Pray where did we stand, if we stood at all

For starters, where did Sri Lanka stand on the Zimbabwe issue?

Long after the heat had subsided at the Coolum Commonwealth summit in early March, hosannas were still being sung to Tyronne Fernando. One hack said that the foreign minister was very helpful to Sri Lankan journalists seeking after their well being and all that. And High Commissioner Janaka Perera was not only a good soldier but proved to be an excellent diplomat.

It seems that flying the pack out, courtesy of the foreign ministry and being liberally entertained pay rich dividends.

But the piece de resistance of the poojas was the ingenuous assertion that Tyronne Fernando was one of two participants at Coolum who prevented the Commonwealth from splitting, presumably over the Zimbabwe issue as there was nothing else to threaten the future of the organisation.

If that were so, surely the world press which attended the summit in even greater numbers this year because of the Zimbabwe issue would have reported it widely. And the local hack pack that was flown across would have loudly trumpeted how the great grand son( or is it grand son) of Puran Appu who led a rebellion against colonial Britain, had saved Britain embarrassment by holding a tottering Commonwealth together.

Puzzled by the lack of recognition for Sri Lankan's efforts in saving the Commonwealth from disintegration, I spoke to journalists and officials who attended the summit. Believe me, their puzzlement was greater than mine. In fact this was the first time they heard that Sri Lanka participated with such great finesse. 

The public of Sri Lanka who ultimately pays for this kind of official philanthropy surely have a right to know how Sri Lanka stood between controversy and disaster and finally steered the great ship Commonwealth to calmer waters. Surely this story must be told. But why is it not and dismissed in a few paragraphs.

Journalists who have covered or closely followed the biennial summits of the Commonwealth heads of government know that it is not often that highly controversial issues ever reach the agenda.

In the days when colonialism was still a critical world issue, Commonwealth member states that belonged to the developing world took a very strong stand on decolonisation and on white minority rule in South Africa, Rhodesia( now Zimbabwe) and South West Africa(now Namibia).

The implosion of the Soviet Union and of the Cold War metamorphosed not only the Commonwealth but organisations such as the Non-Aligned Movement whose raison d'etre was the post war ideological division of the world and the East-West confrontation.

What was perceived as the defeat of communism led to Commonwealth countries, the majority of them from Africa, to adopt the Harare Declaration in 1991 in which member states committed themselves to democracy, the rule of law, good governance, freedom of expression and protection of human rights. 

Those that breached them such as Nigeria, Fiji and Pakistan were suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth.

These were among the major issues that faced the Commonwealth since South Africa accepted majority rule and the respected Nelson Mandela became its first democratically-elected president.

Besides the question of terrorism which would have been a non-issue had the Commonwealth Secretariat in London not made a mess of it, the important question before the Commonwealth heads in Coolum was Zimbabwe.

Even if one were to ignore the highly one-sided reporting of the western media, particularly the British media, on Zimbabwe, anybody who had read other reports from Africa, especially by some African journalists and organisations, was aware that Robert Mugabe would pull every trick in the book-and some that were not in the book-to remain in power.

The parliamentary elections held last year proved Mugabe's political vulnerability when the opposition MDC came storming into the legislature as a major party.

The British press particularly, kept harping on the attacks on the white-owned farms. It is true that white farmers died, the farms were looted and the workers chased away.

But what is not often told is that only five white farmers were killed. 

This is not to minimise the killings or the atrocities but to put the whole question in perspective.

It is also true that land distribution is a vital issue, that the white population own the vast majority of Zimbabwean land and that Mugabe made this the major issue.

Whatever the platform issues, to those who committed themselves to democracy and the fundamental principles that make for good governance, the question that should be uppermost is whether President Mugabe respected those principles and conducted the election accordingly.

Long before the election was held-days after the Commonwealth summit- it was clear that Mugabe was kicking away the pillars of democracy one by one and it did not require particular wisdom to realise that the election would be deeply flawed.

Mugabe's statements and actions- saying that he would hand over to the army the conduct of the election and introducing repressive media laws having earlier cowed down the judiciary- had undermined the very basis for free and fair elections. 

If all this was very well known to the world before hand, where did Sri Lanka stand when Zimbabwe figured at the Coolum summit? Is it correct that this government decided to go along with the position of the developing countries?

Most of the developing countries in the Commonwealth are from Africa. Well before Coolum it was quite clear that the African nations, particularly South African led by Thabo Mbeki, were soft-peddling the Zimbabwe issue and providing their crony Mugabe with a life line.

If Sri Lanka adopted the position that this was a matter for the Africans or we should stand with the developing world, then we have abetted in traducing the principles of the Commonwealth to which we have committed ourselves .

Moreover it must not be forgotten that the UNP and the constituent elements that make up this government had protested to the international community more than once over the undermining of the very principles of free and fair elections by the Chandrika Kumaratunga government.

The statement of the European Union observer mission to the 2000 and 2001 parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka clearly states that the elections were flawed.

The report pointed out that the PA and associated parties such as the EPDP, misused public and state resources to a high and visible degree which included the use of state vehicles, buildings, personnel, and funds to support their campaign efforts, while individual ministers used the resources of their ministries to further their candidacy.

If these were among the complaints that the UNP made against the PA and complained to the world at large that the people were being denied the freedom to exercise their choice, how is it possible to turn a Nelsonian eye when worse acts are committed by a nation that also belongs to the same organisation as us.

