Noam Chomsky: Lankan conflict did not concern UN, Great Powers

By Thava Sajitharan


Slamming the United Nations for its indifference toward less powerful countries, world renowned intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky who recently made reference to the Sri Lankan conflict at a UN general assembly told this newspaper last week that “unless some issue is of concern to the great powers, particularly the US, it rarely gets anywhere, despite the lofty rhetoric that resounds in those chambers (of the UN)”. Professor Noam Chomsky was responding to a query this newspaper made via email.

Voted “the most important public intellectual in the world today" in a 2005 magazine poll and described by the New York Times as “a global phenomenon” and “perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet” Professor Chomsky recently said that “Western powers just didn't have enough interest” in bringing the Sri Lankan conflict to an end although something "could have been done".

Chomsky was one of the panelists that debated the “Responsibility to Protect” concept at the United Nation’s General Assembly held on July 23 where he reportedly argued that “early warning mechanisms were practically useless without a proactive press corps, especially in the West”.

With regard to the R2P concept, a UN report quoted Noam Chomsky as saying “from early American colonialists to Nazi strategy to the “Japanese invasion of Manchuria”, there were cases of provocation or intervention that had all come to the same end: the powerful did what they wanted and the poor suffered as they must”.

In his response to this newspaper’s query, Professor Chomsky said: “I'm glad to know that the comment had at least some resonance. There was none at the UN that I could see. That's unfortunately not unusual”

While stating he is disinclined to offer an opinion as regards a political solution suitable to Sri Lanka without studying the issue in detail, he said: “my general sense would be to favor a federalist approach with limited autonomy, but I haven't really thought through the implications”.

“And on the human and civil rights issues (of Sri Lanka), the conclusions are too clear even to debate” he said.





(LAKBIMAnEWS (Page 1) - 02. 08. 2009)

Related links:
Inner City Report - At UN, Chomsky Calls Sri Lanka A Rwanda-like "Atrocity," IMF and Oil Explanations

UN debate on R2P (1)

UN debate on R2P (1)