Ceylon Today Editorial

Indo-Lanka relations

07 October 2016

During the post-World War II and prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the November 1989 period, the world was divided into two camps. They were those supporting the USSR and the USA, respectively.

Those two countries were the world's two superpowers. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR), regional power blocks, divorced from either the USA or Russia (the former USSR sans the trappings of its previous 'satellite' States, now, broadly identified as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) came into being.

There were however exceptions even prior to November 1989. Two such examples were China and India in the Asian region. When Vietnam started persecuting ethnic Chinese in Vietnam in 1978, the Chinese who share a common border with Vietnam invaded the latter country. China stopped its advance when there were signs that the USSR, Vietnam's ally, threatened to get involved in the conflict.
Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, after the re-advent of Indira Gandhi as India's Premier in January 1980, Tamil terrorists who were active at that time, used to commit murders and robberies and flee to South India for refuge.

Gandhi, in a muscle flexing move, didn't extradite these terrorists wanted by Colombo for criminal acts, but instead afforded them protection in India.

Indo-Sri Lanka ties took a turn to the worse after the July 1983 Sinhala-Tamil riots. Tamil terrorists were not only provided with refuge in India afterwards, but they were also armed and trained to fight the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the Police.

President J.R. Jayewardene turned to the USA for help, only to be told that Colombo must solve its problems with Delhi. Jayewardene, unwilling to bow to India, launched a successful military operation called 'Operation Liberation' against the Tamil terrorists in May 1987, to recapture the 1,025 square kilometre Jaffna Peninsula. Within weeks after launching the operation, troops were on the verge of capturing Jaffna Town. But then the Indians militarily intervened, forcing Jayewardene to call off the campaign.

Since then Sri Lanka has been virtually bending over backwards to please India.The only exception was President Mahinda Rajapaksa and that too, after obtaining India's overt and covert help to successfully eradicate Tamil terrorism in the country, culminated in their defeat at the Nandikadal Lagoon, Mullaitivu on 17 May 2009.

Rajapaksa's bait in this instance was China. China accepted this 'gambit' gladly. It was able to successfully sell commercial loans with no tender calls, more often than not for dubious infrastructure projects, while at the same time employing Chinese labour, thereby ensuring that at least part of the loan money returned to China.

The fallout of Rajapaksa's foreign policy was not only the alienation of India, but also the alienation of governments of the island's major export and export services markets, USA, UK and the EU. The net effect of these developments was Sri Lanka being mired in a virtual debt trap, culminating in a balance of payments crisis.

Ironically, to get over this morass, the new government, which was elected to power after Maithripala Sirisena's presidential poll win of 8 January 2015, is seeking to reactivate the suspended US$ 1.4 billion Colombo Port City Project, suspended soon after the advent of the Sirisena Government, due to alleged controversial clauses in the original agreement which Beijing had signed up when the previous Rajapaksa regime was in power.

And, at the other end of the spectrum, Colombo, since the election of the new regime, has gone out of its way to mend broken fences with those economies with which Rajapaksa had distanced himself, not least with India.

Currently Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, a nephew of Jayewardene's, is touring Delhi. In an article published by the Indian Financial Express yesterday, it quoted Wickremesinghe of having said, 'Sri Lanka expects the Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement (ETCA) with India to be signed by the end of this year, which will help strengthen economic ties and the importance of the pact for Sri Lanka and South Indian States Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana having a population of 250 million and a combined GDP of nearly $450 billion and with the addition of Sri Lanka of 22 million people and USD 80 billion economy, the GDP in the sub-region will be $500 billion.

Just imagine if we work together. ETCA has the potential to promote growth of a $500 billion sub-regional economy. ETCA is expected to help Sri Lanka gain better access to India's rapidly growing market. The economic asymmetry between the countries is going to increase in future when India emerges as the major global player in an increasingly multi-polar world.

Indo-Sri Lanka FTA will be expanded and deepened to go beyond trading in goods to cover trade in services, investments and technology co-operation.

'Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.'
- Cardinal Suenens

Daily News Editorial

A gainful visit

07 October 2016

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe undertook two very important official visits last week. His visit to New Zealand was the first by a Sri Lankan Prime Minister in an official capacity. He was accorded a rousing welcome and the visit resulted in many significant gains for Sri Lanka. New Zealand is known for its prowess in the dairy industry and Sri Lanka is poised to benefit from technical cooperation in that field. A number of other mutually beneficial agreements were also signed.

No less important is the Prime Minister’s visit to New Delhi where he had a two-pronged agenda: he was due to participate in the World Economic Forum (WEF) India Economic Summit, a gathering of world leaders and business leaders and he also held bilateral meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders.

The Prime Minister’s participation at this WEF signifies the fact that Sri Lanka has truly arrived on the world stage. The Premier is no stranger to the WEF (Davos) concept but his participation at the WEF in our region at this particular juncture sends an even stronger message to the International Community that Sri Lanka is open and ready to do business with the rest of the world. The Regional Summit will focus on issues like digital transformation and regional economic integration, two issues which the premier has spoken passionately about here and abroad.

Although Sri Lanka is on the 71st spot of the WEF annual rankings, the WEF has described Sri Lanka as the “most advanced economy in the region, with a stable score”. The report noted that “after years of conflict, the country needs to concentrate on triggering the efficiencies that will drive further growth — for example, by restructuring the labour market and investing in technological readiness, where it lags significantly behind economies at a similar stage of development.”

