Sunday Times 2
Towards a sustainable foreign policy
In any domestic political crisis, blame “the foreign hand” to rally local support? Nevertheless how surprising to read former Sri Lankan UN staff members who enjoyed UN salaries and even UN pensions now castigating the same organisation for political gain!
Free Trade agreements Instead of just going blindly into FTAs, we may need to identify carefully where any “last mover advantage” lies.
In the surreal world of Sri Lankan politics, u-turns, crossovers and doublespeak, the Foreign Ministry is hard pressed to maintain Sri Lanka’s image abroad. Take for instance, how Mahinda Rajapaksa supporters are blasting foreign ambassadors for setting out their opinions and correcting misinformation while at the same time Sri Lanka missions overseas are given ultimatums to get these same capitals to remove their travel advisories! It reminds us of 1987 when our missions were asked to mobilise all efforts to protest Indian interference in Sri Lanka’s affairs and then suddenly the Indo-Lanka Accord, negotiated in secret, was signed at the highest levels under which Indian forces were welcomed to Sri Lanka!
All governments urge their diplomats to go out into the world, to reassure foreign nations and their people as to the country stability and canvass trade, aid, tourism and investment. This is really hard when you represent a country vulnerable to both natural and man-made disasters. In Bangkok, in the late 1990s, I remember canvassing a high-level private sector delegation from the Thai Chambers to visit Sri Lanka. On the eve of their visit, the LTTE attacked the oil dumps and it seemed as if the whole of Colombo would go up in flames. Yet the Thai leader, Chairman of a major bank, kept his word, delaying the dates until normalcy had returned in Colombo and led a successful visit. In Sweden, in the early 2000s, having persuaded Emirates to open a Sri Lankan flight to Stockholm, heavy promotion resulted in three weekly flights fully booked throughout the season until the LTTE attacked Katunayake and everything collapsed. Swedish insurance was cancelled, leading to the withdrawal of the Stockholm flight. Yet longtime friend of Sri Lanka, Kent Harstedt, president of Swedish UNICEF and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Parliament, re-arranged his itinerary and visited Sri Lanka to support Swedish development projects.
A senior US diplomat, witness to all the terror attacks and our unceasing promotional strategies, asked me “How do you guys do it?” The US is not a nimble power and it’s always amazing to its diplomats how diplomats from small countries manage to get things done with few resources, just a lot of goodwill. From where does this goodwill arise? With Thailand, there were ancient religious and cultural ties, and with Scandinavia, recognition of our social development and democratic traditions. There is also the warmth of our people and their resilience in the face of adversity. Sri Lankans are the quick to respond during any crisis in their land of birth. This was identified as the single most important component of emergency response in the UN post-Tsunami evaluation.
Those who are complaining about “foreign pressure” should remember it is most valuable to those who are powerless and seeking justice. Take the case of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, considered to hold dissident views. He was killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey by a team of intelligence officials sent from Riyadh, his body dismembered and disposed of “to a local collaborator”. Under all diplomatic laws and conventions, the consulate is a place of safety and refuge for its nationals in a foreign land, yet the unthinkable happened there. If not for international pressure, the truth would never have come out.
As the debate here intensifies on the merits of the Executive Presidency as against a Prime Ministerial system responsible to Parliament, there are lessons in the Jamal Khashoggi case because these horrors have been authorised by a family-run authoritarian regime intolerant of dissension.
Prior to President Sirisena’s constitutional manoeuvres, opinion polls had suggested the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government had become unpopular with its policies of fiscal consolidation and taxes and would have been defeated at the next general election. However, now the “trump” cards played by the President have backfired and mobilised the forces for democracy against him. Even the newly appointed Prime Minister has been embarrassed by the miscalculation on numbers and has sought to raise a new political party distancing himself from the President. Why don’t we accept that the present crisis arose at home, not outside our shores, and expose the culprits responsible for this misinformation or disinformation which has imperiled the old democracy?
