Well Done, Chandrika!

[September 27, 2004 - 10.00 GMT] 

“She took exactly the right stand on the issue of terrorism, coupling the need to search for and address the root causes, with an unequivocal denunciation of terrorism and a call for resolute regional and global counteraction”, said veteran political analyst Dayan Jayatilleke on President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s address at the 59th UN General Assembly in New York.

[Full text of the article by Dayan Jayatilleka, reproduced from Asiantribune, September 22, 2004]

I am not easily impressed, but this time I am.

President Kumaratunga has just proved in New York why the country is luckier to have her than Ranil Wickremesinghe as its leader, and why she is the best leader that Sri Lanka could have given the available choices at this moment in history. Her address to the UN General Assembly was the best by a Sri Lankan head of state or government, barring – and bettered only by - her father’s brilliant peroration in 1956 on the twin crises, Suez and Hungary.

Chandrika returned to the option of SWRD and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, charting an appropriately contemporary version of a non-aligned middle path in the contentious issues of world politics today.

She took exactly the right stand on the issue of terrorism, coupling the need to search for and address the root causes, with an unequivocal denunciation of terrorism and a call for resolute regional and global counteraction. This is indeed the correct policy synthesis, and needed to be articulated before an audience of world leaders.

She finessed the Iraq issue most ably, avoiding the triple traps of spineless silence, endorsement of the US war or the alienation by denunciation, of Washington.

Her resounding reaffirmation of the UN was a subtle critique of unilateralist militarism, her pitch for the democratization of the Security Council and the discreetly camouflaged but discernible plug for India, was a combination of laudable reformist ideal and Realpolitik.

She did her bit for Buddhism by criticizing its vulgar commercialization in the West.

Above all she exposed the LTTE before the biggest possible audience of world leaders for pulling out of talks 18 months ago and obstreperously ducking a return to the negotiating table.

With an admirable sense of diplomatic tact and prudence, she commended the facilitation by Norway.

In short, by adopting a centrist course, she also took the moral high ground. President Kumaratunga gets an A from me for her UN General Assembly address and an A – (A minus) for her Asia Society speech.

The Asia Society lecture was not only infinitely superior to (then) Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s most comparable speech, at the Woodrow Wilson Centre two years back, it was the best speech on Sri Lanka’s interrelated ethnic and terrorist problem I have read by a Sri Lankan leader since Independence. Making an explicit critique of the “monolithic unitary state” (as she put it), she demonstrated that she is the Lankan leader who came closest to intellectually comprehending the ethno-national question, possibly the only one to understand it. Her speech also cuts across the ‘root causes versus terrorism’ debate, striving for a balanced synthesis, making it one of the better speeches I’ve read on terrorism and conflict resolution by any head of state or government after 9/11.

Though she probably had the good sense to obtain inputs from both Lakshman Kadirgamar and Jayantha Dhanapala, I know that for the most part she tends to write her own speeches, for better or worse (sometimes for worse, as at the LSE and in Delhi in 2001); and I also know she writes well, better in English than in Sinhala. So almost all of the credit must go to her, as all of the blame if she messed it up.

But it is still an A minus, because she didn’t quite pull off the part about the current situation, and produced a bit a soufflé, giving the Tigers an undeserved plus for agreeing to federalism, when in fact their departure - through the ISGA - from that agreement is our (and her) problem. She didn’t do herself or us any favors by that un-clarity.

All in all though, Sri Lanka can be proud.

 PRINT THIS STORY

Contact Information: Send mail to gosl@presidentsl.org with questions or comments about this web site. 
Last Updated Date: September 27, 2004  - 10.00 GMT.