WHY MANGALA MUST EXIT AND AMUNUGAMA MUST ENTER
Posted on July 22nd, 2016
Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka Courtesy The Daily Mirror
…noting that Sri Lanka had made a commitment to include some international participation in the investigation.”
– US Asst. Secretary Malinowski (Reuters, July 15)
Sooner, rather than later, there will have to be a ‘Mexit’: Mangala Samaraweera’s exit from the Foreign Ministry. His abject West-fetishism instead of Realist multi-polarity is counter-productively anomalous as Sri Lanka returns to an Eastward reliance in foreign investment. At the least, his policies will be electorally ruinous — at a national level he is a cross between an electoral albatross and an electoral suicide-bomber. His agenda poses an existential threat to the State’s sovereignty and security, and gravely jeopardizes political stability and governability.
Instead of restoring a friendly dialogic relationship and rebuilding bridges with the West, Mangala flung himself into a passionate embrace with Tamil Diaspora activist lobbies and the West’s whited sepulchres” (as the Gospels put it), the hypocritical human rights hegemonists. He went to the disgraceful extent of canvassing personally and through his ministerial minions, the support of Sri Lanka’s staunchest allies big and small, from Asia to Latin America, for co-sponsorship of the US-UK Resolution of 2015. In this crass attempt he failed dismally, with neither India nor China, the two Asian big powers, signing up. That signal didn’t deter him.
A Foreign Minister must be committed to national sovereignty above all else, but not to the exclusion of all else. Samaraweera’s vocation, which he seeks to extend to Sri Lanka’s role in the world arena, is one of craven solicitation of Western patronage and pliant submission to external dominance. I tried hard to envision Lakshman Kadirgamar in the same unintentionally jocular posture as the cameras captured Mangala, attempting a cross-draw handshake with two US officials of lower rank than his counterpart, Secretary of State Kerry. But I just couldn’t picture it.
Neither could I picture our recent visitor, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi patronizingly and absurdly suggesting that Sri Lanka be the next Singapore” (a City-State), lobbying for postwar accountability with the military and chatting on constitutional change with the TNA.
Mangala does not have any conception of, still less commitment to, Sri Lanka’s core national interests which are quintessentially identical to those of any State in the world system: the country’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security. Mangala gives cosmopolitanism a bad name. He does not comprehend the world of difference between soliciting and servicing Western clients, and Kadirgamar’s upright, dignified, cordiality with the West. When he isn’t gushily or slanderously expostulatory, Samaraweera is flaky. His statement that in a democracy even a head of state can express an opinion”, is pure gibberish. His blithe contrast of the view of the President (against foreign judges) with that of a small opposition party, the TNA (in favour of foreign judges) and his optimistic determination to strike a balance in the middle, shows that he places the elected Executive on the same plane as a small political party (and a regional-particularistic party at that), which in turn means that he has not understood the hierarchical structure of the country’s democratic political system. His declaration that not only the North and East of Sri Lanka, but the whole of it will be demilitarized by 2018” means that he has not understood what is and isn’t the business of the Foreign Minister.
The recent violence on the Jaffna Campus set against the backdrop of the resolutions and discourse of the Chief Minister, reveal a project of ethnic-cleansing: the de-Sinhalization of the North. If the North and East are demilitarized” as promised by Mangala, the Sinhalese will have no security and eventually no presence there; not even a toehold. Enough inflammable material is strewn around which could combust into a fire storm with Mangala’s project of war crimes trials through Special Courts and foreign involvement.
In his written report on Sri Lanka to the UNHRC in June, Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid al Hussein stated that the Sri Lankan Government has promised to usher in constitutional changes in 2017, which would facilitate full accountability for actions during the last war by embedding international law in the Constitution and enabling a new judicial mechanism with foreign participation. Now, the US Constitution is unambiguously above international law, so why should ours be penetrated by and subordinated to it? So who made these pledges, when and with whose knowledge?
84 innocents died in Nice this Bastille Day while 146 worshippers were mowed down by Tiger marauders in the sacred city of Anuradhapura in 1985. The Sri Lankan public has watched on TV the violent sectarian shredding of the social fabric in countries ‘liberated’ by the US-UK, terrorist massacres in Western cities, and racial tensions exploding in shootings through America. Living in peace after vanquishing a three-decade scourge of terrorism, it is in no mood for double standards and hypocritical homilies on the Holy Trinity of accountability, reconciliation and transitional justice”. It has no appetite for self-abnegation and zero-tolerance for self-flagellation through Special Courts with international participation in the investigation”.
