Courtesy The Island

Former People’s Alliance MP M M Zuhair, PC, yesterday, warned that proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) would transform Sri Lanka into a US military facility.

Zuhair, who was a onetime top Attorney General’s Department officer and envoy to Teheran during the PA/UPFA administration said that the Acqusition and Cross Servicing Agreemment (ACSA) had been finalized in early August 2017.

Zuhair, who backed Maithripala Sirisena’s campaign at the last presidential election said:

“SOFA, proposed by the US, temporarily stayed by the President, would create a ‘separate state’, having an independent power structure for the US military and its contractors, within the territory of Sri Lanka. The following is the text of President’s Counsel Zuhair’s response to The Island queries as regards SOFA: “That state will be run from Washington by the US Defense Department. The Sri Lankan government, it’s Parliament, the country’s judiciary it’s armed forces or the Police will have no say, under the published agreement, over the US armed forces entering Sri Lanka at their will and pleasure, freely transiting, exiting or remaining without exiting, within any part of the territory of Sri Lanka in vehicles, vessels and aircrafts, wearing uniforms, armed with communication equipment and weapons.

“The unwritten objective of the proposed agreement would be for the US to obtain from Sri Lanka, the non-consultative status of using at any time, any part of the Sri Lankan territory, as a permanent or transit point for the military activities the US is habitually and perennially engaged in, outside the Western world.

“For the first time, fully armed American men and women can freely move within any part of Sri Lanka, as persons above Sri Lankan laws, if Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana PC replies, without reservations, the forces agreement proposed by the US Embassy in Colombo. US armed forces can move anywhere in the island both individually as well as collectively with arms and ammunition. All the recognised ingredients that constitute a technologically virtual ‘separate State’, though an unrefined concept in international law are to be found sandwiched in SOFA.

“With SOFA in hand, the Americans do not require a military ‘base’ in Sri Lanka’s Eastern city of Trincomalee or elsewhere here, because the whole island will be a US controlled super State operating above the Sri Lankan laws and State. The consequences would be the country will abdicate its sovereignty, in respect of an unprecedented list of powers exercisable by the Sri Lankan State, to the US President and his successors. US money power will also enjoy structural facilities in the island that can be used to influence future elections. Eventually the US might want a puppet regime elected or installed to consolidate more effectively and permanently its presence in this admittedly strategic location.

“As per the agreement, the US armed forces and its civilian components, while in Sri Lanka, will not be subject to Sri Lankan criminal or civil laws, hitherto applicable under the Visiting Forces Act No 31 of 1949. Several other privileges are available for US defense contractors. The list of US contractors is open ended. It will include contractors signing with the US Defense Department in the future and the future employees of the contractors, over whom Sri Lanka will have no control. The US armed forces and its civilian personnel will be governed only by US laws while enjoying privileges, exemptions and immunities in Sri Lanka that even the country’s Head of State, our Mahanayake Theros or Sri Lanka’s Judges or Generals do not have.

“Lately, we have seen the US over active in Sri Lanka under colour of joint military exercises. Almost every other month they are here. Enemies of the US in the Asian region, though pretending to be asleep, will soon fully wake up. Are we going to allow our country to be used for engineering external wars and internal conflicts?

“The US Ambassador here had tried to call the SOFA as the Visiting Forces Agreement. The one is entirely different from the other. In fact the Visiting Forces Act of 1949 is more than adequate to serve the objectives the Ambassador had been publicly posturing on this issue. She is yet to deny the document SOFA, already published in the Sri Lankan media. She has on the contrary claimed in a recent TV interview that the US is working on a new military pact with Sri Lanka to tackle ‘red tape’ in the island, citing the example of the 2017 floods here. The Visiting Forces Agreement and the Public Security Ordinance, the latter empowers Sri Lanka’s Head of State to declare emergencies, are adequate to receive any emergency assistance. But red tape is absolutely necessary to exercise due diligence before foreign forces are allowed into the country. SOFA is not limited to any emergency in Sri Lanka. It applies to any emergency the US is getting itself entangled in, presently in the Middle-East and very soon in Asia.

” The agreement is a clear threat to the national security of the country, particularly vis a vis competing international forces which the American government treats, from time to time, as its enemies.

“This country cannot afford to get dragged into the present or future wars that the US government has a devastating record of getting involved in third world countries. As the respected Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcom Ranjith said after the gruesome 21/4 suicide bombings, the West justifies, unjustified wars to market weapons and explosives manufactured by them. Regrettably it is the American arms industry that runs the US government and the world at large. Sri Lanka will have to pay a heavier price than the returns from exports to the US, when Sri Lanka is used by the US as a front line launching pad for its military operations, which could include wars in the Middle-East and Asia to confront its real and fake enemies.

The US will not give up the agreement so easily as some anticipate. No doubt the US can force its way. But to surrender in advance to the US, with its declared policy of ‘US interests first’ will turn out to be a national disaster. “