Last Friday, UNP national organizer S. B. Dissanayake held a grand launching ceremony of ten books that he had written. The event held at committee room B of the BMICH, was organized with Premadasa-like efficiency. The décor was reminiscent of the ancient ruins of Sri Lanka. The hall was packed to capacity, with more crowding the aisle. Quite a few UNP big shots were present - Karu Jayasuriya, Rukman Senanayake, even Tissa Attanayake, SB’s bete noir in the Kandy district. One notable absentee was Mangala Samaraweera.

At 4.00pm, the author S. B. Dissanayake walked into the hall, with opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe preceded by a conch blower and drummers playing the ‘magul bera’. The whole ceremony had a very indigenous flavour – even the musical score that was played at the beginning of the ceremony was indigenous with a kind of ‘Wagnerian’ energy. Beyond any doubt, this was the most impressive show ever organized by anyone in the UNP since the party went into opposition in 1994.

This launch of ten books was touted as the beginning of SB’s presidential campaign on the assumption that someone other than Wickremesinghe would become the common opposition candidate. But by the time the launching ceremony was held last week, it had become quite clear that Wickremesinghe wanted to contest the presidency himself for reasons best known to himself. Be that as it may, with this launching ceremony, SB has staked his claim for leadership if not in words in deeds.

In fact Ven Tiniyawela Palitha, who delivered the welcoming address, did speak of SB ascending the ‘last two steps’ in his career – the two steps perhaps being the UNP party leadership and the presidency of the country. Professor O.A.M.Soysa of the University of Peradeniya who delivered the keynote address spoke of Plato’s theory of philosopher kings with the broad hint that the philosopher king he had in mind was SB himself. SB is in fact a rarity among mainline politicians. He has a need to understand matters in terms of a coherent political theory. In fact the centerpiece of his ten books is a work with the title "The origin of the universe, emergence of mankind and socio political evolution". In this book, he argues downwards from the very origins of the universe.

This approach is something new to the UNP. Politicians with a theoretical understanding of capitalism have never been common within the UNP. Two individuals that come readily to mind would be J.R.Jayewardene and Lalith Athulathmudali, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Ranil Wickremesinghe. With this book on the origin of the universe and political systems, SB formally becomes a champion of the neo-liberal political agenda. One of the things that this indicates is that come rain or sunshine, SB is firmly wedded to the UNP.

There were times in the past where internal squabbles within the UNP made people think that SB would end up defecting to the government. This suspicion existed all along because everybody knew that SB’s problem was with Chandrika Kumaratunga and not Mahinda Rajapakse. However with this defence of neo-liberalism, SB falls firmly within the UNP camp and he has renounced his SLFP, social democratic past. In any case, it would appear that SB has decided that he does not want to be a minister, however powerful, but a party leader and the leader of the country, no matter how long it takes.

Last week, UNP Colombo district parliamentarian Mano Ganesan held a rally of the family members of the disappeared, at the Center for Society and Religion auditorium, Deans Road Maradana. The tiny meeting hall was packed to capacity with families of those who had disappeared and what seemed to be a like number of media personnel. The CSR hall was never meant to accommodate crowds like that and the atmosphere inside the hall was stifling. The main speakers were Mano Ganesan, Siritunga Jayasuriya, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mangala Samaraweera.

As the convenor of the meeting, Ganesan spoke in all three languages and after that speaker after speaker basically repeated what Ganesan had said. Wickremesinghe was seen fidgeting impatiently; he obviously wanted to say his piece and leave because no one could really stand the heat in the hall. But he had to wait for his turn. Why this meeting was hastily organized at this time is a mystery. However, Wickremesinghe in particular would have relished the occasion to be able to be able to get his own back. In the 1990s. Wickremesinghe was the whipping boy of the Kumaratunga government over disappearances in the late eighties and nobody should grudge him the satisfaction of flogging the UPFA with their own stick.

