Last week, TNA parliamentarians Suresh Premach-andran, N.Srikantha, Mavai Senathirajah, and Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam were in Jaffna electioneering while Vino Noharathalingam, Sivashakthi Ananthan and S.Kishor were in charge of Vavuniya. The TNA has been carrying out a low key campaign in Jaffna, centered mainly around house to house canvassing. Election violence is much lower than expected and the TNA reports one instance where two men on a motorcycle had grabbed some bundles of leaflets from canvassing activists and made off. In a different era, this would not have even registered as an ‘incident’. The TNA has nominated a Karaiyar cast (Karava) lawyer Mudiappu Remedius as their mayoral candidate in Jaffna on the grounds that the Karaiyar are present in their numbers within the MC limits and are confident of victory. The TNA says that the younger generation still fears to enter politics, and that this is due to the fear psychosis still prevalent in the area. This however could be due to the fact that the younger generation today, regardless of ethnic background, is generally apolitical.

Even though there were reports in the newspapers last week that the IMF stand by facility would be passed after the 20th of July, there were no signs up to yesterday when we had some good news. While this was being written, Sri Lanka has not yet been included in the agenda of the IMF executive board and at the bi-weekly press conference held on Thursday, at the IMF headquarters, the spokesperson had once again been vague, saying that there had been a mission to Sri Lanka recently following up on the previous discussions. The spokesperson says that they had ‘good discussions’ with the authorities, and that they would make the announcement once there was something to announce. The spokesperson had further explained that the first thing that happens is a staff level agreement. Then the executive board would consider the views of the international community. Does this mention of ‘good discussions’ indicate that Sri Lanka is finally out of the woods? When the IMF spokesperson said that what comes first is a staff level agreement, does this mean that the staff level agreement has finally been reached, prior to submission to the executive board? The word yesterday was this is what had happened.

Strangled by the west

The IMF executive board will be in recess from the 10th of next month for two weeks, and Sri Lanka will have to make it to the agenda before that if this money is to materialize anytime soon. A loan delayed, is in fact a loan denied. In normal circumstances, the IMF loan should have been passed by the end of April. The IMF’s self professed goal is to bail out member countries in distress, but this did not happen in the case of Sri Lanka although some propitious signs were visible yesterday.

The IMF says of its mission in the world: "Any member country, whether rich, middle-income, or poor, can turn to the IMF for financing if it has a balance of payments need—that is, if it cannot find sufficient financing on affordable terms in the capital markets to make its international payments and maintain a safe level of reserves. IMF loans are meant to help member countries tackle balance of payments problems, stabilize their economies, and restore sustainable economic growth."

Sri Lanka was in distress, due to the world economic recession – a classic case for IMF assistance. Sri Lanka is in fact a financial miracle. Despite a raging war, which was fought with unprecedented intensity by both sides, Sri Lanka had managed to accumulate financial reserves of 3.6 billion US Dollars by mid 2008. This went down rapidly as the global recession worsened, but it lasted just long enough to fight Prabhakaran to a finish. The western powers delayed the IMF loan with the hope of getting the government to stop its war on terror, but the strategy failed. Now that Prabhakaran is dead and the government badly needs money for reconstructing the north, the IMF loan must not be further delayed. The entire western world knows that the Sri Lankan government needs every penny it can get for the rehabilitation for the north and it must not be delayed to please the Tamil Diaspora.

To get such a concessionary loan at a time like this when reconstruction is the government’s biggest headache is a major boon for the government. It is also a feather in the cap of Minister Rajitha Senaratne, who negotiated the loan. Senaratne has been a prominent member of the China-Sri Lanka Friendship Society for the past decade and these contacts no doubt helped in the process. There’s no question about the fact that this represents a high point in Senaratne’s career. To him, this is the equivalent of what the Mahaweli was to Gamini Dissanayake. Where this project had actually been conceived was when President Rajapakse had lamented in a conversation with Senaratne that he had been able to start so many large scale projects but did not have a housing project.

Saved by China

 In addition to this, mega housing project, the Exim Bank of China has also issued a letter of interest in financing the Matara-Kataragama railway, and that too is on the cards. About a decade ago, a Matara-Kataragama railway would have seemed useless because the population density in the Hambantota district was very low. But now, with the Hambantota harbour nearing completion, a railway line from Matara to Hambantota and beyond, seems not just feasible but necessary. China has been a good fried to Sri Lanka throughout this country’s most difficult period in post independence history. It was China and Russia that blocked the discussion of our recent problems at the UN Security Council, and China, India and other countries supported Sri Lankan in the UN Human Rights Commission where a group of European nations tried to pass a resolution calling for a human rights probe on Sri Lanka, following the death of Prabhakaran.

