Lanka’s unfinished freedom struggle
What ought to have been a day of celebration was marked on a sombre note, with little to celebrate other than a military parade and a cultural pageant at the spot where the formal papers were presented handing back sovereignty after 443 years of colonial domination – from a crumbling British Empire to an old nation with a recorded history of over two thousand years.
The country was not in a mood to celebrate. Given the crippling austerity measures in force with shortages of food, medicines, cooking gas, energy and foreign exchange, it was only to be expected that questions arose whether a country whose leaders are grovelling for foreign loans should engage in a fanciful ego-boosting show.
Some chose to boycott the parade blaming the Government's ineptness in handling recent events, even though February 4, 1948 is a day that is commemorated to honour the sacrifices made by patriots during colonial rule and is not as a report card of an incumbent Government. Still others critiqued the military display ignoring the fact that the armed forces of independent Lanka protected the unity of this island-nation, defended democracy on several occasions, and resisted the temptation to overthrow elected governments unlike in many other newly independent nations after World War 2. It has been famously said that a country's armed forces are not "museum pieces" that should be confined to barracks in peace times but must always be combat ready.
Unfortunately, this Government showcasing its military has other connotations. It has allocated a huge Defence budget when other areas are short of funding. The common belief is that there is a growing trend of ever increasing reliance on the military apparatus to deliver on behalf of the Government what should essentially be civilian administration tasks.
It is easy to forget or downplay the armed forces’ role in bringing peace to the country in the post-Independence years. For three decades, this country faced Asia's longest insurgency and many of its members paid a heavy price. It was a time when no country was willing to provide military hardware to Sri Lanka for fear of jeopardising ties with India. The avowed position of the Sri Lankan Government be it the UNP or the SLFP was to find armaments from "even the devil", while the terrorists seemed to have had an endless supply.
There was the instance when a private charter plane bringing arms for the SL Army from unorthodox sources ran out of fuel for the last leg of its journey and had to land in an airport in India. Then National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali was fortunately in New Delhi at the time and managed to get the tank filled allowing the aircraft to continue to Katunayake. When Elephant Pass and the Jaffna peninsula were on the verge of falling to the LTTE in April 2000 and 40,000 Government troops were besieged, then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar recuperating in India after a kidney transplant, appealed through Delhi-based ambassadors for multi-barrel rockets and other weaponry to counter the terrorists. A few countries obliged – but North Korea was not in the known list. China stepped in later with armaments given on credit from its People's Liberation Army armoury.
That was the plight of Sri Lanka and its under-equipped armed forces at the time. And yet they prevailed. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa keeps repeating these trials and tribulations to stress that though battles can be lost, the war can be won.
As much as February 4 is about remembrance and honouring the great patriots from the battles against the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Uva-Wellassa uprising (1818) to 1948, it is also a day to salute those who made the supreme sacrifice in more recent times, were maimed for life and gave their all to defend this nation from being broken up by internal forces instigated by foreign governments. Today, they are being hounded by the very politicians in the North who were unceremoniously dislodged from the mainstream of affairs by AK-47 toting terrorists, relegated to the dustbin of history only to return to the centrestage thanks to the country's armed forces who restored the democratic status quo in the North.
With this year's Independence celebrations now over, the challenge ahead for this country's leaders is to secure Sri Lanka's liberation from neo-colonialism, the economic and cultural imperialism practised by the old colonialists. The United Kingdom is unable to shake off its colonial mentality and the House of Commons still thinks it should be running what was once 'Lipton's tea garden'. Its MPs, beholden to voters in their constituencies for re-election ask questions about human rights in Sri Lanka and its ministers preach on the subject which they dare not do to India, while at the same time passing laws that prevent their own armed forces being questioned about alleged human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Rajapaksa in his Independence Day address acknowledged that Sri Lanka will abide by international conventions. It is good to see him reset his Government's foreign policy veering away from the 'megaphone diplomacy' of the early days of his Presidency that saw unwise decisions to unilaterally walk away from international scrutiny. It is not that easy.
Being independent does not mean asking the rest of the world to go take a hike when the world's searchlight is on you, however unjustified. Sri Lanka is locked into a world economic order and must rely on it – and make the best of it. That does not mean cowing down to unreasonable pressure, as it bravely refused to when asked to stop the war against the terrorists in 2009. It means learning the fine art of negotiation practised by leaders like D.S. Senanayake through the highs and lows of the Donoughmore and Soulbury Commissions to ultimately win Independence, and Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike to secure the Kachchativu islet for Sri Lanka. These negotiating skills must also extend to the economic front where everything appears to have collapsed.
As the country proceeds to its 75th year of Independence, President Rajapaksa has the unenviable task of ensuring that that his fiscal advisers ensure brain is in gear before engaging mouth, strategise without having commissions in mind and put country before self like the great patriots of the past did, so that the elusive economic freedom that should have been ushered in with political freedom, is guaranteed