A belief in human rights? Preaching to others about improving accountability? It’s all empty rhetoric by most/all Western governments, including Britain. Evidence for the prosecution (via Independent): The Government has issued more than 3,000 export licences for military and intelligence equipment worth a total of …£12.3bn to countries which… are on its own official list…
Showing all posts tagged Sri Lanka
Why truth about Sri Lankan brutality scares the perpetrators
The powerful documentary, No Fire Zone, tells the harrowing story of the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, where war crimes were committed by all sides. But the Colombo government refuses to take any responsibility for the murder of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. The film-maker, Callum Macrae, recently visited…
ABCTV News24’s The Drum on asylum seekers, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden
I appeared on ABCTV News24’s The Drum on Friday night (video here). We discussed the foul use of vulnerable asylum seekers as a political tool in Australia, claiming those coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka or elsewhere are just economic refugees. The facts are the complete opposite. I strongly defended the importance of NSA…
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
Sri Lanka isn’t a holiday destination for writers. Discuss
How should an artist or writer act in a police state? How should a tourist? What’s the moral response? Here’s a great piece by Jacinda Woodhead in Overland which tackles the thorny questions in a thoughtful way. I was asked to comment: Listening to 3RRR’s… Aural text… on Wednesday, I heard alicia sometimes mention the four-week residency…
Keeping human rights violations in Sri Lanka on the agenda
I’ve been on the advisory council… of the British-based Sri Lanka Campaign… for a number of years. I was interviewed by 278 Magazine about the group and raising awareness of the ongoing abuses in Sri Lanka: How long have you been on the advisory board for SLC? 2-3 years What initially attracted you to joining the board?…
Tell Australia to hold Sri Lanka to account
I’m proud to have been asked to sign this important petition and happy it’s been covered in the Colombo Telegraph: Malcolm Fraser, the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia has endorsed the petition for Commonwealth Summit in Australia- Reconsider attending CHOGM 2013 in Sri Lanka launched jointly by Australian Tamil Congress and Sri Lanka campaign for…
Lonely Planet must include morality when covering travel to Sri Lanka
Travelling ethically to Sri Lanka, a nation run by a thugocracy, requires skill. A key source of traveller information is Lonely Planet guidebooks but UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice demands the company steps up and takes greater responsibility for the information they’re disseminating: Lonely Planet made the news recently after the BBC…