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For Sri Lanka’s one-year-old government, it would be a new experience. Particularly for the new foreign minister, who has already made an appearance at the current sessions of the UN Human Rights Council now meeting in Geneva.

I am not quite certain when Sri Lanka would have to face a debate—if there is a debate—on the Core Group report. This is of special significance to the NPP government, its adherents and diplomats, as this is the first time this government has had the opportunity to officially respond to the report from the Core Group at an interactive meeting of the UNHRC.

It could be of importance to other nations and students of foreign affairs too. President Dissanayake will make the head of state’s address, which will possibly set out in a broad sweep his government’s policy intentions and his world view.

Here, however, is another chance for the new government to reveal its own views on previous critical reports on Sri Lanka that have been castigated by over-inflated politicians and their hand-picked foreign affairs experts as pro-western piffle that should not be treated seriously.

Any interchange might also reveal whether the AKD government intends to follow the foreign path of his predecessors and expose a phalanx of empty heads and loud mouths that leaves others to clear the stable.

One might also hear how the new government expects to deal with issues that have been previously raised in reports and which the then governments had agreed to rectify but have not done so other than repeating good intentions several times.

Moreover, the government is likely to set out what it proposes to do in the future, especially with regard to human rights and other problems like displaced people from their pre-war homes and, more importantly, disappearances, which are still a highly contentious issue, particularly since the end of the long war.

But what is of importance to Sri Lankans and others with interests in Colombo is that a new government is being confronted both by the UN Human Rights High Commissioner and by the Core Group led by the UK.

That is not something the NPP has not faced before. That is what makes the fundamental difference for the NPP, which might well present a sharply different scenario on foreign policy thinking from what previous governments did in confronting both the Human Rights High Commissioner’s assessments and that of the Core Group, which has been more critical of Sri Lanka than the UNHRC.

For those who have followed the Sri Lanka presentations before and have witnessed the confrontationist postures that the governments and their foreign ministers presented, it was quite clear that Sri Lanka had decided on dismissing the accusations laid on Sri Lanka and challenging most of the major charges.

In short, the face-to-face meetings in the chamber were largely confrontationist. Obviously following instructions from senior officials or government high-ups, Sri Lanka was ready to adopt an adversarial stance. In so doing it would so show its neighbours and others that though a small state, it is not ready to yield to major powers.

Perhaps some post-war governments saw themselves as Asian ‘Davids’ against a battery of international Goliaths and were quite ready to do battle. The fact that some of our leaders and their undiplomatic diplomats picked from here and there (mostly there) were quite happy pressing our uninformed politicians to strike a macho stance so that they too could wallow in the messy pool in similar intellectual garb.

However, they did not realise they were without David’s armour but full of empty rhetoric that might have won them some plaudits at home but was laughed at by those who understood what a supine policy it was advocating.

Like the king who thought he was wearing new clothes, our leaders did not see what the perspicuous little boy saw.

Sri Lanka’s diplomatic stance when confronted with the reports of the UN Human Rights chief and the motions tabled by the Core Group was to deny any wrongdoing, that our governments were not guilty of human rights violations during and after the war and a host of other violations.

The first mistake of the Rajapaksa governments and the Sirisena coalition was that they denied virtually every accusation and in return accused the accusers of their own guilt as though the counter-charges balanced the accusations against Sri Lanka. At the same time, the government’s hyperbolic propaganda and stupidity only made the whole scenario well-choreographed, though it was hardly the intention, as any junior student would see.

Such Goebbelsian practices might have been considered powerful weaponised propaganda to hoodwink the less educated at home. But trying to cheat journalists at a briefing in Geneva with arithmetical jugglery was surely a supreme joke.

Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, assisted by Sri Lanka’s head of mission in Geneva, whose name I forget (fortunately), engaged in some deft arithmetic that would have won even Pythagoras a Nobel Prize if he were around to claim it.

At the conference Sabry claimed that Sri Lanka won the vote when the motion was voted upon. Naturally it took those who were present at the voting. According to Sabry, 22 countries voted against us, 11 countries supported us and 14 countries abstained.

So how did we win? We received 25 votes—11 + 14 making 25—while the others received 22. So what is higher, 22 or 25?

Now that is New Math for sure. But that is not Sabry, though he seems to pretend that it was his invention.

Actually it started with an earlier foreign minister, Dinesh Gunawardena, when he exposed his mathematical skills following another vote two years previously. The fact a government could produce such intellectual cabinet ministers just shows that the Sri Lankan voters are even bigger idiots than they had in the cabinet.

Now these islanders, who come from a country like no other, should be praying that they have not made the same error. But then we can find a vacancy in the place where former President Ranil Wickremesinghe was clever enough to get some money to tide us over. But then what do we do? Fasten some handcuffs on him. I thought they would catch him for taking money from the IMF. That is what we call politics. Take and give. Or is it give and get taken?

(Neville de Silva is a veteran journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)