Islamic Bloc: Need of Hour

The electronic and print media of the United States and the United Kingdom, which are presently leading the civilized and developed countries of the world, are forcefully in the forefront to raise voice for the protection of human rights. These countries consider themselves as the custodian of human rights and the human rights organizations making progress under their patronage are telling tales of repression and tyranny taking place in the world to proclaim their sympathy and love for humanity. They have even set up organizations to prevent the factors affecting the natural environment for wildlife and maritime life.
Muslims' Rights at Stake
The animal rights organizations come into action without any delay even if their dogs are maltreated. However, some one should ask those, who raise voice for animal rights that why they fail to see the rights of the Muslims for the sake of their own interests? Under the leadership of the United States, the world of paganism, intoxicated by power and might, declares any country any time, particularly some Muslim country, as terrorist and attacks it. Iraq and Afghanistan were ruined by this civilized country under a premeditated conspiracy.
Why this country, which teaches lesson to audacious countries, fails to see the flagrant terrorism by its protectorate country, which has been perpetrating repression on the innocent Palestinians since long. Why the US Administration has blindfolded itself?
Problem for Innocent People
If attacking the life and property of innocent people is considered as terrorism in the United States, then the murder and pillage in Afghanistan should be considered worse than terrorism. The fault of the innocent and guiltless Afghans is only that they are Muslims. The bloodletting of innocent people is a slap on the face of the international campaign against terrorism. The truth is that the stains of this blood will never be cleansed from the face of the global alliance. The irony of justice is that the country, which offered the largest sacrifices against terrorism, got nothing in return. The blood of innocent elderly people, children, and women is spilled every other day in UAV attacks on many Muslim countries. At time, Pakistan’s national honor and self-respect is hurt by staging the farce of the presence of Usama Bin Ladin's hideout in Pakistan. However, present Pakistani leadership remains unmoved and it is looking toward others even in this difficult situation.
Imperialism and Colonialism Forces
The forces of imperialism and colonialism have surrounded the Muslims today. They are eying Pakistan, Iran, and other Muslim countries after spilling blood in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crusade goes on. There is a dire need for a strong Islamic bloc under these circumstances. Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran can forge this bloc together.
The Arab and Asian states can be included in it later. Turkey and Iran are already willing but Pakistan and Afghanistan are under the influence of the United States. The leaders of these two countries will have to realize the subtlety of the situation as the crusade can only be countered by forging an Islamic bloc.

Sri Lankan Government Responsible for Global Interferences

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) says that according to United Nations conventions and other related agreements to which Sri Lanka has been a signatory, the government cannot oppose any suggestions made by its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon or its member states in matters pertaining to probes in the context of those agreements and conventions.

The country also subscribes to the principle that people should not allow foreign powers to interfere in our internal affairs and to challenge our sovereignty. But we do have to work in concord with the world. It is the government that is paving the way for international forces to intercede in our matters and to challenge our sovereignty by its acts of political revenge, human right violations and other antidemocratic activities.

Human Rights Violations
The various other criticisms are being made about the escalating interference by other countries. Such interference has apparently increased in the recent past. He observed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently said that a special panel should be appointed to probe human rights violations allegations against Sri Lanka.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has made public his firm resentment of this suggestion, but it is nothing but an attempt to deceive the people. Meanwhile, 'political infants' cradled in the lap of the government too shout down the suggestion made by Ban Ki-moon. All this melodrama is mere intentional posturing aimed at harnessing more votes in the coming general election. If they are true patriots they should be shouting in front of the President's House instead of demonstrating opposite the British High Commission.

Rebuilding Country
The need to rebuild this country is being strongly felt now that terrorism has been totally rooted out of this country. The United Nations and various other countries have stressed this point. The United Nations and the Sri Lankan Government agreed on certain matters and eventually both issued a joint statement. Certain actions that have to be implemented first and foremost in this regard have been highlighted in that statement such as conciliation among communities, national unity, impartiality, etc.

Moreover, the statement stressed the importance of resettling the internally displaced people in their native places and the need to provide them with sustainable livelihoods. The resolution asserted that human rights should be upheld and a transparent and acceptable administrative structure in the country be ensured while the Sri Lankan Government would be held accountable for any lapses in any of these areas. But the country is presently overwhelmed with media oppressions, political feuds, illegal activities, antidemocratic activities and blatant human rights violations. Hence, not a single pledge agreed upon in the UN agreement has been fulfilled.

Negative Ambience
In such a negative ambience, it is inevitable that the United Nations would step into the picture at some point of time. We too disapprove of interference by other countries in our affairs. But it is the government that helped create this situation.