Despite the current political crisis which has sent the country’s international credibility reeling, Sri Lanka has robust political, social and economic foundations on which bipartisan foreign policy consensus can be built, once normalcy returns to Parliament. A stalwart democracy fuelled by early universal franchise, Sri Lanka, a developing country, has seen power changing hands regularly without military intervention.
High social development achievements backed by its diplomatic visibility in landmark UN negotiations like the law of the sea, disarmament and human rights, have given the island a robust international reputation. Our “friendship with all” policy has brought rich dividends in early support for China, Japan and other Asian friends in the time of their need. Yet these old rallying cries need to be tested by debate given the complexity of the technology-driven world of today and the “whole of society” approach.
At the heart of the foreign policy debate is how to handle the Sri Lanka issue at the Human Rights Council. Fortunately, the new Foreign Secretary is conversant with these issues, having just returned from Geneva. It is rumoured that he advised the government at the time not to co-sponsor but only support HRC resolution 30/1. Sponsorship has technical advantages since it carries the right to have a voice in the treatment of any amendments that may be presented even at the last minute from the floor. But now what is needed is not history but practical approaches which require bipartisan agreement. Despite the present bitter confrontation in Parliament, differences are not impossible to bridge, taking into account the deep rooted commitment to human rights in our society and available expertise to develop national protection mechanisms. However, the manner in which the minority communities and their elected representatives feel comfortable with the government in power is key to any solution and this is very much work in progress for whoever forms the government.
In economics, too, Sri Lanka earned the international reputation of being ahead of the curve, having liberalised in the late 1970s ahead of others in South Asia, attracting considerable foreign investment in the new Free Trade Zones and the Mahaweli large scale development project. Here, too, the limits of liberalisation were witnessed, leading to the creation of social safety nets to address increasing poverty and malnutrition. The Wickremeinghe Government, perhaps emboldened by Harvard academics, argued that we should emulate Bangladesh and Vietnam in concluding of FTAs. They ignored the fact that Sri Lanka has little comparative advantage on the labour, wages or productivity front in manufacturing, witnessed by the outsourcing of production by our leading garment firms to South Asia and South East Asia. Instead of just going blindly into FTAs, we may need to identify carefully where any “last mover advantage” lies. Even Singapore is looking at smart import substitution, growing food at home. Many such “Made in Sri Lanka” examples exist ranging from refurbishing railway carriages , to making asphalt from waste plastic, to replacing river sand in construction, to developing ayurvedic based food and health products and should be supported.
In terms of economic strategy, both major political parties have put forward visions of a “blue economy” and “maritime hub”; so shouldn’t there be an agreed policy framework to identify and protect national interests and offer continuity for foreign users? Research into ancient ports suggests that their success depended not only on strategic location but on the availability of different religious places of worship for visitors , a healthy environment, leisure opportunities, clear non-discriminatory rules for customs and trade, security for all visitors and their property, access to required supplies etc.
This article argues that a sustainable foreign policy for Sri Lanka should be firmly rooted in bipartisan consensus and that the debate should centre on the protection of its heritage assets, including its natural wealth, ancient knowledge and built sites .
For example, planning for a maritime hub should, inter alia, cover the protection of archaeological sites and nature reserves in the proximity of major development projects, cleaning of the seas around the island (said to the among the most polluted in the world), protection of marine life including the whales, dolphins and dugong in our seas as depicted in ancient maps and tales, protection of the coral reefs, mangroves and beaches currently under threat from drug smuggling, dumping of waste, dynamite fishing etc.
There is at play in Sri Lanka the same international currents testing the limits of globalisation and market economics as elsewhere, resulting in a general feeling in the public that the government should put “Sri Lanka first”. Yet, after 70 years of independence, is not Sri Lanka capable of facing the outside world with confidence? We have less to fear from the so-called threats of “imperialism”, “colonialism” or “neo-conservatism”, because in truth all these theoretical perspectives fade before the awful reality of climate change heralded by increasing ferocity of earthquakes, storms, droughts and collapsing hillsides, which can only be addressed by a truly national endeavour.
(The writer is a retired Sri Lanka Foreign Service diplomat)