Samarasinghe heads to Geneva “to defend war heroes”
Saturday, 8 March 2014 00:00
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Launches scathing attack on US and western powers
Says UNHRC move is not an international inquiry but an international meddling
Accuses Navi Pillay of being a “lying, vengeful” High Commissioner
Claims he sat Pillay down and told her to stop being biased
Best answer to resolutions is for people to vote for Govt.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Special Envoy on Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe heads to Geneva today on a mission he says is aimed at defending the country’s war heroes against destructive foreign forces.
Speaking at an election rally yesterday full of bravado, Samarasinghe said the country that had invaded Iraq and created chaos in that country, went to Libya to remove its leader in order to secure its own oil interests, and ousted the Egyptian President in order to assist the Israeli Government was now preaching human rights to Sri Lanka.
“That is why I seated the US Ambassador and the UK Ambassador in front of me in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council and told them that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones,” the Minister charged in an emotive speech.
Samarasinghe said Sri Lanka’s armed forces had only battled terrorists and never targeted civilians. The calls for an international inquiry into the war was nothing more than hostile foreign forces attempting to create instability and create new terror outfits in Sri Lanka, the Minister said.
“It’s not an international inquiry, it’s international meddling,” he charged.
The Minister said he was headed to Geneva today in order to defend the country’s war heroes against onslaughts of the international community and Navi Pillay, who he said was a “lying and vengeful” High Commissioner for human rights.
“I have sat her down in Geneva and told her not to act selectively against Sri Lanka, not to show bias,” Samarasinghe told the meeting.
“We are not willing to betray our war heroes, just because she tells us to,” the Minister charged.
The Minister said that no powerful country in the world would dare to keep meddling in Sri Lanka no matter how many resolutions are passed in Geneva, as long as the people were with the President and his Government. (DB)
