FOREIGN POLICY OPTIONS looking IMPRESSIVE

WINSTON DE VALLIERE-2017-01-06

It was not immediately clear exactly what reporters asked Ministers Malik Samarawickrema and Ravi Karunanayake at yesterday's media briefing on the temporarily postponed signing of the Hambantota Port Partnership Agreement that had the cumulative effect of the two of them abruptly walking out of the briefing, apparently angered at the media's pressure for an acceptable explanation about the postponement. That word 'acceptable' is used guardedly because what's acceptable to one is not necessarily acceptable to another. And we know too well that the so-called media objectivity in this country is not all that it is made to appear. This is a very relative word or term.

I have often drawn attention to the fact that in today's fast changing geopolitical expediencies, a small country such as Sri Lanka needs to drum up its best potential for political foresight when entering into such agreements chiefly because of the hidden agendas that larger countries shield from public view in such projects and which turn out to be Trojan horses at a later date. Such agreements are hence potentially volatile in the emerging geopolitical dimensions taking shape in the immediate Indian Ocean region and the greater Asia-Pacific Expanses. In that context, any section of the media, kept or not, bought up or free, is entitled to reasonable answers at briefings and not walkouts however bothersome such briefings might turn out to be. Especially to do with the China-related, funded or involved southern development projects it is only too well known that the Joint Opposition has clung to it like a drowning man to the nodules of a mine laid out at sea. Such things have a nasty habit of blowing up in the drowning man's face. One fears that to the Joint Opposition that exactly is what the Hambantota Port project and other projects are all about. Mind you, these projects , embodying more potentially dangerous factors than those mooted in the amended projects of this government, were begun by the very people who are now drumming up protest demonstrations against them.

I said several months ago that politics has just turned dirtier. It's now dirtier still. Should the southern projects succeed, they would strike the death knell for the collective political aspirations of the Rajapaksas because the development spin-offs of such projects will mean the government will have to draft in people from the southern unemployed workforce into new jobs created by these projects. Translate that into votes and one understands why the future of these projects under better planning by the government drives fears into the Joint Opposition and its plethora of leaders including Dinesh Gunawardena, G.L. Peiris, Mahinda Rajapaksa and pretenders of the ilk of Weerawansa, not forgetting Gotabhaya and Basil. Then there's the China factor that will hedge its 'political investments' by financing the JO antics while strolling along with whatever Colombo can offer it now. They're hedging their bets in case Rajapaksa makes a comeback.

All of this of course is against the all important backdrop of the big picture as we say it in journalism. The players involved in all these economic and military – you read that right – military – projects are the key players China, India, the US and Japan being predominant in what's unfolding in Sri Lanka's geopolitical stakes. Run through the Central Bank's reports and you will see what I mean. They're full of the aid, grants and technology agreements this country receives in addition to heightened military and related agreements to do with specialized military training and assistance.

Singaporean company

Mid-year in 2016 the Government decided to hire a Singaporean company which worked out the Western Region Megapolis Master Plan, to formulate a master plan for the development of the Trincomalee metropolitan and surrounding areas.

On 22 December Minister Malik Samarawickrama confirmed Government's plans to open up Trincomalee to India to a massive development zone there, that will be on an even larger scale than the China dominated Southern zone development plan. While Hambantota features high on the security scales vis a vis sensitive commercial and military shipping passing the South of Sri Lanka, India feels safer controlling the North in Jaffna and Trincomalee, including the militarily significantly huge Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm. Similar oil tanks in the South might not be allowed to China above and beyond any strictly commercial need.

Meanwhile, the government retains the right to permit military use of the North, East as well as Hambantota where agreements strictly rule out any use of facilities and land there for any military purpose or objective.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with Surbana Jurong of Singapore for this purpose last July by the Secretary to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs and the Chief Executive Officer of the company. For the India-driven massive Trincomalee development zone where the strategic harbour remains open to the US, UK, Japanese, Bangladeshi, Indian and Australian Navies and Air Forces. Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Minister of Trade and Industries of Singapore S. Iswaran witnessed the signing of the MoU.

This means that the military strategy of the government is heavily loaded in favour of these nations and not China as it was under Rajapaksa.

It is part of the government's plan to develop cities in different parts of the country. Hambantota and Jaffna are two other areas earmarked for development in a similar fashion.

Trincomalee is to be developed as a growth centre mindful of its strategic military significance.

So, the government's hopes are that while Hambantota flourishes as a centre for manufacturing industries with investments from South China relocated to Sri Lanka's South, the North and East will be developed along military oriented lines as major military cum economic zones.

This will be backed by State and commercial banks which have already begun negotiations with foreign funding organizations for credit lines to boost small and medium industry growth in the North and South. That ETCA will hence metamorphose into a major factor in Indian economic interests in the North and East of Sri Lanka is a foregone conclusion. Five to ten years down the line we can hence expect to see a massive topographical and maritime transformation in the North and East as the Philippines limits US opportunities in Subic Bay and elsewhere, triggering a likely shift to the North of Sri Lanka.

The government might seem to be well in control of a rational mix of foreign and economic policies.