Global Politics and the Sri Lankan Trajectory

by Surendra
Secretary: Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist)

Introduction:

(August 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It would be wise to situate the future direction of Sri Lanka within the context of the movements and changes in the global political –economic-strategic order. Every country, state and nation must adapt to, or overcome, its global environment, if it is to survive. The imperatives and the options of the Sri Lankan regime have to be identified within the logic of motion of the global political- economic-strategic order.

The Decline Of US Hegemony And The Emerging New Global Order:

The present regime is trying to optimise the range of its policy options within the context of dramatic changes in the global political-economic-strategic order. The undisputed hegemony exercised by the US, as the sole super power, has entered into a new spiral of crisis. The US economy is in deep and prolonged turmoil. Even the trillions of dollars injected into the circuits of finance capital to keep the sinking pirate ship afloat, only serve to prolong and deepen the economic-financial crisis. Inflation and unemployment are rising, while factories are closing down. Militarily and strategically, the US is losing control and losing ground. The wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of course, Palestine, led and fed by the US, are aimed at exercising strategic control over the vital energy resources of the Middle-East and the Caspian region, which is key to exercising global hegemony. However, all these raging conflicts cannot any longer be managed and controlled by the US and the NATO military alliance, as designed by them. Even while the US is attempting to dominate the whole region, including by provoking Iran to war, it is running up against insuperable limits and constraints which serve to deepen and intensify the crisis. The Nuclear Profile Review authorized by President Obama has, in effect, reserved the right of the US to exercise its option to resort to a nuclear first strike, giving expression to the intensification of global contradictions and the fatal compulsions of the US empire.

US hegemony is being challenged by new and rising global alliances and floating coalitions, particularly the Shanghai Cooperation, which links Russia with China, along with a host of countries. Sri Lanka enjoys observer status within this global configuration. There is an emerging global polarization between a bloc of powers led by the US countered by Russia, where China and India play a decisive role. These movements are in constant motion and change, and they have not coalesced into hardened rival blocs. There is both contention and collusion, both unity and struggle between all these powers in their effort to gain decisive strategic advantage over all others. Yet, the broad contours of the global political-economic-strategic landscape and trajectory should be outlined and monitored.

A Strategic Balancing Act:

The Sri Lankan regime is trying to optimize its strategic options by exploiting this rivalry and contention between the various emerging power centers and blocs. Even as it bends towards Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and Brazil, it conforms to the needs and dictates of the US, Japan and the West, and capitulates to the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB. Even as it leans heavily on China, it takes great care to placate India by offering it also a juicy slice of the of strategic pie. It profiles a pro-Iranian stance, while having entered into a military agreement with the US. Even as it declares solidarity with Palestine, it relies on Israel and MOSSAD for military and strategic assistance. The regime exploits these contradictions and contentions based on the growing strategic importance of the island with respect to accessing and controlling the vital sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.

Role of Regional and International Players:

The growing linkages being built up with China will, no doubt, exert pressure in deciding the future trajectory for Sri Lanka. China has afforded a line of credit to the tune of $ 3.4 billion. This is financing critical mega projects, including the Hambantota harbor and the coal power plant in Puttalam – both of which are underway. The Hambantota harbor project has completed its first phase, and is entering into its second. The Hambantota harbor will be of immense value to China commercially. But, more importantly, this project opens up a strategic gateway for China to gain access to the vital Indian Ocean sea-lanes which contain a traffic of some 70,000 ships a year - and to further penetrate the economic, political and strategic lifelines of Sri Lanka, and Asia. This project is a vital part of the Chinese projection of Asiatic and global power. This is why both India, the US-Western bloc and Japan, are all in jitters and are making their counter-moves.

The US and the European Union, along with the UN in the forefront, are trying to cajole the Sri Lankan regime by raising the issue of human rights, including war crimes, as a way of exerting pressure on the regime to link up more solidly with their own structures of global strategic design and political economy. The issue of war crimes have been taken up not for the love of humanity, but to mainly seize a stranglehold on the regime, to placate the Tamil Diaspora and appear as defenders of human rights. The whole issue will be elegantly dropped, once H.E. Mahinda Rajapakse falls in line. So will the “Lessons Learnt, Truth and Reconciliation Commission” also promoted by the US.

