Delinking Geneva from maritime silk route
Bertrand Russell, the British Philosopher was once quoted as saying; “The whole problem of the world is that fools are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.”
India has become so wiser and abstained from voting at the ‘US Resolution’ which has been passed on Sri Lanka’s human rights record calling for an international probe through Office of the High Commissioner of UNHRC. The Indian Ambassador to UN said the resolution is “intrusive”.
New Indian Ocean strategy
During the 2006-2009 war, India wanted the LTTE defeated despite objections from the Tamil Nadu political leadership. Since then, the Indo-Sri Lanka bilateral relationships were seen going through a bad patch. As articulated by Bandu De Silva, an eminent career diplomat, under the “Panikkar Doctrine”, Sri Lanka was conceived as essential for India’s forward defence system in the direction of Indian Ocean.
In 2013, the United States and India two landmark agreements — their first commercial nuclear deal – and an accord between the two governments to enhance defence cooperation. The Indian government intends to use US nuclear technology at commercial power sites it is developing in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh using US nuclear technology. The two leaders urged Indian and US companies Westinghouse and General Electric-Hitachi to expedite the necessary work to establish nuclear power plants. Indian firms will hopefully sign a memorandum of understanding with their American counterparts for the exchange of technical information in nuclear safety matters.
As I argued in a previous article ‘Ultimate goal of Geneva resolution”, the real motive behind this move by the US at UNHRC is not to promote reconciliation, human rights and accountability in Sri Lanka. The US, UK and the West are now concerned that China would emerge as the super- power status economically thus dominating the Indian Ocean region economically as well as a militarily power- base later. The ultimate goal of the US is to regain full control and dominance over “Indian Ocean region”. In order to achieve that they need to ensure that the emerging Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka and China would not get together and form a “regional strategic alliance”. This can only be done through creating division among those countries. The first strategic move by the US was the signing of the above accord with India to enhance defence cooperation. The second ploy was to make use of the alleged human rights violations and other “good governance issues” to deliberately interfere with the internal affairs of the Government Sri Lanka and annoy the leaders. The motive is to destabilize Sri Lanka through the mechanisms available under UNHRC. It would eventually push Sri Lankan Government towards China thus creating tension and fear among the leaders in India.
Forming strategic alliance:
From the above it is clear that it has become critical for Sri Lanka (for its own interest) to dispel India’s concerns about growing a tie up between Sri Lanka and China and how it impacts India’s national security. The Indian foreign policy is based on a fundamental principle of “In diplomacy, there were no permanent friendships, but permanent interests.” Sri Lanka could make use of this principle governing Indian foreign policy to strengthen the bi-lateral relationship with India. It is in that context that it is a vital to keep the Indian Government informed on the details of the present strategic alliance and the growing tie up between China and Sri Lanka should be viewed. Sri Lanka needs to emphasize the importance of forming a strategic alliance with China and come to some kind of a tri-partite agreement to safeguard the Indian Ocean forward defence line and promoting the “maritime silk route” strategy for greater economic benefits for the three nations. Already India and Sri Lanka have a Free Trade agreement (FTA).The proposed FTA between China and Sri Lanka will allow Chinese companies to set up large scale industries in Sri Lanka so that they could make use of the Indian FTA to accelerate trade with India and at the same time re-export products back to China . Here we are talking about tapping a 2.5 billion target market in both countries. Sri Lanka will stand to gain more. That is why the President is so keen to finalise the proposed FTA with China and develop port city in Colombo.
In the meantime, some positive developments are taking place towards strengthening bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka. On 6th March this year, India hosted a “Trilateral Meeting” on Maritime Security Cooperation between Sri Lanka, India and Maldives in New Delhi. The Indian delegation was led by its National Security Advisor Shri Shivshankar Menon who also chaired the meeting. The Sri Lankan delegation was led by the President’s brother, Secretary Defence and Urban Development, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
India and China are already into a strategic alliance at BRICS with three other countries. BRICS refers to five fast-growing developing economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The BRICS countries are working towards engaging “emerging economies” of the developing countries such as Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka would be eligible to get enrolled into “BRICS block” if it could truly demonstrate its capabilities as an emerging economy by working out and adopting a more dynamic economic model which is in line with BRICS countries economic models.
Conclusion
The Indian diplomats are smarter than their US counterparts. The Sri Lankan President is even smarter. Whether we like it or not, the Presidential Commission on disappearances mandate is now extended to cover the period from July 1983 to May 2009. The Government headed by the President Mahinda Rajapaksa will have to now demonstrate its skills and competencies in “quiet diplomacy” to bring the three countries into a formidable strategic alliance. This would not only safeguard the Indian Ocean forward defence line for the benefit of both the India and China as well as Sri Lanka, but would eventually develop into a mechanism for long-term coordination by the three nations on harnessing the true potential of the Indian Ocean economic resources.
The existing FTA between India and Sri Lanka and the proposed one with China would benefit all three nations. The onus is on the Government of India to join the “Asian alliance”. In the event India refuses, Sri Lanka has no option but to have only a bi-lateral agreement with China on this matter.
The Sri Lankan President is quite capable of telling the Indian counterpart that he gave the first option of refusal to India, as always done in the past, considering a long standing relationship with its neighbouring big brother.
(The writer is a frequent contributor on economic, political and social issues. He could be reached at – jayampathy@bpl.lk)