Editorial

On the heels of a string of “top secret” memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with India comes information that Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Industries is negotiating yet another MoU with the neighbouring nation for “cooperation in the field of geology and mineral resources”.

But the matter is so tightly guarded that both the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) and Environment Ministry senior officials categorically said they know nothing of this MoU in the making.  Who, then, is carrying out the negotiations on “bilateral cooperation in mineral exploration and mining” outside the ambit of Sri Lanka’s primary government agency responsible for managing and conserving mineral resources?

This question is all the more relevant because India has said that “key focus was placed on Sri Lanka’s vast graphite and sand mineral resources”. India is in a global race to secure minerals to achieve its target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. Its goal is to secure “a steady supply of essential raw materials” to make this possible.

India also recently submitted an application to the International Seabed Authority (ISBA) in Jamaica for exploration in the Indian Ocean’s international seabed area, which overlaps with the ocean boundary claimed by Sri Lanka under its extended continental shelf submission at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). India has objected to Sri Lanka’s claim and not responded to Colombo’s repeated requests for a date to discuss the issue. India’s ‘foot dragging’—displaying an extraordinary reluctance in settling the contentious issue of poaching by their fishermen in Sri Lankan territorial waters to the detriment of local fishermen—continues with Sri Lanka lacking the diplomatic muscle and political will to go beyond complaining to deaf ears. This is a textbook example of the imbalance when it comes to dispute resolution between the two countries.

India is already making huge forays into Sri Lanka’s mining and mineral sector. Since 2022, GSMB has issued exploration licences to companies with India connections covering around 230 sq kms of identified exploration tenements. According to GSMB sources, the entire Trincomalee coast and most of the Southern coast are under exploration licences, with most being connected to Indian companies. India seems to have extended its plans for its own mineral resources to Sri Lanka.

There is a major deficiency in information on what is happening even within the government players, as is evident in the sheer ignorance of the officials supposedly responsible for mining activity. One cannot simply say, “Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” This is not mere economic activity ; they have geopolitical ramifications to be considered as well.

Gaza: realpolitik unmasked

Last Wednesday marked 600 days since Israel declared war on the people of Palestine in Gaza—claiming it was a military assault on the Iranian proxy group Hamas as retaliation for their terrorist act on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, and to “finish them off”.

Under cover of that military objective, the hawkish government in Israel’s larger plan of annexing the Gaza region by dislodging the already displaced civilian population is plain to see. The United Nations Security Council had yet another (monthly) discussion this week on the situation, slammed Israel for the genocide, and everyone went home thereafter.

The most bizarre thing to happen was arguably something else. A mere rocket’s throw away from the endless bombings of men, women and children in Gaza by Israel with moral and material support from the US, the President of the USA was breaking Arabic bread in the capital of Saudi Arabia with its new leaders. Pretending to be oblivious to the ongoing suffering and injustice in Palestine, he heaped praise on the new generation of Arab leaders in West Asia for transcending ancient conflicts and divisions of the past. The region, he said, was defined by prosperity, commerce and technology, where “people of different nations, religions, and creeds (are) building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence”. That coming from a President encouraging bombing the Palestinians ‘out of existence’ in Gaza in a one-way street!

He and the prince of the Arabian kingdom, who has blood on his hands for the murder of an American journalist of the Washington Post, were busy signing business deals—up to a staggering USD 600 billion. The US media, including the Post, gushed about the mega contracts on their front pages while Gaza was relegated to the inside pages.

It is now real-politik that the might of the US dollar is causing realignments in the entire West Asia theatre. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, its allies in the region were left orphaned. Egypt, the then leader of the old Arab world, Iraq, Libya and now Syria have been compromised under the stars and stripes flag; Jordan and Lebanon are too small to influence the region, the latter transformed from the ‘Switzerland of the East’ to a hellhole due to Iranian proxies targeting Israel from its territory. The newly emerging Arab states of the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia hankering after the dollar.

With 2.2 million Palestinians on the brink of starvation and 60 children already dead of starvation, the US has accused the UN relief agency UNRWA of collaborating with Hamas and devised a humanitarian scheme of its own with Israel to send food aid in the face of mounting European pressure (not Arab) and crimes against humanity charges. This has forced a starving population to beg for food, fuel and water from their executioners.

It is not only 600 days since the siege of Gaza by Israel, but next week will be the 60th anniversary of the Six-Day War (June 5, 1967) that reworked the borders of Israel, annexing the Golan Heights (Syria), the West Bank (Palestine) and Jerusalem (Jordan). In addition to the redrawing of the geographical map, the redrawing of the geopolitical map of West Asia is underway, as Arab states, like the rest of the world, opt to look the other way from the carnage in Palestine.

Having ousted the United Nations from relief work in Gaza, the US—not the UN—is now proposing a ceasefire in Gaza. The United Nations is being made redundant and being ousted from its peacekeeping role in the region; the United States of America taking its place.

If the so-called ‘rules-based international order’ was itself a euphemism for realpolitik in global affairs, what we see in the suffering faces of the innocent children in Gaza in real time is realpolitik unmasked, stripped of even its ‘ethical’ packaging.