SOFA’s contentious clauses up for discussion during visit of US Secretary of State
Posted on June 16th, 2019
by Zacki Jabbar Courtesy The Island
The proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US that had seen opposition from some Sri Lankan political parties, would also come up for discussion to plug the contentious clauses, during the upcoming visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Colombo, senior government sources said yesterday.
Pompeo is scheduled to visit India, Sri Lanka, Japan and Korea from June 24 to 30, officials said.
Secretary Pompeo expressed his desire to visit Sri Lanka when he spoke to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over the telephone, shortly after the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) carried out suicide bomb explosions at three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa, on Easter Sunday, which killed a total of 258 people and injured around 500.
Public Enterprise Minister Lakshman Kiriella said that SOFA was first discussed during the Mahinda Rajapaksa presidency and it was ironic that it was the Podujana Peramuna that was now leading opposition protests.
This was not the first time that Rajapaksa had opposed the very agreements or proposals that his government had introduced, now that he was in the opposition, Kiriella added.
June 18th, 2019 at 12:43 pm
We have mixed feelings about both UK and US. Some say it was on the insistence of the US that UK started giving independence to its colonies. Although Yankee Dickey, JR courted US with no limit, they just showed the cold shoulder when we were in trouble with forty thousand troops at the point of being massacred. So, how can we depend on them again?.
Looking at the way the yahapalanaya started destroying SL’s economy, its military that saved the nation, its religion and culture, I feel that there had been a conspiracy to break the backbone of the country. However their plans did not completely worked and we are still safe.
I was listening to the recently retired Auditor Generals speech last Thursday in New Town Hall during which he revealed that our daily income is Rs. 5 billions while daily expenditure including all loan payments and wastages is Rs. 7 billions. And all our loans are about Rs. 11 trillions (~ $60 billions). Then another speaker who was an IT guy said our income from IT is about Rs. 0.5 billion which can easily be doubled. This picture is not very bad and shows that industrial and agricultural production is good. What we need is a leadership that loves the country and not themselves and their families.
Therefore, the present Diyawanna leaders should not come into any more agreements or deals with US as no one can trust them. In my opinion concessions that have been given so far are more than sufficient to balance the trade with the US.
June 18th, 2019 at 4:11 pm
Toward Post Terror Stability In Sri Lanka: OpEd
EurasiaReview.com
June 18 (ER) A few weeks ago, a security expert who has studied the so-called Islamic State (IS) rightly said to this author, that “Your country was ‘staged’.” While the IS attempted to take credit for the attacks, they do not appear to have been directed by the group.
Those who perpetrated the attacks seem to have been influenced by the IS, but the precise manner and extent of it is unclear. Nonetheless, the claims of responsibility by the IS have had a significant impact on national morale in Sri Lanka due to their concurrence with geopolitical concerns the country faces. The Easter Sunday attacks worsen the prevailing crisis of national morale connected in significant ways to Sri Lanka’s position in relation to great power rivalry between the US and China.
Geopolitical Context
With the expansion of the geopolitical reach of global liberal hegemony, the Indian Ocean has been a vital highway of the global energy market. The US naval presence in the island of Diego Garcia, located equidistant from several littoral states of the Indian Ocean, has aided US liberal hegemonic foreign policy as a base for small and large missions carried out over the past few decades in the region. Many more future military expeditions may be carried out from this flexible strategic hub, projecting US military power in and beyond the Indian Ocean. However, in February 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that Diego Garcia, which has insofar been administered by the UK, be transferred to Mauritius, signaling the need for the US to consider exploring alternative locations in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, located less than 2000 kilometres from Diego Garcia and at the center of Indian Ocean sea lines of communications is Sri Lanka. While Sri Lanka took a non-aligned position in its foreign policy during the Cold War period, today, its foreign policy is multi-aligned, struggling to strike a balance in the context of great power rivalries and internal political disunity. Akin to a tight-rope walker without a pole, any significant measure of stability remains elusive.
Small nations have always owed their independence either to the international balance of power or rejection of imperial aspirations. For Sri Lanka, crucial is its position in the global balance of power between the US and a rising China, increasingly viewed by the US as a national security threat (as evidenced by recent US trade sanctions). Former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, highlighted this in his recent interview in Colombo, where he said, “First, my advice to America is that it should not ask the countries to choose between China and the U.S. They do not want to choose. They want to have good relations with the US, China, India and others.” Yet this cannot be achieved with US liberal hegemonic aspirations in the Indian Ocean. In this context, any Sri Lankan foreign security agreement with global powers should be vetted by Sri Lanka’s parliamentary body with inputs from national security researchers, for otherwise Sri Lanka might be unprepared for unanticipated national security implications in the future.
A rigorous process must avoid conjecture and unsubstantiated allegations, instead feeding careful observations and research inputs into the security establishment. The independence of Sri Lanka will be in jeopardy if the US or China take a decisive turn to pull Sri Lanka closer towards their respective orbits, such as in the past when China has sought to gain a decisive and permanent advantage. The recalibration towards achieving a balance by Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe was viewed as a threat by China, as certain policies made the island country vulnerable to US-led liberal hegemony. It is essential, then, for Sri Lanka to stabilise itself on the metaphorical tight-rope, especially given that the US has stated in its most recent National Security Strategy that its number one threat is China and Russia, and number two is the IS.
The Need to Uplift National Morale
National morale is the degree of determination with which a country supports the foreign policies of its government in times of peace or war. According to International Relations theorist Hans Morgenthau, it permeates all activities of a country including its military establishment and diplomatic service.
In 2015, the Sri Lankan government divided its portfolios, leaving the president with national security, and the opposition with external affairs. After the 30/1 UNHRC resolution (on promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in post-war Sri Lanka) and subsequent constitutional crisis, there was deep polarisation within the political establishment which triggered a national security threat which perhaps went unnoticed for some time, but whose instability was felt by the entire country from time to time. More recently, after the Easter Sunday attacks, the president flew to China to meet his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, while his Foreign Minister travelled to the US to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both left perhaps to bring in assistance from the two polarised camps.
This polarisation in the establishment harms the national morale of Sri Lanka. It threatens and limits the country’s power to carry its agenda forward or stabilise internal politics. In this vulnerable environment, the risk of external threats creeping in to take advantage is extremely real.
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