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Midweek Review

Stand-alone Splendour

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By Lynn Ockersz

With kingly poise he glides,

This milk-white wonder,

Whom we take for granted…..

The quickening Beira waters,

For him holding no terrors…

But study his every deft action,

And behold a stand-alone splendour,

Of the country’s ravaged eco-system,

Who is at peace with himself,

And is in no need,

To beg, steal or borrow,

Or cut deals that bring him dishonour.



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Midweek Review

Impact of Ukraine war on Sri Lanka and other matters

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Russian Cruiser Varyag entering Colombo port on March 1

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The Russian Pacific Fleet’s missile cruiser Varyag was here recently. The Fleet’s press office reported on March 1: “Today, the Pacific Fleet’s flagship, Guards Order of Nakhimov missile cruiser Varyag has made a business call at Colombo, the largest port of the Republic of Sri Lanka.”

According to the Russian Defence Ministry website one of the four primary tasks of the Pacific Fleet is (verbatim) execution of foreign policy actions of the Government in economically important areas of the oceans (visits, routine entries, joint exercises, activities as a part of peacekeeping forces, etc.).

Cruiser Varyag arrived here from Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, where the vessel participated in Milan 2024, Indian biennial multinational naval exercise (Feb 19-27). The 12th edition of the exercise involved INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant. SLNS Sayurala, an Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV), represented Sri Lanka.

In spite of the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government’s obvious tilt towards the West against the backdrop of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ouster in July 2022 by unprecedented violent protests targeting a President elected with a record majority, Russia and Sri Lanka seem to be keen to maintain ties.

Two weeks before Varyag’s arrival, two Iranian Navy vessels IRINS Bushehr and Tonb visited Colombo. Their arrival coincided with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s rare, but high profile visit here at a time of grave crisis in the Red Sea region, in particular with Houthi attacks on ships taking supplies to/from Israel to force a halt to Israeli genocide in Palestine.

Russian and Iranian visits should be examined against the backdrop of the costly Ukrainian conflict where Russia is battling the combined West in their proxy war directed at an ultimate regime change in Moscow, and Yemen’s Houthis, widely believed to be backed by Iran, targeted Red Sea shipping demanding an immediate end to Israeli military onslaught on Gaza.

A Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile hit the Belize-flagged Rubymar on Feb 18 in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The vessel carrying fertiliser sank on March 02.

President of the Sri Lanka Business and Professional Forum in Moscow, Jagath Chandrawansa, pointed out that for want of sufficient media coverage of the conflict in Ukraine, in the right context, Sri Lanka is in the dark as to what was going on.

Political parties represented in Parliament, too, seemed to be largely unaware, uninterested or negligent, Chandrawansa said.

In a wide ranging interview with The Island, Moscow-based Chandrawansa discussed the origins of the conflict and the circumstances leading to a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, in late February 2022, though they had been fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine since 2014, the year the coup staged by the US to topple the duly elected President of Ukraine, though dubbed by the West as the Maidan Revolution.

“Basically, the Russian invasion/current conflict should be examined, taking into consideration repeated US and Western interventions in Ukraine that declared independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union and efforts to integrate Ukraine with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” Chandrawansa said.

Chandrawansa compared the Western backed protest campaign (March 31-July 09, 2022) that forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of office with the removal of Ukrainian President Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych in 2014. The conflict in Donbas erupted in the wake of Yanukovych’s removal.

Chandrawansa, who had studied in the then Soviet Georgia before moving into Moscow where he has been working during the past three decades, sought to press home Moscow’s narrative that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was really a defensive action against a proxy war carried out by the West. The recent disclosure of Germany planning to supply long-range Taurus missiles, manufactured jointly by Germany and Sweden, underscored the efforts to further escalate the conflict, Chandrawansa said.

Earlier, the UK declared that it provided ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles to Ukraine. Reference was made to the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev in April 2022, less than seven weeks after Russia launched its offensive. Johnson, in his capacity as the former UK Premier, again flew into Ukraine in January 2023 soon after his successor Rishi Sunak visited Kiev to sign an expanded security agreement.

