Sri Lanka Perspectives – November 2013

Col R Hariharan

Highlights

CHOGM: Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajaksa heaves a sigh of relief as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) he hosted concludes on November 17 despite the campaign against holding it by international NGOs and human rights and Tamil activists in Canada, EU, India and UK. Indian Prime Minister’s decision not to attend the CHOGM exposes the vulnerability of India’s Sri Lanka policy making to pressures from Tamil Nadu.

Sri Lanka budget levies: Sri Lanka’s budget for 2014 raises tax levy on telecom services, vehicles and cigarette, levies import taxes on a series of food items and removes value added tax exemptions (VAT) granted to a host of equipment including tractors in a bid to increase revenue, while projecting an economic growth of 7.5 percent.

CHOGM highlights

The CHOGM was held as scheduled from November 15 to 17. Twenty seven heads of government of the 53-member countries attended the meet. Notable absentee-heads of government were India, Canada, and Mauritius which was to host the next CHOGM in 2015. Canada had been a major critic of Sri Lanka over its lack of accountability to investigate allegations of war crimes and human rights aberrations and its decision to downsize its representation was known in advance.

Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Chandra Ramgoolam announcing his decision not to attend the CHOGM said there was total lack of accountability during the Sri Lanka ethnic conflict. He said as a result of the boycott, Mauritius would no longer host the next CHOGM. The reason for Indian PM staying away from the meet was not made public. However, President Rajapaksa, who received a letter from Dr Manmohan Singh informing of his decision, made light of Indian PM’s absence and said he was satisfied with Indian representation. Answering a specific question whether the Indian PM’s absence was in response to Tamil sentiments, the President said, “He did not say that to me; the letter said something different.”

Indian Prime Minister’s decision to stay away was taken barely a week before the CHOGM. Obviously, this was influenced by protests against Indian participation snowballed in Tamil Nadu particularly after the state assembly passed a unanimous resolution demanding India \boycott the CHOGM. All parties including the Congress supported for the resolution. Even after the PM decided not to attend the meet, the assembly in an emergency session criticised the PM’s decision to send an Indian delegation under the minister for external affairs.

The handling of the CHOGM episode showed the increasing inability of the national leadership of the Congress party to assert itself and manage its own party and coalition members which is being exploited by regional satraps wanting to shape Central policies to their political advantage. This is a disturbing trend; if continued in the case of Sri Lanka it could have far reaching effects on national security and India’s Indian Ocean security.

In contrast to Dr Manmohan Singh's silence on his CHOGM decision, Finance Minister P Chidambaram addressing the 2nd South Asian Diaspora Convention 2013 held at Singapore on November 21 demanded a proper inquiry into alleged human rights violations. He said, "The Sri Lankan government owes a responsibility and a duty to its own people and the people all over the world to investigate the allegations of human rights violations and punish those who are responsible." This highlighted strong differences existing within the Indian cabinet on how to handle Sri Lanka issue.

We can expect the government to face yet another wave of protests on the issue when the U.S. proposes to review the progress on its 2012 resolution on Sri Lanka in the forthcoming meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March 2014. As it would be held too close to the general elections, we can expect another political crisis to cramp the leadership in New Delhi. 

British Prime Minister David Cameron who decided to attend the CHOGM in the face of opposition to do so at home, made a stopover at New Delhi on his way to Colombo probably to understand Indian stand. He demanded Sri Lanka to initiate a proper inquiry in his interaction with the media in New Delhi. He continued with this refrain in all his speeches on the sidelines of CHOGM. He made it clear to Sri Lanka that unless Sri Lanka initiates an investigation Britain will have to move the UNHRC for an inquiry by the Rights Commissioner. He is said to have explained the British stand in his meeting with President Rajapaksa.

The British PM visited Jaffna and met all sections of society including the Northern Province Chief Minister Wigneswaran. Wigneswaran highlighted the three problems faced by the people – the intimidating presence of military, slow progress in returning lands occupied by the army to rightful owners, and unaccounted disappearances. The last issue got international exposure when Cameron’s convoy was stopped by relatives of disappeared persons who wanted to hand over petitions to him. The British PM’s visit and his strong support for international inquiry have earned him instant popularity among Tamil Diaspora. He became an instant hero to even Tamils who were critical of his decision to attend the CHOGM. 

