Sri Lankans trying to reach Jim McGovern get the run around
Hassina Leelarathna (THE UPDATE) - July 14 - Sri Lankans in the US who tried to make contact with Rep. James P. McGovern (MA Dem) to voice their concerns about the screening of the Channel 4 video ‘Killing fields’ on Capitol Hill, slated for Friday July 15, were given the runaround and were denied even email access to him.
Turns out the congressman who has his nose deep in the affairs of millions of people all across the globe (Colombia, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, etc.) will only accept emails from those just within the perimeter of his electoral district – that’s about 225,000 people in all. Perhaps, McGovern’s office staff had several LOL moments today sending Sri Lankans who called his office on a wild goose chase to his website where they thought they could at least fill out an email form. They forgot to mention that the online email form requires the home zip code: those outside the Massachusetts Third Congressional District are rejected. You wouldn’t know that until you get to the website and enter your 5-digit zip. Then it will ask for the next four digits – which most people don’t remember. So then you click on a link that takes you to the United States Postal Service ‘Lookup’ site. You get the four digits, enter it, and wham a message in red “Individuals residing outside the Third District are encouraged to contact their Representative directly.”
Of course zip codes are no object in the case of lobbyists, lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, health, and insurance companies and even individuals who live way outside the Third District but regularly pour money into Jim McGovern’s campaigns. His campaign finance records show that only 67% of McGovern’s individual donors are in-state, and just a fraction from his district!
Today Sri Lankans were anxious to get their message to Rep. McGovern because it is he who will be presiding at another witch trial organized by the usual suspects: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group, and the Open Society Foundations.
According to a press release from the organizers: “ Congressman Jim McGovern, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, will give introductory remarks before the screening [‘Killing Fields’ video]. After the film, panelists will discuss ongoing efforts to further accountability in Sri Lanka, including the findings of the recent UN Panel of Experts report on war crimes in Sri Lanka, and the U.S. response to these developments.” (The screening will take place at Capitol Visitors' Center, Congressional Auditorium and Atrium, 3-5 pm.)
The Sri Lankan Embassy in DC confirmed it has not received an official invitation to participate but Ambassador Wickremasuriya has communicated strong objection to the showing of what the Sri Lankan government, and at least one independent expert, has said is a doctored video. An embassy officer confirmed that two top officials will attend the showing, as members of the public.
Has the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission taken any steps to verify if the video meets journalistic and general credibility standards? Has it given any consideration to the issues raised by the Sri Lankan government? In the absence of any preview and independent analysis of the video, is the Committee taking up the position that the video is authentic simply because its producers vouch for it?
These were among the several questions I posed to Mike McVicker, Lead Democratic Staffer/Brookings Legislative Fellow, the Committee’s media contact. Of course, those are but rhetorical questions. He has yet to respond.
Congressman McGovern's ties to FARC Terrorists
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), is the main figure in Congress behind trying to cut off vital support for Colombia's military, and stopping a free trade arrangement that would help the country's economy. The Wall Street Journal has alleged that McGovern is a FARC sympathizer. McGovern has a long record of sympathy for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and other leftist revolutionaries. Information contained in the laptop computer of the FARC's then-#2 commander, Raul Reyes, suggests McGovern may have gone over the line in building a liaison with the terrorist organization, and that the FARC may have had a plan to advance its interests through other members of McGovern's political party (Democrats). The Colombian military killed Reyes and captured his computer in 2009
The Cordoba Connection
Left: Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, pictured with McGovern and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
McGovern's Colombian contact Cordoba appears in the Reyes computer documents as advising FARC not to release hostage Ingrid Betancourt, the senator and former Colombian presidential candidate who was held by FARC terrorists in the Colombian jungle in sub-human conditions for six years before being rescued by the Colombian military in 2009. The FARC leader with the nom de guerre Cesar who led the unit holding Betancourt told Reyes in a December 11, 2007 email that Cordoba had urged the FARC to keep Betancourt as a hostage. The Colombian military captured Cesar when it rescued Betancourt and the others, including three Americans.
The Wall Street Journal commented on McGovern's FARC flirtation last March, when the contents of Reyes' computer became public. Journal editors ascribe McGovern's opposition to a free trade deal with Colombia to his sympathies toward the other side: "We think the documents reveal something else entirely: Some Democrats oppose the Colombia trade deal because they sympathize more with FARC's terrorists than with a US antiterror ally." -------------------------------------- Anyone who has watched Jim McGovern as I have over the past 20-plus years, back to when he was a congressional staffer helping the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Cuban-backed guerrillas in El Salvador, knows that he has a soft spot, to put it politely, for the Latino extreme Left. The proposal of a McGovern-FARC go-between - an international negotiations setup involving US Members of Congress and pitting them against the Colombian and US governments - is a carbon copy of the same tactics McGovern promoted to save the Sandinistas and El Salvador's FMLN guerrillas from total defeat in the 1980s. That proposal appeared in the captured Reyes computer.- J. Michael Waller (Political Blogger) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------