Gunning for GL

Motives for the motion:

It is, in equal measure, ironic and amusing that the UNP has chosen to move a motion of No Confidence in Parliament, against the newish External Affairs Minister Prof GL Pieris

Dr Dayan JAYATILLEKA

Antonio Gramsci notes that in an intellectual argument one must strike at the opponent’s strongest point, while in war and politics, one strikes the weakest spot in the defences.

Prof GL Pieris

One certainly does not strike at a stronger point of a strong adversary when one is at one’s weakest. Yet, this is precisely what the UNP, under the cool, JR-like strategist Ranil Wickremesinghe and spearheaded by his acolyte Ravi Karunanayake, has signalled its intention of doing.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe’s strong suit is not exactly foreign policy. J R Jayewardene appointed him Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister and soon made it clear that when it came to foreign affairs they had no confidence in him, by removing him from the post in one year flat.

The reason seems to have been that while Sri Lanka was still the Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, and Jayewardene had succeeded Ms Bandaranaike as Chairperson of NAM, Wickremesinghe as Deputy Foreign Minister was pushing an unbalanced, anti NAM agenda which the President and the Foreign Minister, ACS Hameed (the UNP’s Shadow Foreign Minister in 70-77) found disturbing.

Intellect

Possessing the highest academic attainments of any Sri Lankan Parliamentarian and indeed any Sri Lankan politician today (and here, the contrast with our post-Kadirgamar pair of former Foreign Ministers could hardly be more striking!), the new External Affairs Minister is not exactly the weakest link in the administration’s armour.

On the occasions that Prof Pieris passed through Geneva when I was serving as Permanent Representative, I would eagerly arrange for him to address audiences of ambassadors and academics, and our team would watch with pride as he delivered his remarks, without a note, on almost any subject.

In terms of civility and intellect, of the many who came to Geneva (since it was a hub of UN and multilateral organizations), GL Pieris was in a class by himself. Yet it is precisely against him that the UNP has chosen to move.

This is a UNP that was rightly accused by a fellow Opposition MP belonging to the TNA, of lacking the guts to be present in Parliament during the debate on the 18th Amendment and vote against it.

The SLFP is generally better at doing defence and external affairs while the UNP is usually better at modernisation and economic development.

The three worst fiascos of Sri Lanka’s external relations occurred when the UNP was at the helm: Bandung (Booruwa) 55, the dhal drop 87, the CFA 02.

The UNP administration’s deliberate deviation from Nonalignment (fairly soon after President Jayewardene relinquished his duties as NAM Chairman) and the enormous damage to relations with India, resulted in the worst collapse of Sri Lanka’s foreign relations in 1987, with the Indian airdrop and the conspicuous silence of almost the whole of the world.

Foreign policy

When Mervyn de Silva, writing in the Lanka Guardian and as columnist Kautilya in The Island, defined the war as it was fought by the UNP administration of the 1980s as unwinnable, he referred to the gross mismanagement of relations with neighbouring India and the latter’s own axiomatic compulsions over the Tamil question (Tamil Nadu), which meant that the war would not be allowed to be won on Colombo’s terms. Mervyn contrasted the UNP elite foreign policy fiasco of 1987 with the triumph of the SLFP’s Non-aligned foreign policy in 1971 when India and Pakistan, Russia and the USA, UK and China and Yugoslavia were the most prominent of 21 states that came to Sri Lanka’s aid and assistance.

The UNP that was not motivated into a motion of no confidence against the professor’s predecessor, the most abysmally ignorant and atrociously unintelligible Foreign Minister Sri Lanka ever had, has sprung into action now.

It has chosen to do so, not after a decent period of testing like a year or two, but mere months after Professor Peiris has been appointed and is doubtless still grappling with the legacy he was left by a man whom the voters tossed out without a second thought at the last election.

Human Rights Council

The text of the UNP’s imminent motion of ‘No Confidence’ accuses Prof Pieris of having failed to secure the support of the Non Aligned Movement against the Ban Ki Moon panel. That process started rolling well before GLP was appointed Minister and consequent to an ambiguous reference to accountability conceded when his predecessor held the post.

The UNP did not feel motivated to indict the failure to mobilise the Non Aligned, when Sri Lanka lost the vote held in New York for re-election to the Human Rights Council.

Bogollagama flew to New York to lobby support and flunked. Perhaps unsurprising, when one considers the fact that in a three way telephone conference in the run-up to the Special Session against Sri Lanka in 2009 with the same Minister and his top official, the Minister dismissed my suggestion of securing a supportive statement from the Non Aligned Co-ordinating Bureau in New York with the incredible observation that the Non Aligned Movement was split in three and therefore of little use to us!

The UNP is so solicitous of the support of the Non Aligned that Wickremesinghe, addressing the UN General Assembly, tilted in favour of George Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq, strongly opposed not only by the NAM, but public opinion in the West.

The Opposition leader’s nominee for managing a mass media campaign at the grass roots Mangala Samaraweera as Foreign Minister, assumed a position on Israel/Palestine and Iran in multinational forums, that can only be described, in relation to the NAM stand, as deviant.

International media

The UNP’ motion charges External Affairs Minister of having overstayed his invitation to China by two days, which is bound to raise a chuckle or two, coming as it does from Wickremesinghe who seems to have overstayed his stint as leader of his party and the Opposition, by well over a decade!

Why then is the UNP moving this No Confidence motion at this time? There are three discernible reasons in ascending order of importance. Firstly the tall poppy syndrome (as the Australians dub it): the semi-spontaneous collective attempt motivated by petty jealousy, to level down. Secondly, the same reason that made the LTTE murder Lakshman Kadirgamar: deprive Sri Lanka and the administration of the most sophisticated communicator and best possible bridge with the world system, thereby isolating Sri Lanka.

To be continued