Euphoria, realpolitik and reality

Thursday 7th November, 2024

The NPP’s victory in the September presidential election has catapulted the JVP to the limelight. An otherwise camera-shy JVP General Secretary, Tilvin Silva, faced an interview on the state-owned ITN on Tuesday night. What he came out with was usual campaign rhetoric, but there were some takeaways.

Silva said the JVP-led NPP had succeeded in exposing its opponents’ propaganda lies. The SLPP, the UNP, the SJB, etc., had predicted a collapse of the economy and Sri Lanka’s international isolation in the event of an NPP win in the presidential contest, but the economy was doing well; the IMF programme was on track, and some powerful nations had assured President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’ interim government of assistance, he said. China was so pleased with the JVP-NPP government’s commitment to good governance that it had decided to donate school uniform fabric to all students, he claimed.

China has no doubt helped this country in numerous ways. But wasn’t the JVP among the political parties that faulted China of having granted loans for the Rajapaksas’ mega infrastructural projects riddled with corruption?

Silva also said the US, impressed by the JVP-NPP government’s anti-corruption campaign, had offered to help attract American investors. Whoever would have thought, a few years ago, that the JVP would ever consider it an achievement to be in the good books of the US? And, why has the US done a volte-face on its better-dead-than-red policy to help the NPP led by the Marxist JVP?

The JVP, or any other party for that matter, would do well to be wary of the envoys of powerful nations bearing gifts. The big powers have neither aversion to corruption nor any love for democracy and good governance. They back foreign governments which, in their estimation, can be used to further their geo-strategic interests regardless of whether the latter are corrupt. The US had no qualms about defending Marcos of the Philippines, Shah of Iran, Papa Doc and Baby Doc of Haiti and countless other corrupt dictators across the globe to promote its own interests.

Moreover, the Americans have re-elected Donald Trump as their 47th President despite multiple court cases—both civil and criminal—against him, and his felony conviction with sentencing due soon.

The JVP/NPP should be cautious instead of being euphoric when the US showers praise on its government and offers help. It is popularly said that gift horses should not be looked in the mouth, but they must be looked in the belly. If the Trojans had been wise enough to do so during their legendary war with the Greeks, Troy would have been safe. It will be prudent for the JVP/NPP leaders to figure out what the US expects in return for its support. Altruism is no driver of foreign relations in the modern world.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa refused to sign a Status of Forces Agreement which, if inked, would have allowed US troops to be stationed in Sri Lanka. During the 2022 uprising here, the US cranked up pressure on Gotabaya not to use force against the protesters who were all out to oust him. However, it looked the other way, when his successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, had the Galle Face protest or Aragalaya crushed. In March 2024, the then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena revealed in Parliament that some foreign powers had pressured him to take over the executive presidency and form a government in violation of the Constitution after the resignation of President Rajapaksa. Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reportedly alleged that Washington played a role in her ouster because she refused to cede control of St. Martin’s island to the US.

Perhaps, it was India that helped further the NPP’s political interests more than any other country. A lot of legitimacy accrued to the JVP/NPP from Dissanayake’s India visit, so much so that the JVP denied ever having conducted a lecture on Indian expansionism as part of its initiation programme in the late 1980s. Diplomacy is never devoid of realpolitik, and the true nature of India’s relations with the JVP/NPP will be known only when the latter reveals its position on key issues concerning the 13th Amendment, the plunder by Indian fishers of Sri Lanka’s fishing resources, and Adani Group’s proposed power projects here.

Silva said in the aforesaid interview that during the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, the then Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva had been compelled to resign from the Cabinet following a complaint by a Japanese envoy that he had sought kickbacks from a Japanese company engaged in a BIA expansion project, but President Ranil Wickremesinghe had reappointed him. This is a very serious allegation, which has not been probed properly though it has been repeated umpteen times. Will the JVP-NPP order a fresh probe into it?