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Speech by Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister, to the final ceremonial session of the Fourth Council of Ministers' Meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) October 13th.

It gives me great pleasure to address you all when you have concluded the deliberations of the member states of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation.

What you have deliberated here is the future direction of the organisation. That has been the key issue. One of the decisions taken yesterday and a welcome decision was for an annual meeting of the Foreign Ministers.

You must also determine what the future role of IOR-ARC will be and where do we focus. We can't spread the net too wide, you will fail. I suggest that we focus on two connected issues.

One, the issue which was raised by our Foreign Minister, Hon'ble Tyronne Fernando, was a preferential trade agreement within the region. I would say that I agree with it and say trade development should be our goal. How do we develop trade amongst the member countries?

In this we must remember that within the Indian Ocean Rim, come a number of regional associations beginning from Asia pacific on to ASEAN, BIMSTEC, SAARC and finally the Organisation for African Unity. Now many of these organisations are also involved in either negotiating preferential trade agreements among themselves, or implementing their own preferential trade arrangements. Are we to do this in competition with all these regional associations?

Are we to do this to the exclusion of all these associations? I do not think so. All these members of those associations were there even before we became members of IOR-ARC. I think the IOR-ARC represents a wonderful opportunity to consult with all the organisations and come under a framework for trade development of the Indian Ocean Rim.

Different associations of regional groupings are at different stages of trade development, so general principles which shall apply to all will lead to the development of trade of the Indian Ocean Rim. There are many aspects to be gone into: where preferential duties are a part of the Preferential Trade Agreement: the exemptions, the one, which turned out to be a dirty word in Cancun, but nevertheless I have to mention, is trade facilitation.

We have to remember that the amount of paper work for exports for any of our member countries to another is far more than the paper work and the delays that are involved if you are trading with the West to develop or some of the Eastern countries. The mere factor of eliminating or reducing the bureaucratic delays will be one great leap forward in the development of trade.

When you talk of trade development you also have to develop your air and sea navigation your ports, that brings you out to the Indian Ocean and not merely shipping, but then look at the environmental issues in fishing.

These are issues which have been raised by a number of people here. Then our primary focus should be on trade development in the Indian Ocean. I say this, because if we are unable to agree on a direction, then we only put the existence of this organisation at stake. Our continuance will be questioned and gradually there will be a withering away of the organisation. On the other hand, if we focus on one or two issues, work on them and we succeed, then you go forward and you can build on the initial level. We have to remember, unlike earlier, in this decade the people of our countries have also taken an interest in foreign policy. And they question whether it had led to peace, security, development and well being. If not, they reject those policies.

When I first became the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1977, and was succeeded by Hon'ble Tyronne Fernando later on in the same post, it was different. Foreign Affairs - there was little interest shown in Foreign Affairs and external relations - in most of these countries was regarded as a preserve of the few of those who dwelled in the Foreign Ministry. Few have considered it to be their interest areas.

This led them within those circles to feel that the less the people had to do with it and even less the politicians had to do, the better it was for the conduct of the foreign policy. But unfortunately, that is not the way the politicians and the people see it. Therefore the foreign policies today are at the centre of discussion in many countries. In others too, we ask the question, "what have we achieved?" This is also relevant. If the foreign policy is going to consist of chanting manthras of bipolar world, which has changed rapidly, then the voters and the people would tend to neglect and to reject it. We also have to think of the new world that is emerging and how we the countries of the Indian Ocean and the developing world are to clarify our own goals.

Sometimes, we have to think outside the box. Sometimes your thinking may lead to a conflict with existing concepts. One, as used in Sri Lanka, has been the concept of sovereignty and the North-East conflict. From the very beginning of the North-East conflict, the view that was held was the involvement of many other countries in the resolution of this conflict would be in conflict with our sovereignty, in conflict with our independence and whether this would lead to the surrender of our sovereignty. Therefore we held the view that a military solution or a political solution had to be found by ourselves. All well and good if we can achieve it.

Then in 1987, for the first time, the Government of Sri Lanka entered into the Indo-Lanka accord. I need not tell you the history of it but at that time, the then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene, thought that the only way to sort it out was for India and Sri Lanka both to sit down and discuss the issues mostly of a political solution on which we have been discussing from 1983, and see how it could be enforced. These measures were also supported by many other friendly countries.

But when the agreement was signed it was felt in Sri Lanka that we were violating the concept of sovereignty by asking another country to help us to resolve some of our issues.

President Kumaratunga and I were two of the politicians who supported the Indo-Lanka Accord because we felt we needed to have assistance from outside to resolve the issues and only by resolving the issues that we could become strong again. So in this peculiar position, where we had come to an agreement of political solution and when one of the parties, the LTTE was in breach of it, the Indian Army had to undertake peace keeping action in accordance with the agreement, and there was also a massive protest in Sri Lanka leading in the South to virtual terrorism saying that this was a violation of Sri Lanka's sovereignty and the Indian Army had to return.