There was an interesting article by Ye Hailin, a researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in the Beijing Review, which argued that as China relies more and more on the ocean, trade and maritime security has become that much more important. This writer identified three main areas of China’s ocean interests – the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. China’s interests in the East China and South China Seas relates mainly to resource exploitation and the tension with Japan in the east and the Philippines and Vietnam in the south. In the Indian Ocean which lies further away from China, her interests lie only in sea lane security. But the writer argues the Indian Ocean is no less important to the Chinese than the East China or South China Seas as the Indian Ocean is her lifeline to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The writer argues that the Chinese cannot guarantee the safety of its commodity ships in the Indian Ocean because its fleet has no logistics base and cannot sail for a long time. China has entered the fight against Somali pirates off the Gulf of Aden to protect its commodity shipping.

Referring to this intervention by China in the Indian Ocean to protect its shipping, Ye says, "No matter how much China desires a harmonious world and harmonious oceans, it cannot possibly rely on other nation’s naval forces to guard the safety of its sea lanes of communication. A big country that builds its prosperity on foreign trade cannot put the safety of its ocean fleet in the hands of other countries. Doing so would be the equivalent of placing its throat under another’s dagger and marking its blood vessels in red ink."

Will this attempt to ensure the security of its sea lanes in the Indian Ocean bring China into conflict with India, the major power in the Indian Ocean? And will Sri Lanka be drawn into the conflict because of the Hambantota harbour and other Chinese aid?

Ye, quotes the theory of maritime security expounded by the 19th century naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, where the lowest level of sea power is maintaining control over one’s territorial waters (A task that Sri Lanka was unable to fulfill until a matter of weeks ago!) The next level is guaranteeing the safety of sea lanes of communication. The level above that, is obtaining free movement at sea. The highest level is maritime supremacy. Ye states that of these levels, only the US Navy has got even up to the third level and that China’s interest in the Indian Ocean would not go beyond the second level which is to simply guarantee the safety of its sea lanes of communication. He implies that because this objective will be shared by other countries in the region, there would be plenty of scope for international cooperation. The writer does not mention cooperation with India, but it’s obvious that India was what he had in mind.

The friendly whales

By lecturing the USA, that universal lecturer, at the Boao Forum, and afterwards, China overturned the world order that had been in place since the end of world war II. So rattled was the western world by this, that a Newsweek columnist, Chri-stian Caryl in an article aptly titled Why bow to China?, felt compelled to theorize, that even though the world had now got used to accepting China as the first country of Asia, modern Asia is a multi polar region that does not easily lend itself to hierarchies. Caryl insists that Asia today has multiple leaders in different fields and that while China excels in producing huge volumes of low cost goods, Japan and South Korea lead in innovation and high tech products. It should be noted that western columnists have an interest in seeing a multi polar Asia, just as we want to see a multi polar world with multiple leaders. Quoting a Princeton University academic, this columnist compares, modern Asia to 19th century Europe with great powers still jockeying for power, and concludes that just as no single power was able to dominate 19th century Europe, no one country would be able to dominate Asia. "There are ways to promote an Asia of many powers" says this columnist and cities the example of Hillary Clinton visiting Japan first, then South Korea, followed by Indonesia and finally China, during her recent tour of Asia.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao concluded his keynote address at the Boao Forum, held in Boao, Hainan province, which was attended by more than 1,600 businesspeople, political leaders and academics from all over Asia, with the words that China will continue to work with other Asian countries to actively tackle challenges and advance all-round cooperation. He had stated further that "We should advance reform of the international financial system, increase the representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries, strengthen surveillance of the macroeconomic policies of major reserve currency issuing economies, and develop a more diversified international monetary system,"

China was in effect trying to organize Asian countries to dislodge US supremacy in the financial field and even establishing a kind of international policing of the US economy itself! The US has never had its snout rubbed on the ground like this ever before. It is said that the South Koreans regard themselves as a shrimp between two whales (China and Japan). By the same token, Sri Lanka too is a shrimp between two whales - India and China. But where South Korea and Sri Lanka differ is that South Korea is an anxious shrimp, stressed out by the presence of Japan and China; but Sri Lanka is probably the most grateful shrimp ever to find itself between two whales. Sri Lanka has managed to survive western bullying mainly because of India and China. India does not have the enormous financial clout of China, and may not have the means to support Sri Lanka financially, but its political support in international fora has been unstinting. Even within the IMF, the Indian director who represents the group of nations which includes Sri Lanka had been pushing very strongly for Sri Lanka’s loan.

Et tu Mangala?

