Foreign Minister says Colombo wants to maintain friendly relations with all countries
Seeking India’s “proactive” support at the UN Human Rights Council, where a resolution on Sri Lanka will soon be put to a vote, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry Secretary said: “India cannot abandon us.”
“If the world is a family, as your Foreign Minister has said, then we are an immediate family, aren’t we,” said Admiral Jayanath Colombage (retired), citing the reference from Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar to ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam‘in his recent speech to the Council.
The Chancellor, former commander of the Navy, spoke with The Hindu on Sri Lanka’s prospects at the current session in Geneva, Indo-Lankan relations, Colombo’s broader foreign policy options, and the strategy for reconciliation from “within” and regional cooperation.
Sri Lanka, Colombage said, would be “very uncomfortable” if countries in the region did not provide support in Geneva. He expressed hope that India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, who are among the current Council members, will support Sri Lanka as the countries have similarities, “are fighting COVID-19 and facing accusations of rights violations. humans”.
“Our president [Gotabaya Rajapaksa] The first letter requesting support was to the Prime Minister of India, and his first meeting here was with the High Commissioner of India. Because we are very aware of the solidarity of South Asia, “he said, adding:” Sri Lanka urgently needs the support of our friendly neighbors. And we are not asking for anything extraordinary, we are asking for something based on your neighborhood policy first, based on Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) ”. His appeal comes at a time when bilateral relations between Indo-Lanka have come under strain, following a series of decisions made by Colombo on development projects involving India and China.
On whether Sri Lanka would consider India’s possible abstention from the Council as support, the Foreign Secretary said he expected a “proactive” and “constructive” engagement, rather than abstention, which “is neither here nor there.”
Anyway, apparently prepared for the adoption of the likely hostile resolution, he said: “It is difficult for a country from the Global South to win the vote … due to the double standards and hypocrisy of the Council,” he said, pointing to the rights. police abuse and brutality in the developed world.
Punitive measures, such as post-resolution economic sanctions, would harm the people more than the government, Colombage said, arguing that reconciliation mechanisms should be developed within the country. “We can’t do anything just because someone points a gun at our heads and says, okay, make up. It will never happen. “When asked how the government could address the glaring confidence deficit within the country (minorities have repeatedly expressed skepticism about national programs that have yet to be met), he said that communities torn apart in a war of 30 years would take time to reconcile.
Indian vote
It remains to be seen how India could vote on the Sri Lankan resolution which is based on the damning report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on the “alarming path towards the repetition of grave human rights violations” in Sri Lanka, which Colombo has categorically rejected. With the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government co-sponsoring the 2015 resolution, no vote was required.
At the Interactive Dialogue on Sri Lanka at the Council last week, India reiterated Mr. Jaishankar’s message in Colombo in January and called on Sri Lanka to take the necessary steps to address the “legitimate aspirations” of the Tamils, including through the process of reconciliation and implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.
But the Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary indicated his preference for a clear break from existing laws. It is “time for” Sri Lanka to have a new “people-centered” constitution, he said, stressing the need to “move on”. “It is going to be a challenge to abolish the provincial councils, rather we should empower them to comply,” he said, amid persistent calls from some in the Rajapaksa government and their base of support for their abolition.
Still, the Foreign Secretary does not see the existing 13th Amendment as a solution. The Thirteenth Amendment emerged with the goal of ending the violence and developing war-affected areas, he said, from Sri Lanka’s only legislative guarantee so far on the return of power to the provinces, including those with a Tamil majority.
“Let’s look back and see if either of those two main goals was achieved thanks to the 13th amendment. The answer is no. The war lasted until 2009, and there were many more deaths after 1987. And then development could not take place through the provincial council system, ”Colombage said, even as Tamil parties continue to demand full implementation of the 13th Amendment since the Civil War ended in 2009.
Although the Tamil parties seek a greater devolution of power within an “indivisible and indivisible Sri Lanka”, as the Tamil leader R. Sampanthan infallibly asserts, Mr. Colombage considers that their demands lean towards separatism, “although they do not use the Tamil word Eelam “.