I could understand the campaign in India by the Indian political parties as to why the Indian Army was fighting in Sri Lanka. It was more difficult to understand why in Sri Lanka we were complaining of this measure. Finally when the Government requested, India withdrew the Indian Peace Keeping Force and Sri Lanka then decided for another decade, under successive governments of different political parties to resolve the issue ourselves, either by talking with the LTTE or by fighting them militarily.

In the ensuring decade we also took certain measures which in my view was conceding to the LTTE that they were in charge of certain areas, but under a concept of sovereignty it was not thought so. Firstly we banned essential items being delivered to people who lived in areas militarily controlled by the LTTE, despite the fact that they were citizens of Sri Lanka and we paid for the public services that took place. Secondly, we told them, don't come and vote at the elections. So there were contradictory measures. We are looking at a narrow definition of "sovereignty" within which we could tell them 'don't vote, you won't have the essential items, you won't have essential services and we won't call anyone else to help.'

In 2000 President Kumaratunga took an important step and a vital step when she invited the Norwegian Government to become "Facilitator" and we started a process of dealing with the LTTE. In 2001 when the new Government was formed we went ahead. We asked the "Facilitator" to work out a Memorandum of Understanding for a ceasefire. Part of the work had already been done at that time by the then Government and so we had to build on it and add on to it - I know it was not the same document and we had a Ceasefire Agreement. The Ceasefire Agreement gave a role for the Monitoring Mission, which was again questioned by many as to whether we were violating Sri Lanka's sovereignty.

I went further, we asked the foreign international community to help us and we formed a Donor Community with those countries that would help us. We had the Donor Conference and this was presided over by Japan and there we decided on the key players the co-chairs. There was Japan, the European Union, then we had Norway, and the USA. We also worked very closely with the Indian Government in regard to peace in Sri Lanka and this has also helped in peace and security in Southern parts of India.

So that close relationship existed with the Indian government and we worked with many other governments and today we have brought them all to help us to find a political solution. What has happened is as a result to international involvement there is a framework, and we have to operate within that framework. Part of the Ceasefire Agreement has been implemented in full. There are areas in which the Ceasefire Agreement has not been implemented in full.

But the international community are back in the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in taking those issues up with the LTTE. But what does it mean in sum total, the conflict on land has ceased. There is no fighting between the armed forces of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, it does not apply to the sea.

There are violations which are categorised as law and order issues and not as security issues. But this is because we thought that we should ask for the help of the international community and with that the international community again reaffirm the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, the need for a settlement based on a federal structure. Now we are awaiting the LTTE's proposals on an Interim Administration. This is very important.

The LTTE has talked of final settlements and Interim Administration but they have never given any detailed proposals. They have been a fighting organisation where they have not even addressed their minds to the issues. During the course of this year, they have sat down, they have discussed it and they will be handing us a set of detailed proposals.

I do not know what is in those proposals. It may be what we decide, it may not be what we decide, may be what they think is necessary. But what is important is that for the first time the LTTE would put down detailed proposals in regard to an Interim Administration or final solution whatever it may be. We can work from there. Successive Sri Lankan Governments had given in details of their proposals for a final political solution and in 2000 there was even a draft constitution that was presented by the then Government.

But we have not had those details from the LTTE before. The fact that they tabled such proposals is an important step and due to the fact that the international community is involved and they are talking with the LTTE. There are some countries which have banned the LTTE and others which haven't but nevertheless we brought in the international community. If I stuck to the traditional thinking you could not call any country for help but we have called a large number.

But what is sovereignty? Is it something that is in the textbook, or generally, to ensure that the whole world accepts your territorial integrity, you are at peace, you are given financial assistance, donor assistance to put your economy into shape and you get back on your feet as a free country and you are able to develop and provide a better livelihood for our people. For me that is the objective. And that is what we have to achieve. Not to stay and be stuck with words or terminology, some of which I even studied for one year in the subject of International Law when I was a Law student in the University of Colombo.

In this instance we thought outside the box, I won't say this is the answer for every problem in the world; it is not so but there are times that you have to be a bit unconventional, if your final aim is peace, security, development and well-being of the people then that can be achieved. But no one in the world would step into another country and take it. And certainly 50 countries are not going to step into Sri Lanka and take it. If the concepts are good we must be able to achieve results. We must do things and ensure that at the end of it the country is better off.

So I thought I will share my thoughts and also inform you of the present position of the peace process and answer the question which many have been asking me, "why have you asked the whole world to come in?". The answer to that is, we could not manage it by ourselves and it will in no way affect the independence of Sri Lanka at the end of it. To have peace in this country for you all to have been able to come here and to enjoy our hospitality without having anymore security barriers around this place.

I do not want to take anymore of your time. I thought I should emphasise again as I started off that this is a crucial meeting. We have to decide the role of the organisation and no doubt that what you have discussed yesterday has been a start. I know your commitment and that all the countries here are committed to making IOR-ARC a success. Let's dedicate ourselves that in the coming two years we will reaffirm our commitment and show that we have an effective programme of work which would be accepted by the people of our country.

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