At the same time, in spite of the incredulous balancing act carried out by the regime, it is moving steadily into a strategic dilemma. Whom to rely on? Which way to turn? The intensifying crisis of global Capitalism, along with its consequent intensification of rivalry and contention among all the various imperialist and rising global powers, will eventually compel the regime to make its irrevocable choice- as to whom to decisively capitulate to save your skin. In the context of the deadly horse-trading among these powers, Sri Lanka may very well be dropped, marginalized, neutralized and/or occupied.

Realities and Trajectories of the Regime:

Not a healthy, nor viable, trajectory. For the sake of its survival, the regime must infuse a massive, accelerated flow of foreign investment in order to generate and sustain a given, viable and rapid rate of development; - however lop-sided, distorted, vulnerable and dependent that might be. Without the injection and infusion of such a logic and dynamic, the whole system, and the political economy it sustains, is bound to jump gear and head for a crash, along with the regime. This logic and flow is absolutely and urgently necessary to pay off staggering debts, oil the ideological and repressive apparatus of the State, rake in fat commissions and profits and amass new fortunes, keep the train of loyal lackeys, ministers, advisors, bureaucrats and contractors happy, and to keep the masses at bay by throwing some crumbs along the way. The regime must come up with lucrative mega projects that will allow the multi-national predators to make a fulfilling kill, so as to enthrall the masses with the illusion of soaring prosperity, even as they are ground to dust to pay the cost of the skyscrapers. So, mega projects must lead development.

In the meantime, opposition and resistance will intensify and breakthrough the barricades of repression, once the people begin to understand the source of their poverty, misery and degradation and begin to regain and organize the struggle for their freedom. In the face of this, the regime must exercise political-ideological hegemony over all of society in order to consolidate undisputed political authority, security and stability. It must impose and police its moral code, based on the new Dharma, as propounded by the new religious authorities of the state. Politically and strategically, to stem the rising tide of mass resistance and rebellion, the regime must continuously rely on mobilizing a solid, hard-core, chauvinist political-ideological base. For this purpose, it must continuously mobilize dominant nation chauvinism in the name of PATRIOTISM, identified as the “Defense of the Land, Race, Language and Religion”, equated as the “Defense of the Motherland”. It must advance the banner of the undisputed supremacy of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation, in order to persistently mobilize its political-ideological vanguard and harness the hearts and minds of the oppressed Sinhala masses.

For these reasons, the regime cannot afford to address the burning need for a democratic political solution to the Tamil nation, nor address the national-democratic rights of the Moslem and the Hill Country Malayaga Tamil nationalities, nor still protect the rights of the various ethnic-religious communities. It must suppress and control all thought, feeling and action of the masses, lest they see the light of day. It must strive to keep the masses in utter ignorance, divided and deluded. The regime must conjure dreams and fantasies of mega cities carved from out of the sea, while it lets the hundreds of thousand dispossessed and deprived victims of war suffer in hell. It must exercise an iron dictatorship over society in order to insist and command that the people shall endure all suffering, all indignities, all atrocities, all evil violations for the sake of perpetuating the REGIME. The logic and trajectory of the regime, and of Sri Lanka, is towards consolidating a military-police state, ruled by a crony, comprador-capitalist, dynastic oligarchy, out to enhance and perpetuate its power and privilege- at whatever cost.

The Need of the Hour:

We are indeed facing the “ Winter of our Discontent”. We shall remain a pawn in a deadly game of chess played out by global powers. Ultimately, they try to carve out the island politically and strategically. This will not serve to resolve the contradictions and conflicts that are dragging us towards internal crisis and disintegration, but will compound and intensify these contradictions and conflicts. Abuse, violence and terror shall haunt the night as death squads hunt for their prey. The voice of conscience shall be drowned in the din of victory parades. The regime of parasitic, crony commission capitalists shall plunder the country to satisfy their insatiable craving for accumulation and aggrandizement. . The masses of people – those who sweat and toil to provide us all with life sustenance- they shall be ground to dust, even as foreign predators and local parasites sink their fangs into our lifelines that much more decisively. Those who resist shall be silenced. The future of democracy and freedom will continue to be fatally at stake.

We need to communicate. We need to connect. We need to share our disbelief and horror over the state of affairs in our cherished Land. We need to unite, organize and mobilize the people, so they may rupture with all forms of deception and illusion, to resist and overcome the evil that has engulfed us, and which violates us all by robbing us of our shared humanity. We should look to the future and see the new world of freedom shining on the distant horizon. We should think, decide and ACT, in unity with the oppressed people of the world, to advance humanity beyond the era of barbarism and war, towards a new age of universal FREEDOM.