Departing from its stand of not commenting on internal issues of, China called upon Sri Lanka to “make efforts to protect and promote human rights.” Asking other nations to provide constructive assistance to Sri Lanka, China’s spokesman said it was important for Sri Lanka to protect human rights. This statement assumes importance as China has become a member of the UNHRC where Sri Lanka will be facing the flak in March 2014. Also significant is the statement was made when international spotlight was on Sri Lanka’s human rights aberrations triggered by the CHOGM.

Though President Rajapaksa put up a brave face at the criticism, with both UK and the U.S. becoming members of the UNHRC, Sri Lanka is likely to have a tough time in the next UNHRC meeting.

Sri Lanka Budget 2014

President Rajapaksa projected an economic growth of 7.5 percent in the budget for 2014 he presented in parliament on November 21.To make up for revenue shortfalls and reduced the budget deficit by 3.8 percent, he increased taxes on a whole range of items including telecom services, vehicles, cigarette and imported food items and machinery, and removed value added tax (VAT) exemption to imported food commodities like rice and wheat as well as on tractors and machinery for tea and rubber industry. Banks will have to pay 2 percent nation building tax. However, VAT has been reduced by half to retailers.

Opposition United National Party’s (UNP) seasoned parliamentarian and former minister for commerce and consumer affairs Ravi Karunanayake commenting on the economy said the debt crisis in Sri Lank had become “intolerable” due to financial indiscipline. According to him in the 57 years from 1948 to 2005 Sri Lanka’s total debt was SL Rs 1784 billion which has increased three-fold in the last eight years to SL Rs 6800 billion due to bad policy planning. He said this was due to Sri Lanka moving from half a percent interest regime of collateral lending agencies such as IMF, ADB and the World Bank and countries to Chinese ‘commercial vultures’ who lend at 7.5 percent and 8 percent interest without any conditions or the international community which bought treasury bonds at 9.5 percent with short term payback. He quoted the example of military was SL Rs 159 billion in 2009 budget was getting  almost twice SL Rs 311 billion in 2014.

Written on November 24, 2013

 Courtesy: South Asian Security Trends, Vol 7 No 11 December, 2013 URL: www.security-risks.com 

Losing game in Sri Lanka

Sunday, 24 November 2013 | R Hariharan | in Agenda | The Pioneer

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cancelled his Sri Lanka visit for the Commonwealth summit that concluded last week due to political pressure from Tamil parties. Is it a serious diplomatic error on the part of the UPA Government? Should regional parties decide India’s foreign policy? How will it impact the India-Sri Lanka ties?

Why did Prime Minister Manmohan Singh choose to stay away from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that concluded last week in Colombo? Was it a gesture to save the political fortunes of the Congress in Tamil Nadu after a vigorous campaign against CHOGM was whipped up? Was it an attempt to register India’s solidarity with international protests against Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes and human rights violations during the Eelam War? Or, was it to show his unhappiness at President Mahinda Rajapaksa not keeping up his promises to implement the 13th Amendment in full and resume the political process with Tamils? There are no answers, only deafening silence.

None of these reasons seem to have figured in the Prime Minister’s letter informing Rajapaksa of his decision to stay away from CHOGM. It would be unfair to hold the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) responsible for the CHOGM mess; the MEA was clear that India should attend the meeting. In fact, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s vocal support for attending CHOGM drew protests from fringe elements in Tamil Nadu. So not attending the meeting was clearly a decision of the Prime Minister, regardless of the speculation on how it came about.

However, CHOGM is not the issue. It is perhaps the most inconsequential grouping, a colonial club where Britain can reminisce on how the sun set on the empire without feeling guilty about it. Only 27 heads of governments of 53 member-countries chose to attend the Colombo meeting. This is not unusual; but still it provides an opportunity to build leadership relations through informal meetings and exchange views on critical issues.

