Those who have had aspirations of being Sri Lanka’s foreign minister- and there have been quite a few- please step aside. Rohitha Bogollagama has arrived.
When Bogollagama was made foreign minister some one and a half years ago I, for one ,thought he might have been better placed as the minister in charge of attracting foreign investment. In that job he kept a cracking pace and seemed to enjoy it. The question that came to mind was whether he was fit for the purpose, was he sufficiently interested in foreign policy and foreign policy making to stamp his name and authority in this new job The understanding of diplomatic exchange and manoeuvre was particularly important at a time when the LTTE was beginning to put pressure on the new government, obviously testing its mettle and its resolve by armed action, called for a strong and sustained diplomatic response especially with the west and India.
While the new foreign minister might have seemed somewhat tentative at first trying to find his feet, he has quickly graduated into a competent diplomat. Admittedly not an exponent what I have previously called in another context Rottweiler diplomacy, but one more accustomed to calibrated responses. I have had occasion to watch minister Bogollagama at work in London and now at close range here in Colombo at the on going SAARC conference and found that he has handled his assignments not only with competence but with enviable bursts of energy that might have taxed others in the same job. Only the other day while SAARC officials were meeting Bogollagama shot off to Teheran for the Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers’ meeting and was back, all in less than three days to be here for the Council of Ministers meeting. As a founder member of NAM it was important that Sri Lanka registered its presence there and importantly because of a new burgeoning relationship with Iran, no doubt to the chagrin of some other countries who find Iran a maverick that is potentially dangerous.
While Bogollagama has certainly matured in the last 15 months- his handling of the recent media briefings bears testimony (one has to admit that the questioning was benign) there are tests ahead for Bogollagama. One, of course, is the progress of SAARC in the next year. Admittedly one year is too short a time for a country chair to stamp its mark on this organisation that has ambled along with many declarations and much rhetoric but little in the way of substantive progress towards real regionalism.
I think there is a case to be made for holding SAARC summits every two years instead of the present practice of doing so annually. While a year might be long enough to make progress at home, one seriously wonders whether it provides sufficient time to achieve some of the ideas set out in the annual declarations. One understands, of course, that the burden of carrying out the decisions rests with the SAARC secretariat. But given the nature of our bureaucracies some of which do have a reputation for procrastination among other unsavoury characteristics, it could well fall on the chair to try and push things along. That is where Bogollagama with his boundless energy could put some steam into an organisation that is certainly looking for alternative sources of energy as the final SAARC Declaration this year, will surely contain.
Sri Lanka has decided that the emphasis in the coming year should be on people-centred development. I did ask minister Bogollagama and earlier Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona what precise steps are being contemplated. They did mention a few,stating that SAARC is moving from the declaratory stage to that of implementation. Addressing a meeting of the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) held parallel with the SAARC conference Bogollagama did make specific reference to some areas where people’s contact could be strengthened. But obviously there are many more, one area being strengthening media freedom, ensuring the safety of journalists and closer interaction between the political establishment and the media.
From what I hear Bogollagama has had a happy relationship with the media. If he could build on that to expand this into a SAARC-wide relationship he would have done something very positive in creating that people-oriented link seeing how critical the media are both to protecting and sustaining democracy as well as in combating terrorism that plagues most of the countries in SAARC. So what Bogollagama has done in terms of Sri Lanka diplomacy could now be expanded to include the region. This will call for much personal diplomacy since relations between governments and the media in many of the SAARC countries has not always been a happy one and there has existed a kind of adversarial relationship created by mutual suspicions.
There was a plea from the SAFMA delegates to SAARC foreign ministers and especially Bogollagama to facilitate a more mutually productive relationship. He now has the opportunity to do just that during his stewardship of the SAARC ministerial council. In fact he has the chance of doing more than that. Regionalism is more than mere contacts and agreements between governments. Sri Lanka was correct in underlining the people to people contacts because without that regionalism would be superficial.
The other major issue before Bogollagama is terrorism. SAARC has taken a step forward in strengthening its convention on terrorism by incorporating terrorism as a criminal offence that requires bilateral and regional action under the Mutual Assistance Agreement on Criminal Matters. When the media levelled charges of exorbitant spending for sprucing up the city and infrastructure development for the SAARC, nobody appears to have made the point that Sri Lanka would also be hosting before long the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers’ Conference on Terrorism. That might not attract all Commonwealth foreign ministers, not perhaps from the Caribbean and the smaller countries of the Pacific. But all major Commonwealth countries would surely be represented given the importance of 21st century terrorism which is also globalised like many other things in the world today. This would be an opportunity for Bogollagama in his dual roles as chair of the SAARC council and host of the Commonwealth Terrorism Conference to try and link the interests of both organisations which mesh in a way as most SAARC members are also members of the Commonwealth.
From Sri Lanka’s perspective at least the strengthening of international links against terrorism is very important particularly at this stage. With the military pressure against the LTTE being perceptibly increased and the Tigers being pushed back with losses as announced by the defence establishment, the Tigers and their supporters overseas are turning more and more to foreign governments, international human rights groups and multilateral organisations to put pressure in turn on the Sri Lanka Government. These groups are being activated and one could envisage increased pressure on Sri Lanka from overseas groups including foreign governments to urge Colombo to halt military action and turn to political negotiations.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that if the LTTE wants to enter into political discussions it should first surrender its arms. So there is unlikely to be any change in the government’s position on this despite foreign pressure largely influenced by sections of the Tamil diaspora. It means that the diplomatic and other pressures by sections of the international community would not only go on but increase in the coming months as long as the current stance of the government not to rush into political talks under pressure continues. Therefore it will fall on Foreign Minister Bogollagama and Sri Lanka’s diplomatic community to withstand that pressure and present its own justifiable case in the days ahead. These are the tasks ahead and it would be up to those who are in charge of interacting with the rest of the world to carry out the charge. |
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