Responding to another query, Chandrawansa asserted that the West was trying to deliver a knock-out blow to Russia in Ukraine. The reportage of massive US funding is evidence of the overall Western strategy, Chandrawansa said, pointing out that in the run-up to the US presidential election, nine months away, the country is divided over its funding of Ukraine as well as the Israeli campaign. “In other words, the West has cleverly transformed Ukraine into a battleground where attempts are being made to weaken Russia. Of course, Ukraine is paying a huge price for the miscalculated Western strategy.”

The Biden administration’s efforts to secure approval for a new military aid package worth billions of USD hadn’t been successful due to strong opposition from the pro-Donald Trump far right Republicans, whereas a new controversy over German missiles for Ukraine dominated the international media as well as the sudden death of key Opposition figure Alexei Navalny, 47.

Russia owed an explanation to the world over the still unexplained death of Navalny at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence. It is also true the Western media pays hardly any attention to the plight of Julian Assange a beacon for the worldwide independent media, who is being persecuted by the West for publishing the truth about various excesses and atrocities committed by them around the world, through his WikiLeaks site. Their behaviour is even worse when covering up the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank as they mostly pretend not to see violence that is ravaging mainly innocent Palestinian civilians, who are also deprived of basic food and medicine.

Navalny’s death dominated international media for several days and still continues to draw attention amidst the war in Ukraine, Gaza and Houthi challenge to Red Sea shipping.

UN vote on Ukraine

Chandrawansa discussed how the West relentlessly put pressure on Sri Lanka over resolutions that were moved against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

Having ruthlessly pursued Sri Lanka at the Geneva-based Human Rights Council where the Western group, in agreement with the treacherous Yahapalana administration (2015-2019), passed an accountability resolution in Oct 2015, they demanded Colombo adhered to their dictates.

In Feb 2022 and Feb 2023, Sri Lanka abstained from voting on resolutions against Russia. At the Feb 2023 vote, in addition to Sri Lanka, India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan Iran and South Africa abstained. The media here reported in February 2023 German MP Dr. Peter Ramsauer requested President Ranil Wickremesinghe to back the UN resolution against Russia. Dr. Ramsauer, the Rapporteur for Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag (Parliament) said so at the end of his visit here.

Chandrawansa recalled similar heavy pressure exerted on India by the West, particularly the US and Germany, to take a firm stand against Russia, though Quad member India continued to resist such interventions.

Responding to another query, Chandrawansa explained how the West ceaselessly pushed Ukraine to harden its anti-Russia stand over the years, after having forced its duly elected President Yanukovych out of office in 2014.

Referring to the recent announcement made in Washington that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland would retire this month, Chandrawansa said that her role in the regime change project in Ukraine, as well as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ouster, had been well documented. “What we must realize is regardless of Nuland’s retirement, the US would pursue her hardline neo-conservative policies in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, our leaders embroiled in local politics and developing economic uncertainties haven’t been much interested in learning what is happening in the region or outside.”

Commenting on the threat posed by Houthis to Red Sea commercial shipping, Chandrawansa said that the Yemen-based group’s actions were being exploited by the US to expand its sphere of influence in the region. Interested parties have conveniently forgotten that Houthis launched Rea Sea operations demanding that Israel halt the war on Gaza, Chandrawansa said, adding that the much touted US led operation ‘Prosperity Guardian’ seemed to have failed to thwart the launch of missiles and drones from Yemen.

Sri Lanka should be wary of getting involved in US projects though the government seemed to be under heavy US prodding, Chandrawansa said.

There were a spate of conflicting reports of Sri Lanka deploying a vessel (formerly of the US Coast Guard) in support of ‘Prosperity Guardian,’ and plans to send a second ship. It would be pertinent to ask whether any of the AOPVs or OPVs in case they are deployed in the Red Sea, were equipped to counter cruise missile or drone strikes directed from Yemen or whether the bankrupt country could sustain such a long term operational deployment and for what purpose?

President Wickremesinghe’s late wily uncle JRJ, widely dubbed the 20th Century Fox and Yankee Dicky because of his overt pro-US stand, which even led to him offering the strategic Trincomalee Harbour to base the US Sixth Fleet and ended up antagonising the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and exacerbating our ethnic conflict when New Delhi retaliated by giving succor to separatist groups here. And unlike JRJ, President Ranil Wickremesinghe does not even have a people’s mandate, being only a caretaker President appointed by Parliament to complete the balance term of ousted President Gotabaya Rajapkasa. Therefore Wickremesinghe has no business to drag us into a conflict which we can ill afford just to please his masters in Washington as we already have enough problems.

