The Soft And Hard Of Diplomacy
Malinda Seneviratne
It was reported that the United States of America had softened its stand on Sri Lanka. This was after President Mahinda Rajapaksa met US Secretary of StateJohn Kerry on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Jen Psaki, spokesperson for Kerry and the US State Department has since said that the US position on Sri Lanka had not changed.
So it’s still hard. Not news, though.
Psaki elaborates thus: ‘We would like our relationship with Sri Lanka to achieve its full potential. That will only happen if Sri Lanka builds enduing peace and prosperity for all of its diverse ethnic and religious communities. That’s why the Secretary made clear to the President that Sri Lanka needed to take meaningful steps to act like a country that is no longer at war but instead is now building a future that includes all of its citizens.’
Perhaps Psaki hasn’t heard the adage ‘charity begins at home’ for if he did he would be agitating for an end to structured racism in the USA which results among other things in racial profiling and the regular pumping of bullets into the bodies of Blacks and Latinos by white police officers who are subsequently absolved of any wrongdoing.
But if indeed he hasn’t heard of home-charity, it might have something to do with the fact that his office is not about ‘home’ but about ‘abroad’ even though all interventions and engagements are predicated with the now tired and meaningless caveat ‘to ensure the security of our country’. What does one say to a country that is perpetually at war and yet preaches peace to the rest of the world? What does one say to a country that destroys other countries and robs the yesterday, today and tomorrow of millions of people and yet talks of ‘building futures for all citizens’? Read More