The government speaks in English to establish various agreements with foreign bodies but deceives the people by speaking to them in Sinhalese on these matters. In addition, Ban Ki-moon only said that he wants to appoint a panel to observe the situation here. He never said he was going to appoint a team to investigate. But the government distorted his remarks and is trying to make fools out of people.

The people should understand that the government would obviously engage in this kind of ruse, particularly at election time. But to deceive the public with such colossal lies is despicable. If we have threats from foreign powers it is the government that invited such interference in it. Therefore, do not get deceived by the theatrics of the government. They are only good at play acting and know nothing about ruling a country.

Vietnam's Human Rights Plot To Incite Dissent

Lately, with the backing from ill-intentioned toward Vietnam of some foreign political circles and international organizations, Vietnamese expatriate reactionary organizations and hostile forces have extensively made use of the democracy and human rights issues to increase their sabotage activities against the Vietnamese state with the aim to create an impact for a change to pluralism, multiparty political system and gradually working towards the abolition of the leadership role of the Communist Party and the socialist regime in our country.In implementing their target to "stir up" the opposing atmosphere against the Vietnamese state both in the country and overseas, the expatriate reactionary elements are colluding with a number of local political dissidents to expedite propaganda activities by falsely accusing that Vietnam "violates democracy, human rights and represses religious freedom". Leading reactionary organizations such as "Viet Tan", "Committee for the protection of journalists", "Reporters Without Frontiers" and so on have launched a campaign to propagate a program named "The enemies of the internet" on the occasion of the "World Day Against Cyber Censorship" in order to draw public attention to the distorted tones that the Vietnamese government continuously conducts monitoring and repressive actions on the cyber space and forbids "political dissidents" to write blogs on the internet. They also called upon the three world biggest internet services providers, i.e. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft "not to lend a hand to the Vietnamese Government to control the internet".

Freedom of Religion and Infringes

Nguyen Thi Tram Oanh (Germany) regularly keeps contact with and incites those dragging and extremist protesters whom they called "grieved people" in Danang city to provide information, documents on the so-called local government repression of mass protests so she can introduce to the international public opinion. Bao Khanh, a reporter of the "Vietnam Sydney Radio" in Australia, regularly get in touch through "interviews" with domestic dissident elements such as Nguyen Khac Toan, Tran Anh Kim, Le Thanh Tung, Vi Duc Hoi, Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and others to urge them to collect and provide information or documents that they call "evidences" asserting that the Vietnamese government represses freedom of religion and infringes on human rights. Their sole purpose is to diffuse propaganda activities against Vietnam.These subjects also lobby foreign political circles and international organizations to step up interventions and pressures on Vietnam with regard to democracy and human rights issues with a view to interfere with the juridical reform and global integration process through which they hope to gradually transform the Vietnamese political regime in a way suitable for their interests. With the familiar themes of accusations of infringement upon democracy and human rights, they recommend the American politicians to reinstate Vietnam in the list of countries of particular concern for religious freedom (CPC) and to pass the "Vietnam Human Rights Act 2009-S1159". Some individuals and reactionary organizations have gone as far as to recommend increased pressure and promulgation of new "act", "draft law" and "resolution" to force the Vietnamese government to "implement freedom of speech, to loosen control of internet, to give fair treatment to ethnic minorities and to recognize and protect a number of reactionary organizations and individuals in the country.In order to bypass the Vietnamese relevant agencies inspection that will unmask their real motivation and scheme, these reactionary individuals and organization resort to the old trick of transferring money under the cover of international awards for human rights or payment of "royal ties" to give financial support or encouragement to their local partners. At the beginning of 2009, they lobbied the "International Human Right Watchdog" to present the "2008 Human Rights Award" to a number of domestic activists with awards totaling $ 12,000. A numb er of repor ters from reactionary newspapers and radio networks regularly send "royalties" to more than 20 dissidents in the country for answering their interviews or supplying articles with reactionary content which will be used as propaganda materials against Vietnam. The leaders of "Viet Tan" in Houston, USA are promoting the sending of "Tet gifts" to "democratics" in the country to encourage them "to be more enthusiastic" in their protest activities.

