As troops stepped up their efforts to flush out Tiger guerrillas from the little remaining terrain in the Mullaitivu district, the Government redoubled its efforts to counter international pressure to halt its military campaign.
These events overshadowed even yesterday's elections to the North Western and Central Provincial Councils. Whether the foregone conclusion - an overwhelming victory for the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) - made it a lacklustre event will be clearer when results are announced today.
Any halt to the ongoing military campaign against Tiger guerrillas at this juncture, the Government strongly felt, would only help them re-group. That would only continue to place the troops in harm's way, and the problem festering. Hence, the Government's answer to requests by foreign Governments to stop the war, using even euphemisms for a ceasefire, was a firm "No." Diplomatically, they were told that the Government was extending its fullest co-operation to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to address concerns of civilians trapped in the war. As for the Tiger guerrillas, it was pointed out, that no respite would be given until they are totally smoked out from the remaining terrain. This was whilst influential sections of the Government were busy on how to focus on the aftermath of the separatist war. One group is now examining security-related aspects. Another, a formidable group, is busy chalking out development plans for the war-ravaged areas. This includes plans for re-settlement and rehabilitation of those displaced.
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| Des Browne |
It is in the midst of all this that a serious row has developed between Sri Lanka and Britain during the week. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Thursday that he had appointed Des Browne, the former British Defence Minister, as a special envoy to Sri Lanka. His mandate was not clear, but some said it was to bring about a ceasefire in the Wanni, to ensure the safety of the civilians trapped in the area, and work towards a political settlement to the conflict, though it was not spelt out in so many words. Browne, Britain's Defence Secretary from May 2006 to October 2008, is a senior Labour MP from Scotland, and one of the party's senior men who backed the incumbent Prime Minister during his running feud with former Prime Minister Tony Blair. He also held the post of Secretary of State for Scotland between June 2007 and October 2008.
Premier Brown was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying, "I want him (Des Browne) to be involved in seeing whether there is scope for political progress in Sri Lanka as well as looking at the issues of humanitarian aid. The important thing is to emphasise to all partners that without a ceasefire and then an attempt at a political process we will be back to the same problems that we've had before."
For parliamentary democracies around the world, Britain has been the fountain from which many hallowed traditions had flowed. The House of Commons is known as the Mother of Parliaments, and Erskine May is the authority on Parliamentary practices around the world. So were valued diplomatic traditions from the Court of Saint James. All Ambassadors and High Commissioners to the United Kingdom are accredited and received to the Court of St. James, the senior palace of the Sovereign, currently Queen Elizabeth II.
Yet, both Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Government were caught wrong-footed on the announcement about the appointment of a British special envoy to Sri Lanka. Usually, it is an accepted diplomatic tradition that such appointments are formally announced only after diplomatic consultations, in this instance between London and Colombo. From the British side, they point out to a letter sent by Brown to Rajapaksa dated 20 January , 2009 on the matter. There was no such formal consultation on sending a special envoy, or so says Colombo. The Government of Sri Lanka was unaware that Premier Brown was going to officially announce the appointment of a special envoy to play the role of a peace maker until the very last minute.
It now transpires that British High Commissioner Peter Hayes had been in and out of Temple Trees meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan President is very casual about protocol, and often, people tend to misunderstand his relaxed nature on protocol. Hayes seems to have been no exception. Somehow, he seems to have gathered that Rajapaksa was agreeable to a British special envoy coming to Sri Lanka. And Hayes' misunderstanding is understandable. Just the other day Rajapaksa had asked the visiting Acting Indian Prime Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ask Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and Opposition Leader Jayalalitha Jeyaram to visit the North of Sri Lanka and see for themselves what was happening there.
The Hayes visit was however followed more formally with a telephone call from David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, who had just made a joint statement with the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on the situation in Sri Lanka. They had both called for a ceasefire of sorts to assist the civilians trapped in the Wanni.
