are proposed to deal with countries such as ours? After all, your country could have negotiated with Saddam Hussein-who probably committed fewer crimes than Velu-instead of waging war with Iraq that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead. Or, better still, you can even now call for a ceasefire with the Taliban and invite Osama for talks!

Then, Hillary, when Velu was eventually captured and the war was declared over, you found that hard to stomach. That was probably because you are still looking for Osama in Afghanistan and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq-after killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in both countries. Then you began making snide remarks about Sri Lanka.

At first, you said we were ‘not doing enough’ for the affected civilians. Why, Hillary, you are supposed to be a smart woman and therefore you should realise that nearly three hundred thousand civilians cannot be re-settled overnight-especially when there could still be thousands of hardcore terrorists among them and also when the areas they are supposed to be resettled have to be de-mined.

Well, Hillary, we are doing the best we can in the circumstances because we need money to resettle them too-and all that the rich nations like yours do is to shout from rooftops about how little we are doing without loosening your purse strings. Anyway, whatever we do, I am pretty certain we don’t have camps like Abu Ghraib where prisoners are tortured by your countrymen!

As if all those remarks were not enough, Hillary, last week you were to say that we were among countries which abused women for purposes of war. An apology was called for and you are supposed to have issued what you call a ‘clarification’ saying something to the effect that you were referring to ‘some incidents’ that allegedly occurred in 2002!

Why, Hillary, it surprises me that it took you seven long years to wake up and complain about these so-called incidents. If that is how your memory works, maybe Barack Obama should find someone else to do your job, now that he has won the Nobel Peace Prize and would need someone competent to look after the diplomatic side of his administration.

So, Hillary, all we can say from Sri Lanka is that we need neither your apology nor your clarification-we just feel sorry for Obama who has to suffer you for the next three and a half years!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha

PS-Hillary, since you have mentioned that Sri Lanka is in the habit of abusing women for political purposes and since you are in the habit of recalling things that apparently happened years ago, why don’t you update yourself on recent American history and look up a lady called Monica who was famous in the late 1990s?