Hostile and Reactionary Forces

Whatever cunning or slandering tones that these hostile and reactionary forces may use, they cannot refute the truth that the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam always regards human beings as the target and motivation of all socio-economic development policies; it always guarantees and promotes all human rights. The 1992 Constitution of Vietnam guarantees that all citizens have equal rights in political, economic, civic and before the law; they have the right to participate in the administration of the State and management of the society; the right to religious freedom; the right to free movement and residence within the country; the right to lodge complaints and denunciations; the right to work, to study, to health care, etc... regardless of their gender, race or religion. On the foundation of the Constitution, Vietnamese law continues to concretize all these rights in accordance with international legal standards on human rights.The implementation of the "Comprehensive strategy for growth and hunger eradication and poverty alleviation" promulgated by the Vietnamese government in May 2002 within the context of the Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the period 2001-2010 has contributed to bring down the rate of poor households (by national poverty criteria) from 58.1 percent in 1993 to 14.82 percent in 2007 and has made Vietnam as one of the few first countries to attain the millennium goal. All development policies of Vietnam always take human people as the center; economic development is for human people with economic growth linked to progress and social equality assurance and must go together with cultural, educational and intellectual development and environment protection and improvement.

Major International Conventions

Vietnam has joined most of the major international conventions on human rights and always supports the activities of the Human Rights Council and fully cooperates with the United Nations human rights institutions. International friends have all acknowledged that Vietnam has in fact attained many achievements on the promotion of human rights, especially the civil and political rights and the rights of the easily hurt groups. We have and are combining with harmony the general value of human rights with the particular conditions of the country while strengthening international cooperation and open dialogue in the field of human rights. The awareness and capacity of the people are being raised so they can fully enjoy these rights.Our Party and State always assert that human rights cannot be separated from national independence and sovereignty. Through indomitable and resilient struggle spanning over many centuries, the Vietnamese people have asserted the most sacred and basic human right is to live in an independent and free country and be able to decide one's own destiny.Along with the implementation of the State's consistent policies to guarantee and promote human rights, the Vietnamese relevant agencies have taken the initiative to unmask individuals and organizations that exploit democracy, human rights issues to work against the Vietnamese state, thus contributing to the safeguarding of national security, political and social stability. However, the stratagem of the reactionary forces to take advantage of the democracy and human rights issues to tarnish the image of the state and to abolish the socialist regime in Vietnam never ceases to diminish, not to say it will increases in the time to come.

Human Rights Situation

Together with heightened vigilance to timely unmask and neutralize all new schemes and cunnings of reactionary expatriate elements , we need to extensively exploit and make use of the services of the internet and other mass media means to step up propaganda work so that the public, the foreign political circles, the members of international organizations and our overseas compatriots can understand the real nature and achievements with regard to human rights in our country and gradually shrug off their mistaken view and suspicion of the democracy and human rights situation in Vietnam before the slandering and distorted tones.
All relevant agencies, departments and branches should take the initiative to provide counsel and formulating of propaganda strategy on democracy and human rights issues and to carry out regular exchanges of information with foreign embassies to fence off the distorted information on these issues that the reactionary expatriate organizations are trying to provide to foreign political circles, national assemblies. Our policy is to promote diplomatic campaigns by unmasking the sabotaging nature of these reactionary forces against the Vietnamese state and by requesting foreign politicians, governments and international organizations not to shelter, tolerate and support these expatriate reactionary individuals and organizations plotting against the Vietnamese state.

China-US Bilateral Conflicts

Recently, China-US relations have become rather tense. When the Google controversy is still lingering on, hiccups have raised further over the US arms sales to Taiwan. This is in addition to the on-going disagreements on China-US trade issues. Now that President Obama has announced that he would meet with the Dalai Lama when the later re-visit the United States, the chaotic Sino-US diplomatic ties seems even more confusing to many people. However, in the writer's view, all these Sino-US bilateral conflicts are but normal process between the two countries. We should not over interpret and over amplify the contradiction between China and the United States.
Trade, Taiwan, and Tibet are the "3T" problems that have accompanied the China-US relationship as long as we can remember. If we do not observe the existence of these "3T" problems in the dealings between China and the United States, the absence of them can contribute to abnormal China-US ties.

Taiwan, Tibet, Trade Disputes
The "3T" issues can best reflect the China-US relationship. In trade dealing, the two countries have developed an interdependency phenomenon that both nations have to rely and support each other based on their respective national interest. It was because of this trade factor that the Chinese Government was willing to help President Barack Obama's "New Deal" by coming forward to assist in the US debt problem in time of need in 2009 since both countries could see the shadow of each other in this bilateral trade ties. However, at the same time, both countries cannot avoid the ongoing disputes in the China-US trade balance.

