Columns - 5th column

What ‘Geneva Lost’ won’t tell Hillary

By Rypvanwinkle

My dear Hillary Clinton,
I thought of writing to you since you are meeting our genial External Affairs Minister, Geneva Lost Peiris this week. I am sure it will be an exciting meeting since our two countries have been trading insults recently over your decision to sponsor a resolution against us in Geneva.

Even though we have been berating each other and even though yours is the most powerful nation on earth and we are a very small island, Hillary, I think our two countries have had a lot in common in recent times. Why, both our countries were battling terrorism, weren’t we?

Your country, with all that power and military might at your disposal, was battling al-Qaeda, the most widespread terrorist organisation in the world. We, the tiny nation that we were, were fighting the LTTE, the most ruthless terrorists in the world. The difference is, we won; you are still fighting.

So, we can understand why you are jealous of us, Hillary. Then of course there were the stories that Tiger supporters raised funds for you at the last presidential campaign when you were running for the Democratic nomination. I suppose that must count for something too!

How else, Hillary can you justify passing resolutions against us for ending the brutal menace of terrorism that stalked us for thirty long years? And it is not as if we didn’t try talking to the Tigers — we did it for many years and they took us for a ride at every turn.

Tell me, Hillary, if Osama Bin Laden had called you for negotiations, would you have agreed? And if he came up with a ceasefire proposal, would you have done a deal with him? And if he had assassinated one of your Presidents, would you still negotiate with him after that?

Well, we did all that with Prabhakaran and he still continued to wage war. Then we outsmarted him militarily and you blame us for violating ‘human rights’! Don’t you think that there are double standards here, Hillary?

Just imagine for a moment, Hillary, what your reaction would have been, had we found that Prabhakaran was hiding in another country and then secretly sent troops to that country and on finding him unarmed, shot him dead?

And what would have been your reaction if Mahinda maama watched the entire proceedings from his office, while his troops killed a defenceless man, even if he was a ruthless terrorist? You would have shouted blue murder and tried to haul Mahinda maama before a war crimes tribunal, wouldn’t you?
But didn’t Obama and you watch from the White House while your troops violated Pakistan’s sovereignty and then killed an unarmed Bin Laden instead of capturing him and trying him in a court of law? And then, Obama goes on television and gloats about what he did, as if it was an achievement!

Then just imagine for a moment, Hillary, what would have happened if our troops urinated on the dead bodies of terrorists who were killed in the war? And what would have happened if one of our troops went and massacred more than a dozen innocent civilians?

But this is precisely what your troops did with Osama and the al-Qaeda and are still doing in Afghanistan, Hillary. That is why I am a little puzzled at you wanting to discuss “human rights” with our Geneva Lost Peiris.

Correct me if I am wrong, Hillary, but if you were honestly wanting to discuss human rights, Geneva Lost should be discussing what is happening in Afghanistan with you, instead of you trying to tell us what we should be doing with our country!

Only last week, Hillary, we heard you say while you were in India that you had discussed the ‘situation’ in Sri Lanka with Manmohan. Now that man thinks that just because he looked the other way while we waged war with the Tigers, we should do his bidding about the 13th amendment.

What he doesn’t realise is that the Tigers wouldn’t have become the menace that they were, had it not been for Indira Gandhi’s support and her son Rajiv’s parippu drop some twenty years ago. And anyway, we don’t tell him how he should look after Kashmir, do we?

I know your meeting with Geneva Lost Peiris is being advertised as a move to “strengthen the friendly relations” between our two countries but as far as we are concerned, we are perfectly capable of looking after ourselves and we can do without the advice of enemies who call themselves friends!


But I must also warn you, Hillary, Geneva Lost Peiris is one of a kind. He may look and sound like an absent minded professor but beneath that deceptive appearance lies a different man. He speaks in very long sentences that no one understands but that too is a trick, to wriggle out of difficult situations!
So, beware. Before you know it, he may convince you that your best chances holding office four years from now would be joining the Republicans and criticising everything that you yourself did as Secretary of State. At least, that is what he did over here!

Yours sincerely,
Punchi Putha
PS: Please do give our regards to Bill. We had fewer problems with the Americans when he was running your country. After all, he had more important things on his mind than little countries like ours, hadn’t he?

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