US bows to Rajapaksa determination

The Obama change of course on Sri Lanka also points to the need for a much wider discussion of our own issues, by genuine organizations of civil society, to seek the path of reconciliation, through the acceptance of pluralism in our polity, as well encourage more of secularism in social and political attitudes. It point to constitutional change that does not stop at slogans to abolish the Executive Presidency or replace it with an Executive Prime Minister

Threatened by the possibility of the European Union withdrawing or suspending the GSP+ facility for our exports with its necessarily harsh consequences, and moving into an election campaign where the Opposition, through its divisions and sheer lack of policy, is posing a threat to Sri Lankan polity and the possibilities of reconciliation, there was more than a glimmer of hope for Sri Lanka in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Report on Sri Lanka that came to light earlier this week.

It was clear that after months of uncertainty fostered by the State Department’s own view of the Sri Lankan situation, influenced largely by the pro-LTTE Tamil expatriate lobby in New York, New Jersey and Washington, President Obama had taken a close and hard look at the realities over here, both for Sri Lanka and the United States, and clearly decided it was time to change course. The report that was signed by two senior and respected Senators, John Kerry and Richard Lugar, gave the bi-partisan sanction to the new direction that the US was taking vis-…-vis relations with Sri Lanka.

Such changes are not easily taken by countries, especially those as large and powerful as the US. But change it is and it signals the possibility of new opportunities for Sri Lanka, in its international relations. It acknowledges that Sri Lanka has defeated what the US had described as the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world. In the midst of its own fight against terror, which President Obama articulated in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Thursday, it also gave credit to the Sri Lankan battle against terror in stating that: “President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared total victory after Government soldiers killed the Tamil Tigers’ leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and took control of the entire country for the first time since 1983...It was a bitter and hard-fought victory, one of the few instances in modern history in which a terrorist group had been defeated militarily.”

No doubt the long deliberations that President Obama had with his advisors prior to deciding to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which is part of South Asia, would have also led to the new approach towards Sri Lanka, as it would not seem realistic to commit so much manpower and funds to fight terror in a distant land, without accepting Sri Lanka’s own need to fight terror so determinedly on its own soil. It was an extension of the US policy of banning the LTTE and prosecuting its activists, which seemed to have escaped Washington, more particularly the State Department, with the arrival of Hillary Clinton.

Correct position

The new approach to Sri Lanka also shows acceptance of the correct position that Sri Lanka took in not giving into the pressures of the West, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa firmly rejected and resisted the joint moves by Western powers and associated organizations of the “international community” to force a ceasefire and a truce with the LTTE. It also recognized the value of the friendship that Sri Lanka maintained particularly with China, the good relations with Russia and also the important role that strong bonds forged with India played in bringing the protracted war against terror to an end.

The US Senate Report also gives a shove to those in the European Union that seem determined to punish Sri Lanka for defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity from the menace of terrorism, and has indirectly endorsed the position of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,, when it defeated the EU led move to bludgeon Sri Lanka over its success against the LTTE.

The US move points to the need for a more nuanced approach on foreign policy, where we maintain our strong friendships with those who helped us at the worst of times, and move towards the best of relations with all who are ready to understand the realities in Sri Lanka; as well as pursue every effort to make those who lack such understanding or will to seek such knowledge to change their attitudes towards Sri Lanka. If the Rubber-Rice Pact of the 1950s showed the strength of correct policy at that of the beginnings of the Cold War, the new change in US policy has given a fillip to Sri Lankan policy against terror and raises it image in the world. Yet, it remains for Sri Lanka to make the best of this opportunity, which thrusts a great responsibility on the opposition forces in the country to avoid infantile approaches to foreign policy for the purpose of hopeful electoral victory, or much worse, seek to drive the country away from sanity in foreign relations after a possible or most likely defeat.

The Obama change of course on Sri Lanka also points to the need for a much wider discussion of our own issues, by genuine organizations of civil society, to seek the path of reconciliation, through the acceptance of pluralism in our polity, as well encourage more of secularism in social and political attitudes. It point to constitutional change that does not stop at slogans to abolish the Executive Presidency or replace it with an Executive Prime Minister.

Eisenhower twist

Although not relaxed to the new US policy on Sri Lanka, the US has been brought into the current political contest by Sarath Fonseka’s attempt to compare his standing for election today, to that of General Dwight Eisenhower in the US in 1952. If Fonseka who seems keen to craft militarism into his campaign, demonstrated what can only be called tinny headed thinking in his reference to a tin-pot dictatorship in Sri Lanka, he has shown that his knowledge of the record of great military leaders of the recent past is vastly lacking in accuracy, as is his knowledge of history. There is a sense of self-glorifying seeking to justify his candidature by claiming to follow in the tradition of former US President Dwight Eisenhower, who moved from being Commander of the Allied Forces in the West in World War II to become USA, President.

The record is not as Sarath Fonseka would have it. General Dwight Eisenhower, who led not only the US Forces but was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces against the forces of Hitler and Mussolini in the West, did not shed his uniform and walk into politics no sooner the war was over. The war ended when President Harry S Truman was in office, having assumed the position after the President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death in August 1945. In the US Presidential Election that followed in 1948, both the Republicans and Democrats courted Eisenhower, then at the height of his popularity as a military leader, to be their presidential candidate against the incumbent President Truman.

But the good soldier and military man that Eisenhower was, he refused to contest against the person who was his own Commander-in-Chief in the USA, even for a brief period towards the end of the war. Instead he came into electoral politics only in 1952, when he was the Republican candidate defeating the non-interventionist Senator Robert Taft for the Republican nomination. He defeated the Democrat Adlai Stevenson at the election. It would be good for those who give the Eisenhower example, to justify Sarath Fonseka’s candidature against his immediate and former Commander-in-Chief, to think of these realities, and to understand better what it takes to be both an officer and a gentleman.