Be that as it may, what is regrettable is the complete politicization of the disappearances issue in the past as well as in the present. In this country, there are specialized NGO’s for every conceivable thing under the sun but none to do a professional job on disappearances. Nowadays, when people talk of disappearances, nobody can say for sure whether the people who are said to have disappeared have actually disappeared. When politicians handle an issue like this, the temptation to blow it up is ever present. We saw this phenomenon the 1990s when the SLFP/PA claimed that the number of those who had been killed or disappeared in the UNP’s crack down on the JVP was 60,000. Yet when the Chandrika Kumaratunga government instituted several commissions of inquiry, the actual number of total complaints was 26,830. This included all manner of incidents including killings, abductions, disappearances, assaults – the whole lot. What one can immediately note is that a ‘political number’ has not yet emerged for the disappearances or killings in the north.

For a very brief while, there was a number of 20,000 civilians killed during the last military campaign against the LTTE. But this soon petered out. Anyway, political numbers may add grist to the mill of politicians and help them in the quest for power. But that does not leave the public any the wiser for what would actually have happened. What is needed is a dedicated body to document cases of disappearances professionally and to follow up on the reported cases to see whether any have returned or been found. When disappearances are politicized, even those who have voluntarily made themselves scarce tend to be categorized among the disappeared. The Mahanama Tillekeratne Commission found that of 2,020 reported abductions and disappearances in 2006/2007, 1,134 persons were later found alive and reunited with their families. This works out to something like 56% bogus abduction/disappearance claims.

This is consistent with the political numbers used against the UNP in the 1990s. The numbers mentioned on the political platform was 60,000 dead or disappeared in the UNP’s crackdown on the JVP, but the actual number revealed in the presidential commissions of inquiry instituted after 1994, was 26,877. Once again the number of bogus claims works out to around 55%. Does this mean that on average, more than half of the claims of disappearances or abductions, is bogus or unfounded?

This is what makes professional documentation and follow up action necessary, but for some reason, even the specialized Human Rights NGOs have not been doing this. Consequently, what we have are unreliable numbers based on speculation. Now that the war is over and civil administration has been restored in the north and east, it may be appropriate for the government to seek foreign funding for the National Human Rights Commission to do a professional job of documenting genuine cases of disappearances. Each claim should be thoroughly investigated before a name is added to the list of those who have actually disappeared.

Last week, Dayan Jayatilleke had published an article in the Sunday Times where he had raised two main points. The first being the need for a change of direction in foreign policy and the second being that GSP+ is given to us as a concession, and that one could not demand a concession. There is little debate about the first point – Sri Lanka does need a change in foreign policy. The working at cross purposes and slanging matches that were perhaps inevitable when the war was on are now no longer necessary. We now have to leave the era of conflict behind and look to the future. The west should help Sri Lanka in this process by not firing missiles in Sri Lanka’s direction. Right now, it appears that we have managed to get out of a three decade long war only to step into another theatre of conflict with the west. This is both unnecessary and unfortunate.

So while there is no debate with Dayan on that point, I have to point out that when Dayan said that GSP+ is not our ‘right or entitlement’ but a ‘concession’, what he said is certainly true; but its not the whole truth. Indeed GSP+ is a voluntary trade concession given by the EU to the developing world. However, even when giving voluntary trade concessions, there are a very strict set of guidelines set by the WTO under which such preferences can be given. The WTO, and indeed the various countries themselves are acutely aware that a system by which some developing countries can be singled out for favoured treatment can result in a serious disadvantage to those who are not thus favoured. International trade can thus become a weapon by which developed countries exert undue influence on the third world. Using such preferences, they can ruin whom they dislike and shower prosperity on those they like. Trade like this would be a form of colonialism in all but name.