Mangala’s masochistic foreign policy has Sri Lanka handcuffed while dangling from hooks. The Chilcot Report confirmed what Asians with their colonial history had long suspected of the perfidy and myopia of Western liberal imperialism which destroyed functioning states on false pretences and unleashed a terrorist tsunami on the world and Western society itself, with no one brought to justice on
grounds of accountability.
Mangala is alienating, antagonizing and provoking three hundred thousand young men with guns and several hundred thousand more veterans of a thirty-year-war. A US aircraft carrier or beefed-up Marine contingent in an enlarged Embassy enclave won’t deter an anguished, enraged veteran with a grenade and in civvies, who gets up close and personal.
Extrication from the Mangala Trap/Quagmire and steering Sri Lanka on the right course through the choppy global waters requires the right personality in charge, the best available. Mangala’s successor as FM must be the current Sri Lankan parliamentarian most capable of projecting what Harvard’s Joe Nye calls smart power” — namely,
Sarath Amunugama. Mahinda Samarasinghe could be Minister of Human Rights, Reconciliation and Peace-building and can co-manage Geneva with Amunugama. Wasantha Senanayake could be Deputy for either. Dr. Amunugama is the most literate man in Parliament and the most intellectual of contemporary Sri Lankan politicians. Unlike the blustering, schmaltzy, foppishly neo-liberal Mangala, he is a tough-minded moderate; a cerebral centrist. A French-speaker with a North American PhD, familiar with international media and public communication, he is a close and knowledgeable friend of India, China and the West. A co-drafter at Gamini Dissanayake’s side, of the 13th Amendment, the author of scholarly essays on the ethnic problem and most recently a massive tome on Dharmapala, he is a rare cosmopolitan, committed to viable devolution while sensitive to Sinhala sensibility.
Dr. Amunugama will shift from Mangala’s assigned role for Sri Lanka as a subcontractor of the West. He can grasp the potentialities afforded by polycentric globalization and practice a neo-Gaullist multipolar balancing of India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, Japan and the West in a pragmatic policy
of tous azimuths”.
He is also acceptable to President Sirisena, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, ex-Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Chandrika Kumaratunga and JO parliamentary leader Dinesh Gunawardena. This also means Amunugama has the best chance of leveraging cross-party consensus on the ‘intermestic’ issue of reconciliatory political reform based on the 13th Amendment and the
Indo-Lanka accord.
Sri Lanka would finally have a worthy successor to Lakshman Kadirgamar and a chance to regain its lost bearings, self-respect and status in the world.
– See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/112789/WHY-MANGALA-MUST-EXIT-AND-AMUNUGAMA-MUST-ENTER#sthash.eaRXev7n.dpuf
July 22nd, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Nothing changes by replacing Mangala with Amunugama.
Foreign policy is made by Sirisena (with Chandrika) and Ranil. They will continue to make the foreign policy. It doesn’t matter which puppet sits in the post of foreign minister.
Putting blame on ministers is a tactic of Sirisena to wash his hands off horrible blunders economic, foreign policy, media freedom, FCID, etc. We must stop trusting Sirisena. He and his band is behind all these.
July 22nd, 2016 at 7:40 pm
DJ’s article is a welcome change in style and content to readers of Lanka Web.
July 22nd, 2016 at 7:43 pm
No need to change. He is helping the opposition all the time.
July 23rd, 2016 at 2:35 am
Even if the constitution will be changed since this idiotic government follows whatever instructions the US, UK, EU, Norway, Canada, Sweden, India, the TNA and the separatist terrorists tell it to do, we must ensure that the unitary status of the country is not compromised in any way whatsoever. The clause in the 13th amendment which says that ‘the North and the East is the homeland of the Tamil speaking people’ must be deleted since it is totally false when looking at the history of the island. This clause must be replaced with the clause ‘the entire island is the homeland of all its peoples’. The provision which allows for the merger between two provinces should be deleted. As much subjects from the concurrent list should be included in the national list. Under no circumstances should land, police or fiscal powers be given to provincial councils. All of us need to ensure that the above happens since if the system reverts back to a parliamentary system and the presidential system is scrapped, the only way to ensure the unitary status of the country is the make sure that the provincial councils do not get any more powers than they have at present. The Public Security Ordinance should not be amended in anyway as well. If any provincial councils acts out of line, the head of government should dissolved such a provincial council and direct rule by the head of government should be enforced under those circumstances.