There are two reasons why Indian participation in CHOGM became such a serious political issue. One is because Sri Lanka is hosting it. Internationally, there is a campaign going on against Sri Lanka ever since allegations of war crimes and human rights violations started piling up after the Eelam War ended in 2009. Tamil population had been the victims and many feel the international community must ensure justice is done to them. This has kindled a lot of sympathy in many countries, including Australia, Britain and Canada, where sizeable Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora lives, as well as in Tamil Nadu. Rajapaksa’s aim in hosting the meeting was to refurbish his bruised international image. Chairing the international body would also boost his national image, besides providing an opportunity to showcase Sri Lanka’s rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in the war-torn areas. It was for these reasons that his detractors had been against holding the Commonwealth meeting in Sri Lanka.

The other reason is the Sri Lankan Tamil issue has become a foil in the turf war between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the aging DMK leader M Karunanidhi. Almost all political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the Congress and the BJP, started asking New Delhi to bring Sri Lanka to book ever since war crimes allegations started surfacing at the end of Eelam War in 2009. The series of Channel 4 videos depicting gruesome scenes of atrocity added fuel to the fire. 

But well before all this, it was Jayalalithaa who resurrected the Sri Lankan Tamil issue from political margins and used it to rally support for the ADMK in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and later to rout the DMK in the Assembly elections. In the process, she has marshalled the frustration of Tamils at India’s seeming ineffectiveness to take Sri Lanka to task for its insensitivity to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils and its refusal to investigate alleged war crimes. The Chief Minister had been to channelising these sentiments into protests against Sri Lanka and the Centre in a sustained campaign.

Karunanidhi, as a coalition partner of the UPA, had influenced India’s Sri Lanka policy during the crucial days of Eelam war. As Tamil Nadu’s protests against the Centre gathered momentum, the ageing leader has been desperately trying to distance himself from his past role in Centre’s Sri Lanka policy. He has been finding it difficult to manage it ever since Jayalalithaa took the lead to trigger protests and initiate a series of resolutions against Sri Lanka in the State Assembly.

Obviously, the Tamil Nadu resolutions on Sri Lanka trespass into the Centre’s domain. But to be pragmatic, they need to be contexualised in the political fisticuff going on in the State as well as in the growing ability of regional satraps to decide the fate of coalitions at the Centre. Neither of these influences can be wished away.

Can the nation afford to allow its foreign policy to be subjected to regional pressures when there are larger strategic security and trade interests at stake? Of course not; but the Tamil issue has been considered an important component of India’s Sri Lanka policy. The signing of the India-Sri Lanka Agreement in 1987 and India’s military intervention in the island nation between 1987 and 1990 illustrate how the Tamil issue has become interwoven in the India-Sri Lanka strategic security calculus. So, the Sri Lanka Tamil issue, which has local impact, has come to impinge upon India’s relations with Sri Lanka. The Centre cannot allow its Sri Lanka policy decisions to be subjected to vagaries of the State’s prescription. It is the responsibility of a national leadership. And in handling the CHOGM question this seems to have been ignored.

The problem is more with the national decision-making process than with political management. There are wheels within wheels that seem to operate New Delhi’s policy-making process on almost all national issues. Many of them do not operate solely in national interest. And coalition compulsion is only one of them. The national leadership has to strategise ways of handling it in States like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal which have sibling interests in neighbouring countries.

However, where national interest dictates, the Central leadership has a responsibility to assert itself. It has to demonstrate it is in control of its policies. Of course, this has to be done while reassuring the people how it proposes to address the concerns of the State. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister seems to have a serious problem in asserting his role. This is further compounded by his inability to articulate the policy through a transparent and interactive process. He should regularly meet the Press, and visit States to explain policy decisions. But unfortunately, this has not been his style. This is applicable not only to Manmohan Singh but also the entire political leadership. As a result, the present decision-making process is regarded as hesitant and ponderous, exuding uncertainty.

Even the inadequate and opaque articulation of the national leadership’s decision is usually belated. It is dished out after prolonged public agitation in terse messages lacking courage of conviction. Witnessing Tamil Nadu’ growing concern for the plight of war-affected Sri Lankan Tamils for four years, it is surprising that the Prime Minister has not visited the State to tell people how he plans to attend their concerns.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has demonstrated how to make the best use of a difficult decision. He chose to attend CHOGM in the face of opposition. But by speaking and writing at length on what he proposes to do in Sri Lanka, he turned the decision to his advantage. After going to Colombo and during his meeting with President Rajapaksa, he did not shy away from explaining Britain’s concerns and how constructively it can contribute to ease the situation.

