French diplomat comments on SL withdrawal of co-sponsorship of UNHRC Resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 February 2020, 16:37 GMT]
A top French diplomat, engaged in geopolitical negotiations with the SL leaders in Colombo has gone on record stating that the SL decision to withdraw from co-sponsorship of the UN Human Rights Council Resolution did not mean that the resolution had disappeared from the table. Agence France-Presse (AFP) filed a news report citing Thierry Mathou, the director of Asia and Oceania for the French Foreign Ministry, as saying that the UNHRC resolution was “legally binding”. The AFP report comes in the wake of the recently observed trend in which France is trying to deepen its cooperation with the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka as part of operationalising its Indo-Pacific Strategy.
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Islamabad establishes close rapport with Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 February 2020, 23:00 GMT]
Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Muhammad Saad Khattak, a retired Major General, has met SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, extending Pakistan’s “cooperation in defense, trade, people-to-people relations, countering extremism, promoting religious harmony and in any other area Sri Lanka would need,” reported SL State-owned newspaper Daily News on Monday. In the meantime, informed sources in Colombo said SL President has promised to promote South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in favour of Pakistan, through the new Secretary-General of the SAARC, Esala Weerakoon. India wants Colombo to work more closely with BIMSTEC and in a trilateral maritime security programme, also involving the Maldives.
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UN human rights system in Geneva lacks courage to make “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 February 2020, 20:04 GMT]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 30/1 adopted in 2015 was fundamentally flawed as it was based on the “Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Investigation on Sri Lanka” (OISL). The OISL was not mandated to investigate decades-long Tamil genocide as it was conceived as an “internationalised” extension of the Rajapaksa regime’s “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC), a blueprint for post-2009 genocide. Now, the LLRC-inventors are back, and they are at loggerheads with the inventors of the International-LLRC (OISL). The acid test for the High Commissioner, her office, the OHCHR and the 47-member UNHRC is the notion of SL “co-sponsorship”. If the human rights regime in Geneva wants to save its credibility, it has to make the human rights situation in “Sri Lanka” a Permanent Agenda Item to the council. But, it lacks such courage.
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Gota silent, Mahinda belatedly responds, Silva evokes Buddhist sentiments with SL Chief Justice

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 February 2020, 23:44 GMT]
Acting SL Chief of Defence Staff and SL Army Commander Shavendra Silva, subjected to a travel ban along with his immediate family members by the US State Department on Friday, was gracing a “mammoth multifaceted Anuradhapura ‘Swarnamali Thupabhivandana’, meritorious programme” on Saturday, said SL Army website on Sunday. In the meantime, SL President and Commander-in-Chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a US citizen, remained silent without commenting anything on the travel ban. Meanwhile, SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has issued a statement, attacking the report of the 2011 UN Panel of Experts as “unofficial” and the 2015 OHCHR report and the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 as being based upon the 2011 “unofficial” report, which he described as the source of “unfounded allegations”.
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Japanese Ambassador invites Gotabaya to Tokyo conference, discusses ECT

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 February 2020, 11:15 GMT]
Japan’s Ambassador Akira Sugiyama called on SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday to discuss the Eastern Container Terminal (ECT), which was put on project pipeline during the previous regime as well as to look into the prospects for liquefied natural gas project. He was also inviting Mr Rajapaksa to attend the 26th international conference on “The future of Asia”, an annual global conference sponsored by Nikkei, a large media corporation in Japan. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be meeting Mr Rajapaksa during the visit on May 28-29.
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US Embassy in Colombo: No policy shift on ‘Sri Lanka’ engagement

