After a group of protestors sympathetic to the Tamil Tiger’s reportedly waning cause trashed the Sri Lankan embassy in Norway’s capital, the Sri Lankan government declared Norway could no longer be a mediator in the peace talks. The violent attack was videotaped and posted on the Internet, yet no one was arrested.
The lack of arrests is what has irked the Sri Lankan government. Its foreign ministry called Norway’s ambassador to its offices and made the statement: “In these circumstances, the government of Sri Lanka perceives that it is no longer feasible for Norway to act as facilitator in the peace process”.
Reuters reports that this move means Norway can no longer be part of the group of four international mediators, leaving only the US, Britain and Japan to try and salvage any hopes of peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, who are reportedly all-but-defeated.
The Sri Lankan ministry blames Norway for the “sheer neglect” it showed in its obligation to protect the embassy despite repeated requests for beefed up security as Tiger support groups mount more frequent demonstrations in Norway. The peace talks may be moot at this point in the 25-year war between the rebels and the government, who has encircled the few remaining Tigers and is said to be preparing a final assault.
“That being the case, when you see two parties in a fight you try to separate them.”
Not necessarily. In fact, your statement is quite ridiculous. Not everything is morally equivalent.
You can’t tell what to do if you don’t know what is going on. If you come across two people fighting and it turns out it’s a rapist and the victim, it behooves you to jump in and kick the shit out of the rapist.
Hi Ilene,
I am of dutch/jewish origin too.
As for your money in Iceland I am affraid it is difficult: with the present currency restrictions it is impossible to get it out of the country.
Also AFAIK it is not well possible for foreigners to buy real estate in Iceland. Perhaps you could change your ISK into a stable currency and wait for the restrictions to be lifted.
Gus certainly has more advice on this.
As for Norway and anti semitism, the link I sent in my previous comment shows that this is very widespread in Norway, not just in obscure magazines but even in the biggest newspapers of the country.
Now luckily these sources do not have any relevance in the real world but they still manage to poison the climate in the country itself.
Sir Euro &Niels
As a progressive Israeli from dutch jewish origion
I agree with you about the comments about present Norway.
I do agree also about the terrible role of Hamas-as my israeli Arab mentions to me when I come to buy at his shop:Hamas kill plo-moderates who want compromice with Israel.
Life standard of palestinians is 30 years backwards since Hamas is at power.
This while Israel is a high-tech superpower and much less hit in this crisis than europe or US.
Speaking about the crisis:
I invested a lot of money in iceland, lost a lot and consider now to buy some property by isk-instead of keeping it at the icelandic new banks.
does anyone have an idea what is worthy to buy nowadays in iceland?
GUS JOHNSON : “Alexander E. would describe as “freedom fighters”, babies included (?)) along with untold others that were dismembered and disfigured whilst ONLY 13 WELL EQUIPPED ISRAELI SOLDIERS DIED…!”
GUS JOHNSON, YOU NEED TO GET WELL INFORMED. HAMAS IS AN ORGANIZATION THAT CONTROL PALESTINE USING TERROR. MANY OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE THAT DIED WHERE MINORS. OF COURSE THEY WERE AS CHILDREN ARE TRAINED AND FORCED TO FIGHT. THEY WASH THEIR BRAINS STARTING TO TRAIN THEM FROM 4 YEARS OLD OR SO. SO YES, MANY CHILDREN AND YOUNGS DIED.
BUT NOT ONLY THAT, HAMAS TOOK MANY CIVILIANS THAT THEY USED AS HUMAN SHIELDS. LETS SAY THAT THEY TOOK PEOPLE, CIVILIANS, AND FORCED THEM TO STAND AS HUMAN SHIELDS. DO YOU THINK PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS LIKE TO BE PUT IN OPEN FIRE WITH NO PROTECTION AT ALL??
BUT THIS WAS NOT ALL, HAMAS HAD THE GREAT IDEA OF POSITIONING THEIR MILITARY OFFENSIVE RIGHT ON THE TOP OF SCHOOLS, CIVIL AREAS, AND EVEN HOSPITALS!! THEY USED MANY UNO AMBULANCES TO TRANSPORT SOLDIERS AND MUNITION AROUND. I THEY DID THAT EVEN WHEN AMBULANCES WERE VERY NEEDED TO HELP CIVILIANS. MANY CIVILIANS DIED BECAUSE OF THAT, BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT REACH MEDICAL ATTENTION IN TIME.
