12 Thursday 30th April, 2009 “We are by C.A. Saliya human shields by the LTTE to delay their final defeat in this bat- against...from page 8 Auckland, New Zealand tle: Ealam war IV. It is a grave mis- Thank you, take to be carried away by LTTE o the members of parliament propaganda and believe that this A lot of schools, hospitals and of the Maori Party; Hon. Dr terrorist outfit really cares about houses have been constructed and TPita Sharples—Co-Leader, the Tamil people. despite the allegation that Moscow Hon. Tariana Turia—Co-leader, Hone Harawira, the foreign was fighting against Muslims, now Hone Harawira, Te Ururoa Flavell, affairs spokesman for the Maori when Chechnya is within the Maori Party Whip, Rahui Reid Maori Party! Party, asked the New Zealand Russian federation, the biggest and Katene. Government to reinforce the mes- most beautiful mosque in Europe This is written in appreciation of sage that the Sri Lankan was constructed recently in Groznyy The Maori Party’s decision to block Government needed to exercise - equal to the best mosques in Saudi the motion expressing concern restraint against the Tamil Tigers Arabia. So life is quite normal there. about the Sri Lankan “humanitari- which is now in its last enclave. This is the way we hope the govern- an situation”; that is, the fighting The report that “Waiariki MP Te ment in Sri Lanka will also go, against LTTE terrorists by the Ururoa Flavell loudly objected to because it is most important to find Government forces of Sri Lanka. Mr Anderton …” implies that the a political solution. With leaders of The reason given by the Maori lead- Maori leaders have done their the terrorists, it is practically use- ers is very valid: “Because it gives homework comprehensively and less to negotiate because they are equal weight to the Sri Lankan carefully and have taken an unbi- not inclined to reach a political solu- Government and the Tigers”. ased stance bravely. tion. But it is important to find a The New Zealand Herald on When our award-winning film- political solution to the problem in Wednesday 29 April 2009 reported star/producer/director Jackson general and to remove the root caus- that: “The Maori Party has been Anthony visited New Zealand last es that led to the emergence of this attacked as ‘disgusting’ for block- year, he said that the two treaties problem, the inequalities of various ing a parliamentary motion yester- the British Government signed nationalities, imbalance in socio- day by Progressive [Party] leader with the leaders of Sri Lanka in economic development, unemploy- Jim Anderton.” It is also reported 1815 and with Maori leaders in ment, access to education - there are that “Labour associate foreign Aotearoa /New Zealand in 1840, many problems which should be affairs spokesman Grant Robertson have a lot of similarities. It is well solved and democratic elections said he was disappointed that the known here in New Zealand that must be held in those regions and Maori Party blocked the motion.” the Treaty of Waitangi (the place this way, I hope, a lasting peace will The motion read: in New Zealand where the Treaty be achieved in the future. That this House, notes its deep was signed (similar to Kandy in Sri concern at the dire humanitarian Lanka) had different versions in Q. We read about this tug of situation in Northern Sri Lanka Hon. Hone Harawira Hon.Te Ururoa Flavell the English and Maori languages. war between the West and Russia and calls upon both the Sri Lankan Foreign affairs spokesman, Maori Party Whip Prof. Nalin de Silva mentioned in a in former territories of the Government and the Liberation Maori Party recent TV programme that certain Soviet Union such as Georgia and Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) to clauses in the Kandyan Treaty the Ukraine. Was the interest of immediately stop hostilities to implies that the democratically snatch victory from the jaws of were never observed by the British the West in Chechnya due to gen- allow those civilians in the combat elected Sri Lankan government defeat, such as providing military Governors. He said that the uine humanitarianism or was it zone to move to safety,condemns all does not care about its citizenry. It and intelligence support for pin- Sinhalese were not “conquered” a part of this battle to establish acts of violence and intimidation is biased — this means Mr point strikes against the terrorist but in fact were deceived by spheres of influence? which are preventing civilians Anderton and his friends take the leadership. Failing that, the Obama Western colonialists, as were the A. I wouldn’t say we are at a tug from leaving the conflict area, and side of LTTE terrorist supporters. administration [so as other admin- Maori people. Therefore, it is very of war with the western countries. calls on both sides to respect inter- Mr Anderton and his allies seem istrations] should mind its own interesting to learn that the Maori Of course there are some differences national humanitarian law and to ignorant of recent developments in business. The Sri Lankans are win- Party is well aware of the situation in our approaches to particular protect and assist the civilian popu- the West regarding this situation. ning; we should let them finish the in Sri Lanka, and are acting inde- problems. In many spheres we coop- lation in the combat zone, as in the For example: the editorial of the job.” pendently and impartially, which erate quite successfully with the internally displaced persons (IDP) Washington Times on 26 April 2009 What Mr Anderton and his demonstrates their maturity in pol- United States, Europe and Japan. camps. says, “The Tamil Tigers have pur- friends have not realized is that the itics and in formulating foreign As far as human rights are con- And Mr Anderton says “No one posefully created the conditions for LTTE is banned in more than 30 policies. cerned, we also actively participate is being asked to take sides…” and a humanitarian crisis and deserve countries as the most ruthless ter- Thank you, Maori Party! The in the United Nations ensuring that asks “What on that list could any neither amnesty nor mercy. There rorist group in the world. Pressure GoSL should convey its gratitude human rights are respected in all reasonable person be opposed to?” are ways to help resolve this stand- is now at its peak to release the to the Maori Party soon. countries. But at the same time we The answer is that this motion off that will not allow the Tigers to civilians who have been used as do not share the approach that human rights question is used, or I would say misused just to pressurize this or that government to adopt this or that political decision about its domestic problems. Also we are against double standards. If we are concerned about civilian casualties, why should we concentrate only on Sri Lanka? Why should we forget the civilian casualties in Afghanistan? Why is the international community practically silent about those casual- ties? There are the same kind of casualties in Iraq. Let’s address all problems equally. Then it would be fair. This is the difference in approach between the Russian Federation and some other coun- tries. Q. During the cold war, what we had was a bi-polar world. If any given country was not with one block, they were with the other block. What would you pre- fer, a uni-polar world or a bi- polar world? A. First of all I must say that the system in the world in the past was not as simple as you made it out. Yes, there were two superpowers, but there were also other countries strong enough like China and Japan and there was even a non-aligned movement. The term non-aligned meant that they did not like to be aligned with one or the other camp. For some time after the disintegra- tion of the Soviet Union, it did seem as if the world had changed into a uni-polar structure. But very soon it was proved that such a structure cannot be stable, politically, eco- nomically or financially. So our con- cept is neither a uni-polar nor bi- polar world. We are for a multi- polar world because we believe that only such a world can be really sta- ble and much more fair and secure than at present. The interests of all countries should be taken into account. Big or small, every country should have its voice. That is why we were always advocates of a stronger United Nations Organisation, because this univer- sal organization gives opportunities and the mechanism for smaller countries to influence international relations. The present financial cri- sis proved once again that a finan- cially uni-polar world which is based on one currency is very unstable. That is why we proposed the creation of regional reserve cur- rencies, to make the structure more stable. So we believe that we should work together to construct a multi- polar world..