I had not intended to produce a paper for my presentation today, but I was struck last week by an article entitled ‘War of Words on the ethnic front’ by one of our more distinguished former diplomats. It raised questions that deserve detailed consideration, and I thought then that it might be useful to frame my presentation today around the issues he raised.
Essentially Mr Hussain compared the current international dimensions of our conflict with what happened when the conflict took on its currently continuing horrendous configuration. I refer to the decade between July 1977, when the UNP government led by J R Jayewardene, Prime Minister first and then President, took office, and July 1987 which saw the Indo-Lankan Peace Accord.
The analysis concludes with the statement that ‘Our war of words with India led to the air-drop, the dispatch of the Indian flotilla, the coming of the IPKF, and the temporary loss of State control over almost a third of our national territory and over half the coastline. None of that will be replicated today. But we can be sure that by now at least some important Western decision-makers will be of the view that it is time to punish Sri Lanka.’
The first part of the article deals with other resemblances, one being the comparative operational superiority of our armed forces, the second being what Mr Hussein sees as the sidelining of the Foreign Ministry - though he later claims that the Foreign Ministry is as appalling in its undiplomatic use of language as other Sri Lankans he criticizes. It is then the war of words that upsets him most, a war he relates in the last paragraph to the West, though the body of the article makes it clear it is Britain that concerns him most, and in particular a couple of responses to two pronouncements from the British Foreign Office. His interpretation however is that Sri Lanka stepped out of line, and therefore it will be punished, most obviously by the European Union withdrawing GSP+ from our trade with it.
Reading the article, one realizes how nonsensical is the myth of a golden age of our Foreign Ministry, compared to which today’s diplomats are useless. I am not of course a judge, but I have been impressed by many of the professional diplomats I have met who are now in service, from doyens such as our High Commissioner in India to the hardworking political officers in Geneva or London.
None of them would, as Mr Hussain does, have imagined that Britain was the world, none of them would have confused the gratuitous aggression against India that was practiced by the Jayewardene regime all the way until 1987 with the right to respond which our more capable officials have exercised in recent weeks. For the fact is, Sri Lanka has never – except in the case of J R Jayewardene as characterized by Mr Hussein and perhaps otherwise too, in the disgusting attacks on Tamil civilians and property in 1981 and 1983 - initiated any war, of words or otherwise.
In fact we have only tried to defend ourselves against nasty sometimes underhand attacks as when David Miliband, on the pretext of issuing a message on the sixtieth anniversary of our independence, failed to congratulate us but instead engaged in patronizing criticism which, if thought necessary, should have been made in another context. Doubtless he was ill advised, as was Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, who allowed himself to be cited by the British Tamil Forum as having claimed that the results of the last election in Sri Lanka were unfortunate. Sadly, he failed to issue a denial, and only acknowledged that he had been misquoted when he was confronted on this issue. Having agreed that he could be quoted about this, he also that he would try to have his office set the record straight, though this alas has not happened.
Of course we realize that Britain has its own political imperatives, so that, despite its occasionally preposterous pontificating, we continue to love her, and to engage with her positively, But that certainly does not mean that we should indulge her totally, as President Jayewardene did in 1982 over the Falklands War.
That was a mistake, as I am told the Foreign Ministry felt, though it could not control the President. It led to Argentina supporting the Indian initiated resolution against us at Geneva in 1983, the precursor to the humanitarian intervention India engaged in so brilliantly over the next few months, culminating in the air drop (after, not before, the flotilla), which finally convinced President Jayewardene that he should submit to Indian superiority.