The first meeting that UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe addressed after returning from the International Democratic Union meeting was with a group of UNP electoral organizers who were neither parliamentarians nor provincial councilors. One of the points he had made was that the government was trying to frighten UNPers by saying that a presidential election will be held first and he had reassured the organizers that the government will not have the hyped about advantage at an election because of the voting pattern in this country. Wickremesinghe seems to believe that it will be a parliamentary election that will be held first, despite hints dropped by the government to the effect that a presidential election will come first. The fear that most UNPers have is that a presidential election where the UNP will be routed will be held first, and when a parliamentary election follows such a debacle, the UNP will be reduced to a cypher. This is the fear that Wickremesinghe was trying to allay.

The looming presidential election has now become a nightmare for Wickremesinghe. His attempt was to avoid contesting this time, so that he would be able to preserve himself for 2017. But last week, his closest ally, Mangala Samaraweera, held a press conference and one of the things that he said was that if the common candidate of the opposition alliance is from within the UNP, he can think of no better candidate than Wickremesinghe. Even though Wickremesinghe himself would like to palm off that foredoomed candidacy on someone else, Samaraweera’s self interest will be severely damaged if someone else in the UNP becomes the opposition alliance’s presidential candidate especially in the context where that someone else will most probably be S.B.Dissanayake.

Many UNPers feel that if Wickremesinghe is not going to contest, the best candidate would be Dissanayake, who is a dynamic organizer and a forceful speaker in addition to being KGB (Kandyan Govigama Buddhist) a fact which the UNP could pit against the low-country Sinhala president. If Dissanayake contests the election, his position as the successor to Wickremesinghe, will be assured, and this will be fatal to Samaraweera’s prospects. Hence Samaraweera too has become an unlikely ally of the group within the UNP pushing Wickremesinghe to the edge of the abyss. This time around, whoever the UNP’s presidential candidate, simply being able to get the same percentage of votes that Mrs Srima Dissanayake got in 1994, will be a major victory.

Last week, when the UNP working committee met on Wednesday, the main point taken up for discussion had been the report of the committee appointed by the political affairs committee to lay some guidelines for the formation of alliances with other political parties for the forthcoming national elections. The report of this committee was not presented to the working committee by either Tissa Attanayake who is the general secretary, or by Karu Jayasuriya who is the head of the PAC, or even by Jayawickrema Perera who headed the committee that prepared the report. Wickremesinghe himself presented it but did not read out the whole report or circulate it to the working committee, confining himself to reading out parts of it. Most members of the working committee are still in the dark as to what the report contained.

During the meeting, Dr Karunasena Kodituwakku wanted to know whether this report had anything about issues such as education and health which are of immediate relevance to the people. Joseph Michael Perera asked whether the report had incorporated the matters on religion that had been discussed. Wickremesinghe told them that this was still an incomplete report.

A committee of eight comprising of Wickremesinghe, Karu J, Tissa Attanayake, Jayawickrema Perera, Ravi K, S.B.Dissanayake, Lakshman Kiriella, and Kabir Hashim to discuss matters with potential alliance partners has been appointed. The Jathika Sabhawa which was formed soon after Mangala Samaraweera’s defection, is now effectively null and void and the condition that he would be the second in command of a future UNP government is also now no longer effective. As matters stand, even if an alliance is formed, the alliance partners will have to contest on the UNP list and under the elephant symbol. The retention of the elephant symbol is one major victory scored by the UNP reformists. Last week Samaraweera went on record saying that to him it did not matter whether the symbol was the elephant or the ‘wal oora’ (!). But to the average UNPer this does matter very much. For decades, the elephant has been the rallying point for the UNPer. In fact one thing that became plain at last week’s press conference is that Samaraweera has still not begun seeing himself as a UNPer. All he talked about was saving the SLFP from the Rajapaksas and restoring the time honoured traditions and values of the party.

 Ravi K explains himself

 With that kind of talk, one gets the impression that Samaraweera is still trying to fulfill his earlier contractual obligation of bringing a certain number of SLFP defectors to the UNP fold. But the point is whether there is any purpose served in this kind of approach because it is unlikely that any SLFPer would see Samaraweera as one of their own now. In contrast to Samaraweera’s approach, S.B.Dissanayake lost no time in becoming a UNPer and the benefits of that approach are already apparent because most UNPers see him as one of their own.

During Wednesday’s working committee meeting, party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe brought up the case filed against Ravi Karunanayake and described it as ‘political victimization’. He had also broached the question of Srinath Perera, Upul Jayasuriya and the other lawyers who appeared for the Sunday Leader being described as traitors on the defense ministry website. At this point, Moneragala district parliamentarian Ranjith Madduma Bandara had innocently inquired what exactly the relationship between the UNP and the Sunday Leader was because the Leader Publications was attacking S.B.Dissanayake and Rukman Senanayake and others. To this the party leader replied that what was at issue were the lawyers, not Leader Publications.