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 February 2020, 23:19 GMT]
Colombo-based News 1st quoted the US Embassy as clarifying that there were no additional restrictions on US military engagement with the SL State, other than the public designation on SL Army Commander Lt Gen Shavendra Silva announced on Friday. There was no curtailing of US military assistance to Colombo, the news report said. The designation didn't represent a shift in policy, the report said.
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Tamils need to add Macron’s France to geopolitical watchlist on genocide-abetting regional powers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 February 2020, 22:18 GMT]
The Republic of France, one of the five nuclear-weapon states distinguished by the non-proliferation treaty, is asserting itself as a sovereign regional power in the Indo-Pacific with a dedicated strategy. With a robust military presence and 93% of its exclusive economic zone located in the Indo-Pacific, France has started to compete and cooperate with the US. A comparatively weak global power, vying for regional influence, complicates the already complex matrix in the region, especially when it seeks to woo rogue, autocratic and genocidal state actors. The stateless nations and people facing suppression from the occupying state actors are already at the receiving end due to lopsided geopolitics curtailing their collective rights and international justice. Wrong symptoms were showing up in the recent message coming from French President Emmanuel Macron to SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
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US congressional delegation meets Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 February 2020, 23:43 GMT]
A day after US State Secretary Mike Pompeo imposed a travel ban on SL Army commander Lt General Shavendra Silva and his immediate family members against visiting the US, two US Congressmen met SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo on Saturday. US Ambassador Alaina B. Teplitz accompanied Amerish Babulal Bera (Ami Bera) of the Democratic Party and George Edward Bell Holding of the Republican party, who met Mr Rajapaksa. The US delegation discussed “strengthening of relations” in counter-terrorism, tourism & energy sectors, reported the Daily Mirror. The report didn't have any reference to the US blacklisting.
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Pompeo blacklists pro-China Shavendra giving Gotabaya second chance to toe US line

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 February 2020, 19:44 GMT]
It was Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who led the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils in 2009, giving instructions to the then Major General Shavendra Silva to bomb the hospitals as well as to carry out the brutal white-flag killings. Gotabaya was a US citizen and SL Defence Secretary at that time. Instead of holding the greatest war criminal and genocidaire, liable under US Congress’s War Crimes Act, accountable for the crimes, the Trump administration has opted for a different approach with strategic interests in mind. The US State Department is enticing him offering carrots while pointing its stick selectively against his pro-China Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva. On Friday, US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo designated Silva under Section 7031(c) of US Department of States Appropriations Act, passing a severe message to Gotabaya not to delay toeing the US line.
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Philippines scraps US “Visiting Forces Agreement”

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 February 2020, 22:15 GMT]
The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has terminated a critical military pact his country was having with the US since 1998, on Tuesday. The scrapping of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) was a move “in the wrong direction,” responded US Defence Secretary Mark Esper. In the meantime, US Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Philip S. Davidson on Thursday said he was expecting the US State Department to negotiate with the Philippines to sustain the VFA. China and the Philippines have been at loggerheads over the former’s claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea since 2012. However, President Duterte, elected in 2016, was favouring a “multi-polar” world order as being ‘officially’ envisaged by SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Duterte has plans to launch a resident mission in Colombo in 2020.
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Israel’s balancing act with China ‘inspires’ Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 February 2020, 22:00 GMT]
Dr Ron Malka, the ambassador of Israel to India and Sri Lanka, paid a courtesy call on SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday morning. Israel is ready to strengthen bilateral relationships with Colombo, reported SL State-owned newspaper Daily News. Mr Rajapaksa was seeking Israeli assistance to modernize agriculture, the paper said. However, there is more to the re-emerging nexus between Tel Aviv and Colombo. In January, a “think-tanker” of the SL Ministry of Defence was comparing Israel permitting China to operate its Haifa port with SL State’s leasing of Hambantota port to China. In the meantime, China and Israel, after having secret talks for several years, are set to conclude a trade pact in 2020 despite repeated warnings from US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the Foreign Policy reported earlier this month.
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Rajapaksa commits to Indo-US maritime agenda, seeks three-year moratorium on loans

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 February 2020, 23:43 GMT]
“We have decided that we must have more intelligence sharing now, and increase the technical assistance [from India], as well as training. [...] In addition, we want to continue our earlier [pre-2015] project for tri-lateral terror and security cooperation between Maldives-India-Sri Lanka. We might have the meeting for that as soon as possible, possibly in the Maldives and discuss how to take the trilateral idea forward,” said Mahinda Rajapaksa in an interview to The Hindu on Saturday. Furthermore, the SL PM told the paper that Colombo was expecting “a moratorium on all loan repayments for three years until we can revive the economy”.
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‘Sinhala Neighbourhood First’ approach unfolds in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 February 2020, 22:20 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was not reciprocating Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “confidence” that Colombo would “realize the expectations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace, and respect within a united Sri Lanka.” Both the leaders held a joint media presence in New Delhi on Saturday. Mr Modi said that it would be “necessary to carry forward the process of reconciliation with the implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.” Mr Rajapaksa, who read out a statement after Modi’s speech, was not making any reference to “united” or “13th Amendment”. The same pattern was also witnessed during SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s visit to India in November 2019. It is evident that Mr Modi was making concessions to Colombo in return for its compliance to the maritime security concerns of New Delhi, political observers in Jaffna said.
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New Delhi to discuss maritime security, BIMSTEC ‘progress’ with Mahinda Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 February 2020, 21:28 GMT]
SL Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is on a five-day visit to India for high-level diplomatic meetings combined with religious veneration starting from Friday. “This visit will focus mostly on maritime security in the Indian Ocean region. Both countries will seek to also bring the ties back on focus and build on the gains that were reached during (Gotabaya’s) visit,” reported The Print, an Indian digital newspaper. Genocidal Sri Lanka currently holds the chair of the regional alliance, Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). “Sri Lanka’s participation in the BIMSTEC, which is a crucial part of Modi’s ‘Look East’ policy, has moved at a rather slow pace,” The Print report said.
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Russian commander to inspect SLN marines groomed by US Indo-Pacific Command

