New vistas foreign relations

By Manjula FERNANDO

Despite attempts by international players with vested interests to undermine the country's hard-won victory against LTTE terror, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's robust, independent foreign policy supported by Sri Lanka's strong allies, will drive the country towards its targeted economic growth and development in the next six years of his second tenure.

Now that the military war has been won, the country's battlefield has been shifted to the international front. Much more challenging will be overcoming the economic hurdles in the post-war era to make Sri Lanka the 'Wonder of Asia'.

President Rajapaksa's daring and direct approach and openness to welcome new friends in the East to our fold paid dividends during the battle. Instead of dancing to the tune of the West like his predecessors, he adopted an approach to bond with genuine friends of Sri Lanka who 'when in need' did not disappoint or betray the State or the country.

Sri Lanka cemented relations with existing friends and developed new allies who would not hesitate to assist us in trouble.

And these allies would be a strong support group in our next major battle, the battle that is perceived to be on the economic front.

The two most important factors in Sri Lanka's foreign relations since 1948 have been a commitment in principle to non-alignment and the necessity of preserving satisfactory relations with India. This crucial foreign policy was put into practice with much prowess in winning the war against the ruthless LTTE. This was hailed as the biggest achievement of the Rajapaksa Government during the past five years.

In winning the three-decade-old war, which most believed was a day-dream, Sri Lanka manoeuvered the international community with such exceptional prowess that for the first time in history the LTTE was demanded by the West to 'lay down arms and surrender'.

Our diplomatic war, in the post-conflict era, paid dividends when a number of countries including Belgium, Croatia, Italy, UK, Korea and Japan positively revised their travel advisories on Sri Lanka. The US travel advisory was lifted in May 2010.

The Ministry of External Affairs has been working proactively to implement the foreign policy objectives as elaborated in the Mahinda Chinthana and the other directive principles of the Government, by contributing to the national security of Sri Lanka and the Government's ambitious economic development plan.

Although defeated as a military outfit, the LTTE's overseas infrastructure remains almost intact with assets such as a highly sophisticated international communication network, working overtime to establish a 'transnational government' of 'Tamil Eelam'.

These LTTE operatives' latest ploy is to brand Sri Lanka as a war criminal and harness support from sympathetic groups and States to help establish its dream homeland that could not be achieved through 30 years of bloodshed.

UN peacekeepers

Notwithstanding the war crimes allegations levelled against Sri Lankan Forces, the country has been a regular contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, which attests to the high standards of discipline maintained by the Forces.

LTTE financing is one key area the network of Sri Lankan missions has been trying to force dry though their skilled diplomacy. The Sri Lankan High Commission in Ottawa had been strongly lobbying the Canadian Government to take up a strong position in this respect to curb human smuggling operations linked to the LTTE, one of their major income sources.

Thus, a mechanism between Canada and Sri Lanka is to be set up to curtail possible human smuggling operations in future. The Swiss Attorney General's Department is working closely with their counterparts here in relation to an investigation on Swiss leaders of the LTTE. Italy, warned by Sri Lanka, is also closely monitoring pro-LTTE activity on their soil. Prosecutions of 31 LTTE activists are currently in progress.

The Dutch Counter Terrorism Bureau and the Public Prosecutors Office (PPO) are coordinating investigations and bilateral intelligence sharing with Sri Lanka. A delegation from PPO visited Colombo in July 2010 in line with ongoing investigations and work on countering LTTE re-grouping.

Sri Lanka's involvement as an active UN Member State has been outstanding. Sri Lanka also assumed the chair of the G-15 at the Heads of State summit in Tehran in May 2010. Subsequently, the first meeting of the High Level Task Force of the G-15 was held in Colombo in August.

Sri Lanka was also elected as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Commonwealth in May 2010. We are to host the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2013.

During the Cabinet reshuffle after the April election, the Foreign Ministry, was renamed the External Affairs Ministry and was also assigned the subject of Foreign Employment and Welfare. It will oversee the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

The most important milestones in the foreign relations front during the past year are President Rajapaksa's visits to the UN, Russia and CIS countries.

Working visit

The working visit by President Rajapaksa to Russia in February was the first high level visit by a Sri Lankan leader since the visit of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike 37 years ago in 1974.A State credit agreement for the procurement of military goods and services (in the field of military technical cooperation) was signed during the visit where the delegation also met the Chairman of Russian oil giant GAZPROM.