July 23rd, 2016 at 2:36 am
Sri Lanka should tell the US that Sri Lanka cannot abide by the UNHRC resolution. The Sri Lankan Army did not commit any war crimes. It is the LTTE terrorists who committed war crimes throughout 26 years of war. No country with an ounce of self respect will place their army in harms way to be tried by a court domestic or hybrid of war crimes the army did not commit in anyway. If individual soldiers committed any crimes, a complaint can be placed in a court of law in Sri Lanka. Why is there a need for special judicial procedures? This government is a puppet of the US, EU, UK, Norway, Sweden, Canada and India and is so subservient to US interests that it is ready to try its own armed forces for crimes that the armed forces did not commit. All the while, the LTTE terrorists who committed war crimes are being shown as totally innocent. Using the ploy of wanting a new constitution which almost all Sri Lankans don’t want, this treacherous government is trying to create a separate state in the guise of a federal state as the TNA separatist terrorists and the US, EU, UK, Norway, Sweden, Canada and India wants. Sri Lanka should tell the US that Sri Lanka cannot abide by the UNHRC resolution. The worst that the US, UK, EU, Sweden, Norway and India can do is impose sanctions on Sri Lanka. So what? Sri Lanka can trade with all the countries of Asia and the rest of the world even if the US, UK, EU, Norway, Sweden and India imposes sanctions. Sri Lanka can grow rice, we have jack fruit, bananas, bread fruit and plenty of water too. So we will not starve just because the US, UK, EU, Sweden, Norway and India imposes sanctions. Also since we can trade with the powerful economies of Asia which includes the Middle East, South East Asia, South Asia, the Far East and Central Asia as well as the rest of the world, actually, we may be OK economically too despite any sanctions imposed by the US, EU, UK, Norway, Sweden, Canada and India. However by avoiding implementing the unjust UNHRC resolution, Sri Lanka will safeguard its independence and freedom which is the most important thing for the next thousands of years as we have safeguarded our independence and freedom for at least the last 2600 years and avoid the creation of a separate state or eelam in the guise of a federal state. So Sri Lanka must very urgently tell the US that we will not abide by the unjust UNHRC resolution but carry out our own domestic process of reconciliation as we see fit. Let the imperialist US impose sanctions. Nothing much will happen to our economy since we can trade with the powerful economies of Asia and the rest of the world instead but Sri Lanka would have preserved its independence and freedom for the next thousands of years and avoid the partition of the country and the creation of a separate state which will be Sri Lanka’s end.
July 23rd, 2016 at 1:20 pm
PLUMBLOSSOM !!
BREADFRUIT IS THE STAPLE FOOD OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDERS AND JAMAICA.
If the *Sleeping* Minister of Food and Agriculture, has a plan to plant thousands of Breadfruit and Jack Trees, Nobody in Sri Lanka will go hungry. These buggers will never do it. THEY ARE THINKING HOW TO** POCKET** MONEY
IAM REQUESTING ALL THE LIONS CLUBS OF SRI LANKA, TO INITIATE A CAMPAIGN TO CREATE NURSARIES FOR BREADFRUIT PLANTS AND JACK FRUIT PLANTS, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT OF GANNORUWA, PERADENIYA. IF THERE IS AN ABUNDANT OF THESE TWO –SUBSISTENCE FRUIT CROPS,–NO ONE IN SRI LANKA WILL EVER GO HUNGRY. ***LIONS CLUB MEMBERS, PLEASE GET STARTED***
RICE HAS TO BE CULTIVATED ON A VERY LARGE SCALE. IMPORT OF RICE COULD BE STOPPED ON A PHASED OUT SCALE.
JUST AN AFTER-THOUGHT. ALSO PLEASE INCLUDE ASH PLANTAIN INTO THE PROJECT.
