How to lose friends and anger others

By Neville de Silva

One of the great failings of this Rajapaksa administration is that it has not understood and appreciated the importance of international opinion and how to deal with it. Numerous examples of this failure and lack of appreciation could be cited. This inability to understand how important world opinion, whether that be the view and position of states or of non-state bodies with political and diplomatic clout, is not merely the failing of this administration.

Others before it have been guilty of it too, either through verbal indiscretions or by acting in a manner that makes the government’s position clear enough to those it intends to address or sometimes, impress. The then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s gaffe in his address at the UN General Assembly when he seemed to support the US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent attempt to explain it away as a linguistic aberration caused by haste, was hardly acceptable to our own domestic constituency or to much of the world angered by Washingtion’s illegal war on Iraq.

That explanation was brushed away by most because it cut right across the grain of the government’s foreign policy at the time which was to pay homage to Washington, led by a subservient Minister Milinda Moragoda then dressed in a garb of a different political hue.
To make the point that the Rajapaksa administration was not alone in making a mess of our foreign relations it is worthwhile recalling that single act of indiscretion during the visit of then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the tsunami when international sympathy was overwhelmingly for us.

According to the Foreign Ministry there had been no request by the UN office in Colombo for Kofi Annan to visit LTTE-held areas such as Mullaitivu. But the next day President Chandrika Kumaratunga lets the big cat (not a tiger, thankfully) out of the bag. CNN quoted her as saying that “she had no second thoughts asking the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to reconsider a planned trip to rebel-held territories in her country.”

There were other remarks that made the position clear enough. But the above would suffice because it contains two key words - “reconsider” and “planned” which confirm Annan intended to visit those areas and he was told to reconsider it. This, of course, made nonsense of what the Foreign Ministry had said in a press release the previous day. Somebody was not telling the truth. Sri Lanka was badly exposed just when the international media spotlight was on it. The result was an LTTE propaganda blitz that quickly lost us international sympathy and, more importantly, international credibility.

From the government’s point of view one could understand why it did not want Annan to meet the LTTE because of the political capital the Tigers would have made of that visit internationally. Whether the government should have prevented what was obviously a visit on humanitarian grounds, is not what concerns me right now. The issue here is the inability to speak in a single, consistent voice at the highest levels of government which shows a lack of co-ordination and clear thinking.

This situation has been compounded by the present administration which clearly should understand how important it is to take the international community, by which I mean the main players on the world scene, along with you if you are pursuing a narrow and precarious political path.

If it is the government’s intention to follow a military-oriented policy which aims at weakening the enemy before entering into or compelling the enemy to enter into, negotiations then it is imperative that your conduct as well as that of those you employ in pursuance of that policy, are impeccable.

To understand why your conduct should be unquestionable it is necessary to appreciate the changes that have occurred in international affairs and in inter-state relations. Increasingly human rights issues are emerging as a determinant in how the world sees you. It is not only a consideration that is uppermost in minds of governments but also of international multilateral organisation and civil society organisations worldwide and regional.

One could, of course, take umbrage or even poke fun at some countries for ignoring the mote in their own eyes when pointing the finger at others. That might bring some self-satisfaction to governments that hire letter writers and assorted others to hit back with scatter guns.

You could act like a David confronted with a Goliath. But David had a sling shot with which to smite the giant. Singapore, a much small state than ours, has been doing this for years, replying to almost every criticism in the media or by institutions and watchdogs. There is however a difference. That is done after thorough research and with expertise. Even if Singapore does not have natural resources like we have, the city state has emerged as an economic powerhouse, a financial service centre which is also a regional headquarters for international companies as is Hong Kong.

Moreover Singapore is corruption free, by and large, possibly because it does not have the kind of political system as we do breeding corruption that to all intents and purposes goes unpunished, even welcomed. With such attributes Singapore could afford to take on the big and mighty, the goliaths of the world. For all the talk of democracy and human rights mouthed by the west, western companies flock to Singapore and China because there is money to be made.

While China might reek of corruption, it is being tackled slowly. Still an attempt is being made though we might not always like the results. At least if we tried to do so and there is public evidence of such attempts there might still be some sympathy for us. The problem for us is that we are failing on all fronts, especially on human rights and good governance. Mention was made in a previous column about the letter written by President Rajapaksa’s secretary Lalith Weeratunge reminding officials and ministers of the need to speak with one voice and to leave the matter of foreign relations to the foreign ministry.

That is a necessary reminder given that so many open their mouths. But once you have handed over the baton to the Foreign Ministry it is imperative that those at the ministry and those that represent the country abroad, know what they are talking about. One problem is that those at the highest levels of the ministry talk too much and too often without due regard to the fact that all they say could come back to roost very close to home.

Late last month Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona was quoted as dismissing the belief that Sri Lanka was becoming isolated internationally and added that among the biggest and most influential states “behind” us include the US, France, China, Japan and India.

If the foreign secretary had kept his nose to the ground rather than in air he might have been aware of developments in the US and would not have been brash enough to say what he did. Not only is the US Senate now talking of freezing all funds to Sri Lanka under the Foreign Military Financing Programme that will soon come up for discussion, but also the comments made by members of the Foreign Relations Committee and written testimony to a special meeting of the House foreign relations committee are evidence of the growing antipathy and pressure building up on government to take a more proactive and critical position on the Sri Lanka situation.

Remarks reportedly made by Palitha Kohona (if indeed he made them) during a recent visit to Pakistan raising Indian Security adviser Narayanan’s comments that Sri Lanka should not buy weapons from Pakistan and China were surely ill-advised given Indo-Pakistan relations.

While indiscreet comments are only turning our so-called friends who are supposedly “behind” us to take a more critical view of us, the way we appoint those who represent us abroad makes equally dismal reading. From the pathetically unsuitable to the obviously incompetent everybody stakes a claim to lie abroad supposedly for helping the party or person, at times in dubious ways.

If those in power fall for these mythical stories of unstinting help or deliberately appoint unsuitable persons purely for personal or political reasons, then we must be ready to lose or antagonise the few really influential friends left in the world.