The Ceylon News

Thursday, May 28, 2009

By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles

As successive U S ambassadors to Colombo hemmed and hawed loosing sight of Sri Lanka’s geo-strategic importance, foreign aid component from US to Sri Lanka also dwindled drastically. So they switched from baiting to bullying using the moth-eaten argument “humanitarian intervention in the internal affairs,” as a weapon of persuasion. That too failed as Sri Lanka refused to be bullied.

The measly $ 7.4 million aid package last year to Sri Lanka is fiddle sticks—said one observer--that bait is not enough even to catch a handful of smelts in the Indian Ocean. The prized possession for naval supremacy in the East is now with China and India, who are now riding the seas east of Suez in style. The West has shown an incapacitated mind-set unable to think beyond the mundane denunciations and name calling.

Thus a resounding victory was won by Sri Lanka in repulsing the sinister attempt by the West to punish a country who just won a great victory against the Tigers: it was former U S ambassador to Sri Lanka who felt that the war against Tigers was unwinnable. Sri Lanka's strategic importance was ignored by the western powers. China, India and many Asian countries are now solidly behind Sri Lanka.

USA also lost the battle to pressurize Sri Lanka into a submissive adherence to the global outreach of the West. In contrast, Russia, China and India have a common interest insofar as they oppose the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" in sovereign states-the hobby horse of Hillary Clinton and David Miliband. China and India have been harshly treated in the past on the human-rights issue and have extended mutual support to Sri Lanka in warding off western pressure. The bullying by the West will never work, said a seasoned analyst after West’s debacle in Geneva.

Sri Lanka had the support of many who felt the need to keep the intervention of the West away from their shores. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions on human rights paved the way for the harassed countries to show their muscle and ward off Western bullying. Geopolitics and common sense took precedence over everything else.

Over 70 percent of world’s petroleum plies via the Indian Ocean. Fifty percent of the container traffic is also through that route. Policy makers in the West were more interested in keeping their control of the financial outlays going to their favorite lackeys. IMF loans were their prying weapons. They have not thought seriously about the “mundane’ affairs of international navigation. They paid the price when China and India usurped their supremacy with solid moves that spoke of a long-term ascendancy of their strategic presence. The West lost a major slice of control.

The UNHRC session that was expected to precede a Kangaroo court on Sri Lankan war crimes ended with a whimper as the sponsors of the resolution to initiate folded. Sri Lanka stole the thunder with a counter resolution titled “Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and Protection of Human Rights,” commending Sri Lanka for its victory over terrorism and soliciting funding from a grateful international community. The 12 co-sponsors of the Sri Lankan resolution include China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cuba Nicaragua and Bolivia. Sri Lanka won the day.

Whether Clinton, Miliband and Kouchner! The writing on the wall for Tiger proxies who rushed to force a ceasefire on Sri Lanka during the waning hours of the war against the Tigers had to do a hasty retreat. They lots gaian in Geneva. Their track record is looking more dismal by the hour.