According to the report in this paper, Minister for Economic Reforms Milinda Moragoda had told a Asia Pacific security conference in Honolulu that the United
States should take on the sole leadership of the world.

Unfortunately his "address" to the security conference was not reported 'in extenso' but there was enough evidence to indicate his thinking.

"If the United States were to apply its resources to promote democracy and free trade worldwide, and do so with respect for its partners and with the patience and restrain (sic) that the strong should show to those less strong, then not only would the security of the world and the causes which erode security and breed terrorism be removed, but the world would look with fresh eyes upon its hegemony".

Almost dreamlike in quality, fascinatingly simple-minded and naïve. To begin with is the minister for economic reforms the person to address an Asian-Pacific security conference. True enough he has uttered some words about free trade that I hope to deal with some time later. But how is he specially qualified to speak on regional security that is much more than exchanging goods and services freely and tinkering with economic policies.

One of the most potentially dangerous flashpoints of the Cold War is the Korean Peninsula. That is not the only ideological, political and territorial problem besetting the Asia Pacific as observers of the region know.

The South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait remain areas of potential conflict just as Japan and China and Japan and Russia have territorial disputes.

American foreign policy is to spread and strengthen US presence and influence in the region. This has become an imperative especially after September 11. Washington is using the fear of terrorism to increasingly formalise its military presence particularly among the Southeast Asian countries.

Given the geo-strategic importance of the region and the fact that Sri Lanka has long established friendly ties with several countries in the region that have come to our assistance in hard times, to publicly promote US leadership not only of a potentially volatile region but of the world appears to me not only foolhardy but to antagonise our friends and allies.

I am of course, arguing on the basis of Moragoda's reported remarks which I hope convey fairly what the minister said. Although the minister boasts a website, there was nothing in it to give one a more detailed view of his thinking which seems more akin to the thoughts of the American right that is now advocating a new imperial doctrine reminiscent of that which prevailed in the late 19th century.

If Minister Moragoda did indeed sing several hallelujahs to the US and seriously believes that the mantle of world leadership worn round American shoulders will lead to a more democratic, economically fair, environmentally sustainable and equitable world, then he is the unfortunate victim of his own hallucinations.

By pleading for US hegemony and for it to assume world leadership, is Mr Moragoda not contradicting the policy of non-alignment that this government claims it is wedded to?

Only a few weeks ago Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in the course of a reply to a question on whether the government would provide facilities to the US military for an attack on Iraq, said that Sri Lanka followed a non-aligned foreign policy.

The formal end to the Cold War 12 years or so ago might have undermined the principal tenet of non-alignment- that is not to be tied to either super power and to stay away from the two power blocs that represented east-west confrontation.

While this was intended to deny the paramountcy of either superpower, non-alignment had equally valid political and economic goals.

One was its cardinal commitments was to oppose imperialism and colonialism. So, irrespective of whether the Cold War has ended or not, the non-aligned nations have a duty to combat imperialism and colonialism if and when it rises.

And as the prime minister told parliament Sri Lanka's foreign policy remains that of non-alignment.

If that is so, how can Minister Moragoda ask the Asia Pacific nations to accept Washington's hegemonistic role as the world leader when it is surely inconsistent with our publicly avowed foreign policy? Is it that Sri Lanka has surreptitiously changed it overnight or has the government got a foreign policy that minister Moragoda is not fully aware of?

In the days that China was an empire, foreign visitors calling on the emperor had to approach him by virtually crawling on the floor. This ungainly approach was called kowtowing.

In ancient times such obsequiousness, thrust upon a visitor, was performed out of sheer necessity.

But intellectual obsequiousness is born out of ignorance or a matter of personal choice. Milinda Moragoda's reverence for the stars and stripes and his faith in the American model is such that he reportedly told the conference "you may then still hear the cry Americans go home" but that may well be accompanied by the refrain "but please take me with you".

Indeed we are increasingly hearing the first part of the cry as the imperialistic intentions of the American Right become more strident.

But despite minister Moragoda's prognostications hardly anybody has heard the addition to the lyric, certainly not sung by those who have heard of the animal-like conditions in which detainees are held in Guantanamo Bay camp.

Is that because the rest of the world are more realistic than Moragoda and are disinclined to blindly burn incense to a United States that suddenly turns benevolent in its future hegemonistic role.

When the Cold War ended leaving the US supreme, President George Bush coined a catch phrase for the emerging global scenario- New World Order.

His son George W. Bush who became president by manipulating and undermining the very democracy that Moragoda wants Washington to promote globally- now has visions of empire.

Improving on his father George W. has imposed a New World Odour that smells foully of a new neo-imperialism of which we shall no doubt hear more.

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