ISRAEL DON´T FORCE ITS CIVILIANS TO BE HUMAN SHIELDS, WE DON’T TRAIN CHILDREN AND THROUGH THEM TO FIGHT WHEN THEY ARE JUST 13 OR 14 YEARS OLD. WE DON´T FIRE ROCKETS FROM OUR SCHOOLS OR HOSPITALS AND ALL THE MILITARY POSITIONS ARE PLACED WHERE THEY ARE THE SAFEST FOR THE POPULATION. BECAUSE WE LOVE OUR PEOPLE. AND THAT IS THE REAL UNION OF A COUNTRY AND A SOCIETY. A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY WHERE MEN AND WOMEN ARE EQUAL, A SOCIETY OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH, EVEN IN LIKE-WAR TIMES.
IN ISRAEL, PEOPLE CAN DEMOSTRATE AGAINST THE GOVERMENT… AND IN ISRAEL PEOPLE WANTS PEACE. ISRAEL DOES NOT WANT TO JUST RAMDOMLY KILL PALESTINIANS.
AND HERE YOU HAVE A VIDEO, HERE YOU SEE WHAT HAMAS IS FOR PALESTINIANS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_OGhj43GAE&feature=fvsr
Well, if the Sri Lankan embassy was not trashed – then tell us what happened there.
I also know that Norway provides shelter for all kinds of “tigers” and other “victims of opression regimes”. And that’s fine with me as this is Norwegian problem.
But sorry – being mediator in civil, ethnic and other conflicts – with biased “tolerance” and without means to impose the agreement (if any) is nonsense.
No offense really – just a sample. Small home dog can be a mediator in the street dogs fight :-)
PS. I see no need for Norway to play big in international arena in every “competition”. Norway is the world leader in many areas – fishing, gas and oil, hydro enegry etc. But political mediator in Sri Lanka?
And keep in mind Tigers are defeated – so no mediators needed now.
So once again – what has happened with Sri Lankan embassy, Øystein?
Wow, amazing to see how the decision by the Sri Lankan government not to accept norwegian mediation anymore is immediately used by Gus Johnson to start an anti semitic rant.
The peace process in the middle east has not been “hijacked” by the USA: Norway has been put offside simply because it is not trusted as a mediator anymore.
A mediator is supposed to be impartial and not biased.
In the past Norway was able to fullfill this role.
But the present norwegian gov is 100 % antisemitic. (And let us be clear on this “Anti zionistic” equals anti semitic! Anti zionisitc is just a fashionable eufemism used by political correct anti semites , just because they are scared to be open about their true feelings.)
It consists of naive multiculturalists with a deep-rooted hatred towards judaism which can be found by left wing appeasers all over western Europe.
If you search the internet for anti semitism from the norwegian gov you get 10.000’s of hits. This is one good example, just a listing of institutionalized anti semitism from the norwegian gov and the established norwegian press:
http://www.antisemittisme.no/engl/index.php
Now, would you like to have a mediator if you know that this mediator hates your guts?? Don’t think so.
There have been extensive discussions on this site about the way the recent fighting in Gaza should be judged. Something which the critics of Israel completely forget to mention is this Hamas is a crazy organization which wants to KILL jews and DESTROY Israel. Hamas fired rockets at Israel EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Sitting in your norwegian village, safely behind your computer, you obviously only see the suffering of palestinians, yet you ignore that the citizens in the south of Israel cannot live safely because they have a completely crazy neighbout that is impossible to deal with.
100’s of innocent israeli people, women and children, were killed by suicide bombers: Israel built a wall and….it worked.
100’s of rockets fired at Israel, Israel retaliated….and it worked.
Think about it what you want: Israel just wants to live in peace. This is a war situation that people who are not directly involved in cannot judge.
O yes, one more thing Gus Johnson, you are wondering why THE jews from the USA are giving so musch support to Israel.
You might not know about this but there are a lot of wealthy jewish people in this world (not just in the USA): Israel is dear to them and they show solidarity in every possible way.
Now there are also lots of wealthy arabs….maybe they even have more money than THE jews….but do they give anything to their palestinian brothers??? NO, they rather lead a life of decadence and leisure.
Their only ‘support’ consists of verbal attacks on Israel and the attempt to abuse this silly ‘conference against racism’…but they totally abandon the palestinians.If a few sheikhs would give up a tiny part of their wealth and support the palestinians, all palestinians would be living really well…but they don’t do this. It is better for them to keep the palestinians poor and desperate so that they are prepared to blow up themselves in busses.
