Editorial

Tomorrow (Sept. will be the re-fixed trial date in the long drawn-out case: The UN-HRC vs. The Republic of Sri Lanka. The matter that has been going on forever in Ge-neva will see an amended resolution, according to the Government, with an original petitioner (USA) withdrawing from the case and a Core Group either press-ganged to join the crusade (Montenegro and Malawi) or guilt-tripping due to domestic political compulsions (UK and Canada).

A Government that has been on a prosecution overdrive at home against its political opponents under cover of an anti-corruption drive will now have the role reversed, hav-ing to play defence counsel for an accused state.

As a run-up to tomorrow, the Government invited the UN High Commissioner for Hu-man Rights, saying it “looks forward” to his visit. a risky move without a prior under-standing of what the outcome would be or how far the Government was willing to go. Was the visit to satisfy the Core Group of countries led by the UK and Canada reacting to their vote banks? Clearly, the Government has some complicity in the visit because it actively encouraged his trip to the Chemmani gravesite, and having seen it, the High Commissioner cannot remain silent if he is to be credible.

Separately, the Sri Lanka situation has now gravitated to experimental new areas in the High Commissioner’s thesis on Human Rights Economy.

The Government says there will be a new draft resolution presented by the Core Group, and it will be a “soft” one. That is about all that is known in the public domain. As a certainty, however, it will be supportive of the existing accountability project and possibly some additional external (UN) involvement in disappearances, mass graves, etc. The LTTE rump-backed civil society groups on overdrive in Geneva will not settle for less. Human rights are under siege, admitted the High Commissioner when he was in Sri Lanka, and he has to deliver somewhere—certainly not in Gaza.

Our front page story today says the Government however rejects any international initi-ative on accountability arguing, very correctly, it will only serve as a hindrance to na-tional reconciliation and polarise the population. The President’s visit to the North and his comments on accountability, rule of law, reconciliation—and Sri Lanka’s “racist, na-tionalist” past politics clearly had the UNHRC and diaspora in mind. He debunked the long-held narrative that the three-decade armed separatist conflict was not ethnic but terrorism, by his silence on the atrocities committed by the LTTE and other armed groups in the North. His own party, the JVP, was once a ‘nationalist’ party.

The main issue, though, is the new draft resolution. What is “soft”? Can it be any less than what successive governments have opposed? A predictable outcome is the likeli-hood of Sri Lanka formally opposing it and asking a friendly country to call for a vote and losing it.

Lanka’s SCO slip

This week, aspiring leaders of the post-Western world—Chinese President Xi in the forefront, flanked by Indian PM Modi and Russian President Putin—met in Tianjin, China, in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), to discuss the future of the world in these turbulent times. Over a dozen leaders of the Global South were in attendance.

Almost the entirety of Sri Lanka’s neighbourhood was there; Sri Lanka wasn’t. The Foreign Ministry has maintained total silence on Sri Lanka’s conspicuous absence. Various reasons have been passed around, well, in ‘Chinese whispers’, but nothing is official.

As the leader of the prevailing Western world order retreats into ‘America First’ isolation, surging new powers of the Global South, such as China and India, together with Russia, are filling the void and assuming the helm of economic and security counterweights based on multipolarity, multilateralism and equity. The purpose of the SCO and its kindred predecessor BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) has been reinforced by the current US administration’s punitive tariffs against most of the SCO member-states. Sri Lanka got away, to an extent, when the US initially slapped a ‘reciprocal levy’ of 44 pc on April 2 and then dropped it to 20 per cent, though the final outcome is still pending.

On the foreign policy front, the new Government’s ‘maalimawa’ (compass) symbol appears to be signalling left but turning right. Very early in the day it sat out the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, sending the then Foreign Secretary, excusing the political leadership from attending on the grounds that they were busy electioneering. That excuse was acceptable at the time, but Sri Lanka’s almost total inaction on BRICS since then has raised quizzical eyebrows, especially as we had once sought membership of the group. And now Sri Lanka was conspicuously absent at the SCO summit.

The question is why Sri Lanka, despite being an SCO Dialogue Partner, was not at the summit. Did it even try to be there?

Is it that Sri Lanka did not want to ‘rock the boat’ vis-a-vis Washington, which has a hawkish view on BRICS and SCO as hostile to its world view? Yet, Pakistan, which has managed to freeze the United States’ warm relations with India since the recent Indo-Pak skirmish, was also at the 20 per cent tariff level, as were Nepal, Maldives, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia—all of whom were at the SCO. The art of diplomacy is to get the most from all partners: a skill that Sri Lanka has so far practised effectively both in the region and beyond.

If it was a concern for the President to travel to Tianjin in China, as alluded to by the Cabinet spokesperson—a calculation that must have been made as the President leaves for Japan and the UN later this month—then, the Government’s foreign policy advisors must be aware of the returns of occupying our seat at the global table with the economic powerhouses and markets of the future.

Geopolitics is shifting, and the world is witnessing a new chapter of the old Cold War. A ‘tweet’ by the minister says Sri Lanka has “taken note” of the outcome of the SCO summit. Whatever that means, indebted Sri Lanka could have gained by mingling with the guests at the biggest power party in the neighbourhood, along with all its neighbours.