Cassandras have a field day over GSP +

By Rajpal Abeynayake

(October 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is funny to see how many people assume that the GSP + facility would not be granted. It's even funnier to see how many people assume it's so important.

Of course the possible withholding of the GSP+ would mean the loss of jobs and that would hurt the economy in some measure, but that's not the end of the world. And of course I know it would, to some, sound clichetic if we say it's better to die on our feet rather than live on our knees...

But the entire GSP+ debate has also opened up a greater debate on the future foreign policy contours of this country. Among other topics that have been opened up for discussion, are the profitability of courting allies such as Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi.

On this, it's amazing how many people are willing to buy into the western media sponsored screed on Ahemedenijad and Cahvez for instance. They say that Chavez is a loquacious madman.

Objective realitye

Let's consider the real facts starting with Iran. There is no evidence that Iran wants to build the bomb. But there is evidence that Iran wants nuclear technology. Besides, if the bomb is what's so important, Pakistan has the bomb too in that case, so why not talk about Pakistan, or Israel?

All these bogeys do nothing to enlighten people on the objective reality, which is that there is little or nothing that the collective West can do to make Sri Lanka submit to their agenda on our affairs.

I can bet my bottom dollar on the fact that there will not be a single war crimes prosecution against the Sri Lankan state.

Of course noises will be made, but this will be in the form of an expiation of sorts, and the US needs this expiation because the diaspora is making some noises, and the US wants to make it clear that her pseudo-stance as the global human rights arbiter is maintained.

What's really silly is that we are all being told that if we do not spurn the pariahs such as Ahemedenijad and Chavez and Gaddafi, the Western nations would make life unliveable for Sri Lankans.

The argument does not stand upto scrutiny. Let us say that GSP+ is scrapped. The western world can also hold a tight reign on assistance, and loans.

Does that mean that Sri Lanka would knuckle under?

No, because we have already got the IMF facility. Perhaps people are trying to tell us that life would be more difficult without the Western nations wholeheartedly backing this country.

But then why is the narrative being dressed in doomsday terms, as most 'experts' are doing now, when they tell us that our alienation from the west is toxic, and that we should be shivering in our boots?

Is it that we are the only country that has good relations with these so called pariahs, Ahemedenijad Chavez and Gaddafi? Forsooth, to believe that Chavez who has the deified allegiance of a greater part of Latin America, is a pariah!

The US is threatening Ahemedenijad no doubt, but today the Obama administration has initiated a dialogue with the Ahemedenijad administration as promised during the Obama campaign.

A lot of the demonisation of leaders such as Chavez and Ahmadinejad is by the western media at the behest of Western leadership, and if we buy into that demonisation without making the assessment about our friends ourselves, we are gullibles. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has not followed nuclear guidelines, i.e.: there is no evidence that Ahemedenijad is building a nuclear weapon.

The inspections thus far have proved it, and this is the replay of the WMD scenario in Iraq. Anybody remember? We were told that America is going into Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, but they never did find any.

Of course the Saddam regime was toppled in the process nevertheless, but the fact remains that the moral legitimacy of several UN member states who refused to join in an international effort to invade Iraq on the grounds that there were WMDs, was strengthened rather than weakened.

So, it is understood that we are living in a world of created bogeys and phantoms and in the area of international relations this is particularly so.

Do those who pontificate about the dire misfortune that would befall us if the Western nations are not palavered and pandered to, realise that Sri Lanka has an aid utilisation percentage of an abysmal 35 percent?

So, more aid for just what? So that we can underutilise it?

The IMF loan has looked after the immediate needs of tiding over this economy. GSP+ has thus far not been rejected but if it is, the economy will find ways to adjust particularly when avenues such as tourism are opening up. Yes, that's a difficult thing to say to those who are going to lose jobs, but this is not the first time that people in a certain sector have lost jobs en masse. Before ---- when the tourism industry was in the doldrums during the war, people lost jobs heavily in that sector, and so overall it's as if what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts…..

Bottom of the barrel

People will remember that some dire prognostications were made when the 2002 Wickremesinghe government was toppled. Vast amounts of aid would to be cancelled, they said, and the succeeding government would not be able to manage.

But vast amounts of aid were not necessary, because 65 per cent of the aid to this country is underutilised anyway. Eventually the government survived and a war was fought and won too on the money available even though the bottom of the barrel had to be scraped. That cannot be a more difficult task than surviving without GSP. We can survive without GSP, but what we need not do is to walk out on our allies such as Ahmadinejad, Chavez etc., because the next time the West tries arm twisting us for no reason (and they always do it for no reason…) we would sorely need these allies once more.

( The writer, Editor, Lakbima News, Colombo based weekly news paper)

-Sri Lanka Guardian