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Senior diplomat Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka warns militarisation could isolate SL internationally
Samagi Jana Balawegaya SJB and Oppositio nLeader Sajith Premadasa handing over the appointment letter to Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka[/caption]
On 5 January, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa appointed senior diplomat Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka as Senior International Relations Advisor of the Opposition Leader. The Morning spoke to Dr. Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka’s former permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva and former Ambassador to the Russian Federation and France, on his new appointment, the upcoming United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session, and his views on Sri Lanka’s current foreign policy.
The following are excerpts of the interview.
Can you tell us a bit about your recent appointment?
I have been recently appointed as Senior Advisor on International Relations to the Leader of the Opposition. That is only for Mr. Sajith Premadasa as the Opposition Leader. Any conversation I have with him about the Samagi Jana Balawegeya (SJB) is purely informal.
Democracy is facing one of the most serious challenges it has in Sri Lankan history. The Opposition has to rise to that challenge. The Opposition is mainly represented by the new party, SJB. Old parties are dying out and new parties are coming in. What makes the SJB particularly interesting is that its rate of acceleration has been without precedent. That rate of acceleration shows that it has great potential.
What are your thoughts on the Government pulling out of the UNHRC resolution the Yahapalana Government co-sponsored in 2015?
I was the first public figure to condemn the UNHRC co-sponsorship back in 2015. But I was also critical of the new Government’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the resolution. The new Government should have sought to renegotiate the resolution. The Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government modelled its stance on that of President Donald Trump and a spokesman even praised Trump and his condemnation of the UNHRC. That was an unwise thing to do. In fact, it has now proven to be unwise because Trump has been thrown out by his own people. That Trumpian stance simply won't work in Geneva this month because the US itself will have a different view on human rights.
The Government has pushed itself into an ideological corner. The real problem is that the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration has done almost everything wrong that a government can do when facing the kind of challenge it faces in Geneva. It has been domestically despotic and exceedingly intolerant towards dissent from any quarter and towards minorities. The President’s Ampara outburst where he fondly reminisced the end of Velapullai Prababakaran in response to a speech made by unarmed civilian Parliamentarian Harin Fernando is bound to raise eyebrows at the UNHRC. The UN High Commissioner is a highly respected personality and cannot be accused of bias. Michelle Bachelet, the UNHRC Commissioner, who was two-term President of Chile, former Minister of Defence, and daughter of a General, is bound to question that if a president of a country equates an unthreatening speech in Parliament with an attack on him by a terrorist, then the line between terrorist and unarmed civilian may have been blurred during the conflict. Now I'm not saying it was. But when a President speaks in that manner, it only helps those who tend to see things in the most negative possible way.
Starting with the presidential pardon of Sunil Rathnayake who was convicted for slitting the throat of a child, this administration has been digging itself into a deeper and deeper hole. The UNHRC is the world’s parliament on human rights. If we take the Sri Lankan Parliament, we may disagree with some of the laws in it, but we respect it. The current administration has not respected the UNHRC. I myself have opposed resolutions in 2009 and we defeated that by a two-third majority. However, my respect for the UNHRC has never changed. From the Sunil Ratnayake presidential pardon, to the Mahara Prison riots, to the Mulliyavaikal monument demolition to forced cremations, all of that will be played out in Geneva. The Government should have done what all previous governments did during Geneva season – clean up its act. But this Government has gone in the opposite direction. So Geneva this March will be the first real test of how the Gotabaya Rajapaksa ideology will play in an international arena.
What is your recommended approach to UNHRC this time?
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the Foreign Ministry itself should formulate the strategy at the upcoming UNHRC session in March since they have much more experience regarding the matter as opposed to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the former military officials he has surrounded himself with, who do not have the necessary expertise on this issue.
During President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s first term, we were successful but during the second term we failed. But the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister have much more experience. If on the other hand we view everything through a rigid military perspective, then we will go jump head long into a confrontation we simply cannot win. I mean, there are confrontations we can win and I showed that it could be done in 2009. But that wasn't a confrontation we went on the basis of rigidity. The new Government’s approach is rigidity on all matters. The unilateral approach by Trump has collapsed in the US also now. If we continue this notion of Sri Lankan or Sinhalese exceptionalism – that we are not accountable for anything – then it will be a confrontation we cannot win.
