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| Sunday, 30 May 2004 |
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Of Iraq's bad people and local demons Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake "Bad people have parties too," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, spokesman of the US occupation forces in Iraq commenting on the bombing to death of over 40 Iraqis celebrating a wedding. In the midst of all the spin doctoring efforts of the Bush Administration, over the torture and humiliation of Iraqis while in US military custody, one statement exposes the entire crisis management of the Bush team to be one big hoax. In addition to the continued shocks that George W. Bush and his team faces with each new exposure of pictures of prisoner abuse, last week there was the news of US aircraft attacking an Iraqi wedding party near the Syrian border, where over 40 persons were killed. The US command in Iraq soon denied it was an attack on a wedding party but one that targeted a safe house for Iraqi insurgents. But a video of the wedding festivities soon surfaced, which gave the lie to that statement. Briefing the media in Iraq soon after this video footage of the wedding became public, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the US Military Spokesman in Iraq, commented on the tragedy with a smile on his face saying: "Bad people have parties, too". He had no regrets for the deaths. This has a very simple meaning, despite all the admission of responsibility and the breast beating and apologies of the Bush team for the atrocities committed on Iraqi prisoners. A person of the rank of Brig. Gen. in the US Army and its spokesman in Iraq too, says that all Iraqi people are in fact bad. There is no other possible interpretation to what he said. This leads us to the not unfair conclusion that the US authorities in Iraq, and in fact persons such as Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and even President Bush himself, for all the apologies made, must be of the view that it is not a bad thing for US soldiers to torture, humiliate or even kill the Iraqis in their charge, because after all, the Iraqis are bad people. We have Brig. Gen. Kimmitt's word for that. So what's wrong in having some fun at the expense of such bad people? What's wrong in threatening them with unmuzzled attack dogs? What's wrong in forcing them to simulate sexual acts? What's wrong in stripping them of their clothes and all self respect? What's wrong in bombing out a wedding of these people? After all they are bad people and even if they can party they deserve the humiliation they receive. What else does one do with people who are intrinsically bad or those born bad? This is the problem the US led by George W. Bush is facing today. It is an echo of Ronald Reagan's infamous comment on the former Soviet Union describing it as the evil empire. It is also totally in sync with the current President Bush's naming of Iraq as being one among the axis of evil. If they are evil or bad, what's wrong in getting rid of them, even at a wedding? There must be many an evangelist in the US today who thinks it is all nonsense to be so apologetic about what took place in the Abu Ghraib Prison and several other places, because the mission of the US in Iraq is to rid the place of evil. This does not stop at overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein, which was no doubt a most cruel one, but in addition wiping out or humiliating into subjugation the people of Iraq who are all evil stuff that needs severe correction or elimination. The words of Brig. Gen. Kimmitt will always be remembered as an involuntary statement that proves the real attitude of the US leadership today towards the Iraqi people, and what they deserve. So we have to understand that all the humiliation undergone by the Iraqi prisoners and others is not just the work of a few bad soldiers, who have tarnished the image of the US Army and the US people, as it is so often said, but the true reflection of the overall attitude of those in the commanding heights of the US occupation and operation in Iraq. It is this occupation that the former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe praised and supported in his speech at the UN General Assembly last September, when he fully justified the US-UK led invasion of Iraq, in the absence of any UN sanction for it. Wonder what he has to say today about the torture, humiliation and even killing of Iraqi prisoners, which even Mr. Bush admits to be revolting. This is the international policeman that Milinda Moragoda wanted us to follow. This is the US hegemony that the same Moragoda wanted us all to accept. The bad ones at home If Brig. Gen Kimmitt considers all Iraqis to be bad people, here in Sri Lanka we have a group of persons who consider their political rivals to be demons or Yakshas. Speaking on a TV programme on TNL last week, the MPs of the JHU had no qualms in describing the members of the JVP as Yakshas. They even used Buddhist legend and lore to describe how the Buddha himself had dealt with Yakshas and vanquished them in his day. What was most noticeable among the MP monks, who participated in this programme, was their arrogance in language, far removed from the calm, collected and soothing speech we usually associate with members of the Sangha. They made bold to say they were not afraid of these Yakshas, who they later described as these "puthas" or sons, and said they would soon defeat them in their endeavours against the JHU. It appeared they had forgotten the teaching that hatred begets hatred. However, these yellow robed MPs could not properly answer a question that even the presenter, who did not hide his bias towards them, asked. The question was whether it was not true that the monks who entered parliament promising to put an end to the divisions there, were themselves divided on the very first meeting to elect the Speaker. All they did was repeat the arithmetical gimmick of cancelling off the votes of their two "rebel" monks by the votes of two others. One of the JHU MPs, a senior monk, accused the Yaskshas of the JVP of having voted for the extension of the state of emergency during the previous PA government, prior to the "Probation Government" of 2001. He said that by extending the emergency the JVP only helped weaken the Sri Lanka Army and strengthen the LTTE. As he went on this strange logic, there were promptings heard that he was wrong and that in fact it was the reverse that took place. After repeated prompting about his error, he suddenly said that matter will be explained later. It is a matter of very recent history that the emergency was allowed to lapse when the UNP decided to join with the then TNA to vote against it and defeat it. The TNA did not vote against the state of emergency if its removal would be a threat to the LTTE, but rather because it would help them. The lapse of the emergency considerably weakened the security forces. The provisions of the Prohibition of Terrorism Act invoked to replace the emergency gave very little support to the armed forces. However, this senior MP of the JHU had not bothered to educate himself of these facts before he made such public statements. There was more than a touch of honour in the comments by Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera, MP, of how the arrival of the JHU monks to parliament had an immediate beneficial impact as seen by parliament building and its surroundings being decorated for Vesak, earlier this month and that for the first time there was a dansala too at the parliament premises. The dansala is no doubt a first, but parliament has not been without decoration and lighting-up on previous Vesak festivals too. One wonders how much these external expressions of religious festivity paves the way to the promised Dharma Rajya. However, the sponsors of the dansala at the parliament premises had been the Police, who no doubt obtained donations from businessmen of the area for the purpose, in the ways they know best. While the Police could gain merit with sponsoring a dansala, it seems strange that such sponsorship should come from an organization that is fast earning international opprobrium for the number of incidents of torture and deaths within police custody. The move towards a dharma rajya should include preaching to the police that persons in their custody are in fact in their care and not meant to be tortured or killed. We must only hope that the JHU will be able to change the increasingly noticeable attitude of the police that anyone in their custody is good material for torture, humiliation, forced infection with deadly disease and even death. Or else, like Maj. Gen. Kimmitt in Iraq, the Police here may come to the conclusion that all accused are bad people who only deserve bad treatment. The path to Dharma Rajya must involve a change in police attitudes. It is better if the JHU and its MPs think more in this direction than in condemning JVP members as Yakshas. |
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