Editorial

During his successful visit to the Northern Province last week, President Maithripala Sirisena seems to have been well received by the people – and the region’s political leaders. His subdued presence lacking the fanfare and security detail that accompanied his predecessor stood him in good stead. Soothing words calling for reconciliation helped.

This visit needs to be reviewed in the backdrop of an outlandish resolution that was passed just last month by the Northern Provincial Council damning the ‘Sinhala state’ and its leaders, including the incumbent President. The National Unity Government of President Sirisena has opened new vistas for achieving the noble objectives for which it was formed and elected – but it takes two to tango.

One of the positives of the visit was the President’s announcement on the plight of the seafaring fishermen of the North being ‘done in’ due to the systematic poaching by Indian fishermen. This is an issue on which Sri Lankan leaders pussyfooted for much too long, worried it would endanger ties with India, and which the Northern politicians dared not raise – until yesterday–fearing the wrath of their Godfathers across the Palk Strait. President Sirisena reassured the fishermen that, not only was he himself aware of the facts, but that he had taken the matter up with the Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi. With the Indian PM due in Colombo next week for his first official visit, his comments were all the more welcome.

This vexed, continuing issue, is one of the major irritants in Indo-Lanka relations. India is keen to downplay the matter for good reason and one of the drawbacks in President Sirisena’s approach however is that he too has been led into the trap of allowing the fishermen’s associations of the two countries to sort out the problem.

With the Sri Lankan side meekly acquiescing to this process, the Governments have kept out of it allowing the poaching to continue unabated. This has even led to — for the first time probably — mid-sea clashes between the fishermen of the two countries off the coast of Sri Lanka’s north.

Imagine the scene; Indian fishermen are claiming the waters of the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar in Sri Lanka’s sovereign boundaries as their “traditional fishing grounds”, and they are found just 10 kilometres away from the Sri Lankan coast with huge trawlers sweeping the ocean floor. The Fisheries Ministry here has deftly passed the buck to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to handle this hot potato.

This is a case where India is clearly at fault in International Law. It is a case that Sri Lanka must pursue vigorously without having to answer only questions about its own handling of domestic affairs all the time. No doubt there are other issues to discuss, including economic matters but Sri Lanka cannot put this issue on the back-burner any longer. It involves the livelihood of Sri Lankans, it involves the country’s economy, it involves the environment, and it involves the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Sirisena’s CHOGM baggage
In our editorial of May 5, 2013 we had reason to warn the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government of history repeating itself and cited the case of the 1976 Non Aligned summit where then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the leader of 2/3rds of the world, so to say, only to hand over the mantle to her successor J.R. Jayewardene a year later after losing that year’s General Election. President Sirisena is now the title holder of the Chair in Office of the Commonwealth, the post his predecessor held after the Commonwealth summit (CHOGM) in Colombo in 2013.

The incumbent President left for London last night to participate in the Commonwealth Day celebrations, very likely not with the eagerness such an event merits. He will also briefly meet the titular head of the 54-nation grouping of ex-British colonies, the Queen of England, the singular link that binds this ‘Club’ together — by a thread. We have long said that the Commonwealth is a lame duck. Even Britain has abandoned it, gravitating towards the US and Europe instead. And there is no known successor to the Queen either.

CHOGM in Colombo was an expensive show meant to bolster Sri Lanka’s flagging image in the eyes of the world after a series of foreign policy blunders that made the country look like a pariah state at least to the ‘rapacious West’. It was not to be. Nor did the Rajapaksa Government do much about the Commonwealth after assuming its leadership. Today, however, President Sirisena’s National Unity Government is viewed more benevolently and hopefully, the country can be taken on a more moderate path with a more balanced view of the world.

As for the Commonwealth, it has lost its meaning in international affairs despite its numbers. The member-countries do not act together and we wonder how many of them adhere to the Group’s high ideals like the Latimer Principles on Good Governance or the 2013 Commonwealth Charter on Core Values and Principles.

One might empathise with President Sirisena if he were to wonder what sins he has to pay for, with his predecessor’s misplaced enthusiasm in wanting to be the Chair in Office of the Commonwealth.

Send female diplomats to West Asia

Today is International Women’s Day and once again we focus on more than one million Sri Lankan women workers toiling in harsh, inhospitable climates overseas, especially in West Asia. Successive governments have not thought it fit to dispatch women ambassadors or senior female staff to our embassies in these countries. They are conveniently deemed ‘difficult stations’ for women to be posted, but they are good enough for our female workers to rake in as much as US$ 7 billion (Rs. 910 billion) in foreign exchange.

The argument that those countries don’t welcome female diplomats is rubbish. The West has posted women ambassadors – even to Saudi Arabia. India and the Philippines do so. The Foreign Employment Bureau sends female officials to counsel and hear the pleas of the thousands of female workers who throng our embassies, often with horror stories, seeking a helping hand.

A posting in West Asia must be made imperative for promotion in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which must show greater sensitivity towards the women workers who are sustaining not only their families at home, but the nation’s economy as well.