It is to prevent this from happening that the WTO and its predecessor GATT evolved over the past six decades a strict set of guidelines for the granting of trade concessions. These guidelines are a vital facet of international democracy. As Dayan says GSP+ is a ‘concession’ and not an ‘entitlement’ and writing article after article about GSP+ may certainly convey the impression of trying to ‘extort’ GSP+ from the EU. As everyone knows, there used to be a depressed caste community here outside the caste based occupation system in pre-modern Sri Lanka; and people belonging to it made their living by begging. They would stand outside a gate and in a high pitched voice cry out for alms and if alms were not forthcoming they would utter curses on that household. The people were superstitious and lived in mortal fear of the curse, so they always gave alms. That however is not the way one has to look at this matter. This is not a case of trying to extort GSP+ from the EU but an attempt to safeguard international democracy and best practice.

When India filed a case in the WTO in late 2002, against the EU’s special preference scheme for countries affected by drug production and trafficking, the roles were reversed. India was arguing for doing away with the GSP (drugs arrangement) and the EU was giving reasons as to why countries needed the GSP scheme and why it should not be done away with. What the EU said from our side of the barricades is vitally important to Sri Lanka. In the WTO dispute resolution procedure there are three stages - the consultative stage, the panel of inquiry stage and the appeal stage. The Indian case went through all three stages. Most people concentrate mainly on the decision of the appellate body, which is what laid down the final ruling. But the records of the main hearing at the panel stage is no less important. What arguments did the EU present to keep the GSP (drugs arrangement) functioning?

The facts of the Indian case is that the EU was granting a special incentive scheme for drug producing countries allowing them duty free access to the EU market with a view to creating new industries in those countries in order to wean sections of their people away from narcotics production. After 9/11, when this scheme was extended to Pakistan, India went to the WTO claiming ‘discrimination’. In this case, India was not just challenging the way they were treated, but challenging the entire GSP special incentive scheme itself. This challenge saw the EU arguing in favour of retaining the GSP (drugs arrangement), and these arguments are contained in the submissions they made to the WTO panel appointed to go into this dispute. The EU’s arguments in that case can be paraphrased and summarised as follows:

1. The developed countries can treat developing countries differently based on their ‘development needs’.

2. Objective criteria have to be adopted in order to justify such differential treatment. Treating differently situations that are objectively different is not discriminatory.

3. The EU accepts the fact that the sole criteria for granting such differential treatment to developing countries are according to the WTO law, the "development, financial and trade needs of developing countries".

4. The EU acknowledges that the purpose of such differential treatment for developing countries is to promote the exports from the developing countries commensurately with their respective development needs.

5. The developing countries do not have a "positive right" to compel the developed countries to apply a GSP. (Dayan’s point)

6. However, while developed countries are free to decide whether or not to apply a GSP, if they chose to do so, they must apply it on a "non-discriminatory" basis. (My point)

7. The EU acknowledges that "the WTO law recognizes a "negative right" to grant preferences to developing countries and, at the same time, confers a "positive right" to the developing countries to compel the donor countries to grant such preferences in accordance with certain requirements, including the requirement that the preferences must be "non-discriminatory".

8. The EU was arguing for the retention of their special incentive scheme for narcotics producing countries and one of the arguments they put forward in favour of retaining the scheme was that "The Drug Arrangements have allowed those countries to increase and diversify their exports to the European Communities. The ensuing beneficial effects are considerable. For example, it has been estimated that in the Andean Community alone, the Drug Arrangements sustain almost 160,000 jobs". (Amen)

9. "Removing this special incentive scheme would have devastating economic and social consequences for the beneficiary countries". (Amen, once again!)

10. The EU also acknowledges that there has to be a reasonable and sufficient connection between the unique development needs of the countries concerned, and the tariff preferences granted to those countries. (By implication, therefore, when withdrawing such a trade concession, it will have to be demonstrated that the withdrawal is consistent with the unique ‘development, financial and trade needs’ of the country in question.)