It is time that Sri Lanka reassessed the policy of blindly following developing countries on every issue.

There was a time when we sailed under the flag of the non aligned movement. It made sense to do so then.

But with the objective conditions that created the non-aligned movement no longer present, we need to consider principles rather than political expediency.

Some argue that condemning the flawed elections in Sri Lanka is not quite the same as taking a different stand on an external issue such as Zimbabwe.

This is to make hypocrisy even worse. Is it then to be argued that we can actively promote human rights internationally while we violate them at home with impunity? Would this not be sanctimonious humbug?

Is it to be argued that we must have one set of principles at home and another set to parade piously before the world?

Certainly there is space still for developing countries on the world stage. There are numerous economic issues in this world of globalisation and free markets where we need to work together to protect ourselves against the corporate take over of our economies.

That is quite different from simply and unthinkingly going along with the developing world on every issue when we have once again reaffirmed at Coolum the "commitment to democracy, the rule of law, good governance, freedom of expression and the protection of human rights", as the Commonwealth leaders did at the end of their deliberations.

Admittedly we have no obligations cast on us as at the UN when we sign international treaties and conventions.

But if we are members of an organisation and we undertake to adhere to the principles of that organisation by signing its declarations, then we must stand by our commitment.

Historically the UNP had little interest in foreign policy and so its foreign minister during the long parliament generally followed the NAM line. It is now time for this government to reassess the country's foreign policy, generate a public debate and discussion on foreign policy issues and formulate coherent approaches.

It used to be said that war was too important a matter to be left to generals. Likewise, foreign policy is too important a matter to be left to run-of- the-mill diplomats who stopped thinking years ago.

A Choksy-turvy budget

By Dilrukshi Handunnetti, our Lobby Correspondent

Finance Minister Choksy flanked by the IMF's Colombo Chief Nadeem-Ul-Haq and Deputy Finance Minister Bandula Gunawardena in parliament on Friday

The most significant finance bill generally draws less attention compared to the fanfare associated with other political activities such as elections. Hence it was no wonder that people did not seem overly concerned about the repercussions of the budget, having elected their local representatives only last Wednesday. 

Friday's budget seemed different in many ways. What the opposition castigated as a 'mudalali friendly' budget was anything but the regular number. There was much enthusiasm among government members who were returning to the House in the afterglow of the local election victory, but the opposition seemed rather downcast with members quietly settling in for one of the shortest budget speeches. Just before the entry of Speaker Joseph Michael Perera, former prime minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake who was away from the limelight for several months made a quiet comeback,and sat next to PA strongman Mangala Samaraweera. 

As many called it, it was a legal luminary's budget with words being used sparingly. Finance Minister K.N. Choksy, a man who has held courtrooms spellbound with his eloquence also managed to make his budget speech equally effective. 

But he was interrupted at the very begging by opposition members who thought it fit to reduce the significance of the moment with a placard holding protest which was aborted before it began. 

As Minister Choksy drew his papers out, opposition members Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Dilan Perera, Jagath Pushpakumara and the like sprang to their feet, holding placards that condemned Wednesday's elections as a travesty of democracy. But with the government seniors quelling their members, the protest died off.

The little theatrics apart, the budget was a solemn affair with the minister stressing on the lack of financial discipline on the part of the PA that had resulted in a state of 'economic paralysis' leaving the UNP to inherit a negative growth. Outlining the sharp decline, he explained briefly how the economy plummeted with droughts, power crisis, reduced investment, and sluggish growth all resulting in a spiralling cost of living.

Stressing on the lack of managerial skills of the PA, the minister said the failure to contain the war finally resulted in the attack on the BIA by the LTTE.In its aftermath there were the additional burdens such as the surcharge on sea and air transport. 

" The conglomerate of the above factors have frozen the growth while making budgetary management extremely difficult," lamented the senior legislator, adding that however, that was not an excuse to avoid tasks that lay ahead and that the government was committed to the task of nation building. 

He added that the government had two options. One was to pass the burden on to the people by way of taxes and charges or to introduce well-structured fiscal measures and incentives. "We went for the second option as these people have been burdened enough" noted the minister, stressing that in this journey towards economic prosperity, the private sector was to be the vehicle of growth while the state remained the facilitator. 

After a brief 30-minute presentation, the minister swiftly moved on to the budget proposals.

Abolishing a series of taxes including the much criticized GST, the national security levy, the corporate tax surcharge and transfer tax, it seemed that the government was banking heavily on the slashed defence expenditure of Rs. 1000 million, the prudence of which remains yet to be seen depending on the viability of the peace process.

The minister also announced an increased duty free allowance for migrant workers, relaxation of restrictions on non-resident investments and measures to harness the informal economy of the country, the latter being a much neglected are for too long. 

The minister perhaps could not overlook his interest in legal reforms as he announced the simplification of the land titles registration, tax administrations and the introduction of new BOI laws. He also said amendments to the electoral systems would be so altered to foster more women representation. Archaic media laws such as criminal defamation would be done away with too he assured.

The new budget will perhaps be best remembered for its succinct quality and its preciseness. 

Hopefully, to quote the minister himself, this would leave to financial discipline that would eventually lead to better management and inevitably, considerable growth. This country certainly deserves that.