The Chinese angle

The India-Sri Lanka relationship is also being tested due to the ever-increasing Chinese presence in Colombo. China has shown keen interest in expanding its strategic base in Sri Lanka, obviously to protect its growing interests in the Indian Ocean region as well as to gain a foothold close to India’s peninsular south.

Of course, China has been having cordial relationship with Sri Lanka for long. But Beijing established itself more firmly by meeting Colombo’s wartime requirements for armaments and military equipment after Delhi “let down” its southern neighbour due to domestic compulsions. China is reported to have provided $1.8 billion worth of arms to Sri Lanka. China’s Poly Technologies is estimated to have supplied $37.6 million worth of ammunition and ordnance for the army and navy in 2007. More importantly, China provides diplomatic support for Sri Lanka at the United Nations. China has now become a member of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and it could be useful when Sri Lanka is again hauled up in March 2014 on implementation of the earlier UNHRC resolution seeking Sri Lanka’s accountability for alleged human rights aberrations.

President Rajapaksa has visited China six times since coming to power in 2005. After the Eelam War ended, there had been steady increase in exchanges between the two countries at governmental, military and political levels. During Rajapaksa’s meeting with President Xi Jinping in May 2013, the two countries agreed to upgrade their relations to a “strategic and cooperative partnership”.

According to media reports, under the “new consensus, the two countries will maintain high-level exchanges, enhance political communication, and support each other’s efforts in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Clearly, China is going all out to build a well rounded strategic relationship with Sri Lanka.

As per the 2012 report of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance and Planning, China has emerged as the largest development aid provider to Sri Lanka last year with a commitment of $1.05 billion, while India came second with over $700 million aid. The total assistance extended by China between 1971 and 2012 was $5.05 billion of which $4.76 billion, representing around 94 per cent, was extended during the last eight-years from 2005 to 2012. As against this, India extended a total assistance of $1.45 billion between 2007 and 2012. Out of this amount, $1.12 billion was loan and 326 million was grant.

Chinese companies are involved in a number of infrastructure, communications and port development projects of strategic importance. These include the Hambantota port project and the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport near Hambantota (completed in March 2013). China has helped make the Colombo Port complex one of the biggest in the world by increasing its container terminal capacity to 2.4 million TEU (20-foot equivalent units). Of strategic interest are China’s deals to build telecommunication and information technology networks in Sri Lanka. Chinese satellite will be providing communication support to Sri Lanka. And China’s Beidou GPS navigation system will shortly become operational in the island nation.

Sri Lanka is negotiating with China to finalise a FTA (free trade area). The Deputy International Trade Representative of the Commerce Ministry of China, Yu Jianhua, who visited Sri Lanka last month, expected “the preparatory process of the FTA to be completed by December this year”. In his view, the FTA was not only for trade “but something beyond, to institutionalise our strategic cooperation partnership as mandated by the leaders of both countries”.

Sri Lanka had been tempting Chinese investors, saying its existing FTA with India could facilitate them to export goods to India on liberal terms. And when Sri Lanka-China FTA is signed, we can expect China to take full advantage of it to flood Indian markets. Are we ready to face these forays from China on strategic and trade fronts?

The absence of the Indian Prime Minister at CHOGM is likely to add to Sri Lanka’s cup of bitterness after India voted in favour of the US resolution at the UNHRC meeting in March 2012 and again a year later. And when the issue comes up once more at the UNHRC in March 2014, India will be in the thrall of parliamentary elections. So, we can expect an action replay of the CHOGM ‘crisis’ all over again. That could make India’s engagement with Sri Lanka even more brittle. How does the Government propose to protect India’s national interests in such an environment is the moot question.

The writer is a retired MI officer associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. He served as the Head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, 24November 2013  URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/agenda/cover-story/losing-game-in-sri-lanka.html