The controversy over the President's misadventure in Britain last week is not quite over. A senior lawyer who supported to the hilt, the President's role in eliminating the LTTE has written to this newspaper on the visit aptly titled 'Learning lessons at Oxford'.
There are two ways that people look at what happened. Some feel that the President exhibited bravado in going to the Tigers' den so to say, in spite of a virtual no-welcome sign by the host nation; others feel he quite unnecessarily stoked the dying embers of the Tamil Diaspora, and gave those licking their wounds after the crushing defeat of the LTTE oxygen to continue their campaign against the Sri Lankan State. In the process, he risked the initiation of 'war crimes' charges against members of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
Embarrassed ruling coalition members have deftly tried to shift the blame for the fiasco to the parliamentary Opposition by crucifying not only one MP noted for flirting with pro-separatist lobbies, but also treating an MP who in fact crossed over to the Government purportedly to support the war effort as a traitor, no different to the manner in which they labelled the former Army Commander.
Fresh evidence has come in that the address by the President 'at' (and not exactly 'to') the Oxford Union (because it was left to the Sri Lanka Students Society at Oxford and the Sri Lanka High Commission in Britain to bring the crowds) was not called off because the local police was unable to provide security cover for him. That may have been what the Union's President tried to make out for the last minute withdrawal of the invitation to the President but we have it direct from the Thames Valley Police that they were up to the task of providing the required security for the event.
Whether the Sri Lankan President was on a private visit or otherwise, it would have been only decent for the British Government to have made some statement, expressing regret if not offering an apology for what happened especially since the incident involved a demonstration by a group of former Sri Lankan citizens, now British subjects who violated British law by waving the flag of a terrorist organisation banned in Britain -- a punishable offence in that country. The British though, we know, maintain a stiff upper lip when they don't want to say anything, and it was left to their Mission in Colombo to issue a vague message washing Whitehall's hands of the entire sordid saga.
The point has been made that the President of Sri Lanka also represents a Commonwealth country, and that as a member of this special 'club' of former British colonies, there was a further onus on the British Government to ensure a better climate for him to deliver his speech on British soil, even if they did not like it. True, the Sri Lankan Government has been tardy in its recent dealings with the British, but two wrongs don't make a right as the British are fond of saying.
That is, of course, unless the British Government is no longer interested in the Commonwealth, though it is headed by the Queen of England. We have earlier referred to the previous Labour Government's lack of interest in the Commonwealth. The Blair administration went full steam ahead with its 'special relationship' with the US and expanding ties with Europe.
Britain's participation in the US-led Iraq war ran its Exchequer dry and the support given to the Commonwealth gradually withered. The 54-nation group no longer takes collective decisions on the world stage and has become a mere showpiece having Heads of Government meetings (CHOGM) from time to time and ministerial meetings which have no impact on the global scheme of things whether on issues of trade, the environment or sport.
Despite the group comprising a quarter of the entire UN membership, Sri Lanka hardly benefits from being in the club. Sri Lanka received no tangible support from the Commonwealth during its most serious crisis over the past three decades; no effort was made by the group to convince India not to harm Sri Lanka's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the early years, and some of its very members have been in the vanguard of the crusade against Sri Lanka on the vexed human rights question that has cropped up in the aftermath of the defeat of terrorism in this country.
In this scenario the Government has gone and offered - and had its offer accepted -- to host the 2013 Commonwealth Summit (CHOGM). We are also desperately trying to make a bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This Government has had a fancy for tamashas and fanfare. It held the SAARC summit which cost around Rs. 4,000 million, but one can say that was an obligatory exercise because when one's turn comes, one should play host. Earlier this year, the Government busted up its entire tourism budget by hosting IIFA, the Indian Film Festival Awards, which drew as much bad publicity as it did good. The funds spent have yet to be properly accounted for. In 2013 the people will be called upon to foot the bill to host 54 Heads of State at a CHOGM extravaganza.
If the belief is that Sri Lanka will become the Chairman of the Commonwealth for even two years, and its leaders will dine with Royalty, they had better beware that another major snub is not on its way. In the light of everything the new British Government has done, and not done to the President last week, the chance of a snub-in-waiting looms large.
The fact that there is something faulty in the conduct of the country's foreign policy and the management of the Ministry of External Affairs is surely, by now at least, known to the President. He himself may be partly to blame for giving direction in foreign policy that has been detrimental to the larger interests of this country, while trying to defend it from interference, but insofar as the specific outcome of his visit to Britain last week, he was justifiably angry at its handling, not only by the British Government, but also by his own advisers.
The President flirted with real danger during the visit for there was a concerted move to slap 'war crimes' allegations against at least some members of his entourage. This could have opened the door to such charges being filed in a European court against a member of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
Speaking at the Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial lecture in 2008, a former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, now the special UN envoy in Cyprus, dismissed with contempt any suggestion that Sri Lanka qualified for war crimes probes. But we have seen the utterly lop-sided way the British courts have reacted and moved in remanding the editor of the Wikileaks website that has exposed the West and its duplicitous world-view. The ganging up by the West is best seen in this unfolding drama.
There is a need to learn from last week's experience and for prudence in the conduct of the country's foreign policy. Next weekend, British Defence Secretary Liam Fox will be in Sri Lanka - on a private visit - to deliver this year's Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial lecture. A friend of Sri Lanka, Dr. Fox, was the only British politician to meet the President in London, and he will be here to honour the memory of a former Foreign Minister and great Sri Lankan patriot whom he knew very well. It will be a good opportunity for Sri Lanka to show the British authorities a thing or two about hospitality and courtesy to foreigners; and try to mend fences as well. |
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