Thoughts from London

Confusion is the art of politics, if not diplomacy, according to Trumpean manoeuvres.

Only two months ago I started getting accustomed to associating the NPP government with non-alignment. After all, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) had associated itself with that strong, evolving Third World movement.

That was no surprise, as Sirima Bandaranaike led Sri Lanka, following in the steps of SWRD Bandaranaike, who was assassinated at the height of his political career as a Third-World leader of the times and had committed to the rising anti-colonial/anti-imperialist movements in former or existing colonies.

That developing anti-colonial movement was a gathering force because not all nations had been able to free themselves from their colonial masters. There still were nations, particularly in Africa, fighting for their independence and democratic freedom with rights and international presence as members of the United Nations, despite strong resistance of one kind or another to deny them of those rights. South Africa then was a classic illustration.

I was invited to South Africa shortly after the release of Nelson Mandela. But that’s another story about Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and a Commonwealth Summit.

There were also followers of Trotsky. Even the few remaining Trots seemed to have their masters from Trump.

But what causes concern for those who have followed Ceylon/Sri Lanka political history from the days even before non-alignment is that those who shouted loud the other day that the government was an adherent of non-alignment were minutes later saying it is a “neutral actor” in the Indo-Pacific.

With such dexterity in political athletics—long jump, high jump, and hop and step—dropping non‑alignment and picking up a javelin to confront real opponents who still adhere religiously to decades‑old convictions shows a genuine commitment to political beliefs. This stands in contrast to the part‑timers we have encountered in this profession over the last sixty years or more.

And so now they are actors traversing two nations even if one is called an ocean. That they had actors I had little doubt. But who is paying these actors even if they don’t get salaries might well be the industry in Tamil Nadu.

When my column dated October 26 last year was headlined “Signalling left and going right is the new turn in politics”, it was hardly premature. Two months later, on December 28 the same year, my Sunday column was titled “Where do we go from here—left, right or who knows?”

More and more, our predilections about clean politics from new regimes trumpeted at campaign trails and gatherings of great thinkers in halls of fame brought thousands of potential voters from near and far, even from abroad. But political opponents who raised stories of the past and hoped bizarre tales propagated with artistic finesse thought it would kill the new campaign. Sadly for the old regimes that emerged from their proud homes of elite and upper class and trekked to the polls to cast their votes and exterminate or at least eliminate the diluted Marx and Leninists clamouring for a clean sweep of politics and society, they failed their political test.

Yet not all were convinced that the dark tales of decades earlier were all true and not the handiwork of some artistic hands, for they feared bribery and corruption might get them as the NPP promised.

There were those who still had faith that the new Left would make it to the front, surpassing the performance of the traditional Left that could not make a government under its own steam after having been in frontline politics for many decades and what stood in the names of prominent figures from the extreme Left to milder parties.

But what long-time politicians and students and even those who dabbled in Ceylon/Sri Lanka political history notice is the sharp political cleavage that the regime caused by tampering too much with the country’s political past.

Furthermore, the campaign-time promises of manna from heaven from Modi or Trump have not transpired, though they have waited long. That is not all. The people are finding out from their own sources that the NPP is not as pure and politically clean as it claimed it was.

The NPP has already launched its manifesto—just a few days ago, with Prime Minister Harini Amerasuriya outlining the great achievements that lie ahead—even though elections are still three years away.

There are already signs that the great parliament victory in 2024 will not be repeated three years hence. Already rumblings in pubs and restaurants are beginning to be heard, and slogans are being displayed at street protests.

Moreover, the NPP promised that job seekers and others will be appointed on merit and free of political interference. But nobody informed the public that nominees proposed by President Dissanayake for vital appointments in state institutions, including the Auditor General’s Department, an independent institution, would be rejected.

But this is not the only such case where the wrath of the people has been expressed. There are reasons why Sri Lanka’s foreign policy based quite strongly on several fundamental principles, too extensive for me to set it down right now, is being quietly ditched.

Those who have read the first principles of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that grew out of the NAM Conference in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1961 through its long journey via Sri Lanka in 1976 know that it emerged fast as a powerful international body that was able to push through important matters in the UN General Assembly and other organs of the world body, including having the UN agree to establish the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which was headed by Sri Lanka’s Gamani Corea. That was in 1964.

But one vote at the UN that shook the western world, especially the two nuclear-armed superpowers—the US and the Soviet Union—was Sri Lanka’s proposal, supported by Tanzania, which was the call for an Indian Ocean Peace Zone (IOPZ).

Why the IOPZ melted away is because the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a superpower when it disintegrated under President Gorbachev, leaving a lone superpower that played a solitary king.

One would have thought that the new government would have more respect for Sri Lanka’s major diplomatic efforts at the UN and elsewhere. It surely is not that NPP long-timers have not heard of it. The reason is that Sri Lanka has tied itself by making so many concessions to India and the US that the conditions under which Sri Lanka has gone down on its knees and committed itself to military conditions mean that it cannot be a member of the Non-Aligned Movement because of the military connections it has conceded to.

So the NPP has decided its association with India and the US and the Faustian deal that is involved is still better than a sovereign and independent nation. Modi and Trump seem worth more than your motherland sold to military Shylocks.

(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.)