21 May 2022
Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
SRI
LANKAN PROTESTORS WITH AMERICAN MINDS?
I received an expression of appreciation from Dr C A Saliya,
to my analysis headed ‘GENOCIDE CLAIM & BUDDHISM FOREMOST ARTICLE’ :
‘I love this piece of
writing. Thanks’ As per Dr Saliya’s CV – he is a Chartered Accountant. Hence I
responded as follows:
‘Thank you. One Balanced Accountant knows the other’
My attention was then drawn to the Colombo
Telegraph article ‘Fearmongering & Spreading Rumors By Indian Intelligence In Sri Lanka’
by Dr Murali Vallipuranathan who is
presented as follows:
[A visiting lecturer
at the Universities of Jaffna and Colombo, a Senior Specialist of the Ministry
of Health and a Council Member of the Sri Lanka Medical Association. He claims
the opinion expressed in this article with social responsibility aims to
improve the public awareness on good governance, promotes healthy discussion
for a system change and in no way reflects his official positions.]
Dr Vallipuranathan is taking
status benefit through his medical work but not for any loss associated with his
writing work. That is like Mr Wigneswaran carrying his ‘Justice’ status but
does not take responsibility for losses through his political work at National
level.
The writer refers us to the
Daily News report dated 16 May headed ‘Wigneswaran extends support to PM’. As per this report:
[“Although Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe’s UNP had only one Parliamentary seat, he went on to become the
Prime Minister of the country and likewise although we have only a solitary
seat in Parliament we will use it to solve Tamil people’s issues,” Wigneswaran
said.]
Dr Murali’s interpretation of the above is presented
as follows:
Tamil party leaders (https://dailynews.lk/2022/05/16/political/278911/wigneswaran-extends-support-pm?page=15
) and media controlled by India, are spreading the story that none other
than RW can save Sri Lanka as the savior of the Sri Lankan economy in the
current context.
In other words – Mr Wigneswaran, according to Dr
Murali is the medium of the Indian government.
Dr Murali presents also the influence of Global and Regional powers as follows:
[As popular uprisings intensified in Galle Face and other parts of
the country, superpower US and regional power India feared the formation
of a left-wing government in Sri Lanka would result in not listening to them
and not supporting their interests in the region. RW has been chosen as the
appropriate agent to prevent it.]
I highlighted this as JVP & LTTE becoming the media of Communist China.
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6863031047273509081/8469609734784743459
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6863031047273509081/3909829785800305646
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6863031047273509081/6334432260224165200
The coalition between Indian and American governments
is, to my mind best understood through QUAD
, presented as follows by Wikipedia:
[The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), colloquially the Quad …,
is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States that
is maintained by talks between member countries. …During the 2017 ASEAN Summits in Manila, all four former members led by Shinzo Abe, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and US President Donald Trump agreed to revive the quadrilateral alliance
in order to counter China militarily and
diplomatically in the "Indo-Pacific" region, particularly in the South China Sea. Tensions between Quad members and China have
led to fears of what was dubbed by some commentators "a new Cold War" in the region.]
Indian elder Mr M K Bhadrakumar shares his insight as follows at
https://www.indianpunchline.com/indias-quad-dilemma-in-sri-lanka/
India’s Quad Dilemma in Sri Lanka
Rajapaksa playing golf on a Chinese turf on Modi’s 70th
birthday? Three big developments in the geopolitics of Sri Lanka may explain
it. First, on August 26, the US State Department announced sanctions against twenty-four Chinese state-owned
enterprises, including several subsidiaries of China Communications
Construction Company (CCCC), which was described as “one of the leading
contractors used by Beijing in its global “One Belt One Road” strategy.”
Washington has messaged that China “must not be allowed to
use CCCC and other state-owned enterprises as weapons to impose an expansionist
agenda.” In a background briefing on the subject, a senior state department official in Washington
pointedly referred to Sri Lanka, saying, “In Sri Lanka, there have been
longstanding accusations of corruption and bribery involving China Harbor
Engineering corp and the Hambantota Port project, which is very well known in
the Belt and Road story.”
And in what appeared to be a reference to India, he also
claimed, “The kind of concerns that we have… are very widely shared and
increasingly widely shared, and we know that other countries obviously are
looking at scrutinising their policies with respect to their diverse
relationships with China in terms of business, academic exchange, visa, and
much else.”
From all appearance, a
renewed US-Indian move is afoot to undermine China’s Belt and Road projects in
Sri Lanka, especially the flag carrier — Colombo Port City, which a
CCCC subsidiary is executing. The Indian officials have forecast that big
trouble awaits Colombo Port City project.
The US sanctions come at a
time when Chinese-built infrastructure projects such as the Hambantota Port,
Mattala International Airport or the upcoming Colombo Port City are
lobbying for investment from foreign investors.
A Colombo-based commentator
wrote, “Sri Lanka is confronted with the hard reality of geopolitics… Sri
Lanka’s external environment has drastically changed… (but) our domestic needs
for large scale investments for infrastructure development have not. China
remains the place to go… China would be the only large economy to record
positive economic growth this year… (India) has recorded negative growth of
16%. Domestic worries would leave little appetite for an expansive (Indian)
economic engagement abroad.”
Be that as it may, in a
related development only four days later, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper
telephoned Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on August 30 to discuss “their
shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that ensures the sovereignty
of all nations.”
