One Blunder After The Other In Foreign Policy
Dr. Laksiri Fernando
Sri Lanka is making one blunder after the other in its foreign relations with India quite reminiscent of the days of President J. R. Jayewardene which finally resulted in strengthening the separatist forces in the country and the Indian intervention in 1987. Whether this is happening without provocation or reason is a debatable matter. Even if the tug of war with India is understandable on the human rights resolution at the UNHRC or the 13thAmendment, there is no reason to repeat a similar confrontation on the Nuclear Issue. It is absolutely a dangerous sphere to enter and only the fools would rush in where the angels fear to tread.
In the 1980s, the US was not behind India. Now the situation has dramatically changed particularly with the Indo-US Nuclear Deal (2005) and the present Russia is not exactly the Soviet Union of the Cold War period that a country like Sri Lanka can completely count on. Whatever the long term intensions or prospects of China, in the current period, it would drop Sri Lanka like a hot potato if the stakes with the US are high.
This is not to say that Sri Lanka should not have an independent foreign policy but to say exactly the opposite that Sri Lanka should be independent from all dubious patrons by firmly following its age old non-aligned and neutral policy in foreign relations whatever the short term temptations or impulsive and subjective urges of short sighted military advocates.
