24 July 2020 12:01 am Views - 11505
- Refuses to accept blame for Sajith’s Presidential defeat
- Feels not done enough for LGBT rights
- Disappointed with Sri Lankan politics
Former Foreign Minister and former Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera made a surprise decision not to contest the Parliamentary election.Various claims were made over his surprise move, including claims of a rift between him and Sajith Premadasa, who he had supported at the Presidential election. In an interview with Daily Mirror, Samaraweera explains the reason for his move, his future plans and more.
Excerpts of the interview
This is something I have been thinking of ever since the presidential election were over. In fact, 31 years ago in 1989 when I first entered Parliament, I actually decided to come into politics because of the dreadful human rights situation at the time, especially in the deep south where I come from. And when I was invited by Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike to become the organiser of the SLFP for Matara, I finally decided to take up the offer because I felt – I suppose when we’re young we all think we could change the world – that I could make a difference. And that’s why having entered Parliament in the general election of 1989, I along with Mahinda Rajapakse, started the Mothers’ Front movement at my own house in Walpola, Matara and we were both co-convenors of the movement. Later Richard De Zoysa’s mother Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu became the Chief Patron and that is how I started my political journey, for what I believed in, especially human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of media and of course, most of all democracy. But sadly I felt after 30 odd years – in fact I celebrated my 30th year in politics last year in 2019 – I felt that we as a country have not really moved forward because the same issues that we were fighting for 30 years ago are still relevant today. We are still talking about preserving human rights, we are still talking about preserving democracy, and in fact I feel that democracy is more at stake than ever before, we are still talking of the freedom of expression, freedom of the media, etc. and I also felt rather restricted. After all these years, I felt the country hasn’t moved forward and I haven’t really moved forward, either, in many ways.
"I have done many elections before. I have never seen such a chaotic, unorganised election of that nature ever before and these views were not expressed by me just before that election"
Q But do you think you did enough while you were in office to actually make change?
Well, we did try to make certain changes, but certainly not enough. You see, the tragedy of Sri Lanka is, I sincerely believe, from the time we achieved independence, when Sri Lanka was actually perhaps one of the most democratic and developed countries in South Asia. I know that there was an editorial in the London Times, I was told, on the 4th of February, 1948, on the day of independence saying that Ceylon, which is going to be independent from Britain from that day, predicted a bright future for Sri Lanka, saying it was going to be the Switzerland of the East. And even if you read Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs, he writes how Sri Lanka was considered the model commonwealth country at the time. At the time of independence, we had some of the best, the two best universities in Asia were here, we had a highly respected, highly regarded bureaucracy, we had police who are as good as any police force in the world. Sri Lanka
"We did try to make certain changes, but certainly not enough. You see, the tragedy of Sri Lanka is, I sincerely believe, from the time we achieved independence, when Sri Lanka was actually perhaps one of the most democratic and developed countries in South Asia"
Q Do you think that the opinions you had expressed, prior to the presidential election when Sajith Premadasa was also going to contest, were not taken well and that probably cost Sajith Premadasa the election as well?
No, I don’t think that is the reason which cost him the election because the election itself was chaotic and unorganised. I have done many elections before. I have never seen such a
Q Some are saying that you are probably looking at a role, beyond Sri Lanka, maybe at the UN?
I have been invited to do some lectures at Harvard by a very good friend of mine in America and all that. But no. My life is in Sri Lanka. I love Sri Lanka. In fact, as a student I stayed for 10 years in the UK. I could have easily got Permanent Residency there, but even at that age, I wanted to go back to Sri Lanka and I don’t regret that decision, especially now at 64, I certainly am not going anywhere. I will stick it out and I think Sri Lanka needs the values I believe in more than ever before.
Q With the current Parliament, do you think there is someone out there who can actually bring the sort of change that you are expecting?
The only person who can perhaps even understand or even have a certain conception of the values that I’m talking about is Ranil Wickremesinghe. I have a great deal of respect for him. But on the other hand he is not a populist politician, unfortunately for the country. In fact, I always believe that Ranil Wickremesinghe – I hope I’m wrong, there’s still time – will always be remembered as the best president Sri Lanka never had. But beyond that I feel we don’t have to have people in Parliament as long as there are people within this country, especially the youth. I think it’s finally their country, and they are the ones who have to live here for the next 50 or 60 years, all the mistakes that we do today, they are the ones who will live through it and I’m beginning to feel there is the new ‘X’ generations, the ‘Y’ generations, the ‘Z’ generations, all these new terms there are, they’re becoming far more enlightened and far more forward than we are.
Q You’re talking about Ranil Wickremesinghe, but you supported Sajith Premadasa.
Sajith was actually an extremely good minister. In fact as Finance Minister he was one of the few ministers to whom I allocate certain funds without any fear because I knew the money would be put to good use efficiently. There is a lot of waste in some of the other ministries. He was an excellent minister and of course he was also the popular face of the party and that was one of the reasons I really fought for his candidacy at the presidential election, because I really wanted to defeat or at least stop the recurring of the Rajapaksa regime at any cost.