July 23rd, 2016 at 1:36 pm
JAMAICA EXPORTS A SACK OF 13 BREADFRUITS FOR $14.5.PER SACK. MINIMUM ORDER, 25 SACKS. THEY CAN EXPORT EVEN 1000 SACKS PER WEEK. SEE THE EXPORT POTENTIAL.???
July 23rd, 2016 at 1:49 pm
Article of fine eloquence but DJ is for ….. ” issue of reconciliatory political reform based on the 13th Amendment and the
Indo-Lanka accord.”
How can SL have Tamil majority areas where 13th Amendment to be dished out resulting in a separate TAMIL FEDERAL STATE which is bound to end up as the second Tamil Nadu (Tamil country). Tamil areas or Tamil homeland is ONLY in Tamil Nadu. In that case, every settler community in every host national country becomes concentrated in certain areas they too are entitled to be declared as X ethnic area or Y ethnic area for X or Y ethnic federal status. This directly threatens the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country which DJ values highly!
July 23rd, 2016 at 4:48 pm
The first thing Sri Lanka should do is to JETTISON this RECONCILIATION CRAP!
Did the Allies “RECONCILE” with Nazi Germany after WW II, accepting the thesis that Nazi territorial expansion and dehumanisation of other human beings was in some way justified, all in the name of this “reconciliation” philosophy? Just like the Nazis who waged a murderous war claiming “discrimination” by the victors of WW I to create a Greater German Homeland and “libersraum” living space for Germans, the Tamils tried to carve a Homeland for Tamils-only from Sri Lanka through murderous terrorism and war.
Having been utterly crushed, they have all been wailing victims. Not one Tamil who supported that murderous 30-year rampage can now be found; they all now war victims, human rights advocates and born-again democrats!
Who believes all of this CRAP? Westerners plying their local al blockvoting politics and global geo-politics may accept these LIES by communal demagogues and war criminals posing as wailing view time, but we Sri Lankans who have suffered through their violent a Gressingham must not become brainwashed by the chanted mantra of the EELAMISTS.
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga …
a leader who UTTERLY FAILED TO PROTECT HER PEOPLE and inflicted great damage on the justice of the cause of the Sinhala People to defend themselves against unremitting terrorism, and Avamangala Samaraweera now hellbent on finishing the job of destroying the Sinhala people and their Motherland …. are two who have been completely brainwashed and are now aiding and abetting the enemies of the Sinhala Buddhist community in the UNPatriotic Party, and the Tamil, Muslim and Christian minorities of Sri Lanka.
RECONCILIATION is a word that must be EXPUNGED from the lexicon of the Sri Lanka government. There should be NO RECONCILIATION with TRAITORS, SEPARATISTS and SERIAL MASS MURDERERS and their Proxies in Parliament posing as fleeting democrats!
July 23rd, 2016 at 4:56 pm
Agree 100% with Ananda-USA that “RECONCILIATION” is pure ” CRAP”.
But who introduced it to us so foolishly, even after militarily defatting terrorists ?
DJ ? JLP ? any other pundit who surrounded MR that time ?
Certainly not CBK.
July 23rd, 2016 at 9:03 pm
The first thing Sri Lanka should do is to JETTISON this RECONCILIATION CRAP! – Ananda
Agree 100% with Ananda-USA that “RECONCILIATION” is pure ” CRAP”. – Gonsal
Absolutely true.
Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka cohabit since several millennia. We cannot be compared to the blacks and whites of South African and to the Aborigines and the Whites of Australia. they are all newborns when compared to our history and civilization. Learning lessons from the whites is like a teacher being taught by Montessori students.
Reconciliation with those whites had to be enforced by Acts of Parliament. But it has not worked. It ha been a dismal failure.
Reconciliation is a feature of DAILY LIFE. In our country, Sinhalese have daily dealings with Tamils, be it shopping or eating. They cross each other on a daily basis on the streets and in public transport. They speak to each other in the streets be it even to ask for a direction. The questions and answers are always courteous and friendly. Such interaction puts to shame the word reconciliation.
Furthermore, and this is not the first time i am stating this. Reconciliation (asking for forgiveness and absolution) is a Catholic ritual, also called confession. The penitent kneels, confesses his SINS (!) and the priest does his thing, and all is fine again on the Western front…or so it is said to be. But the fellow returns time and again to have the same scenario reenacted!
