Editorial

It is about time someone counselled the President on matters of protocol when it comes to issues relating to foreign affairs and foreign policy.

The President was never really groomed in foreign affairs during his political career. At most, he would attend a conference abroad as a Cabinet Minister, a practice he continues notwithstanding the fact that he is now a Head of State and Head of Government. He is not just a Cabinet Minister now; he is the President of the Republic.

Last week’s photograph in the Political Column of this newspaper, and published elsewhere as well of him standing in the second row at a ministerial level conference in Kenya did not look good. Many years ago, when Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London and was asked to share a limousine with another leader from a small Commonwealth nation-state, he sent a message saying he was returning to Colombo if this was how a PM was treated.

In more recent times, former President J.R. Jayewardene, who generally maintained decorum as Head of State, was accused of having an ‘open house’ for just one Western ambassador and a high commissioner from a neighbouring country. There were Executive Presidents after him, though, who would attend embassy cocktail parties.

This week, the President received a comeback snub from Singapore. Bad enough, the country was facing fearful odds from some Western nations at the UNHRC in Geneva. A mere spokesperson of the city-state responded to the President’s public statement, expressing displeasure with the Prime Minister of Singapore for not following up on a request he had made for the extradition of the Central Bank’s disgraced former Governor , who is refusing to face trial here. The Singaporean spokesperson shot back saying the onus is on the Sri Lankan Government to provide the details required under Singaporean extradition laws. And in counter rebuttal, a spokesman MP for the President says all relevant documents have been given.

Is anybody advising thea President on these matters, or is he not listening to advice? Whichever way, the President is getting compromised and looking more and more un-Presidential. In his early days in high office, some lawyers chasing after the alleged millions the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had banked in Dubai, asked the incumbent President to write to his UAE counterpart for assistance in the matter. The answer was to stick to the legal procedures. Countries like the UAE and Singapore are trading nations, relying heavily on foreign remittances, and do not easily allow an erosion of investor confidence in their economies.  In the Singapore case, no lessons were learnt from the rebuff from the UAE.

The Geneva quagmire

 Compounding matters in the President’s quest for a second term is the political corner he has boxed himself into. He is in an utterly awkward position, and so is the country.

He is the Head of a Government in which the party he leads (SLFP) and is neither here (with the Government) nor there (with the Opposition). Caught in the cross-fire, his conduct on foreign policy is not entirely in sync with the rest of his (UNF) Government and consequently, the country’s approach at the on-going UNHRC sessions.

The President has said that foreign policy ought to be his responsibility. In years gone by, it was the Head of Government, i.e. the Prime Minister who was Minister of Defence and External Affairs. That was until President Jayewardene bifurcated the ministry and appointed a separate Minster for Foreign Affairs. It was not that President Jayewardene did not intervene; Sri Lanka’s vote at the UN on the Falklands (Malvinas) issue where he overruled the Foreign Minister on behalf of the UK is a case in point. The UK has shown its gratitude by now co-sponsoring the Resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN in Geneva. So much for “Thou friends thou hast; and their adoption tried. Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel” as Shakespeare famously wrote.

But in the current situation, the UNP prevailed over the President’s wish not to renew the co-sponsorship of Resolution 30/1 against Sri Lanka and the Joint Opposition jumped in to earn some brownie-points at home.

The Rajapaksa-led SLPP’s nominal leader issued a statement directly blaming the UNP and indirectly, the President, for co-sponsoring the resolution. One might suggest that the issue is not whether Sri Lanka should, or should not co-sponsor the resolution, but whether Sri Lanka should leave the UNHRC which the US, no less, referred to as a “cesspool” of political bias.

For its part, the Government has shown some resistance in Geneva this time. It can be said that the President’s input and the wider public disgust with the approach of the Diaspora-inspired West seems to have had some impact on the Government’s position to reject calls for the setting up of an UNHRC office in Sri Lanka and the setting of deadlines to redress complicated socio-economic-political issues. No Government can allow a hybrid court with international judges.

The UNHRC is a place where the numbers game is played out. That is why the US pulled out saying that there was a ganging up against Israel. Sri Lanka has no such Godfather State and mercifully so. That makes it more important to fine-tune its diplomacy and extend its reach beyond its shores.

Some countries backed Sri Lanka in Geneva, some pussyfooted and some were on a crusade against this country behind a masked face of support. But when the powers-that-be cannot appoint an ambassador to an important station like Washington DC for more than two years, what can we expect in the State Department in terms of lobbying.

The Government may have scored some points in Geneva by ensuring the new resolution 40/1 was passed without a vote giving the Government and future Governments two years grace to implement Res. 30/1 and for the Office of the UN High Commissioner to work in Sri Lanka only “with the concurrence of the Government”.

No doubt, however, the process of reconciliation is slow and arduous. It was Peru, of all nations, that called, clearly by proxy, for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Peru’s Shining Path movement is hardly comparable to the conflict this country faced with the LTTE. The Peruvian delegate, and others should go to South Africa where such a Commission served a degree of healing but where the undercurrents between black townships and the rest of the population are far worse than the tensions in Sri Lanka. Europe is facing Islamophobia and in the US an ugly tide of white nationalism is rearing up. It is time the West also took up Syria — and Yemen, where human rights are in limbo because their armies and proxies are at war — with “terrorists”.