Q Isn’t that the biggest issue where people are going for populists as opposed to capable leaders?
Exactly. I suppose it’s not only a problem with this country, but populism is becoming the bane of many a democracy. Right at this moment, look at what’s happening in the United States,
Q You have worked with the likes of Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Maithripala Sirisena and so on. Do you have any regrets looking back at your time in office, about more you could have done with these leaders or maybe they just didn’t give you the space to do that?
Of course I must say that during Chandrika Kumaratunga’s administration I was given the most space and it was during that period I did the most amount of work for the country, starting from the privatisation of telecom to starting the Colombo redevelopment plan and all that. The opportunity came during that time. But ever since I regret not being able to do more with some of the other leaders, because as I say, their agenda was hi-jacked by extremists in some of the other places along the way.
"During Chandrika Kumaratunga’s administration I was given the most space and it was during that period I did the most amount of work for the country, starting from the privatisation of telecom to starting the Colombo redevelopment plan and all that"
Q Another area you openly spoke on was LGBT rights. This is a sensitive issue and often took a backseat. Do you think Sri Lanka will ever recognise LGBT rights?
We have to. In fact, I feel I haven’t spoken enough about LGBT rights. Perhaps from the sort of background that most of us come from Colombo, LGBT issues were never an issue. It was basically accepted by your families, your friends, by your teachers, etc.
Q That was included in the national action plan, wasn’t it?
It was, in fact that was included in the national action plan, because we are still, as far as LGBT rights, especially gay rights are concerned, governed by one of the most archaic laws. It is from the time of Queen Victoria. Then of course, Queen Victoria’s own country has moved forward away from it and today we are still protecting Queen Victoria’s law saying it is part of the Sinhala Buddhist culture, which is an absolute joke. I mean, two consenting adults having the right to love each other is their private business and nothing to do with the state or the government.
Q Talk us through Sri Lanka’s foreign policy. When you were foreign minister, you took an independent stand. Now we see a bit of confrontation taking place with the US and India. Is Sri Lanka’s foreign policy on the right track?
It is disastrous. Sri Lanka is again rapidly hurling towards confrontation and international isolation. In fact over the years especially in 2015, Sri Lanka opened itself up to the world and we established excellent relations with all the different power blocks. I mean we had excellent relations with the United States; the secretary of state John Kerry - the first visit by such a high officer in 44 years – was here. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to UN was here several times. And in fact even President Obama who used to call us the good news country at that time, because in a world full of conflict Sri Lanka was the country he was getting good news about all the reform and all the changes and in its democratisation, and in his last trip to Asia in 2016 to Vietnam, he finally agreed to come to Colombo, the first ever state visit it would have been by the US president, in May of that year. But the day he could actually allocate was the very day we were celebrating Vesak here. President Sirisena was quite excited and said no no no, bring him, we can go and see the pandals together, but the American President had more things in mind, like a joint address to Parliament, so finally that was taken off his itinerary. So likewise, with the whole world, we were welcome by President Putin in Moscow, by China, we had a very close relationship with the EU.
Q But some say you distanced yourself with China.
Not at all. We didn’t want to only deal with China. We wanted a balanced foreign policy, where we would open ourselves to the whole world.
Q Wasn’t there too much interference from the US?
Why should the US?
"Sri Lanka is again rapidly hurling towards confrontation and international isolation. In fact over the years especially in 2015, Sri Lanka opened itself up to the world and we established excellent relations with all the different power blocks"
Q Because they were at the Human Rights Council?
The Human Rights Council is another story. I don’t know if you have time enough to talk about it, but what people don’t know is that President Rajapaksa himself committed Sri Lanka to an international investigation when Ban Ki-Moon arrived here two days after the war ended. There was a joint agreement and subsequently in Geneva, the Sri Lankan government agreed to do certain reconciliation to deal with the issues. But as always they were mere lies to get over the problem for the moment. And finally Geneva, it had nothing to do with the US alone; the European Union and the whole of the UNHRC decided and initiated an international investigation against Sri Lanka without Sri Lanka’s participation and that report was to have been tabled in Geneva in March of 2015. In fact had that report been tabled, that final report, it’s a damning report, in fact most probably after that report had been tabled there would have been further economic sanctions on Sri Lanka, definitely there would have been travel bans on President Rajapaksa and other members of his family and other key members of the administration but luckily for Mahinda and others and luckily for Sri Lanka, the government changed on the 8th of January. In fact, as foreign minister after visiting India, the next visit I did was I immediately went to Geneva, and Zeid was the chief there, and we had a long discussion with him. We insisted that this international investigation that was being done without Sri Lanka’s participation be taken off the book and we said now there is a new government, we can actually guarantee the independence of the judiciary now, so please we will do an investigation to any of the allegations of war crimes and others within Sri Lanka by ourselves. That was a huge victory and not only did we persuade the UNHRC, we persuaded the United States of America, we persuaded the United Kingdom, we persuaded countries like Germany to co-sponsor that resolution, which brought the investigation back into Sri Lankan hands.