Reconciliation cannot be imposed by a Parliament turned into a confessional. A classical example from our antiquity is Dutu Gemunu’s royal decree that the Elara tomb be respected in various ways. It was done. But it did not prevent the Tamils rising against the Sinhala or the Sinhala army crushing them.
We do not need hypocritical western values. We have our own time tested ones.
Mario Perera
Kadawata
July 23rd, 2016 at 9:57 pm
Mario,
Thanks for letting us know “Reconciliation is a Catholic ritual”.
In that case what Ranil should do is ask all in the parliament to proceed to nearest Catholic Church, ask Cardinal Ranjit to come there kneel down and finish it off.
Another thing is Sinhalese never say “sorry”, or “kanagatui”. They say “samavenna” ( or forgive me) , not from God but form the person to whom they did the bad action. It is the Buddhist way !
Who did the bad action ?
CRAP! Crap that ruined our hard earned peace. Peace that could only be achieved by getting rid of the terrorists not by saying “sorry”!
July 23rd, 2016 at 10:13 pm
”what Ranil should do is ask all in the parliament to proceed to nearest Catholic Church, ask Cardinal Ranjit to come there kneel down and finish it off.”
HA HA
S.G., Thanks for making me laugh !
Kindest regards
Mario
July 23rd, 2016 at 11:39 pm
mario_perera
They speak to each other in the streets be it even to ask for a direction- classic example our Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka cohabit since several millennia – well said.
not permenat solution but best solution for us is give all Tamil ( NE & Estate) free Sinhala and Bhuddist education.
S.Gonsal
Another thing is Sinhalese never say “sorry”, or “kanagatui”. They say “samavenna” ( or forgive me) , not from God but form the person to whom they did the bad action. It is the Buddhist way !
So do Tamil We say Mannikanum meaing samavenna not sorry
machang We both have lived last 2,500 years or more & will live another 2.,500 year in Mother Lanka .
but it does not mean We won’t have Eelam war V or Mulivaikal anthirady(Annual puja).
because that is our Karma & Dharma We both believe.
example: who ever did mullivaikal festival had cooked three time food for three years same family members (297,000 not one or two) , I have not heart any comply from (Tamil )whoever released from Manik farm to day.
live & let’s live in United Mother Lanka no short cut !!!
July 24th, 2016 at 1:54 am
Ananda said it well.
[Quote] The first thing Sri Lanka should do is to JETTISON this RECONCILIATION CRAP!
Now it is too late to blame who did what with reconciliation. What matters is to jettison it.
July 25th, 2016 at 2:14 am
Mangala must be replaced by a patriotic foreign minister. Actually Ranil, Sirisena, CBK traitors must be replaced too. However Mangala must be replaced as soon as possible. A country’s government should first and foremost look after the country’s security. sovereignty, territorial integrity and in the case of a small country such as Sri Lanka its unitary status. Mangala has betrayed Sri Lanka by accepting the UNHRC resolution which no country with any integrity will accept. Mangala must realise that those LTTE terrorists who massacred the citizens of this country for over 26 years simply because they wanted a large chunk of this island for themselves, illegally, that they should be dealt with in a very careful manner without betraying the security. sovereignty, territorial integrity and in the case of a small country such as Sri Lanka its unitary status, even if extremely powerful forces such as the US,UK, EU, Canada, Sweden, Norway and India are behind the LTTE terrorists. In addition, we must place forth the argument that those who settled in the island quite recently only during the past few hundred years i.e. the Sri Lankan Tamils who are only but 11.2% of the population do not have any rights whatsoever to demand over 28% of the land area, 66% of the coastline and 66% of the vast ocean resources which belong to Sri Lanka. This message should be conveyed to the TNA, the separatist terrorists and those who support them i.e. the US,UK, EU, Canada, Sweden, Norway and India as soon as possible so that they understand our position. This is the task of a foreign minister. Mangala therefore has betrayed Sri Lanka and must go. Sri Lanka cannot afford large self ruling entities which are illegal anyway since this island as a whole belong to all its people in total. It is the foreign minister’s task to covey this message to everyone concerned.