In London yesterday, there was major flak at Gordon Brown's handling of the situation, as Sri Lanka angrily reacted to what it called "disrespectful intrusion into Sri Lanka's internal affairs" by Britain in nominating Browne as a special envoy (see page 1 story). Reacting to this criticism that Britain was being "unhelpful" and not getting the consent of the Sri Lanka government, Downing Street (the British PM's office) sources were quoted in yesterday's London Times as saying that Miliband had in fact spoken to Rajapaksa before making the announcement, and "believed he had been given the green-light".
So, Miliband "believed" he had the green-light. The question is whether he "believed" he had the green-light was sufficient in matters of such a nature.
Colombo's version of events is as follows. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama was informed both by Hayes, and Rajapaksa that moves were afoot in Britain to make an announcement about a special envoy being dispatched to Sri Lanka. Rajapaksa had asked Bogollagama to see to this matter when he realized that this was something that would not be acceptable to his defence establishment. What he had told Hayes, or Miliband for them to "believe" they had the green-light, or otherwise, is not yet made public by either side.
At the Foreign Office in Colombo for once, Bogollagama quickly dictated a Cabinet Paper last Thursday about the impending announcement. Hayes was summoned on Thursday afternoon around 3 o'clock and asked what was going on. He said a special envoy was to be announced. Bogollagama said the Sri Lanka government was opposed to the move. He was told that it was already too late for him to do anything because Downing Street was about to make the announcement. Hayes had thereafter contacted Miliband, whose private secretary he was at one time, conveying the Sri Lanka government's opposition to the move. Miliband had tried to reach his Sri Lankan counterpart, but Bogollagama had rushed to Temple Trees with the Cabinet Paper under his arm.
Sri Lanka's Cabinet meets usually on Wednesday, but this week, they were to meet on Thursday, perfect timing for Rajapaksa and Bogollagama to put the matter to the Cabinet as a whole. At the Cabinet meeting, Environment Minister Champika Ranawaka seemed already to know. He fired the first salvo and asked what all this was about, when Bogollagama asked him to hold his horses, that he was about to present a Cabinet Paper on the matter.
He said the British government was making an announcement on a special envoy being sent to Sri Lanka without the host government's approval. This caused an uproar in the Cabinet. They were livid, and calls for a strong, formal response were made. Rajapaksa led the condemnation saying "gahalama danne" (hit hard). The Cabinet unanimously decided to reject the British move outright, and call it an interference in Sri Lanka's internal affairs.
In the meantime, and simultaneously, London announced Des Browne's appointment as special envoy to Sri Lanka.
For Bogollagama, there were added reasons to be angry. He felt that the British High Commission in Colombo should have kept the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed. Often Foreign Ministers don't like it when Ambassadors and High Commissioners get chummy with the Head of State/Government and tend to by-pass the Foreign Ministry. The first Foreign Minister who was not the Head of Government, was Shahul Hameed and resented it when his President Junius Jayewardene had an open door policy for the British and US envoys, and later with Jyothindra Nath Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner.
Until such time the matter was discussed at the Cabinet on Thursday, there has not even been a note verbale delivered to the Foreign Ministry. Such a document is a diplomatic note written in the third person, like a memorandum, but considered more formal. Dealing with British relations at the Foreign Ministry was a one time Sri Lanka High Commissioner in London, Kshenuka Seneviratne.
In fact, when Bogollagama had met Hayes that Thursday, there was another matter that had irked him. That issue related to the impending visit to Sri Lanka by a British Minister. Bogollagama had been told that the initial programme of this Minister had not even included a call on Bogollagama as Foreign Minister.
The original draft of the Rajapaksa government's response was a real 'gahalama dhanne' statement. Foreign Office officials, however, had to vet it down a bit. It still had some unnecessary references like asking Britain not to consider Sri Lanka still a colony of theirs. After 61 years of Independence we need not have those hang-ups.
That night, Bogollagama was hosting an official dinner when he received a telephone call from London that Gordon Brown had made the announcement. Then, Rajapaksa called Bogollagama and asked him to issue the strongly-worded statement. He had objected to his name being bandied, he had said, as the one who gave the so-called green-light.
Bogollagama went public with the news of the Government's rejection of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision to appoint a special envoy to Sri Lanka. He told Agence France Press (AFP) that the move to appoint a special envoy was an "intrusion into Sri Lanka's internal affairs" and "disrespectful to the country's statehood." He termed it a "unilateral move" by the British Government.