Specifically, what is your recommended strategy?
Flexibility, open mindedness, and consultation across the board in the council is the recommended strategy, which should ultimately aim to seek a middle path. Sri Lanka should not swing from one extreme to the other. The 2015 co-sponsorship was an example of abject capitulation from the Government. From that position, we have now swung to the opposite end, which is absolute rejectionism. We have to find a middle ground. Some administrations are capable of demarcating the middle ground. It is entirely on us. This administration has abandoned the middle ground in favour of extreme policies. The middle ground is arrived at through consultations.
Given the charter for the UNHRC, the majority of the members do not come from the West – the majority comes from the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Africa. That is in proportion to the world’s population. If Sri Lanka is unable to convince them, then there is something wrong with the way Sri Lanka is conducting its diplomatic outreach in the UNHRC.
What particular strategies should be used to lobby support?
You can lobby but that is only successful to the degree of your persuasion, which in turn is only successful to the degree that you are rational, logical, and reasonable. You have to occupy the moral high ground not simply in your eyes but in the eyes of the Council as well. The Sri Lankan administration is of the view that with the support of China, Sri Lanka can prevail on any challenge – that is simply not true. You have to win over the swing states in the UNHRC; not just those few who you can count on to support you, but also the middle ground, the fence sitters, the swing voters. That is difficult for this administration because its ideology is an extremist one. We need to moderate our stance considerably. The present Government thinks that the only friend we need is China. I respect China a lot but China can't win the game for us in Geneva. We have to do it ourselves by using the methodologies of truth and ethics.
This is a philosophical problem – the UNHRC is built on the firm conviction that human rights are universal and inalienable and accountable. A country cannot say “look, this is our internal business”. However, the previous administration had no sense of sovereignty. The current Government thinks national sovereignty is absolute, which it is not. The UNHRC is based on the assumption that some values transcend the boundaries of states. Unless you accept that philosophically, you have a great disadvantage at the UNHRC. It is a battle of narratives – whose story is more credible? Right now, the President has a militarist and neo-nationalist view. Not many countries will be able to relate to that.
What are your thoughts on military officials taking positions in the foreign service?
I am not in the least opposed to people with a military background moving into the Foreign Ministry. One of our most distinguished experts on foreign affairs was the first commander of the Ceylonese Army – Maj. Gen. Anton Muttukumaru. However, there is a big difference between tapping the expertise of officers of strategic background in the making of foreign policy and misusing the military to replace professionals throughout the state sector, let alone the foreign service. It is not good for the military either because anything that goes wrong would be blamed on them.
What future do you see for the India-Sri Lanka relationship, considering some voices in the Government that want to abolish the 13th Amendment?
It is India’s view that it is not in Sri Lanka’s interest to not move forward with the 13th Amendment. India is probably the most important swing state in the global system. If we think that by giving them the Eastern Terminal, they would be silent on the Tamil issue, we are wrong. The outcry over the destruction of the monument in the University of Jaffna from the Tamil Nadu politicians shows that they still care about their cross-border ethnic kin. And no government in Delhi is going to be able to ignore that. China is certainly powerful but it is also very far away. India is very close and there will be enormous consequences if we unilaterally abolish the 13th Amendment.
What future do you see for Chinese foreign policy?
The Chinese model of governance cannot be exported. It is a unique model in a country of a billion people or a market of a billion. The rise of China has been very helpful to the rest of the world as well as the rise of India. Small countries such as ours benefit from a multipolar world. But with dismay I noticed that from around 2019 there has been over-assertiveness on the part of China, which is not sustainable in the long run.
What changes would the upcoming Biden presidency in the US make to democracy worldwide?
It is great news for the US and the rest of the world, including the people of Sri Lanka. He’s the most progressive administrator I've seen in a long time. President Obama was progressive but there was not much he could do with the Senate. But Democrats have broken through the Senate this time spectacularly. Georgia showed the victory of two very progressive candidates – both on the progressive side of the political spectrum. Joe (Biden) and Kamala (Harris) coming to office in a US where there is polarisation and progressive movements of Black people and young White people, is great. They showed that democracy is something you must fight for and the US will channel that energy into its foreign policy, which will rekindle the democracy that was discredited by Donald Trump.