United Kingdom – Your inability to speak out for your own is pathetic/ tragic

A British Citizen was shot at in Hotel Road, Mount Lavinia (a popular hangout area for tourists) in a tourist guest house, three days ago, and mercifully one bullet grazed his neck lodging in his body without killing him. All the UK can do is to express regret!!!! If he died, what would you have done? Oh heck “he is just a journalist in Sri Lanka and that is part of his job spec to be targeted” so its just another day in paradise, what’s new! That is simply tragic, disgraceful and downright hypocritical.

14 months ago another British Citizen was murdered by a mob led by the Chairman of the Tangalle Pradeshiya Sabha, while his girl friend was gang raped, and the case has not even come to trial and you remain “MUM” it gets worse doesn’t it. Where is your consideration for your citizens?

To make matters worse on the following day instead of the UK government expressing disgust, by recalling its High Commissioner and making a statement that all British Citizens in Sri Lanka, and those contemplating going to Sri Lanka go at their own risk as the UK Govt. cannot guarantee their safety! The papers in the UK, headlines I might add, scream about a paltry piss pot 2Mill pounds in arms being sold to SL, which was promptly denied by the forever denying Sri Lankan Military Spokesman, as being a downright lie and fabrication by the UK papers.

Has the Country that once held sway over half the world and the sun never set on its Empire, now nothing more than a spineless fakir!

Think about it, this is what the UK has become to the rest of the world. So does it even matter to the Rajapakse administration if the Prime Minister of the UK does not attend the CHOGM? No not at all! He has now become irrelevant.

You guys should have made such a hue and cry that should have made the headlines in all SL papers on Sunday and Monday, that would have put the Regime on notice to actually do something about apprehending the culprits. Instead this will be another case of “swept under the carpet”.

I believe the British High Commissioner in Colombo, has become a seat warmer, happy to enjoy his best Tea in the world syndrome, by not ruffling feathers, so he does not get kicked out for being decent! He just wants his promotion from post to post, so he can retire in some farmhouse in the Cotswolds with happy memories of his cocktail circuit life and hob-nobbing with the some guttersnipes in Colombo, happily bullshitting at his local pub about his days being festooned in Colombo.

If you thought I was some anti British Neanderthal (informal meaning of the word) you are far from it, but I think the UK, by the action of its bureaucrats are Neanderthal (formal meaning of the word) not a patch on your past. I believe the Cameron Govt. also should share some of the blame, but the diplomats in Colombo must advise their superiors so that the Foreign Office in London can issue the press statements in the appropriate degree of condemnation, and not pussyfoot.

To give credibility to statements above, which I standby, I had all the qualifications of joining the Foreign Service in the UK and could have been posted one day as the HC in Colombo. I have voted in UK elections since at least the 1974 Miners Strike election when the country was plunged into darkness in a Wilson/Callaghan Administration, having lived there for a total of 18 years. I applied for citizenship in the UK so long ago, but did not bother taking it up when the letters came, even forfeiting the 50pound fee that one paid at the time upon application. UK educated, UK tax payer and contributed immensely to UK economic growth, not sponging off the state for anything, except being subsidized at University level.

Diplomatic niceties are not what’s needed today. If wanton lawlessness prevails in Sri Lanka, you must use every opportunity, especially a situation when your own citizens are involved to defend their interests and thereby express the sentiments of your administration, without being led by a set of bankrupt policies and innuendo by the GTF (Global Tamil Forum) that is taking the UK administration for a ride, with half truths, to give mental satisfaction to the Tamil Diaspora living in the UK, to justify their exile there!

It is time that newly born UK citizens of Tamil extraction are not fed a diet of falsities perpetuating hatred to another set of people who had nothing to do with their parent’s (blame all for the sins of a few) guilt. The only way to prevent a lie from being spread is to prevent access to fringe groups to overshadow the very important goals of British Foreign Policy of attempting to retain a moral high ground when there is wholesale breach of human behavioral norms.

Otherwise one would also be seen to be guilty of the same crime, not wishing to both upset the applecart and get fingers pointed at atrocities in Afghanistan or Iraq in modern day or colonial history in earlier times. None of that is relevant despite the attempts of the current administration to resurrect that to justify their behavior.

So High Commissioner it is not too late to save your Citizens from being massacred and at the same time getting some self respect along the way from your fellow boozers in the local pub for protecting the stiff upper lip from sagging! 

Get on the blower and get Cameron who is just a hop away in India to make a statement from there. I am sure New Delhi would be delighted and he will get a few bonus points from them too.