The UK’s Channel 4 has aired a documentary about Sri Lanka’s extermination of the Tamil Tiger rebels, including thousands of the Tamil population. Refugees were gathered into no-fire safety zones, then camps, even hospitals, a strategy it turns out, of concentrating people to more easily target them with artillery fire. Doc is below:
Norway’s AFTENPOSTEN newspaper claims to have received the entire cache of Cablegate diplomatic cables. So far they’ve restricted themselves to releasing correspondence relating to US-Norwegian relations, revealing particular Norwegians doing America’s bidding, from those with “strong pro-US instincts, to another considered by “some very senior U.S. officials” to be “weasily.”
From the cable about weasily Norwegian Ministry of Defense State Secretary Espen Barth Eide who’s played a key role in keeping Norwegian troops in Afghanistan and tried to manipulate his Government to support US machinations in Haiti, these misgivings:
Senior Norwegian officials, with strong pro-U.S. instincts, have also told the Embassy in private that Barth Eide is not to be relied upon to promote U.S. priorities. One key test of Barth Eide´s inclinations will be the MOD recommendation on which fighter plane to purchase, the Joint Strike Fighter or the Saab Gripen.
News as well to Norwegians is a cable about Oslo’s regional governor collaborating with US plans to move/expand its embassy which had been meeting with severe resistance from the public.
Although the AFTENPOSTEN is published in Norwegian, the cables are being reprinted in their original, Here’s a listing of what’s out so far:
Dokumentene fra USAs ambassader
OSLO REGIONAL GOVERNOR OFFERS SUPPORT FOR NEW AMERICAN EMBASSY PROJECT (15.12 2010)
NORWAY: A POTENTIAL HAVEN FOR WAR CRIMINALS?
(15.12 2010)
ESPEN BARTH EIDE, POWER IN NORWAY´S MOD AND RISING STAR IN THE LABOR PARTY (16.12 2010)
RISING NORWEGIAN ANTI-SEMITISM AFFECTING ITS ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST? (15.12 2010)
13.2.2009: CONSTRAINTS ON NORWAY´S MIDDLE EAST ROLE? (15.12 2010)
NORWEGIAN LAWYERS SUE ISRAEL FOR WAR CRIMES ABUSES (15.12 2010)
NORWAY WILL NOT PUBLICLY SUPPORT UN 1267 KREKAR DESIGNATION (15.12 2010)
GOJ TO APPROACH DUTCH TO ASK THAT MULLAH KREKAR NOT BE EXPELLED TO NORWAY (15.12 2010)
MULLAH KREKAR CASE: STATE OF PLAY IN JORDAN (15.12 2010)
OSLO NEC – THE HIGH COSTS OF FREEZING THE PROJECT (15.12 2010)
21.5.2003: Tigers issue hard-edged letter demandinginterim structure in north/east (19.12 2010)
11.2.2009: Norwegian FM Stoere: The world at his feet (15.12 2010)
16.6.2003: Tensions notch up over sinking of Tamil Tigership and latest slaying of a Tiger opponent (19.12 2010)
15.7.2003: Tigers still refusing request from monitors tovacate forward base (19.12 2010)
11.8.2003: LTTE base issue; Tigers get ready for Paris meeting (19.12 2010)
4.11.2003: Provoking political crisis, President fires three key ministers and suspends Parliament (19.12 2010)
23.10.2003: President demands removal of chief monitor, but it is not clear how far she wants to push matter (19.12 2010)
5.11.2003: President Affirms Commitment to Negotiated Settlement and Cease-fire (19.12 2010)
12.11.2003: Sri Lanka update: No resolution in “cordial” President-PM meeting; Norwegians here to meet all sides (19.12 2010)
17.11.2004: Possible ways forward in political standoff between Sri Lankan President and Prime Minister (19.12 2010)
6.3.2004: Ignoring orders of LTTE leadership, rebel commander remains ensconced in east (19.12 2010)
9.6.2004: Recent meetings show the way forward for Sri Lanka peace process is troubled (19.12 2010)
15.4.2004: In meeting, Norwegian Ambassador reviews recent discussion with President on peace process (19.12 2010)
17.6.2004: Talks about Talks in Stasis while Norwegians Ponder Next Moves (19.12 2010)
23.6.2004: Norwegian peregrinations for peace (19.12 2010)
20.4.2004: Norwegian envoy Solheim finds GSL and LTTE committed to peace process (19.12 2010)
6.12.2004: “Low key” Norwegian visit to Wanni (19.12 2010)
29.11.2004: Norwegians concerned by JVP-orcheastrated campaign against them (19.12 2010)
