Understanding American attitudes
International Relations and Security:
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP
One of the sadder aspects of Tissa Jayatilaka’s celebration of
American values and conduct with regard to Sri Lanka is his suppression
of the change that took place in American policy with the change of
government at the beginning of 2009. While many of us thought that, in
the interests of the world as well as the majority of the American
citizenry, a change would be good, we knew that things would be worse
for Sri Lanka if the Republicans were defeated.
We were relieved, given the manner in which the diaspora with its
ties to the LTTE had cultivated Hillary Clinton, that Obama was the
Democrat candidate, but we still knew things would be tough. When Obama
then appointed Hillary as his Secretary of State, we had to prepare for
a very different approach.
European resolution
I am astonished though to find Tissa too of such a myopic mindset,
and asserting that the United States along with India ‘supported us to
the hilt from 2002 onwards in our battle against the LTTE’. He has
obviously not read Wikileaks, which makes it clear that in 2009 the US
attitude had changed, and they were fully behind the European resolution
against us.
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Barack Obama |
Hillary Clinton |
Condoleezza
Rice |
Robert Blake |
The fact that the US had changed was obvious from the manner in which
Bob Blake, in his last days, was no longer the pillar of support he had
been earlier. In 2007 for instance, the US supported government actively
in the East when the European Union was sulking because we had driven
the LTTE out of there. In that year we found both the US ambassador in
Geneva, a solid old school Republican, and his more left-leaning Deputy,
extremely sympathetic. The latter was indeed one of Dayan Jayatilleka’s
best friends in Geneva.
In 2009 however Blake had told a former State Department employee
that his different approach was because he now served a different
administration. I do not know whether Blake was one of the ambassadors
Tissa got on with – he was not at the party Blake had on the occasion of
Obama’s inauguration, when he said he had got together Sri Lankans he
saw as special friends of his country – but Tissa must surely have
realized that things had changed. Britain, which had been leading the
attack on us, did so, and David Miliband got a far more sympathetic
hearing from Hillary than he would have done from the intellectually
more rigorous Condoleezza Rice.
Third World countries
Tissa is right in drawing attention to the fact that the US, when
Bush was President, was more consistent in its response to terrorism and
terrorists, and supported us in our efforts to get the LTTE proscribed.
But LTTE supporters understood this, as well as the softer touch Hillary
was going to be – which unfortunately our Foreign Ministry could not see
– and changed their approach. Though the LTTE could not quite be
presented as largely innocent freedom fighters, which the Americans have
convinced themselves Contras and Chechens and the Taleban have been in
their time, by 2009 Blake was involved in what might be termed a rescue
operation. Thankfully, the Indians put a stop to this, helped also by
the intransigence of the LTTE.
Where Tissa’s misleading interpretation of international relations
comes through is in his assertion that ‘Although the likes of Miliband
and Kouchner tried their utmost to initiate international action against
us, Sri Lanka was able to ensure that no government took a concerted
diplomatic initiative at the UN Security Council to compel Sri Lanka to
abort the final military push against the LTTE, something similar to
that which India, acting unilaterally, had done in the 1980s by
compelling us to halt the Vadamarachchi operation.’
Miliband’s objective
There were efforts to put Sri Lanka on the agenda in New York, but
these were restrained because of the veto that our solid supporters
could be relied upon to use. Tissa makes no mention of what happened in
Geneva, because of his animosity to Dayan Jayatilleka, in line with that
of the less civilized Americans he follows (unlike the intelligent
Democrats who realize that Dayan is potentially their best ally if they
can be satisfied with Non-alignment based on a solid understanding with
India).
In effect he ignores the fact that the actual scene of action was
Geneva, as it is now, where it is numbers that count.
He ignores the fact that the sort of professional diplomat he affects
to admire had failed to restrain the British from tabling a motion
against us in 2006, a motion they sought to reactivate in 2007.
Fortunately by then we had Dayan there, and by skilful diplomacy,
building up a solid coalition of Third World countries whilst also
talking actively to the West (so that some European countries were
telling him what the Brits were up to, even though formally they could
not break ranks), he was able to ensure that the motion was dropped from
the agenda.
That was when the British Representative there, who had been hoping
to go on to New York (and might have been sent there, had he fulfilled
Miliband’s objective with regard to Sri Lanka, which was and still is an
ideal test case for changing the dynamics of the current international
order), told me that our Ambassador thought we had won, but we should
wait to see what would happen.
He moved on then, though, and I found his successor much less
abrasive. But as we saw in 2009, Miliband was relentless. |