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patching up diplomatic slip on Iraq Premier Wickremesinghe spent much of this week explaining to his cabinet and newspaper editors that the controversial comment where he said " there are those of us who felt that the US had no choice but to intervene " - in Iraq, because they felt that the UN had failed to deliver a solution to the Iraqi crisis, was not a pro-US stance, but one of pinpointing the failures of the UN. He said that when taken in context, what he said was that there were those in the hall (UN General Assembly) who passionately felt the invasion was wrong and there were those of us (in the hall) who felt the failure of the UN necessitated the US invasion. Aggravating the situation was the Premier's remarks about a seeming justification for the US being the "policeman" of the world, a veiled collaboration of what one of his staunchly pro-US Ministers Milinda Moragoda had echoed earlier this year in Hawaii where he directly called for US hegemony in world affairs, a remark for which he was rebuked by President Chandrika Kumaratunga later. The Premier, however, conceded that the wording of his speech could have been better crafted to leave out any misunderstanding and said that the original text had been hurriedly recast after the UN Secretary-General's own speech where he called for reforms in the UN mechanism for settling world disputes. Among the several persons who had got involved in the Premier's speech at the last moment was European Union MP, Sri Lankan born Niranjan Deva Additiya (Nirj) who was also in New York to accompany EU Commissioner Chris Patten for his meeting with Mr. Wickremesinghe. Premier Wickremesinghe's apparent slip-up at the world assembly comes in the wake of an earlier controversy where President Kumaratunga had wanted to address the UN on behalf of Sri Lanka and had found herself not slotted to speak. She blamed the country's UN Ambassador Charlie Mahendran, a former diplomat and one-time UNF municipal candidate for deliberately edging her out, a charge he denies. Opposition parties now ganging up to challenge Mr Wickremesinghe's UNF government have been quick to pounce on what they call is a major faux pas at the UN with President Kumaratunga's brother Anura Bandaranaike calling for a no-confidence motion against his school-mate, the Prime Minister and the marxist JVP - one time allies of Saddam Hussein's Baath party has also been critical of the premier's speech. Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem, a coalition partner of the Wickremesinghe Government has so far not reacted to the speech. What compounded the Prime Minister's references is the fact that the country's Commerce Minister Ravi Karunayake abandoned the developing countries common stand and sided with the US and EU countries during hard-fought negotiations at the recent WTO conference in Cancun. An American adviser had been part of the Commerce Minister's delegation, and recently local newspapers have revealed the presence of US Intelligence officers at regular joint intelligence review meetings in Colombo which upset a hornet's nest in the defence establishment. Independent local newspapers have called for Sri Lanka not to abandon the developing countries and have warned the government that to expect the US to help in the war against the separatist LTTE rebels is wishful thinking. A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office told The SundayTimes that Mr.Wickremesinghe explained to his cabinet that Sri Lanka will adopt its own position at future international conferences such as the UN and the WTO and had insisted they had not abandoned the G-77 Group of developing countries. The spokesman said that the Prime Minister had referred to Sri Lanka playing the role of a link between the industrialised West and the world's poor nations and using its own influence as a bargaining "leverage" in these strategies. State radio and television stations kept broadcasting the Premier's UN speech over the week to convince the public that his speech - in English - with local language sub-titles - had been taken out-of-context. President Kumaratunga's international affairs adviser and former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar told The SundayTimes that he was unaware of any moves to introduce a vote of censure on the Prime Minister on his UN speech, but did not rule out the issue being brought up at the opposition's group meeting next week when Parliament is to resume sittings. Meanwhile,
Minister Moragoda who accompanied Prime Minister Wickremesinghe
to the UN stayed back to visit Washington DC where he conferred
with US officials. The US is reported to have told Mr. Moragoda, one of the two Government peace negotiators with the LTTE rebels that the US will however re-consider the ban once the rebels renounce the use of arms and violence. Annan
vetoes Lankan trip again Asked if the cancellation was linked to a dispute over a proposed meeting with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, he said: "We don't comment on (the Secretary-General's) plans for travel; only on confirmed trips." The UN position is that Mr. Annan's proposed trip was neither officially announced nor confirmed. So the question of cancelling a "non-trip" just does not arise. Unofficially, however, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry had finalised his itinerary in Colombo. Mr. Annan was to have arrived early hours of Friday morning October 10, addressed MPs in a committee room in parliament and attended a dinner hosted by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. ''As far as the UN is concerned, none of this happened,'' a senior UN official said. |
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