Basically as far as the WTO is concerned, the EU has cooked its own goose in the Indian case. There’s nothing left for us to cook. All we have to do is to serve up what the EU itself has said with some garnishing. One thing that the Sri Lankan government has to be careful in though is to make sure that the case when filed in the WTO, should not be a challenge of the entire GSP+ system. When India went in for litigation in late 2002, they challenged the special incentive scheme for drug producing countries while reserving for itself the right to challenge the other two special incentive schemes for environmental and labor standards as well if those schemes were used in a way detrimental to India. Following this case, the EU had to scrap all three special incentive schemes and they were replaced with GSP+, a new scheme which became effective from January 2006 onwards. Sri Lanka should make sure that she does not challenge the whole GSP+ system, but only the way it’s administered. Once the WTO issues some administrative guidelines the system will be quite OK. The government refused to accede to the ‘investigative’ process of the GSP+ scheme because of indications that the EU would not be fair and this suspicion was amply borne out in the interim report put out by the European Commission. But a review mechanism ipso facto, would not be objectionable provided it’s like the review mechanism of the IMF.

When India went to the WTO, one of the accusations they leveled at the EU was that they were trying to ‘divert’ market access benefits to some developing countries as against others in order to achieve ‘foreign policy objectives’. In Sri Lanka’s case, it can be seen that what the EU cannot do formally they have been trying to do administratively. In this instance it’s clear that the GSP+ investigative procedure is being abused and manipulated in an attempt to achieve not-so-acceptable foreign policy objectives of the EU. Before Sri Lanka takes this matter before the WTO, it will be important to meet the trade authorities in the other 15 GSP+ recipient countries to convince them that Colombo will be challenging only the administration of the system and not the GSP+ system itself. It will also have to be pointed out to them that getting any abuse of the investigative procedure blocked will also benefit the other recipient countries in the long run.

There are two categories of GSP+ beneficiary. There are the ‘insiders’ - the 11 countries combating the production and trafficking of narcotics who were the earlier beneficiaries of the ‘drugs arrangement’. All of them are also recipients of GSP+ and it is a hardly disguised fact that the GSP+ scheme was conceived mainly to accommodate these 11 countries. The 11 countries concerned are, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Panama. When India went to the WTO challenging the ‘drugs arrangement’ the EU went all out to defend the recipient countries. At that time, the countries under the drugs arrangement got duty free access to the EU, unconditionally – they had no conditions, no investigations – nothing, and the EU argued strenuously for the continuation of this unconditional, investigation-less special preference scheme. In fact the EU went so far as to argue that giving these countries duty free access to the EU was absolutely vital to protect lives in the EU by discouraging the production and trafficking of drugs. So there is a prima facie case to say that in administering the GSP+ scheme, the EU will be far more lenient and much less judgemental in the case of the 11 drug producing countries than on other recipients like Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Armenia - the ‘outsiders’.

At present the GSP+ scheme is in abeyance with regard to two of the drug production affected countries - Venezuela and El Salvador. But this is only due to formalities. In the case of Venezuela, they have by an oversight, not signed one of the 27 conventions, (convention on corruption) that a country needs to ratify in order to qualify for GSP+. This was in fact belatedly discovered by accident. In the case of El Salvador, their supreme court had declared that some of the ILO conventions do not apply in the country. These are mere formalities which can be solved with the stroke of a pen and will not be a reason to challenge their exclusion in the WTO. When El Salvador and Venezuela feel that they need GSP+, they’ll just sign and get it. None of the drug production affected countries need fear ‘investigations’ of the sort that Sri Lanka has had to face because the EU not long ago was strenuously arguing for unconditional duty free access to the EU for these countries. In fact even the little conditionality they have now have to face under the GSP+ system, is not because of the EU but because of the WTO ruling! Hence when appraising these drug production affected countries of Sri Lanka’s case in the WTO, care must be taken to demonstrate that Sri Lanka is not trying to deprive them of their privileges, but only striving to ensure fair play for itself. Those countries will no doubt understand. Some of those countries like Venezuela have their own problems with the west, and they will understand Sri Lanka’s predicament.