Foreign envoys fishing in troubled waters
With regard to the current political situation in Sri Lanka, last week, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Baronness Patricia Scotland had called the President and made inquiries. The President had clearly indicated that he had acted in accordance with the constitution.
The foreign envoys had been very inquisitive after the sacking of PM Ranil on October 26. Since then, they had meetings with Ranil, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, the JVP and so on. Then followed by all this, this week, a comment made by the Canadian High Commissioner to MP Namal Rajapaksa had led to a furore.
This comment has drawn the attention of the Sri Lankan Envoy in Russia, Dr. Jayan Dayatillake. He had said that the Canadian High Commissioner’s reply shows ‘interference in a domestic debate’.
It is obvious that the so-called ‘International Community’ would prefer Ranil as PM because PM Mahinda Rajapaksa is an ally of China. In this connection, people have noted that China and Russia never interfere in the internal affairs of other countries while the Western countries are notorious for ‘fishing in troubled waters’. They claim that their concern is to safeguard democracy. But how serious are they about safeguarding democracy? For example, when Sri Lanka was threatened by the LTTE, so-called Sri Lanka’s allies of the West turned their back. It was countries like China and Pakistan which came to rescue Sri Lanka.
The International Community will not hesitate to bully smaller countries, but will never behave in the same way if it was India, Russia or China. This reminds of an incident that happened during the time of President Premadasa. In May 1991, just after the elections, the British High Commissioner David Gladstone took the upper hand and made some comments about conducting of the elections. President Premadasa deported him without much ceremony for interfering in local politics.
Dr. P. A. Samaraweera
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