Referring to the Houthi ballistic missile attack on Liberian-owned, Barbados-flagged ship ‘True Confidence’ south west of Yemen’s port of Aden on March 06, Chandrawansa asserted that the Red Sea crisis has taken a turn for the worse. The attack claimed the lives of three seafarers, first fatalities since Houthis began targeting ships last October in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes to pressure the US to rein in Israel.

Swift intervention by the Indian Navy saved the lives of 21 members of the stricken ship’s crew. Those who had been saved included two Sri Lankans. Indian Navy released the video footage of Destroyer INS Kolkata deployed in the Gulf of Aden deploying its helicopter and small boats to carry out the rescue operation.

Aeroflot incident at BIA

Recalling the circumstances Sri Lanka detained an Aeroflot flight at the Bandaranaike International Airport in early June 2022, at the height of economic, political and social turmoil, Chandrawansa asked whether President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government at least bothered to conduct a proper inquiry into the incident.

Chandrawansa, in his capacity as the President of Sri Lanka Business and Professional Forum in Moscow, in a letter dated June 05, 2022, requested the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to probe attempts to jeopardise Sri Lanka’s relations with Russia at a time the country was in unprecedented turmoil. The letter was copied to Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, PC and the then Russian Ambassador in Colombo.

The whole thing could have been orchestrated by those hell-bent on destabilizing Sri Lanka’s relations with countries considered a challenge to the West, Chandrawansa said, pointing out that it could have had a catastrophic impact on Sri Lanka-Russia relations.

Aeroflot flight SU 289 was preparing to take off from the BIA, on June 02, 2022, when a fiscal officer, from the Commercial High Court of the Western Province, walked in around 12.15 pm to the airport. He was there soon after the end of day’s proceedings of the Commercial HC of the Western Province. The official was accompanied by Attorney-at-Law Aruna de Silva, who appeared for the plaintiff, along with Avindra Rodrigo, PC. They were instructed by F.J. & G. de Saram, the leading law firm from the colonial times.

The fiscal officer delivered a copy of the order issued by High Court judge S.M.H.S.P. Sethunge. The recipient of the court order was Acting Head of Air Navigational Services N.C. Abeywardena. The BIA was ordered to detain the aircraft, pending a case filed by Ireland-based Celestial Aviation Trading 10 Ltd., against the Russian State-owned Public Joint Stock Company Aeroflot.

At the time the court officer delivered the warning, 191 passengers and 13 crew of the Airbus A 330-300 were on board. They were asked to get off the plane. The Aeroflot drama transpired in the Commercial High Court of the Western Province on June 03. The airline’s regional manager, for India and Sri Lanka, Sergey Evgenievich, was present in court.

Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera is one of the few lawmakers to publicly challenge the detention of the Aeroflot flight in spite of Sri Lanka’s written assurance to Russia that Aeroflot was free to operate to and from the BIA without hindrance. The retired Navy Chief of Staff warned that Sri Lanka shouldn’t be surprised if Russia felt that the government guaranteed Aeroflot freedom to operate to and from the BIA just to lure them.

Lawmaker Weerasekera strongly disputed Premier Wickremsinghe’s assertion that the issue was a matter between two private parties. How could that be when all know Aeroflot operated flights to the BIA on written assurance given by the government? MP Weerasekera told the writer when his opinion was sought on this issue.

The Federation of National Organisation, comprising the Patriotic National Movement (Dr. Wasantha Bandara), Patriotic National Front (Attorney-at-Law Nuwan Bellanthudawa), People’s Responsibility Centre (Wasantha Alwis) and People’s Voice for Justice and Sovereignty (Attorney-at-Law Madhaumali Alwis), in a joint letter, dated June 04, sought President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s intervention in this regard.

Lawmaker Vasudeva Nanayakkara speculated about the possibility of the US being behind the Aeroflot affair while Wimal Weerawansa alleged that the government was busy jeopardizing the country’s relations with India, having antagonized China.