The visit to Ukraine from June 29 to July 3 was the first by a Sri Lankan leader to the State. The President delivered a speech on Sri Lanka's victory over terrorism at the National Defence University of Ukraine. During the past year there had been visits by 43 Heads of State, Prime Ministers, other VVIPs and special dignitaries such as heads of international organisations to the country. This excludes visits by Foreign Ministers and Cabinet Ministers of various States.

The President has made seven State visits during the past year and the External Affairs Minister 10 visits in an effort to strengthen bilateral ties and attend regional groupings and international fora.

During the past tenure of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka became known for our nationally-oriented stance in terms of foreign relations.

The country stood firm for its rights. The international community started to respect and understand Sri Lanka as a country that seeks engagement with the outside world with substance. Sri Lanka showed that we don't need sympathy and that it was not ready to compromise the national agenda for international aid.

President Rajapaksa's engagement with the International Community was a major highlight in the history of Sri Lanka. Never before has a leader of our country engaged with the international community so much. Sri Lanka held the Chair of the SAARC and Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) which has a membership of 31 Asian countries.

The President's vision to harness as many allies as possible in the international front without leaning on a few superpowers as well as his decision to align with Asian and African nations proved to be rewarding when Sri Lanka was cornered by the Western bloc at a UN Human Rights Council Special Session, just a week after the country made history by defeating the LTTE.The outcome of the special session well exceeded the size of our tiny island.

Sri Lanka was able to emerge victorious by not less than an overwhelming majority. Moves by the Western bloc to bring amendments to the resolution were also crushed.The UN release issued after the special session read, "In the resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 29 in favour, 12 against, and six abstentions, the Council commended the measures taken by the Government of Sri Lanka to address the urgent needs of the internally displaced persons and welcomed the continued commitment of Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of all human rights, and encouraged it to continue to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law".Eleven States from the African subcontinent and all the members of the HRC from the Middle East voted in favour of Sri Lanka at this 11th Special Session which reflected the excellent bilateral relations Sri Lanka maintained with these countries.

Hero's welcome

President Rajapaksa was also the first Sri Lankan Head of State to visit Libya. He received a hero's welcome during his second visit there in September to attend the 40th anniversary of the Libyan Revolution.

This visit led to open a new mission in Tripoli and secure 100,000 job opportunities for Lankan workers.As Dr. T. Jayasinghe wrote to Asian Tribune on the visit "the warmth of the welcome President Rajapaksa received from the Libyan host was unprecedented. He made a great contribution to the Arab cause as President of the Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine from 1975 to 2004. He continues to be its Patron.

On the Asian front he was precise in balancing relations with the regional powers, India, Pakistan, China and Russia.

During the height of the conflict, China and Pakistan, as long-standing allies of Sri Lanka did their best not to let our armouries run dry, thus helping our Forces to continue to maintain their dominance in the battlefield. Sri Lanka's relations with India have strengthened by leaps and bounds after President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power. President Rajapaksa has made several high-profile visits to India during the last five years and held productive discussions with Indian leaders.

Most recently he was an honoured guest at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, an honour accorded to only a select few leaders of the Commonwealth. He has kept New Delhi apprised of the latest post-conflict developments in Sri Lanka and India has pledged extensive assistance for the process of resettlement and rehabilitation in the island's North.

This relationship is likely to grow in the coming years. President Rajapaksa also proved his audacity by expanding relations with Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and Vietnam. His critics were silenced when such relations began to bring in positive results. Iran came forward with help during the oil crisis and it has assisted us enormously in the power and irrigation sectors. Relations with the Middle East were further strengthened by high profile visits by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in April 2008 followed by President Rajapaksa's State visit to Iran in November 2007 and the visit of Palestine President Mahmood Abbas in October 2008.

The CIA and the FBI's work in dismantling the LTTE terror network had been exceptional. The arrests and prosecution of leading LTTE weapon procurers on US soil in 2006 paved the way to a string of arrests worldwide and intercepting and destroying Tiger arms shipments and weakening them on the battlefront. On the GSP issue, Sri Lanka indomitably maintained the stance that the Government will not agree to an investigation by the European Union to extend the GSP + concessions, as it will be an infringement of its sovereignty.

The Government rejected the proposal by EU in June which imposed unacceptable and intrusive conditions.Sri Lanka is now following a very pragmatic foreign policy under the President's guidance.