US preoccupation with Sri Lanka’s internal affairs is a cause for concern. Every incident has prompted a comment from the US. If the office of a newspaper is attacked, it is an attack on the independence of the media despite the fact that any number of possibilities not connected with media freedom exists for such attacks. While issues such as increase in electricity tariffs, transfers of judges and concerns over religious tensions have elicited comment, the following are repeated on a regular basis: progress on reconciliation; delays in implementing the National Plan of Action; delays in evolving a political solution; need for accountability, and the list goes on and on.

The recent vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva was upsetting, and it would make sense for Sri Lanka to assess what happened and work towards ensuring that such a situation does not occur again. However there seems little chance of that, since the same was obvious a year ago, but nevertheless nothing was done, except to sit back and hope disaster would not strike twice.

The only efforts at analysis we saw from the Ministry of External Affairs were leaks to the effect that the vote engineered by the United States had put Sri Lanka back on track to working with what were described as its traditional allies.

I am not first talking about Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, but Jose Mujica of Uruguay. I am not talking about poverty in terms of vision, but modesty in terms of wealth or possessions. I am also not saying that Mahinda or other Rajapaksas don’t have a ‘vision’ at all, but it has become completely crooked especially after defeating the LTTE. What an opportunity they have missed to be magnanimous, reasonable or simply ‘Just’ on the question of the Tamils and other minorities in the country.

During  Sri Lankan career diplomat and former SAARC Secretary General  Nihal Rodrigo’s tenure as Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China,  when the proposals for the expansion  and modernization  of the port of  Hambantota were  being seriously developed , he had informally asked the views of  a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) about the speculation of  many  think tanks in  the West about the  so-called Chinese  "string of pearls"  being  setup across  the Indian Ocean region. 

Rodrigo specifically asked whether Hambantota,  in the South  of  Lanka,  was going to be part of that string. The theory about China’s security necklace across  the Indian Ocean revolves round the sea ports of Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Sitwe in Myanmar (formerly Burma)  and, more recently, with much media focus, on   Hambantota.  These ports have been linked and projected as a necklace of containment  round India by many particularly  in the Western  strategic community.