its been few days since Pakistan got chucked out of Commonwealth and our countries pussy footed approach to the whole saga.looking back i see so many rhetoric against the move and even UNP has gone out hard on the decision and also heavily criticised the Foreign Minister ( who is a MP of their party , by the way ..) and the government in general. President it seems made some noise at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting against the Pakistan being suspended from the Commonwealth.
there is now more and more statements and comments coming from all quarters of the government, including the Foreign Secretary Kohona, Deputy FM Husain Bhaila , FM himself , Prime Minister Wicramanayake and the President himself, but as i see it damage has been done.
when Pakistan needed us most as friend not only to voice against the sinister moves against Pakistan but also to stand up for a friend who has over and over and over the times had stood for us, Sri Lanka irrespective of who was on power in Pakistan , which party or which General in power , when all the so called friends and International Safty nets and so on failed us.
when Sri Lanka faced grave threat to its freedoms and security in the face of terror it was not the Commonwealth nor its Secretary General or its nominal head the Queen of England who stepped in to help us , it was the Republic of Pakistan,very Pakistan we betrayed on 22 November 2007.
its true that there is a serious crisis in Pakistan in terms of governance , and there is emergency rule , which is stop short of Marshal law and the judiciary and the opposition parties are under threat, but its also a fact that Pakistan had seen its fair share of turmoil and there is moves within Pakistan to come to a settlement on this continuing crisis.
having being suspended from Commonwealth is , in fact for Pakistan is not a big deal, after all Commonwealth is nothing but sort of a glorified club to celebrate the now defunct British Empire and its gathered in the expenses of the UK taxpayers money so that that UK government and its head of state the Queen ( and what ever remnants of the Royal Family) gets to go on a nostalgic trip of a 'once a mighty empire we had ' sort of thing, where they get a chance to tell their former colonies 'how bad' they are doing and ' what they must to ' to fix things up, the British way of course.
its irrelevant what the Commonwealth has to say about Pakistan or about any other country or the suspension of Pakistan from Commonwealth. however,whats relevant is that we have betrayed a friend , a friend who had been there for us in our time of need and had been many times over . therefor , the Government including the President and the FM must somehow do its best to rectify this grave error.
may be the best place to start is the up coming Parliamentary sitting where the Budget of the Foreign Ministry will be taken up. FM Bogollagama can explain what made him to take the pussy footed approach and Deputy FM Bhaila can explain what went wrong with the 'breakdown of communication ' which he seems to be repeatedly referring to and on the top of it , MP Basil Rajapaksha , being the Governments Viceroy in Parliament can say what they are going to do to fix the problem and also remedies in terms of not repeating the same mistake.
let us all hope that Pakistan doesn't experience a 'break down of communications' when they have to deal with a crisis facing Sri Lanka, if it arises in the future.
1 comment:
That's not fair. Sri Lanka and Malaysia were the only countries that stood up for Pakistan. There was only so much that we could do, and we have to agree that there were justifiable reasons for Pakistan's suspension.
What we managed to do was, to get an assurance that Pakistan would be welcome back, once the elections are held properly, and democracy is restored. That, I think, is a fair compromise.
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