Thoughts from London

So which side are we on anyway?
If one returns to the subject of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's controversial address to the United Nations last month, it is not simply because of the political waves this has created at home.

Rather, it is because the ramifications of an ill-conceived construct - as the prime minister would have it - that clearly indicated support for the US/UK war on Iraq do not appear to have been anticipated or fully understood. That is a serious lapse, for it could have dangerous consequences for Sri Lanka, domestically and internationally.

Strangely (is it strange really?), the significance of identifying this nation with an illegal and morally reprehensible act of aggression seems to have eluded those who so carelessly drafted (or re-drafted) the speech.

The government contends that the intention was not to extend support to the US that invaded Iraq but to comment on the inherent weaknesses of the United Nations.
Then where do "those of us who feel that the United States and their allies had no choice but to intervene" really stand?

Admittedly the UN has its limitations and shortcomings and these have become increasingly clear over the years. It is equally true that these weaknesses have inhibited the UN at times from settling international disputes. There is no argument about this, particularly among developing countries that have no permanent voice in the Security Council.

But that is another matter. If the government wants doubters to believe that the prime minister's speech was not extending a friendly hand to Washington and its war mongering allies when the rest of the world are withdrawing theirs, Sri Lanka would have to do much more than explain away a political and diplomatic embarrassment and stop blaming it on the poor semantics of the speech writers.

The credibility of its explanation would depend on the Sri Lanka Government making an unequivocal statement against the unilateral use of force and waging war on another member-state in violation of the UN Charter and in defiance of the United Nations. So far what we have seen as a statement on the attack on Iraq is that issued shortly after the invasion began. That said Iraq had consistently violated UN resolutions and defied the world body.

But no criticism or comment per se of the invasion of Iraq by the US and its main ally Britain. So what is the public to perceive of a situation where the initial Foreign Ministry statement addressed the failure of the Iraqis to comply with UN resolutions but failed to utter a word against an aggression that has aroused international opprobrium and turned popular opinion at home against President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, the two main architects of this illegitimate invasion of a sovereign country?

In the absence of a definitive statement spelling out Sri Lanka's position, would it be wrong if sceptics concurred that the speech as written and delivered was quite consistent with previous words and deeds of this government and in the great tradition of UNP foreign policy in the past 25 years?

The 1977 J R Jayewardene government, of which Mr. Wickremesinghe was a cabinet minister, adopted a perceptible pro-western - and especially pro-American - tilt. It was this government that wanted to farm out the oil storage tanks in Trincomalee to a Bermuda-based American company with contracts with the US Defence Department and caused the suspicions in the Indian Government and raised the ire of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

This foolish disregard for geopolitics and geo-strategy and a seeming slap in the face of India, led Ms. Gandhi and RAW to launch a de-stabilising policy against Colombo by training, arming and funding Tamil militant groups, including the LTTE. For years we have paid the human and material price for that clumsily short-sighted policy. Now Mr. Wickremesinghe is trying to salvage that by engaging in negotiations with the LTTE.

But it need not have been so if the government, in which he served as a cabinet minister, had not tilted at windmills by trying to embrace Washington. Having let the genie out of the bottle, this UNP government has now got into a tighter embrace with Washington in the hope that the sole superpower will use it might and the mighty dollar to rein in the Tigers and help rebuild the economy.

The doctrine of the Washington pooja was spelled out clearly by one of the Washington twins, Minister Milinda Moragoda (who passed through London last week on his way back from yet another pilgrimage to the US capital) in his now notorious Hawaii hula hula.

He declared in Honolulu that the United States should take over the leadership of the world, as though US neo-conservatives were eagerly waiting for an invitation from the Moragoda mansion. Even this might have been pardoned as a quid pro quo for the honour of addressing a security conference that hardly seemed his remit.

But when he publicly confessed to a Colombo audience that when the American ambassador summons he unquestioningly responds or words to that effect, it sounded like shameless obedience to the ambassadorial rank and a colonial subject's obeisance to the imperial Stars and Stripes.

After the Moragoda matra laid down the contours of servility it was not at all surprising that Sri Lanka was ready to sign a Cross Services Agreement with Washington that gave the US military certain facilities in our country. Though little is heard now of this agreement that has apparently run into heavy flak from New Delhi, the intention was clear enough. Another bow of subservience to Washington.

Then came the WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico where Minister Ravi Karunanayake decided to cling on to Washington's apron strings and was hailed by his hurrah boys in the media as having chartered a new course to diplomatic and economic salvation.
If hiding behind the giant frame of an exploitative Goliath is a dramatic display of accumulated wisdom, then the sooner our politicians and media learn to open their eyes and ears and close their mouths, the sooner will we be able to step out of this labyrinth of ignorance that surrounds the whiz kids of this government.

In the context of what has been articulated by the government and actions it has taken, would it not be entirely logical for the public to conclude that what Mr. Wickremesinghe said at the UN, even if inadvertently, is completely consistent with the government's thinking.

If the prime minister's intention was to focus attention on the drawbacks of the United Nations and the critical need for reform, then a good and legitimate starting point is the United States itself which has done so much to undermine the UN and its regime of binding rules, conventions and treaties?

How ironic that Washington which declared the UN irrelevant should now crawl back to seek the help of the Security Council in bailing it out of the Iraqi quagmire.

Back to Columns