Columns

When President Trump made his audacious outburst of 21st-century imperialism one night in Venezuela’s capital, some leaders near and far quickly wrote ‘finis’ to their illustrious careers.

The contributions of some to their nations were hardly illustrious, but who was to know unless the nations’ auditor-general and assorted diggers into their family vaults went to work on what was felt?

But one week later, when the obstreperous leader of the world power detected other parts of the globe where those more deserving of his attention were governing their nations in far more peaceful ways, Trumpet exploded in ways that he is accustomed to exploding, which is known as tantrums.

As history unfolded, the judiciary and political decision-making acted into their own way and some which Trumpet… oops, sorry… Trump kept under cover, began to emerge from under cover.

Ever since the new government in Sri Lanka came to power after having committed its system to ensure transparency, accountability, clean administration and public scrutiny, all sorts of things are beginning to come out from behind the woodwork, so to say.

While the big powers are taking off, multiplying their nuclear arsenal and some others on how to dump their nuclear excess into the neighbour’s backyard, others are still busy counting how many they have felt before they start playing cops and robbers with them.

While they clear their own storehouses with the accumulated nuclear and other weaponry from their own rubbish bins, there are far more interesting and dangerous handouts donated to small nations for their leaders to play hooky with.

Or are they tied to dangerous chunks of treaties that our worthy leaders have become privy to and committed our country to, thinking they have done a good deal of governance and could go home now and rest?

What is quite dangerous in geopolitical terms is that Sri Lanka is entangled in a rather new deep-sea exploitation exercise and a much more longstanding resolution, which was passed by the United Nations in 1971 by a huge majority of the General Assembly amid a handful of dissenters.

The 1971 resolution, known as the Indian Ocean Peace Zone (IOPZ), might be old hat, as this was passed by the UNGA when the resolution was initiated by Sri Lanka and supported by Tanzania at the heyday of the Non-Aligned Movement. Sri Lanka was playing an important role in the movement then.

As a by-the-way, I might add to an encounter I had with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at a time when there was quite a lot of gossip circulating in geopolitical wires that India was pitching for a patch of Sri Lankan soil—maybe an isolated and uninhabited patch called Kachchativu in Sri Lanka’s northwest.

I myself had gathered much of the ongoing talk and written an article for the UK’s The Guardian newspaper which appeared a few days before Indira Gandhi made an official visit to Colombo. The essence of the treaty was to ban big powers bearing nuclear and heavy military arsenals from entering the Indian Ocean and establishing military bases in Indian Ocean littoral states.

At the press briefing at the Temple Trees, Mrs Gandhi was seated at a writing desk, and I was right in front of her.

When the briefing started after some words from Mrs Gandhi, it was open to the media. If I remember correctly, I was the first or second to question. Since the Indian Ocean proposal was very much in the news and the proposal was still being canvassed, I asked her what I thought was a very personal question.

I asked the Indian prime minister, who was very supportive of the Sri Lanka proposal, whether—if the proposal is passed—the Indian Ocean would be dominated by major powers from the Indian Ocean, of which we were both littoral states.

Mrs Gandhi lost her cool, shouting at me, saying, “I know who you are referring to. You are referring to India. We don’t want to dominate anybody….”

Almost immediately after me, my brother Mervyn, who was standing behind me, posed a question about the situation of Mrs Gandhi’s own party and the opposition.

Mrs Gandhi silenced him, asking him not to ask questions relating to her party.

I left the press briefing convinced that India need not dominate the Indian Ocean under the IPZP. Just asking a question on Sri Lanka’s own soil from a visiting leader from the neighbouring country, quite sufficient of power to silence our media with nuclear power.

Over the years the IOPZ went into what one might call hibernation, though I had heard that certain western powers passed through vessels that escaped searches or tests for nuclear arsenals as they sailed to ports further north and northeast.

Curiously, I was doing a long stint with the Hong Kong newspaper, the Hong Kong Standard, when news broke of Pakistan exploding a nuclear weapon and a few days later India doing the same, though the story doing the rounds was that both countries had nuclear weapons in secret places.

Unable to do anything with nuclear weapons in Hong Kong or even mainland China or even with my mid-Indian Ocean neighbours, the best thing I thought I could do was to place the third two heads of missions of Pakistan and India – first test bomb, first – and try and persuade two of them to stand for a photograph.

I finally tracked them both at a cocktail party I was attending. Much as I tried, the duo (or should I say duet) were hesitant to pose. But with my persuasive charm, I managed two quick pics for my photographer.

But sadly, I was called the next day by one of them, who pleaded with me not to publish it. I obliged, but I know I still have it somewhere.

I resurrect this story of the IOPZ and will link up a much more modern piece that also deals with the ocean but might well have tied up Sri Lanka with big powers that might prove dangerous, particularly because that is being kept out of public knowledge, and more.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London, where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism.)