Editorial

The All Party Conference (APC) summoned by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa displayed the desperation written all over his Government as the economy plunged into free fall. It was forced to meet Opposition parties, exposing the fact that the once cock-a-hoop boast of a two-thirds majority and a whopping popular mandate have evaporated. Disintegrating with dissension and imploding with defections, political instability is about the worst thing that could happen to a country on the brink of an economic catastrophe. But why an APC bypassing Parliament?

The Government deserves the roasting it is getting but the crisis has gone beyond redemption by politicians. Only one worthwhile contribution was made at the APC and the Finance Minister even refused to give a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying it is a draft when the IMF released the full report two days later.

The IMF has long asked for a team of experts it can deal with to help Sri Lanka. The Government unleashed a cruel joke on the public with the appointment of a ridiculous Ministerial Economic Council and when they found it was not funny, appointed a committee of rich businessmen loyal to it. Far too beholden to the Government for the big bucks they have made, they have only asked that international experts be found.

Like the Bourbons, the Government has learnt nothing. Seriously out of sync with economic reality and having disregarded how things were successfully done in the past in such situations, it refused to search for independent local experts locally and around the world who are familiar with negotiating with the IMF. It will now have to hire foreign experts in law and financial services to negotiate on its behalf.

The fees for their services will be sky high and it is the people on the streets waiting for gas, petrol and food items who will have to foot that bill and pay for the sins of the politicians and their advisers.

BIMSTEC and Indian Ocean geopolitics

Next week’s fifth seven-nation Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit scheduled in Colombo will be significant for more reasons than any technical or economic cooperation. In the context of the geopolitical undercurrents swirling around the simmering waters of the Indian Ocean, it takes a new dimension.

One key development is that BIMSTEC which comprises states adjacent and east of the Bay of Bengal is slowly and surely replacing SAARC, the South Asian regional grouping begun in the 1980s that has not had a summit since 2014. Like the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) begun much earlier, SAARC seems destined to history. BIMSTEC knocks out Pakistan from the equation as it does not belong there and no guesses who is pushing that agenda.

The UN Declaration calling on the superpowers of the day to keep the Indian Ocean a zone of peace, endorsed by NAM, remains ‘dead in the water’. With 60 percent of the world’s economy and half the world’s population in and around the littoral states, all the world has an abiding interest in it and some quarters from Washington to Tokyo and Canberra, a misconception prevails that the Indian Ocean is India’s Ocean.

The emergence of a new China and the expansion of its naval muscle together with its transnational initiatives in and around the Indian Ocean extending to the Pacific is dragging all the small fish into the big nets – China versus the Rest. Sri Lanka with its economic crisis is precariously placed between a rock and a hard place.

There is much to learn from Nepal, a small SAARC, NAM and BIMSTEC member-state with much closer proximity to India and China admirably balancing the landlocked nation’s neutrality.

Nepal recently guided the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement through its Parliament despite its Communist Party creating a rumpus. Unlike Sri Lanka, which just threw the baby out with the bathwater, Nepal skilfully negotiated changes to the original MCC draft, de-linked any references to Indo-Pacific agendas – and got the dollars they needed. Sri Lanka was not savvy enough when it comes to such negotiations as it was in the past.

There is a school of thought that says the UN Declaration on the Indian Ocean peace zone mooted by Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike was done on India’s initiative. That might be taking the credit away from Mrs. Bandaranaike. Sri Lanka was punching well above its weight in world affairs at the time. The world has changed now. Then wedded to non-alignment, India has abandoned any pretences towards non-aligned principles and squarely backed the anti-China Western Alliance for its own safety.

On the sidelines of signing recent agreements with Sri Lanka in exchange for a billion dollars, India’s naval vessels were paying courtesy calls at local harbours. This week, a senior Under Secretary of the US State Department was in Colombo to participate in the Partnership Dialogue. A lot of activity is taking place in these neck of the woods.

BIMSTEC is a technical and economic summit but much of the focus is likely to be on the security of the region. It would, however, be a timely occasion for Sri Lanka to take up the economic issue of Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan waters to the detriment of Sri Lanka’s fragile economy.

India has successfully taken illegal bottom trawling in Sri Lankan waters out of contention in its bilateral relations and shifted the problem to a “humanitarian issue” between fishermen’s associations of the two countries. By allowing this, there has been a dereliction of duty and care for Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity by the Colombo Government because these are Government-to-Government matters.

The Indian Peace Zone is not even on the BIMSTEC agenda while India’s Foreign Ministry has created an IOR (Indian Ocean Rim) division and expanded it to include Sri Lanka, Maldives, Madagascar, Seychelles, French Union Island, Mauritius etc.

It is focused on what foreign affairs commentators refer to as “India’s Pond” – the Indian Ocean. With its ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ comes their SAGAR (Security & Growth for All in the Region) doctrine. It plays diplomatic hardball now as was seen recently in dealing with Sri Lanka’s recent request for a loan.

How well Sri Lanka is equipped to handle BIMSTEC and the dominance of one nation of the grouping is worth watching.