The only arab leader who gave financial “support” to the palestianians was Saddam Hussein: he gave a large financial “reward” to the relatives of suicide bombers.
So just like Sri Lanka, Israel does not want Norway as a mediator anymore. Norway has lost this role, not because of the USA, or THE jews, but because of its own hypocrisy.
Alexander E – But you don´t know what you are talking about.
Thanks for the comment, Gus. Johnson. I expected such comment ;-)
First of all – I mean no offense to Icelanders by saying “few people have the clue”. It’s just a fact. Small country can’t afford to have a network of its own people to stay all over the world to collect news and stories – so 99% of info comes from such “independent and neutral” sources like BBC, Reuters, AFP, CNN etc. But how many people in Iceland can read original Shri Lanka’s news or Chines news or Russian news or Zimbabvian news? One? Three? Five?
So it’s OK when Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed her opinion about this or that event somewhere in the world. But please – don’t give advice. It’s naive as best.
And before I’ll answer your comment could you please tell me – have you been hit in to face in street fight? Before we’ll discuss “mediation” problems ;-)
As to Norway – they failed to protect from mobs the embassy of the country they supposed to “mediate” with. From the mobs, representing other “party”. Who needs such a mediator? Would you play football if the referee “doesn’t see” players of your opponent in offside?
Alexander E. seemed to suggest in his comments yesterday that BECAUSE Iceland is a SMALL country with ONLY 300,000 inhabitants SOMEWHERE in the north-north Atlantic only VERY FEW people have a clue as to what and why things are happening.
Presumedly HE is one of those that DO know… how else can he determine that just about everyone else DOESN’T know???
I think it would be fair to say that with today’s’ communications anyone could sit on the moon and be fairly well informed as to what is going on back on earth and most certainly that there is a fight going on in Sri Lanka.
That being the case, when you see two parties in a fight you try to separate them.
Furthermore, there is no need to know beforehand what the fight is all about in order to mediate between two parties.
In fact, the whole point of mediation is to listen to the two sides and based on that then make suggestions to compromises that will end up in a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Preconceived ideas and opinions held by a potential mediator is the last thing the process need… and that is why both the Tamils and the Sri Lankans were more than happy to have a country like Norway be part of the process!
Sorry mate! The size and location of a country has nothing at all to do with being a mediator and neither has, as you say; “tolerance” towards all kinds of “freedom fighters”, either.
In 1948 Norway voted for the establishment of Israel.
Both Israel and the PLO respected Norway’s record as a fair and peace loving country and because of that went to Oslo and signed the Oslo peace accord.
The amazement around the world for Norway to have achieved this first step was and is a credit to Norway’s ability to listen, come up with fair compromises and suggestions in order to help BOTH parties.
Unfortunately, the process started was later hijacked by the USA resulting in what we have now ended up with.
Just imagine; USA, the largest supplier of arms to Israel, the largest foreign aid donor to Israel (I seem to remember having read that that donation is larger than all donations combined made by the USA to the rest of the world!!!), a huge political influence from a very large number of big Jewish run US businesses, a number of Jews in the US Congress and Senate, presidential advisors etc., etc. and the USA is a supposed to be a mediator!?.
Where in all of the above are the Palestinian representation, influence or their share…?
At the tip of a bullet… made in or paid for by the USA?
It is quite ludicrous.
Today, Norway is dismayed about the Israeli slaughter, for that is exactly what it is, of some 1,400 Palestinians of which about 1,000 were civilians (I am fairly sure that these are some of the people that Alexander E. would describe as “freedom fighters”, babies included (?)) along with untold others that were dismembered and disfigured whilst ONLY 13 WELL EQUIPPED ISRAELI SOLDIERS DIED…!
And how can I sit in my living room (or on the moon) and make such a statement as to it being a slaughter? Well, Mr. Alexander E., because modern communications keep me informed and most information can be confirmed from various sources, including Israeli newspapers and interviews. The numbers may vary somewhat, but the basic fact still remains.
If every country, including Alexander E.’s country, behaved and acted like Norway and for that matter Iceland, the world would not have too many problems.
And that is a fact…!
Gus. Johnson
I’m surprise to hear that Norway WAS involved in such process in the first place. Their “tolerance” towards all kinds of “freedom fighters” is ridiculous.
Well this applies to Iceland as well – I mean when Icelandic officials are saying something about some events somewhere in the world. From this respect – Iceland is a tiny place with 300,000 inhabitants somewhere in the north-north Atlantic. And except very few people it has no clue what and why are happening around.