A Message Of Hope Tempered With Reality

By Emil van der Poorten –September 27, 2015

Emil van der Poorten

The recent goings-on in Geneva where a skilled and suave diplomat of Jordanian origin, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has given Sri Lanka the opportunity to dig itself out of a moral grave of its own excavation is going to produce interesting fall-out.

Prior to the Jordanian presenting his report to the United Nations Council on Human Rights a few days ago, Mangala Samaraweera, our own Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) who has been a pleasant contrast to the buffoonery of some of his predecessors, particularly Rohitha Bogollagama, the antithesis of what the holder of such office should be, fired a pre-emptive salvo of good sense in the Swiss city.

Even though, it seemed to repeat a rather tired manthram of conciliatory sentiments in conciliatory language, it was a pleasant contrast to that which had preceded it in the Rajapaksa years: a litany of lies, obfuscations and undertakings that were deliberately ignored no sooner they were made.

Despite all of the above which seems to suggest that we could be on to a new highway of hope in foreign relations and, infinitely more important, a return to civility in the conduct of our own affairs, I cannot, in the cold light of day, believe that such a sea change is going to occur anytime soon and, even if it comes close to doing so, occurs without the spilling of more innocent and principled blood.

There is a classic dictum that the best way to anticipate future conduct is by reference to past behaviour and if any of the “movers and shakers” in Sri Lankan politics are to be analysed in no matter how cursory a manner, my pessimism should be easily comprehended (and accepted).                                     Read More