Cross-Straits Relationship
As for the Taiwan factor, although China and the United States' position on Taiwan is like a "seesaw game"; and although each round of US arms sale to Taiwan would inevitably lead to rising conflicts between the two countries, but the arms sale to Taiwan issue has become a more and more low key issue. This is in addition to the fact that the cross-straits relationship has become better and better as time goes by. As we take a closer look at the Tibetan issue, it remains a fact that the influence of the Dalai Lama who is at dying age has weaken to the degree that the Dalai Lama can only depend on engaging frequent visits to foreign lands in order to provoke China. However, the hard-line attitude of Beijing toward Tibet has also led the Western major powers to become more cautious in wanting to interfere with the Tibetan issue in China. This was also the reason why in 2009 President Obama has avoided meeting up with the Dalai Lama in order to consider the feeling of China. As for the Google controversy that has led to war of words between China and the United States, in the writer's opinion, the reason that prompted US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in wanting to launch the so called "network diplomacy" war globally is but her "smart diplomacy" diplomatic game advocated by the Obama administration.
After all, Barack Obama is the US President. He is a Democrat US President. In dealing with issues relating to the press freedom, human rights and religious freedom, President Obama's criticism on China over these issues will certainly have his own value judgment and personal perspective. We should not take such criticism as surprises.
Moreover, we should also understand that the national situation and condition between China and the United States differ greatly. When the United States suffered a once in a century economic and financial crisis, it is understandable that the fight for self interest among the different US groups from the US Congress to labor unions and to different sectors in the US society can become complicated. All these complications have added pressure to the US Government. As a result, since the political ideology of China and the United States differs vastly, and since China and the United States have treated each other as mutually important trading partner, China has logically become an outlet for the various US opinion groups to vent their anger and grievances. As a US President, President Obama has to make use of the "3T" issues, the Dalai Lama and Google controversy as his effective strategy to ease the domestic grievances as well as to ease his political pressure and to divert the existing domestic contradictions elsewhere.

Changes in US Political Pattern
2010 is the year the United States will carry out its midterm congressional election. If we say the US people simply do not care about the China-US ties at the 2008 presidential election, then the China-US relationship will become the focus of attention for the US people in the coming mid-term election. To the United States 2009 was the "crisis year." During that crisis year, the US Government and US media have joined hands to create the concept of G2 (US and China) to rule in the world affairs. Although China has never acknowledged the G2 concept, but this G2 concept has already misled the US people into believing that China is the main rival country for the United States. A commentary in the latest issue of the "Washington Watch" said: "If the unemployment problem remains serious in the United States, and if the US people continue to hear good economic news coming from China, the negative emotions of US voters toward China will definitely go up." In this context, if President Obama does not take the advantage of the present anti-China public opinion that exists in the US society and play along with it, the Republican Party will take advantage of this issue to work against President Obama. In the end, the Democratic Party might end up losing the superior dominant status in both the Senate and House in the US Congress after the midterm congressional election.

Aggressive Anti-China Strategy
For the series of disturbances that happened recently between China and the United States, the Chinese leaders, the Chinese media and the Chinese people should treat them rationally and take careful approach to respond to them wisely. In response to President Osama's over-intimate China-US ties in 2009, it is time for the Chinese officials and Chinese people to mentally prepare for President Obama's new thought on China and observe his deeds and words more carefully. After all, Chinese officials and Chinese people should not forget that the China-US bilateral relationship is not really a partnership relationship. When the US officials described the China-US ties in a Chinese idiom in Chinese language as "feng yu tong zhou" or the so called "when two are in the same boat, the two parties will have to sail through wind and rain through thick and thin" it is but a diplomatic jargon. In reality, the most important aspect of China-US bilateral relationship is more referring the political game both countries have to fight and win in the long run.
From the high profiled US-China G2 doctrine to the flame of the G2 gradually died off, and from Sino-US disputes in Copenhagen to the Sino-US quarrels over trade disputes, it is clear that the US attitude toward China has evolved. The previous un-respect and contempt sytle of anti-China sentiment has become the present furious type of anti-China sentiment. The United States wants China to assume more global responsibility but China has objected. On the surface, it might seem that the focus of the US anti-China strategy remains at hitting the "3T" issues. However, in term of purpose and motive, this current anti-China strategy launched by the US Government has taken a new twist. It has become a phenomenon that the higher and more aggressive the United States tries to launch anti-China strategy on China, the more counter balance effect in strength and power of the two big nations can emerge. In this regard, the more frequent the United States executes its anti-China measure on China, the more China can grow stronger each day thus reflecting the weakening of the US power in the international community.