23.1.2006: U/S Burns reviews Sri Lankan peace process with Norwegian facilitator Erik Solheim (19.12 2010)
Here’s an excerpt about the US ambassador’s concern about “growing anti-Semitic” criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza:
4/27/2009 12:55
C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000315 SIPDIS E.O. 12958:
DECL: 04/27/2019
TAGS: PREL, PINR, PHUM, IS, NO
SUBJECT: NORWEGIAN LAWYERS SUE ISRAEL FOR WAR CRIMES ABUSES…
More recently, the Israeli Ambassador formally protested Norwegian Foreign Minister Stoere’s decision to stay in the room at the UN Racism Conference in Geneva during the Iranian President´s speech. The Ambassador also confidently told us that the embassy will likely sue the Norwegian National Broadcasting Company for what they perceive to be very biased news magazine reporting on Hezbollah and the Gaza war.
WHITNEY
Do you wonder why US criticism hasn’t been more pronounced, as Sri Lanka’s military keeps bombing the Tamil Tiger rebels in spite of disproportionately high civilian casualties? Collateral Damage is our M.O.! From Afghanistan today come reports of Truckloads of dead civilians after Afghan battle, specifically a US aerial bombardment. As always, US Commander: Afghan Civilian Casualties Not from US Forces.
That was last year’s official response to the 90 Afghan civilian deaths after a US air raid on Azizabad.
The Independent is reporting that the Farah Province civilian casualty is closer to 120 than the US DoD’s reported five. We are left only to check with Google to learn what will turn out to have happened, irrespective of what US-NATO media relations eventually confirms. Google the village of Ganj Abad, in the Bala Baluk district.
Like how the UN Security Council and the US government ONCE hid in the shadows egging on Saddam Hussein-led Iraq and its assault on Iran in previous times, today it is doing the same with the Sri Lanka Civil War. But Saddam Hussein couldn’t get in the death blow against Iran that the Security Council lusted for on behalf of the US in the ’80s. Sinhalese Sri Lanka is though against its Tamil opposition, and now the Security Council has come out of the shadows and is egging the final kill on. See Tamil Tigers urged to surrender (by UN Security Council)
Geopolitical reasons always dictate who the world corporate press declares as being righteous and who is denounces as being villainous in these conflicts. The US and its European allies have definitely tilted towards using India as regional ally against China and Russia, and India wants the end of Tamil rebellion, both inside India itself, and also inside Sri Lanka. That’s enough to spin the conflict as it is being done. While the ‘Security Council’ with the name of the United Nations attached to itself is calling for the Tamil insurrection to lay down its arms, we sincerely doubt that it will ever do anything to protect the Tamil population from slaughter at the hands of Sri Lanka’s government. It certainly hasn’t in the past.
The world once sat by and allowed the United States and its Peruvian puppet, Alberto Fujimori to slaughter off tens of thousands of its indigenous citizens. The excuse was that Sendero Luminoso, the oppositional group, was not a nice enough group of people for liberals and Leftists to campaign to stop the slaughter from occurring. Today the whole world sits by, because they don’t like the Tamil Tigers, and does the exact same thing of allowing the slaughter to go on.
Yet, On this very same day, today Fujimori got convicted and Tamils are demonstrating to stop the same sort of slaughter. The world as a whole though seems to learn nothing? No CHANGE has occurred still.
The role of the US government has been is to simply accept what its ally, India, does in Kashmir and in regard to the ‘Tamil Question?’ India is needed in a US constructed Asian regional alliance against both Russia and China, so this slaughter is just not important enough to the US government to prevent from occurring. The Tamils will simply join others as collateral damage.