“When you say you want a federal state, you want more devolution of powers, you want police powers, you want territorial powers, right? That means it is asking for almost a separate state, ”he said, referring to the powers that the 13th Amendment envisaged, but the Center has not yet separated.
“I personally think that India should not insist on the same thing that prevailed in 1987 either, because the dynamics have changed. India is concerned about the Tamils living in Sri Lanka, rightly so because there is a sizeable Tamil population in India, there is nothing wrong with that. ”
Bilateral tension
Regardless of India’s vote in Geneva, in the future, the two countries will have to navigate a wider terrain mired in controversy, especially after Colombo authorized a Chinese energy project in the northern islands; withdrew from a 2019 deal with India and Japan to jointly develop a Colombo port terminal, and sought Trincomalee oil tank farms leased to a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation.
“I don’t think relations are tense,” said the foreign secretary, emphasizing that on strategic security issues, Sri Lanka still gives India “top priority.”
“India is a great power and a mature country to allow one or two incidents to change a relationship built over centuries … they are not so insignificant,” he said, adding that although President Rajapaksa was eager to see the Container Terminal of the This (ECT) was projected with Indian investment, but “won the power of the people,” he said, citing resistance from unions and clergy.
President Rajapaksa, despite his promise to safeguard national assets, was willing to make a “compromise,” Colombage noted, by offering the neighboring West Container Terminal (WCT) for development, on the same terms: 85% stakes. for the Indian investor – such as Colombo International Container Terminals Ltd, where the state-owned China Merchants Port Holdings Company has an 85% stake. The ECT has a partially completed deep berth and a shallow berth at the adjacent terminal, making it more commercially viable than the WCT that must be built from scratch, with a higher investment. “The offer has been made at different levels, but New Delhi would naturally expect more than a verbal commitment.”
On “another controversial aspect,” the Trincomalee oil tank farms, which a cabinet minister recently said would be “repurchased” from a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation that has had a 35-year lease since 2003, the Secretary of Foreign Relations called on India to take a “pragmatic view”. Given that more than 80 of those World War-era oil storage facilities had not been renovated in 18 years, it was “a waste” that they were not used, he said. “During the drop in oil prices in the world, the idea came up that we can recondition these tanks, use them to store oil, so that we can make money… these are national strategic assets, right? We must go beyond the lines of [2003] agree and see how we can make the best use of these tanks even now. ”
India has also recently raised concerns about the choice of a Chinese company to install renewable energy systems on three islands off the Jaffna Peninsula, just 50 kilometers off the coast of Tamil Nadu. As an alternative to the project financed by the Asian Development Bank, India also offered a grant of $ 12 million. Calling it a “very generous offer”, Colombage said it was not good for Sri Lanka’s international image to withdraw from a project backed by the ADB and finalized through a bidding process. “So, we are in a little trouble and I have the feeling that people will continue to suffer. [without adequate power supply] because of this tug of war. ”
Pointing out Sri Lanka’s foreign policy “dilemma”, he noted that a developing country should be able to make decisions based on economics, based on needs, but sadly, a country like Sri Lanka is “not free” to make that decision. “Before we even make an economic decision, we have to think about the strategic consideration of the powers in the Indian Ocean region,” he said, of being “interspersed.”
Great power play
Now where should we draw the line? Should we say, okay, north of this line is country A, and south of this country could be country ABCD? Is that what we want? “He asked, alluding to India and China. While India has been involved in large-scale development projects in the north and east building, for example 50,000 houses for people affected by the war, China has dominated mega development in the south, in projects including highways, the port of Hambantota and the port city of Colombo. However, over time, India also launched several projects in the south, while projects in China began to travel north.
Sri Lanka, a “small country” covering some 65,000 square kilometers, was seeing the best way to maintain neutrality, he said, while staying away from the “big power game” by maintaining friendly relations for economic purposes with all countries, and taking into account India’s strategic security concerns. “That will determine our foreign policy and we are determined to balance these factors.”
On the recent visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to Colombo, he said that it should not be seen as Sri Lanka trying to “join one bloc” or country, against others. “It is a bilateral visit. We would be very happy to welcome the Prime Minister of India or any other Prime Minister who would like to come. “