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 February 2020, 23:42 GMT]
Russia’s Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces and General of the Army Oleg Salyukov who is visiting the island with a military delegation from his country will be inspecting the SL Marine Academy of genocidal Sri Lanka at Champoor in Trincomalee on Thursday. The Russian army delegation is discussing “bilateral cooperation, training of Sri Lanka military personnel in higher education institutions of the Russian Land forces, participation of Sri Lankan teams in the Army international games-2020, and conduction of joint exercises,” according to Russian state-run news agency, TASS.
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Colombo's navy receives US help to ‘safeguard strategic lines of communication’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 February 2020, 18:15 GMT]
US Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Joanthan Henick has said that the US was growing its “broad and multi-faceted strategic partnership” with quadrilateral partner India. At the same time, his office was also “helping Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives equip and train their navies and coast guards to safeguard strategic lines of communication,” Mr Henick said while addressing the Foreign Press Centre in Washington, D.C., along with his colleague in charge of East Asia and a mission director of the USAID on the subject of “The U.S. Vision for the Indo-Pacific Region” on Thursday.
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Gotabaya's “non-alignment” talk temporary, tactically aimed at consolidating genocidal state

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 January 2020, 22:12 GMT]
The Sino-Russian global alliance wants New Delhi to subscribe to the Nehruvian tradition of non-alignment of the Atlanticist Cold War period, which in effect meant alignment with the USSR in the past. However, if New Delhi were to continue the non-alignment policy in the modern-day, especially after the start of the Indo-Pacific Cold War, the choice would block any “in-depth techno-security partnership” with the US. Therefore, pursuing “non-alignment” in practice means choosing Sino-Russian side, wrote M.D. Nalapat, the editor of The Sunday Guardian in a piece titled “Time to choose sides in Indo-Pacific Cold War” on Saturday. Similarly, Colombo would also be under pressure to make the choices as determined by the New Delhi (by extension the US) establishment, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna.
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Colombo to increase trade ties with Iran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 January 2020, 22:25 GMT]
Iran's Ambassador to Colombo, Hashem Ashjazadeh, has told the Governor-General of Iran’s East Azarbaijan Province that the present government in the island is being run by “popular government,” which was seeking “more interaction with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” according to a report by IRNA, the official news agency of Iran on Wednesday.
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Washington synchronises geographic conception of “Indo-Pacific” with New Delhi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 January 2020, 20:53 GMT]
Two high-ranking US national-security and State Department diplomats who attended the Raisina Dialogue conference held in New Delhi 14-16 January 2020 have gone on record stating that the US had expanded the territorial scope of the geopolitical notion “Indo-Pacific” to be more or less the same as what was being defined by the New Delhi Establishment. US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger said the American conception of “Indo-Pacific” was now “roughly aligned with the Indian conception” and that it included East Africa and the Gulf. “More than Hollywood to Bollywood, it is really now California to Kilimanjaro,” he said at the session titled “Coalitions and Consensus: In Defense of Values that Matter” on 19 January.
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Pentagon strengthened military ties with Colombo after Modi-Trump meet in 2017

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2020, 22:18 GMT]
The US President Donald Trump was determined to strengthen military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand before his November 2017 trip to Asia. However, after meeting India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the US President decided to operationalize “Major Defense Partnership” with India while pursuing “emerging partnerships” with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal, according to Michael Pillsbury, the Trump administration’s “favourite outside China expert”. Michael Pillsbury has authored an article on the topic of Trump Administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy in the policy book titled “The Struggle for Power: U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century,” which was published by the Aspen Strategy Group on Friday.
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