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They came bearing their gifts. No not the three wise men on the way to Bethlehem. Not even Greeks with gifts who Virgil had warned against in the Aeneid.   They who came were two of the best, so much so that Sri Lanka can be proud of them for putting the country on the world map when many others round the globe had given the island nation a wide birth as a corrupt oligarchy.

So when our great leader and another came home with what had been presented to them, there was great rejoicing among the yahapalanites, publicly at least. For one of them (so the gossip-wallahs in some C7 clubs which had opened their doors to garrulous young nouveau riche were saying) was to be axed and deposited elsewhere out of reach of treasury bond deals.

Russia’s astute President Putin did not send our own leader back home empty-handed. After all, if one read the bloated spin put on the Sirisena visit to Russia the other day, Putin struck a great friendship with President Sirisena after one meeting in Goa.   Sirisena’s spin doctors seemed unaware that Putin had been for long with the now defunct KGB and knew a thing or two about making people believe a casual meeting could be suddenly transmogrified into an enduring friendship.

Anyway off he sent Sirisena with a Kandyan sword in hand. The President’s Media Division (PMD) which has developed a peculiar panache for putting (puns apart) the English language and simple fact at great risk, said in a media release: This “special gift which was a royal sward (italics mine) of Kandy era in the 19th century.” It added that “this sward (italics mine) had been brought to England in 1906 and later bought by Russia at an archaeological artifact auction named Sotheby in London.”

Russia's special gift, a royal sword of the Kandyan era.

Last Sunday this newspaper quoted the release from the PMD without comment maintaining a stoic silence. But it is steadily becoming unbearable when the presidential media is unable to distinguish between a “state visit” and an “official visit” and uses both to describe the same visit sometimes in the same paragraph ignoring a clear difference between them.

The same confusion in diplomatic distinction arose when President Sirisena visited Germany at the invitation of Chancellor Angela Merkel who is not the head of state.   It might be recalled this same media outfit in 2015 created a ministry called “Mega Police” and the appointment of a minister, deputy minister and a secretary to a non-existent ministry on three different days without even an attempt to correct this faux pas.

Besides producing something called a “sward” which all my historical searches in the last few days into the 19th Kandyan kingdom could not unearth, the great media persons parading possibly as the presidential voice have converted that internationally famous and respected auction house of rich and rare jewellery, paintings and other valuable artifacts, Sotheby in London, into some auction by the same name.

Fortunately for the PMD’s media maestros Sotheby’s would hardly waste valuable time reading such stuff and nonsense. Were they aware of it they might have been tempted to stick a rare dagger from its collection into the author, if a Kandyan sward – sorry sword – was not immediately at hand.
But then knowing British humour it is quite possible that those interested in rare writings may have requested a few early releases from the PMD and put them on sale as extremely rare literary works in the English language still being produced in the old colonies.

The other Sri Lankan leader to come home with a gift around the same time as President Sirisena with the Kandyan kaduwa in its kobbe, was Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake who was in London to collect an award from The Banker magazine.   Karunanayake who was presented the Best Finance Minister in the Asia Pacific Region in 2017 award which did not come from any reputed association of British bankers or by heads of worldwide banks located in London. It was an award by the magazine.

That might have saved him something of a further assault on his reputation. The public impression of bankers and banks here is only a notch above that of the reputation of politicians and that is almost at the bottom of the popularity ladder.   Last Monday the Sri Lanka High Commission in London carrying a couple of pictures of the award-winning finance minister said in its website:

“Presenting the award, Chief Editor of The Banker, Brian Caplen stated that the Finance Minister was able to prevent financial crisis which were loomed (my italics)due to balance of payment and restore the country’s monetary reserves thereby rebuilding confidence in foreign investors.” Some rebuilding that!

Surely the words above cannot be those of magazine editor Caplen. If some of our diplomutts are not particularly enamoured of Britain and its monarchy it is one thing. But why they should engage in linguistic regicide and murder the Queen’s English right in the British capital at a time when some believe that the country is already trying to commit hara kiri by leaving the European Union, only our own diplomatic Metternichs here can answer.

All this might provide light relief to a nation tired of the fun and frolic of governing politicians flying in all directions (there were some here recently) at public expense and slipping into the new seats of their expensive limousines (also bought at public expense) but the carelessness and ignorance of public officials noted above reflects the sloppiness and insouciance with which this government runs the country.
But the laughs will not last long and the hollow boasts of a diplomatic victory in Geneva recently begin to disappear in the face of visibly growing differences in the governing coalition.

Without staying with economics Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva made a foray into semantics in Geneva. Referring to the word “participation” in the crucial operative paragraph 6 in the controversial October 2015 UNHRC resolution, Dr. de Silva said it has multiple meanings. While applauding the deputy minister for this discovery even belatedly, when did such enlightenment dawn on the foreign ministry?

If our negotiators at the highest levels were aware of the multiple meanings did they ask the sponsors of the draft resolution to clarify what was meant by the word in para 6? If they did not then why did they not inquire? If they did know was it an attempt to deceive the international community by subsequently raising a semantic issue or was this a joint ploy all along to take the victims of the war and other aggrieved parties for a right royal ride?
Along with the linguistic quibbling another argument also came to the fore later. Our constitution does not permit foreign judges to sit on the bench at our trials claimed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the main proponent of this argument.
Now when did our leaders discover this, the constitution having been around for almost 40 years? If this argument is correct, though some who have examined the constitution closely say they have not uncovered anything of the sort, why did our ministerial negotiators argue so at the very beginning thereby halting the move to bring foreign judges on to the bench?

The constitution does not permit non-citizens of Sri Lanka being MPs. The 19th amendment introduced by this government prohibits even dual citizens from contesting elections and being MPs, which seemed like a blatant attempt to stop two of the Rajapaksas – Gotabhaya and Basil – from contesting the 2015 parliamentary elections.

One might be a novice in the face of all the legal luminaries in the government including, I suppose, the Justice Minister though luminary here seems rather hyperbolic. But one cannot find a constitutional provision which specifically denies foreign judges sitting in Sri Lankan courts.
Anyway all this becomes irrelevant with President Sirisena saying on his return from Putin-country that he will not allow “war heroes” (who are they and how many are there) to be made suspects in ‘war crimes’ accountability trials as called for by the 2015 resolution we co-sponsored.

He has no objection to war heroes (is every man and woman in uniform deemed a hero one wonders in the absence of a clear definition) ending up as accused in non-war related crimes such as the murder of journalists and sportsmen. But then these are normal criminal trials anyway and do not warrant a special hybrid, lowbrid or nobrid court. These trials should proceed as usual unless there are attempts to bring political pressure on investigators and obstruct them in the performance of their rightful duties.

So according to the presidential position no “war hero” will be brought to trial on war-related charges. So then who will appear before this special court, some LTTE leftovers from the war? Will this be victors’ justice as the Nuremberg and Tokyo war trials turned out to be according to some historians and jurists?

Or will this call for accountability trials slowly disappear and any violations of international law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed never be investigated?

When the kavun, kokis and kiributh eating is over later this month there might still be the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle. There is that old Sinhala saying about changing pillows to cure a headache. However many pillows are changed (just a handful one suspects) the headache will remain- for the mass of the people at least.

However much a pack of playing cards is shuffled there will still be one joker in it. Not in the pack we have been landed with, unfortunately.