Geneva, Delhi

One of the most capable ever government delegations is now in Geneva, Switzerland, while the country's top governmental leader, Premier Ranil Wickemesinghe visits Delhi this week.

The delegation, led by External Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera, is in Geneva to represent Sri Lanka at a crucial meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council. This Council session will not only receive a report compiled by the UN on alleged human rights violations that were perpetrated by both sides in the final stages of the separatist war, but is also to decide on what action to take in relation to the Sri Lankan case.

The core 'action' proposal on the agenda is the proposal previously floated by some western powers - led by the United States of America and the United Kingdom - for an independent, international investigation of the 'crimes against humanity' or 'war crimes' allegations. The implementation of such a proposal will take the repertoire of UN interventions into national affairs of a member country to a new level. While the United Nations has previously intervened with internationally appointed probes into internal matters of a country, these have been cases - notably Rwanda and former Yugoslavia - in which the rights violations was already apparent to the whole world via news media and the scale of the violations was massive.

The mass genocidal perpetrations were well documented and reported by the world's news media and by numerous civic groups that fairly freely moved around and were able to detect the incidents of massacres. Further, the general geo-political dynamics in both those cases enabled the UN measures to proceed to implementation without any big power obstruction. Generally, none of the big powers, whether Eastern or Western, are supportive of 'international inquiries' because they create precedents for internal interventions in a country by external bodies. No country - i.e. a sovereign nation-state - wants to allow such external interventions for fear that, some day, such interventions could happen to themselves.

This is why, for example, big powers such as India, China, and Russia, generally tend to block any move towards external interventions for fear of getting caught in such an exercise themselves. India has never approved of external probes into allegations of mass scale rights violations. Acquiescence would expose India to probes into insurgency-prone regions like the North Eastern states, Kashmir and, most recently, the 'naxalite' belt in several central Indian states. Likewise, neither Russia nor China will agree to such external probes, not because they specifically love Sri Lanka, but because it would not be strategically expedient for themselves.

The new Sri Lankan government has adopted a far more pragmatic approach to the whole issue of a UN-backed external probe as compared with that of the previous regime. The previous regime attempted to ride on presumed but unreal 'friendly relations' with some big powers in the hope of countering moves by other big powers.

As such, there was the stated principle that certain powers were natural allies of Sri Lanka and needed special massaging of bilateral relationships in order that they remained loyal and would, therefore, vote with Sri Lanka. In actuality, relations with these powers need no special 'massaging' because their stances are taken in pure self-interest and the benefit for Sri Lanka is coincidental. Indeed, the real reason for tilting geo-politically closer to some big powers as opposed to others was probably huge personal benefits that some leaders obtained due to such bilateral 'special relationships'.

Thus, what Sri Lankans are seeing today is the practice of far more professional international relations by a government that, firstly, is taking advantage of its very 'new regime' image to buy time, and, secondly, engages with the whole range of geo-political big powers on a multi-lateral footing that avoids hostile action by any otherwise estranged powers.

Hence, the estrangement across the Palk Strait and the distancing from Washington and other western powers were both tackled as early as January with the change in the presidency. These included consistent and sustained action in areas of reconciliation, of re-balancing international ties to bring the regional big power closer to Colombo, and constitutional initiatives to deepen democracy. All these actions have enabled a broad re-alignment of approaches to Sri Lanka by the world powers so that Colombo, once again, is able to deal, on an equal footing with the range of geo-political forces on the global stage. It is such professional international diplomacy and politics that has now borne fruit as the Sri Lanka delegation faces a warmer reception in Geneva.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's move to make Delhi the destination of his first international diplomatic foray will only cement - or re-cement - the ties between the regional big power and its small neighbour. And this is being done not at the expense of ties with any other big power - which had been the simplistic logic of bilateral relations management during the previous regime.

Man vs wild

No less than two people have died in clashes between humans and elephants in the past week. The human population on this island of ours simply must pause and reflect on the state of its relations with the other fauna and flora who share this land with us.

As Bishop Heber noted in his mid-19th century poem, 'Only Man is vile' on this beautiful and well-bestowed island. That is, it is only the human population that has the capacity to be deliberately destructive while the other fauna and flora exist as natural systems. In the face of deliberate destruction of the environment - for whatever purposes - for the benefit of the human population, the defence-less flora could face extinction, while the fauna could react in hostile ways - as in the case of the angry elephant.