{"id":108852,"date":"2020-11-20T16:11:42","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T23:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108852"},"modified":"2020-11-20T16:11:42","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T23:11:42","slug":"the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c5b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/20\/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c5b\/","title":{"rendered":"THE POHOTTUWA GOVERNMENT OF SRI LANKA Part 2 C5b"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

When J.R. Jayewardene\n(Yankee Dickie\u201d) became President, 1977- 1978 and 1978 \u2013 1989, there was an\nopen tilt towards the USA. JR paid a state visit to USA in June 1984, during\nhis second term in office. This was the first state visit to USA by a Sri Lanka\nHead of state. It is also the only state visit \nto US by the Head of state of Sri Lanka to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1985\nUnited States Navy super carrier USS Kitty Hawke visited Sri Lanka. It was, I\nthink, the first US super carrier to visit Sri Lanka. JR permitted US naval\nships to enter Trincomalee.  He wanted to\ngive the Trincomalee oil tanks to America, but India protested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US said that it wanted to set up a VOA relay transmitter along Sri\nLanka\u2019s western shore.  JR\u2019s government\nallocated 625 hectare from a government-owned coconut plantation bordering a\npredominantly Roman Catholic fishing village, at Iranawila for this purpose. The foundation stone for the VOA station was\nlaid in 1985. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next government supported the venture, but reduced the\nacreage.VOA started transmitting from Iranawila in 1997. The 520-acre area is\ntightly guarded using diplomatic immunity. It is completely run by the US\ngovernment and is out-of-bounds for Sri Lankans, complained critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR Jayewardene is remembered with contempt as the person who got\nthe 13th<\/sup> Amendment accepted in Parliament. At the time, it was\nthought that this was forced on Sri Lanka by India, thanks to JR\u2019s poor\ndiplomacy. It is now found that this was the work of the USA, not India. USA\nwas behind the India-Sri Lanka accord of 1987, said analysts.  This makes sense. The 13th Amendment is\nlinked to Eelam. It benefits USA, not India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Izzeth Hussain<\/em> recalls that\nUS Ambassador James Spain had sought a meeting with the Minister of Foreign\naffairs, on the day of the Indian parippu air drop over Jaffna in 1987.\nAmbassador Spain had to convey an urgent message from his government. India was going to suggest something and Sri\nLanka should not over react, Spain said. That \u2018something\u2019 was the Accord. Hussain had told W.T.  Jayasinghe,  \nPermanent Secretary, Foreign affairs, that almost certainly a third\nparty was involved in the Indo-Lanka accord. Jayasinghe, who was present at the\nsigning, \u2018told me later that I was correct.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just after the signing of the document, Ambassador Spain handed\nover an envelope to RajIv Gandhi, obviously a congratulatory and goodwill\nmessage from Reagan. Clearly the contents of the agreement were already known\nto the US government, said Hussain.  In\naddition, visiting US senator Charles H. \nPercy had carried a letter from US President Reagan to President\nJayawardene offering to be of any assistance in conveying a message from J.R.\nto Rajiv Gandhi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

US continued to maintain contact with the next  heads of state. Prime Minister Ranasinghe\nPremadasa met with US President Reagan when he was on a private visit to USA in\nApril 1983. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe paid two working visits to USA\nin November 2003 and July 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Chandrika Kumaratunga became President, in November 1994, USA\nwas able to make a further advance. US and Sri Lanka had  an agreement \nin 1995, by exchange of diplomatic notes, regarding the status of US\nmilitary personnel and civilian employees of the Department of Defence  who may be present in Sri Lanka for exercises\nor official duties. US   had commenced\nwork on these agreements in 1995, soon after Chandrika Kumaratunga\u2019s election\nas President. Letters were exchanged in May, 1995. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the letters said:  The (Foreign) Ministry is pleased to inform\nthe above-mentioned personnel that US military personnel, civil employees of\nthe Department of Defence will be accorded the same status as provided to\ntechnical and administrative staff of the Embassy of the United States. The\nMinistry also wishes to inform that this reply shall be considered an agreement\neffective May 16, 1995. This was the\nstart of the agreement known as SOFA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, when Kumaratunga was President, the US tried to persuade\nSri Lanka to sign an agreement under the US Tropical Forestry Conservation Act\nof 1998. This Act said that if a tropical country has at least one globally\nimportant tropical forest that country can sign an agreement with the United\nStates to reduce its debt with the US. Under this arrangement the forests will\nbe managed by a committee of representatives from the US government and\nInternational NGOs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Sri Lankans supported this move,  saying that the motive was only to help conserve\ntropical forests. Others disagreed.  US\nwould benefit from this in several ways, they said. This agreement would give\nUS control over all Sri Lankan forest assets against interest on monies\nborrowed by Sri Lanka from USA, said critics.   \nThe Sri Lankan cloud forests would belong to the President of the United\nStates of America.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the Kyoto Protocol a country has to either reduce its carbon\nemission or buy carbon entitlements from other countries.  US could say that it need not reduce its\nCarbon dioxide levels because it is protecting so much of tropical forests in\nthe world. These will act as sinks to absorb the Carbon dioxide which the US\nreleases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement will also give US exclusive access to the medicinal\nplants in these forests. The search for pharmaceuticals is a\nmultimillion-dollar industry, carried out mainly by US firms  and US pharmaceutical companies are well\nknown for getting patents for plant based pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were strong\nprotests from    Environmental NGO\u2019s led\nby the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society and it was stopped. But there\nis nothing to stop the Agreement from raising its head again, as many of the\noriginal players are back in the ring today, critics said in 2017.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandrika Kumaratunga\nwas succeeded by Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005- 2015). US found it was unable to\ninfluence Mahinda Rajapaksa. He refused to stop the war when US asked him to,\ninstead he went on to win the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Senate\nCommittee on Foreign relations sent 2 members to Sri Lanka in November 2009, to\n  assess the impact of this victory on US\nPolicy. The team was asked to make recommendations to increase US leverage in\nSri Lanka for securing long term US strategic interests, and expanding the\nnumber of tools available to Washington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team\nemphasized the strategic importance of Sri Lanka to the US, particularly its\ngeopolitical location. It said that an alliance must be maintained. And that it\nwas necessary to recast the foreign policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US   was advised to go carefully with Sri Lanka.\nThe US cannot afford to ‘lose’ Sri Lanka. . This does not mean changing the\nrelationship overnight, they said.  It\nmeans trying new approaches that would increase U.S. leverage.  There should be a broader and more robust\nU.S. approach to Sri Lanka.  An approach\nthat appreciates the new political and economic realities in Sri Lanka and U.S.\n(continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS When J.R. Jayewardene (Yankee Dickie\u201d) became President, 1977- 1978 and 1978 \u2013 1989, there was an open tilt towards the USA. JR paid a state visit to USA in June 1984, during his second term in office. This was the first state visit to USA by a Sri Lanka Head of state. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}