AROUND THE CORNER …
The U.S government’s
establishment of ‘the American Corner in Trincomalee in an
agreement with the local government authorities of that Eastern
city at first glance may sound as if it is all about the
establishment of a hole-in-the-wall Information Centre (…Center
as they say in the peculiar American argot.)
But, the sense of unease since the news was divulged on the
issue is palpable, and who could blame anyone for it, with the
Northern Provincial Council elections around the corner. Anyhow,
the External Affairs Ministry has already articulated its
abiding concern over the matter and last week, the Ministry
Secretary told this newspaper that the U.S Embassy authorities
here will be asked to show cause why an agreement was signed on
establishing a Centre of this sort, when clearly External
Affairs Ministry approval was needed, considering the diplomatic
protocols.
These diplomatic niceties and/or imperatives should have been
known not just by the American Embassy but also the local
government authority involved, and therein lies the danger.
There is an apprehension that in the North and the East where
the Sri Lankan government writ runs totally after 2009, there
could still be insidious moves to overrun that writ by various
political outfits, some that can barely conceal their allegiance
to the Tamil Tiger rump.
The Trincomalee affair needs to be investigated thoroughly,
and the External Affairs Ministry will no doubt look after the
aspect of the American involvement. The bigger issue however, is
the matter of the government writ in the Northern and Eastern
province and how to preserve that guarantee, which is the only
assurance for a life of peace and progress for the people of
those two provinces.
These people have now for decades been under the gun of the
most potent terrorist outfit in the entire world, and are
therefore cowed to the point of being unable to assert
themselves. They are easy prey for the machinations of the
self-serving and the mercenary minded, that are willing to sell
these people’s new found freedom for a mess of pottage.
Incidents such as the American Corner brouhaha in Trincomalee
have to be viewed in this context. Much needs to be done before
the elections in the North to ensure that the people of the
North are not under threat of having their peace and contentment
undermined by various ‘elected bodies.’
Various political actors have moved, with ‘civil society’
often acting as a conduit to establish links with foreign
governments and various foreign interlopers surreptitiously
without so much as a by your leave from Sri Lankan authorities.
If links established are as per the law of the country, it
wouldn’t matter, but when they clearly contravene diplomatic
protocols on the one hand and the powers vested with local
politicians on the other, there will be greater apprehensions
about how things will turn out in the future if and when
regional political actors get more power in their hands, that
they can wield.
This is why there is already a sharp reaction to the news of
the American Corner in Trincomalee, not just in the Sri Lankan
Ministry of External Affairs but from among various other
groups, some allied to the government. The whole matter is
crying out for an investigation -- and though the foreign
affairs angle is covered with the steps taken by the Ministry of
External Affairs, the modus operandi of the local government
body involved and the whys and the wheretofores of their conduct
has still not been investigated.
The fallout of this matter will no doubt reverberate in the
Parliamentary Chambers when the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC)
meets to decide on matters of constitutional change -- and no
doubt the 13th Amendment and its current and future status. Many
will be keeping their ears to the ground. |