On Friday, Miliband telephoned Bogollagama once again. He tried explaining the British position, and Bogollagama knew the mood Rajapaksa was in. They, however, agreed to keep diplomatic channels open, and discuss the way forward. It was noteworthy, that the Brown government has not dropped the issue of sending a special envoy yet.
The Sri Lanka government is of the view that a pro-Tiger guerrilla lobby in Britain was responsible for pressuring the British government. They had used a two-pronged strategy. One was to canvass the support of MPs such as Keith Vaz (Labour MP for Leicester East) to raise issue with Prime Minister Brown in the House of Commons. There is said to be more than 16,000 British Asian voters in the constituency of Vaz.
He was suspended from the House of Commons for one month after a Committee on Standards and Privileges inquiry found that he had made false allegations against Eileen Eggington, a former policewoman. The committee concluded that "Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington to the Commissioner, which was not true, and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington or undermined her credibility".
The second was to organise a massive demonstartion in London calling for a halt to the fighting in the Wanni on the footing that civilians were being killed, and a humanitarian issue had arisen.
Besides Premier Brown of Britain, India's President Pratibha Devsingh Patel also made a reference to Sri Lanka in her address to the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament) last Thursday. In an 82-paragraph speech, the reference to Sri Lanka came on the 68th. The speech is akin to the throne speech in Parliament which later came to be known as a policy statement of the Government in office read out by the President.
"We are concerned at the plight of civilians internally displaced in Sri Lanka on account of escalation of the military conflict. We continue to support a negotiated political settlement in Sri Lanka within the framework of an undivided Sri Lanka acceptable to all the communities, including the Tamil community. I would appeal to the Government of Sri Lanka and to the LTTE to return to the negotiating table. This can be achieved if, simultaneously, the Government of Sri Lanka suspends its military operations and the LTTE declares its willingness to lay down arms and to begin talks with the government."
The remarks went a little beyond the officially stated position when India's powerful Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, visited Colombo last month. There was no official statement calling upon the Government to suspend military operations. Mukherjee only made it clear that the Government of India was strongly opposed to terrorism.
However, President Patel's comments may be also seen differently. When she says that Sri Lanka should suspend its military operations, there is a rider to it. She adds, "…. and the LTTE declares its willingness to lay down arms and to begin talks with the government". The LTTE laying down its arms is something what Rajapaksa himself has called for. New Delhi's official position is expected to be further enunciated when UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe, visits India shortly.
In a separate development, a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs are to be questioned by detectives of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) when they return to Colombo after visits to India. The detectives are in possession of documentation and tape recordings of speeches they had made about the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Meanwhile, a lackluster election campaign in the North Western and the Central province was drawn to an end on Wednesday night with few incidents of violence, and less public participation. In both provinces the turnout was reportedly very low yesterday.
The UPFA campaign was heavily dependent on the war effort and the UNP only going on to tell the people that the war was being misused for political purposes, but failed to offer any solutions to the problems of the people.
It has been the JVP which has come out to offer proposals on developing the two provinces. Unlike the two campaigns of the UPFA and the UNP, the JVP was carrying out a personalized campaign where even the leader Somawansa Amarasinghe and General Secretary Tilvin Silva along with senior members were seen visiting houses in the Kurunegala and Puttalam districts, even having lunch in some of the houses of the party supporters and having pocket meetings.
The JVP was critical of the UPFA for totally relying on the military campaign and the UNP for failing to put forward any proposals to develop the provinces, but the party was not expected to fare too well.
The interest among the public was very evident in the Puttalam district which had seen candidates themselves getting involved in putting up posters in contrast to situations where there were supporters in large numbers to help them to put up posters.
The campaign for the Western PC polls is now hotting up. Huge cut-outs have been put up on every conceivable junction, and the city walls are plastered with posters with candidates carrying babies and with the President. The President has already issued a statement that those with his picture are illegal.
But how far election fatigue is setting in among the voters can be seen when yesterday's voter turnout in the North Western and Central provinces is recorded. |
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