The recent visit by a high powered team from the US State Department to Colombo to discuss the escalation of terrorism, made many believe that the US was becoming concerned with the recent developments in Sri Lanka
The team included the US State Department Counter Terrorism Coordinator C. Wilcox and Sri Lanka expert of the Bureau of Research and Intelligence Steve Gihitelman. The details of the discussion centred around banning the LTTE, VIP protection training and how the US can help Sri Lanka to dampen insurgency in Sri Lanka.
Security and intelligence cooperation, diplomatic liaison and upgrading the defence apparatus were felt at the meetings between the US and Sri Lankan delegations.
Sri Lanka has learnt after nearly one and a half decades of combating terrorism that it cannot do so without regional and international cooperation.
Today, empirical evidence demonstrates that Sri Lanka must commit its security and the intelligence agencies to work closely with their foreign counterparts and also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must work closely with diplomatic missions and foreign governments.
To develop this level of cooperation, an inter-ministerial defence and foreign affairs committee is imperative and long overdue.
Nation-states that have long faced the brunt of terrorism like Israel, have diplomats posted to their external intelligence agencies and intelligence operatives posted to their foreign offices and diplomatic missions.
David Kimchi, the Director General of Foreign Affairs of Israel, who extended high-level cooperation to Sri Lanka during the 1980s, had previously served as the deputy head of Mossad. Similarly, India has the long tradition of posting intelligence operatives to their foreign missions. Indian intelligence operatives played a vital role which at times was more significant than the role played by diplomats posted by the Government of India.
Sri Lanka has yet to adopt a realist foreign policy to meet the challenges facing the national security. Sri Lankan missions overseas continue to play the classical role in foreign policy of liaison with other nation-states. This is a reflection, not only of the classical bureaucracy that the Sri Lankan education system is committed to, but also to the lack of commitment on the part of some of our diplomats posted abroad. A departure from this classical foreign policy role must change if Sri Lanka is to meet the current challenge posed to national security from overseas. Sri Lanka must play an innovative foreign policy role.
The Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute (BIDTI) fulfills the long overdue need for an organisation to professionally train Sri Lankans in diplomacy. Under veteran diplomat Dr. Vernon Mendis and history scholar Dr. Lorna Dewaraja, the institute has developed a curriculum that would produce men and women who will implement and shape Sri Lanka’s foreign policy in the years ahead. As pointed out at a recent lecture in India by Dr. H.H.S. Nissanka, who has written widely on Sri Lanka’s foreign policy, the BIDTI curriculum should include intelligence.
As Sri Lanka’s premier organisation tasked to prepare the diplomats to meet the challenges of the future, BIDTI should take the initiative to train Sri Lankan diplomats in the twin areas of economics and security.
On the security front, training in intelligence liaison, procurement, analysis, assessment and projection, have become increasingly important. Failure to do so will result in situations similar to the period between ]983 and 1987, when India covertly provided sanctuary, finance, training and arms to more than 20,000 Sri Lankan insurgents. An insight into the evolving geopolitical and security environment of South Asia will provide the tools for the trainee diplomats to read the developments in the region.
At a more operational level, the diplomat of today should have developed a comprehensive understanding of the mounting threat to Sri Lankan security stemming out of international military and political activity by the LTTE.
They range from propaganda activity to politicize, mobilize and raise funds from sections of the Tamil diaspora and foreign groups sympathetic to the LTTE and the procuring and transhipment of armaments to Sri Lanka.
Failure of Sri Lankan diplomats to counter lobby such foreign groups will result in drastic reductions in the flow of aid to Sri Lanka, decline in investments, dwindling of tourism and a negative image of Sri Lanka as a nation-state committed to genocide of the Tamil people.
Failure of the diplomat to play a proactive role will result in the continuation of LTTE propaganda overseas resulting in financial contributions in the range of Sri Lankan Rs. 120 million being raised monthly by LTTE front organisations for the LTTE war budget. In the post Cold War era, more than ever before, the diplomat will play a more pronounced role, to safeguard the sovereignty and the territorial integrity will be pronounced.
Whether one likes it or not, India will always be a participant in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. The proximity and nexus of Tamil Nadu will determine India’s role vis-a-vis Sri Lanka. Although, India’s interaction with Sri Lanka since 1983 cannot be called beneficial to either party and in many ways destructive to their mutual security bringing untold misery particularly to the majority and minority communities of this country, there are three important lessons Sri Lanka can learn from the way India manages insurgency.
First, irrespective of the political party in office, the Indian bureaucracy plays the dominant role vis-a-vis the security of India. Unlike Sri Lanka or many other developing nation-states, it is the bureaucracy of India and not the political leaders that safeguard the security of India. Despite Premier Dev Gowda’s coalition with DMK as a constituent, New Delhi renewed the ban on the LTTE. Unlike the pro-LTTE DMK and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi, the Indian central government bureaucracy has not succumbed to cheap politics.
In Sri Lanka an important requirement is to build a strong bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that will oppose politicians when they want to take politically motivated short sighted decisions and support politicians when they want to take nationally motivated long sighted decisions. Today, civilian and military bureaucrats during the Premadasa Administration have appeared before a commission and condemned the decision to arm the LTTE during the IPKF episode. It is the very same bureaucrats who should have opposed whether by public expression or resignation the decision of the chief executive.
Today and yesterday in Sri Lanka, it is the political leaders that run the military and security bureaucracy. During the Jayewardene regime, it was National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali, Premadasa regime it was Defence State Minister Ranjan Wijeratne and the Kumaratunga regime it is Defence Deputy Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte.
This trend of military chiefs being weak, subordinate and subservient has continued because they have failed to demonstrate their ability to effectively face the security challenges confronting Sri Lanka. It is unfortunate that successive political leaders of Sri Lanka have preferred loyal military generals to effective military generals.
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