Commenting on the region the report said: “the region remains diverse, with a core of three heavyweight economies — India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — surrounded by smaller ones such as Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, each with its own peculiarities and unique development path”. The Government is keen to place the business potential of the country in the context of the greater South Asian region. The Premier is likely to the forum to explain about the country’s investment potential, as he did at similar other forums in South Korea and Singapore recently.

His meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlights the excellent level of relations between the two neighbouring countries. Premier Modi has said that India’s relations with Sri Lanka have transcended the diplomatic boundaries and this bond will help further cooperation in many fields between the two nations.

Significantly, the meeting coincided with the postponement of the SAARC Summit in Islamabad, Pakistan due to various reasons. A stable South Asia is essential for regional prosperity but unfortunately the present impasse is not helping the cause of SAARC. Hence the Prime Minister’s assertion that SAARC risks a bleak future if the problem of terrorism and other regional issues are not addressed without delay. All SAARC countries with the exception of Bhutan have faced terrorist problems and it is in their interest to collectively work to eliminate this threat.

The two Prime Ministers also came to an agreement to hold a high level meeting in New Delhi on November 5 aimed at reaching sustainable solutions to the problems faced by the fishermen of both countries. This meeting will be attended by the Foreign Ministers and Fisheries Ministers of both countries. The fishermen’s conflict must be solved through diplomatic means as it affects the livelihoods of people across both sides of the International Maritime Boundary Line. Both Prime Ministers also focused on how to ensure free naval movement by maintaining peace in the Indian Ocean maritime region.

Sri Lanka is also keen to join India’s ambitious Sagarmala project that aims to harness its 7,500-km coastline and inland waterways and step up cooperation with four South Indian states to form a US$ 500 billion sub-regional economy, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said. This falls in line with the Government’s plans to take maximum advantage of the country’s strategic location at the centre of East and West shipping routes via Colombo and Hambantota Ports, along with the proposed Colombo International Financial City in the heart of Colombo.

Sri Lanka’s future prospects lie in deeper integration with South Asia and indeed the rest of the world, not isolationism. There are political and social elements that practically live on India-phobia who see everything from ETCA to Indian lines of credit as an attempt by a big neighbour to gobble up a smaller neighbour. The National Unity Government has clarified the true situation with regard to ETCA and other issues. We live in a globalised world and our market is just too small for our economy to rely on. We must reach out to the wider world. It is time for the rabble rousers to comprehend this simple truth.

The Island Editorial

Sharks, fry and red herrings

07 October 2016

 

Those who are responsible for large scale corrupt deals have not been probed, Government Spokesman and Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne has, feigning surprise, lamented at a media briefing on Wednesday. He has sought to kill not just two but three birds with one stone. He pretends that the government does not interfere in the state investigative outfits; he tries to cover up the government’s failure to substantiate its pre-election allegations against its opponents. Moreover, Minister Senaratne is craftily trying to shift the blame for the present administration’s failure to recover billions of dollars which, it said, had been stashed away in offshore accounts, to the investigators.

Meanwhile, the controversial Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) has questioned former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal. He is one of those blamed for spending a colossal amount of public funds on the Rajapaksa government’s abortive bid to hold Commonwealth Games 2018 in Sri Lanka. The incumbent government, which according to Deputy Minister of Finance Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene finds it difficult even to pay state sector salaries, is lucky that the Rajapaksas failed in their endeavour. Else, the present-day rulers would have been faced with the gargantuan task of raising funds for the Commonwealth Games and the economy would have gone into a tailspin or even collapsed.

Nobody is above the law and action must be taken against anyone allegedly responsible for wasting public funds. Let Cabraal defend himself and clear his name. But, the manner in which the government is manipulating the FCID and the CID has left a bad taste in many a mouth.

What the Gestapo style special police units and the CID are doing by way of investigations may be called ‘show grilling’ in that the persons to be interrogated are named by the ruling politicians and their cronies well in advance and the government propagandists go into overdrive to humiliate them. These propaganda hit men presume the suspects guilty until they are proven innocent!

Equality before the law is one of the principles underpinning the concept of good governance which the present dispensation is marketing for political purposes. But, government members and their henchmen remain above the law to all intents and purposes. While former Central Bank Governor Cabraal is facing an investigation his successor Arjuna Mahendran, who has been allegedly involved in several mega bond scams, is without any such problem. He continues to go places as a government advisor, attending as he does crucial meetings on matters related to finance. Why have the FCID and the CID, which is even pursuing those keeping elephants without permits, steered clear of Mahendran though the questionable bond issues have cost the state coffers billions of rupees? Shame on those government MPs who are striving to open an escape route for him in the form of a dissenting COPE report! It looks as if we had to wait till the next change of government to have the bond scams under the present dispensation probed.

The self-appointed good governance activists claimed before the last two elections that all members of the Rajapaksa government were crooks responsible for plundering public funds and putting through various crooked deals. Most people bought into that claim and voted for the then Opposition.

But, what action has the so-called yahapalana government taken against the crooks of the Rajapaksa regime who have sided with it and are holding ministerial posts? Is it that any fraudster becomes a paragon of virtue the moment he or she closes ranks with the government?

The message the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration has sent out to its opponents is loud and clear: "If you want the FCID, CID etc off your back join us!"