The Pentagon readout said,
“Reviewing common bilateral defence priorities, they noted opportunities to
enhance military professionalisation, counter-terrorism, and maritime security
cooperation. Both leaders expressed their commitment to expanding bilateral
defence relations and to advancing shared interests.” Esper later tweeted that
he discussed “the international security environment” with President Rajapaksa.
Curiously, Esper also “urged
continued progress on reconciliation and human rights in Sri Lanka”. In effect,
he threatened Rajapaksa under whose stewardship as Sri Lankan defence secretary
(while a US citizen still), the bloodiest phase of the war against the LTTE
took place.
That was indeed an
extraordinary phone call—the first in living memory from a US defence chief to
a Sri Lankan president. Esper made the call while on a visit to Guam on yet
another Quad mission to counter China.
Colombo has kept mum about
the real purpose of Esper’s call. The point is, the US expects Colombo to
finalise a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US, the handing
over of Colombo Port’s Eastern Terminal to India, and a $US480 million grant
agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (an instrument of US
foreign policy.) Washington is insisting on an immediate response so that
US-Sri Lanka defence cooperation can be integrated into the Quad strategies in
the Indian Ocean region.
The Sri Lankan nationalists
oppose the transfer of a Colombo Port terminal to India and any erosion in the
country’s strategic autonomy. Foreign Secretary Colombage said in a recent
interview, “We have to balance. The President has outlined a few specific
things. Sri Lanka should be a neutral country. Sri Lanka does not want to be
caught up in the power game.”
What emerges is that the close
coordination between Washington and Delhi to counter China in the recent years
has become the geopolitics of Sri Lanka — no longer the Tamil problem.
India used to regard Sri Lanka as its backyard and resented foreign military
presence there, and leveraged the Tamil problem to that end. But under Modi,
the Quad has become the principal locomotive of India’s regional strategies.
The first major US-Indian
project was the successful regime change in Sri Lanka in 2015. Since then, India has been working
hard to create underpinnings for a US military presence in the Maldives. These
efforts came to fruition on September 10, when Maldives and the US signed a
framework for defence and security relationship with view to “deepen
engagement and cooperation in support of maintaining peace and security in the
Indian Ocean…and promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
It is against such a
backdrop that we need to assess a third development that is unfolding on the
Sri Lankan political landscape — President Rajapaksa’s announcement 3 days
after the phone call from Esper, proposing a new constitution for the
country signalling changes to its electoral system and the restoration of
executive presidency.
Of course, the drafting of a
new constitution will be time-consuming. It will also probably mean that all
mega decisions will be relegated to the back burner — the SOFA, award of
Colombo Port to India, MCC agreement, etc. And Esper may have to remain patient. This
may in all probability get carried over to beyond November 3.
Meanwhile, Mahinda
Rajapaksa’s visit to Colombo Port City on Thursday
has underscored that the BRI projects in Sri Lanka are non-negotiable. Rajapaksa said during the site
visit that the Colombo Port City project will be Sri Lanka’s main income source
in the years to come. He thanked the Chinese Government for funding the
project.
To my mind, having worked in
Sri Lanka as a diplomat in the early and mid-1980s when India was actively
promoting the Tamil militant groups, I cannot but admire the tenacity of that
small country’s diplomacy and statecraft to constantly think up ideas to
navigate diplomatic minefields and preserve the country’s strategic autonomy
while also carrying India along.
From such a perspective, Mahinda
Rajapaksa’s brilliant move last week to ban slaughtering of cows in Sri Lanka
is a shrewd initiative. Sri Lankans, 99 percent of whom are meat eaters,
will instead make do with imported beef! To be sure, the tough, wily Sri
Lankan leader is aware of the seamless possibilities of bovine politics in the subcontinent, which has
an economic dimension, a religious dimension and a political dimension.
Rajapaksa may now add a
diplomatic dimension to it as well. The powers that be who rule
the roost in Delhi would have received the news from across the Palk Strait
with ecstatic joy and fraternal feelings of kinship. Between the cow and the
Quad, their preference is a foregone conclusion.
The heart of the matter is that both
Mahinda Rajapaksa and Modi have learnt from their past mistakes. Rajapaksa
erred in his over-confidence that he could outwit Delhi, and didn’t
take notice of the GM seeds, genetically modified in the Indian and American
labs, being secretly planted right beneath his feet, until the sturdy growth
uprooted him in 2015.
This time around, Rajapaksa
made sure that the ground beneath his feet is made of concrete where not a
blade of grass grows. Modi too has understood that Rajapaksa is a “forever
politician” India has to live with. Splitting a political party and doing
horse-trading over fickle-minded politicians comes easy to the Indian strategists,
but engineering defections from a tightly knit family is difficult, and may
prove ultimately futile.]
Global Reality
The above clearly explains why the Protestors gathered
at Galle Face in front of Port City, why the President was asked to ‘Go Home’ despite
the Constitution not allowing it , why Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa stepped down to
make way for Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe and most importantly why the Americans
chose to pass Resolution at UN level and banned
LTTE . That is however our global reality. As per my belief – the
pandemic happened due to ‘Silk Road’ heritage being used for economic purposes.
That is like disturbing the grave of a respected elder. The costs become
exponential in current terms. The plague of the Silk Road became the Pandemic
of the BRI.
