Columns

So the party is over. I mean the weeks-long talkathon at the Diyawanna Oya abode. For that relief, much thanks.

The more one listens to our MPs and advice emanating from the thinking apparatus of supporting staff, the more I recall a biting saying of Napoleon Bonaparte.

“In politics, he said, stupidity is not a handicap.”

Leaving our representatives (of the people, that is), for both I started writing about but could not conclude, both for short time and space. I return to the subject of NPP’s claim that transparency and accountability would be at the fore of their government’s agenda when they came to power.

Millions of fellow citizens like me, moved by such candid and long-awaited cleaning-up policies adumbrated by leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his whistle-stop worldwide tours in his pre-election campaigns,
were surprised that diaspora
Sri Lankans domiciled abroad leapt to their feet with genuine applause.

So when Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told the fellow MPs who had gathered in the well of the house to be enlightened in the clever art of diplomacy practised by the leading lights of the Left-oriented NPP—now veering rather secretively to the Trumpeting right—it was clear that the minister had won the day.

Which foreign minister since independence had signed so many memoranda of understanding (MoU) in such a short time and run out of ink, without moving from his ministry’s comfortably cushioned seat, while so many foreign officials from so many different countries cantered to his doorstep while Mr Herath stayed put like one of those Chinese emperors of yore?

Foreign visitors to China had often to kneel before, and sometimes crawl towards, the emperor, for I doubt he—or even his boss—had acquired that superiority or national or international status that required a crawl into the chamber, but then the FM gathered much respect by staying at home and saving public money.

But then President Dissanayake, playing another of his multiple roles, and this time as Defence Minister, stepped in to add how much hardware in the shape of flying planes and helicopters and sea-going vessels is needed to strengthen our own armoury in case our drone-carrying drug lords, now taking a short break in Dubai, decide to come home for a holiday and are denied one of those visas that Tiran Alles introduced but not for long, thanks lord.

Despite all this highfalutin talk that might satisfy those not acquainted with political sales talk, both the foreign minister and our president still possess important information that should have been disclosed earlier to the public if they were actually committed to transparency and accountability.

Why is this government, like the one before it, hiding information from the people? One might remember that after President Dissanayake’s state visit to India and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka, several MoUs were signed. However, he held back disclosing their content. As one who is not averse to dictating to others parliamentary procedure, he should know that such agreements should be tabled in parliament. So should the foreign minister, who ought to have learnt the basics by now.

But why are both Lone Ranger and Tonto, if I might call them so, fighting shy of transparency, which they promised to practise? It comes from American comic books from the old days. The books are long, but American comedy still continues, especially in the White House, where a new dance hall is coming up.

Now we are told about the agreement signed recently with the United States. If nothing makes one suspicious, it is the mention of the US. It is not only Donald Trump and his antics that leave a nauseating smell in the civil nostril. It is more than that, especially after the advent of the lone trumpeter. His despicable role in the continuing Israel-Gaza massacres is revolting enough, but when he poses as a universal decision-maker, it makes you want to escape to Mars and stay there.

Interestingly, with the US institutions and state organisations, Sri Lanka signed an agreement in October for something called the Partnership Programme. One of those organisations/institutions is the Department of War.

I wonder how many are aware that this is the same department that was called the Department of Defence until the name change came. Whoever proposed the name change obviously had much prescience to change from defence to war. That is a classic name change for war, which modern presidents like Trump understand.

And now Sri Lanka’s masterminds go and sign agreements with a warmongering nation which we should stay away from and not go and embrace.

Why do we have to turn to Departments of War and sign agreements that include warmongers instead of peacemakers? Why do we need to be advised by those who create their own killing fields?

We have ended a long, long war. Now President Dissanayake wants peace and communal harmony. He wants to work towards reconciliation. But his government goes and signs agreements that will necessarily bring warmongers to our midst and allow foreign soldiers to operate from here.

Read the names of those organisations involved and what they intend to do. One task apparently is to join hands with Sri Lankan forces to provide humanitarian training or whatever. Is our government so daft that it has no idea of how much humanitarianism the US has displayed?

Maybe it would be more useful if we ask for a scholarship to join the Salvation Army. But wait a minute, are those getting ready to protect the Sri Lankans against offensive actions from neighbouring Maldives?

The story lies elsewhere, where the American embassy in Colombo won support from some of our own diplomats—all American lickspittles, with one of them being paid a salary by an American organisation which was being financed by a US agency.

Maybe we can afford to wait a little longer. But not too long, please, to link all this with the US embassy’s failed effort to push through surreptitiously the SOFA agreement. Now it is coming to the surface under different names. But it cannot hide forever.

(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 de Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)