Editorial

The countrywide picketing campaigns last Wednesday by a cross-section of trade unions in vital sectors of the economy on top of the continuing farmers’ demand for fertiliser were a shot across the bow of the ship of state.

The picketing stems from a multitude of reasons ranging from long overdue salary hikes for teachers to privatisation of the port terminals to foreign companies and those in the energy sector querying a questionable tender awarded to an unknown foreign company.

There was a time in the post-1956 era when the then Government, dubbed ‘apey aanduwa” (our government) to denote the widespread popular support it had, was held to ransom by trade unions of the left-wing parties with a series of work stoppages. A famous quip those days was that port workers would go on strike even if there was a grain of sand in their complimentary lunch packet. The Government was paralysed. Those were the years when the emerging leader of a future Singapore was collecting copious notes on the delays to shippers in the Colombo port due to these strikes so that he ccould use the learnings to develop the port in Singapore.

Trade union action is anathema to governments and manna for opposition parties, but it is always the citizenry caught in the middle that has to pay the price. It was President J.R. Jayewardene who broke the back of the trade unions sacking thousands of state sector workers during a general strike in July 1980. Not much later, the Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher crushed the unions that had brought that country to its knees with strikes. She referred to them as “the enemy within” using the slogan; “Labour isn’t working”.

Proposed action by Electricity Board (CEB) unions threatening to plunge the country into a total blackout cannot be condoned. Their grouse, however, is a genuine one. It is over the manner in which the Government fast-tracked negotiations under the radar and entered into an agreement to hand over exclusive rights for gas production at the Kerawalapitiya power plant selling 40 percent of its shares to a little known American company. More so, not only when the ruling coalition has reneged on an election promise not to privatise state institutions but Cabinet Ministers complain “koley wahala keruwa” (it was done by hiding the facts). The US company, however, does not seem to acknowledge an agreement has been signed yet, though the Government is adamant it is a done deal.

The Prime Minister seems acutely aware of the rising tide of disillusionment within the Government ranks, and outside among the people who supported it so fervently not so long ago. His speech to the ruling coalition faithfuls this week that young people who had high hopes seeing them come to power are now queueing up for passports to leave the country in search of a better future was a telling admission from a seasoned politician — the senior voice of the Palace High Command.

If the Government does not engage in course corrections to its blundering ways, the writing is on the wall. A ‘winter of discontent’ is looming ahead.

Bully in the China shop: A wake-up call

The recent public announcement by the commercial office of the Chinese embassy in Colombo blacklisting the People’s Bank for not honouring a USD 42 million Letter of Credit over a contentious shipment of fertiliser ought to be an eye-opener to all and sundry, but especially to the higher-ups in Government — some of whom are still under the illusion that these emerging superpowers are befriending countries like Sri Lanka for altruistic reasons.

Several local political parties that see American CIA agents under every bush maintain a stoic silence when it comes to Chinese machinations given its ostensible pronouncements of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries so unlike those by the West.

The embassy’s public salvo against the state-run bank in the midst of proceedings in a Sri Lankan court of law is nothing but a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of this country. The office even says that the decision has been conveyed to the Ministry of Commerce in China reminding all Chinese companies to avoid accepting People’s Bank guarantees.

It must also be read with the ambassador’s statement to the media at the same time giving some gratuitous advice that Sri Lanka should be warned of the “high security risk” it faces by being dragged into the escalating nuclear arms race in the Indian Ocean due to the “bad behaviour” of the USA, Australia and the UK.

While the Chinese ambassador’s cautionary note is devoid of diplomatic niceties by going public, this is what Sri Lanka gets for permitting big power envoys to mouth what they like anytime, anywhere.  The twin ‘missiles’ clearly have Beijing’s imprimatur and are another pointer to China’s aggressive posturing to counter the US-led agenda challenging what they call is Chinese hegemonism in the Asia-Pacific region. The Sri Lankan initiative in the 1970s to turn the Indian Ocean into a Zone of Peace has long been submerged in its own waters.

The Government has begun doing business these days directly with foreign missions in Colombo rather than allowing the usual commercial practices to take place. This has resulted in direct participation of diplomatic missions in tenders and contracts. The nano nitrogen fertiliser import from India is a case in point, seemingly to ‘balance’ placing orders with China. When the Indian Air Force offers to bring the fertiliser to Sri Lanka it is geo-political dynamics at play and a game of one-upmanship to upstage the Chinese who have been humiliated for sending rotten fertiliser to the country — and still want to be paid for it.

This missive from the Chinese embassy commercial office shows how much it is a respecter of local jurisdictions and the pity it has on a Government in the throes of a crisis. It is bullying. The way it arm-twisted the former Government to secure the Hambantota harbour on a 99-year lease for not coughing up a billion dollars that was due to it, and then obtained some additional real estate in the Colombo Port City when the project got delayed, shoved unsolicited projects on Sri Lanka triggering a debt trap and a severe foreign exchange crisis — all these and more ought to wake up those in office, to the real world.