Former General Secretary of the Communist Party Dew Gunasekera demanded an explanation from Premier Wickremesinghe over his alleged bid to downplay the incident. Gunasekera asserted that Sri Lanka was experiencing an extraordinary threat. The incident involving the Aeroflot flight underscored our vulnerability, Gunasekera declared.

Chandrawansa said that the release of the Aeroflot flight a few days later following a court ruling settled the matter though the government should be ashamed of itself over its failure to conduct a no holds barred investigation. If such an incident happened in any other country, it would have been scrutinized at the highest level with the participation of intelligence services, Chandrawansa said, finding fault with what he called a pathetic political party system that habitually failed to address vital issues.

Chandrawansa compared the BIA incident that dealt a deadly blow to Sri Lanka-Russia relations and the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government’s equally damaging declaration that foreign research vessels wouldn’t be allowed into Sri Lankan ports during 2024, a decision particularly meant to bar Chinese vessels.

Foreign relations at a critical juncture

Responding to questions regarding foreign relations in the wake of Sri Lanka’s post-bankruptcy status, Chandrawansa emphasized the daunting challenge in navigating choppy waters.

“We are in an extremely complex and uncomfortable situation, politically, economically and socially,” Chandrawansa said, warning of dire consequences unless the government sensibly balanced the relations.

“Of course, we have to acknowledge our dependence on exports to the West, GSP plus concessions and other opportunities. But, we have to be equally responsive to other friendly powers and countries who stood by Sri Lanka during the war against separatist Tamil terrorism (1983-2009) and after,” Chandrawansa said, recalling the Russian, Chinese, Pakistan and Cuban interventions at the Geneva-based UNHRC, out to get us at the behest of the West.

Chandrawansa explained the challenge bankrupt Sri Lanka faced due to US led ‘Quad’ arranged against China, Western efforts to force countries to take sides in the Ukraine conflict and how proposed BRICS currency could undermine the US once mighty dollar hegemony and the possible weakening of US sanctions imposed on Russia and China.

Although the launch of BRICS currency seems unlikely in the near future, Sri Lanka should be mindful of the developments as it would be a grave mistake on our part to put all eggs in one basket.

The continuing corrupt political party system has allowed all powers to exploit the country. The 99-year leasing of the strategically located Hambantota port for USD 1.1 billion to China in 2017 by the Yahapalana government under controversial circumstances can be cited as a case in point. As to what happened to that money and billions of dollars borrowed at high interest rates without that government undertaking any massive development works remains a mystery. It certainly had a big hand in the creation of the unprecedented debt crisis, from which we are still trying to extricate ourselves. The dispute during President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency over a ship load of toxic Chinese fertiliser underscored how a single incident, if not properly handled could jeopardize relations with a particular country. An angry Chinese reaction that led to the blacklisting of a State Bank here emphasized our vulnerability. That is the undeniable truth.

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Midweek Review

Where social media and mainstream media can be complementary

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Image courtesy Columbia Journalism Review https://www.cjr.org/special_ report/what-is-mainstream-media.php

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

–– John Stuart Mill

by Susantha Hewa

Politicians in power often tend to suppress people’s freedoms when they feel that they can no longer use rhetoric to persuade the disillusioned masses to trust them. And, throughout our history, they have used mass media, specially, TV after its advent in Sri Lanka in 1979, to manipulate people effectively. It’s not surprising that many people, who have been feeling frustrated being destined to be passive television audiences to politicians who have enjoyed the privilege of talking on TV to the citizens through who cannot fittingly respond to them in real time, avidly embraced social media to share their bottled-up views, feelings, praises or criticisms with their fellow citizens. If politicians and elites can use electronic media to reach vast swaths of society and engage in manipulative talk with no inhibitions or fear of punishment, it is natural that the citizens who have been reduced to be unwilling takers of all the rhetoric of the former for decades, treat social media as their best means of communicating with large numbers of fellow citizens and end their imposed muteness to some extent. We have little evidence to show that our strongmen have used TV all these years in all honesty to inform, elucidate or educate. One need not go far to find how politicians have spoken arrogantly, flippantly and dishonestly to people, which is a gross abuse of mass media.

Admittedly, the abuse of social media should be punished, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why the same abuses in any other media including electronic media should go unheeded. Paradoxically, in mass media, it is the politicians who become actors and doers, the “masses” being largely passive. It is in social media that masses break their long silence and become active and interactive, which is more contributory to democracy; of course, with due checks and balances. One-way communication made possible by standard media, i.e. TV, can hardly satisfy the human urge for two-way natural communication, which is constructive and egalitarian. Thus, electronic media would hardly avoid the never-ending frustration of the subdued masses until there is another platform for them, which is social media.

Manipulation has been defined as “behaviour that controls or influences somebody/something, often in a dishonest way so that they do not realise it”. Although, this definition does not specify the nature of the manipulator and the manipulated, almost all the words, specially, “behaviour”, “controls”, “influences” and the last few words “often in a dishonest way so that they do not realise it” leave no room for any doubt about the relative positions of the influencer and the influenced. If the vast majority were the decision-makers of any system, such a system would be akin to what is universally known as direct democracy, where the people collectively decide how they should be ruled. Of course, such a system would need a lot of innovative thinking and sweeping changes. However, what is important is, such a system would depend much more on communication, education, discussion, debate and consensus than on propaganda. Therefore, it is clear that manipulation would fit more naturally in a system where the power is concentrated in the hands of a few powerful, who constantly feel the need to protect their power and privileges by any means, correctly or mistakenly accepted as democratic. Technically, a system of governance “of the people, by the people, for the people”, has the underlying feeling of a common bond, which implies that the individual destiny is the collective destiny and vice versa. In such a setting, manipulation, in its widely perceived derogatory sense emphasized in the above definition in the phrase, “often in a dishonest way so that they do not realize it” – would only amount to a sort of collective self-deceit.

Of course, the average person at times gets an opportunity to appear on TV screen at the discretion of the TV channel, not from a position of strength, but almost always as victim, to air his grievances or vent their anger at inept and insensitive rulers who can just ignore them or mock them with no fear of being opposed or retorted at. TV is, so to speak, more the official voice and the face of the ruler rather than the voice and the face of the ruled. Of course, the common people can show their faces on TV but not from the comfort of their home or office; electronic media don’t work that way. They have to come to the streets to earn their visibility on TV and ‘pay’ dearly for it. Paradoxically, mass media is at the service of the privileged few, not at the service of the unprivileged masses. If you like, it’s a speaker; not a telephone. If you want any brand of media to work both ways, it’s social media.

However, the whole world saw one striking example of “manipulation” for the good of the “one and all” during those dark days of the Covid pandemic. The persistent appeal for the people to wear a mask and keep a distance of one metre with others was a classic example of using propaganda for the safety of all. It was an instance where people were made to realise that nobody is safe until everybody else in society is safe. And, everybody in her desire to protect herself, inevitably ensured the safety of all. Thus, where propaganda is used for the good of all, rather than for the advantage of a few, propaganda will lose its derogatory sense and be aligned with positive acts such as education, discussion, clarification, communication, and enhancing of awareness and understanding.

In such a system of social organisation, it would hardly be necessary to bring in suppressive laws to curb social media. In the collective awareness that it is only by ensuring the wellbeing of all that each one of us can ensure our individual wellbeing, mass media – which is now patently used for safeguarding the power and the privileges of those who stand above the masses – that we would be able to look at social media without undue suspicion. In a truly democratic society where mass media is used to educate people instead of keeping them in the dark, there will be no need for anyone to look at social media with any more suspicion than they view electronic media. If our politicians had used mass media to inform and educate the masses rather than to manipulate them, there wouldn’t have been any need to look askance at social media. In a society which is constantly trying to learn from mistakes and promote the collective good, mass media and social media will only complement each other.

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Midweek Review

By the Sweat of Her Brow

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By Lynn Ockersz

From the seed bed of Her womb,

Did He join the human family,

And by the love in Her heart,

Was He selflessly nourished,

And shaped into manhood,

But in an act of gross treachery,

He turned His back on Her,

And made Her His bonded slave,

So much so, all these millennia,

It’s His Story that’s at centre,

But if the truth be told,

It’s the Sweat of Her Brow,

Mingling with Her hot tears,

That’s kept hearths blazing,

Placed some food on tables,

And kept at bay universal wailing,

Making Her ordeal of living,

The greatest story never narrated.

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