Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris reaffirmed Sri Lanka’s active commitment to dialogue and engagement with the Commonwealth at a virtual meeting with the Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in New York.

Foreign Minister Peiris recalled that Sri Lanka as a founding member of the Commonwealth remains proactive and committed to the values, principles and objectives of the Organization. Sri Lanka looks forward to further collaboration with the Commonwealth in a number of areas including commerce, education, vocational training and climate change. The Minister stated that Sri Lanka has been successful in Mangrove restoration and has emerged as a Commonwealth Blue Charter leader. Sri Lanka recently initiated a “climate and green economy” focusing on food security centric agricultural production and renewable energy.

The Commonwealth is a celebration of diversity with all of its Member States enjoying a common objective, making it unique and exhilarating stated the Foreign Minister. All of its Members have the advantage of a common law background but have followed different avenues of development. The Foreign Minister also briefed Secretary-General Scotland on the steps taken by local institutions in the country with respect to reconciliation. This is an on going process, and the country requires sufficient space for the local institutions to deliver on their mandates. The work done by these institutions cannot be replaced or taken over by external bodies. He referenced the ad-hoc mechanism that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is trying to establish and stated that it is not acceptable to Sri Lanka and not in line with the spirit and letters of the UN Charter.

Secretary-General Scotland warmly recalled her visits to Sri Lanka in 2018 and 2019 and appreciated the close engagement that Sri Lanka has consistently maintained with the Commonwealth. She thanked Sri Lanka for hosting the Commonwealth Law Ministers Conference in 2019 and stated that the Commonwealth appreciates Sri Lanka’s continued collaboration with the Commonwealth in a wide spectrum of areas including trade, sports, youth and countering violent extremism.

Sri Lanka is one of the 54 Member States of the Commonwealth and hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2013.

Foreign Ministry

Colombo

19 September, 2021

(https://mfa.gov.lk/fm-commonwealth/)

The Sri Lanka High Commission in Canada in coordination with the Good Shepherd Church in Ottawa organised a Christmas celebration on 22 December 2019 at the Church premises.

The celebrations commenced with the Welcome Address by Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Canada, Asoka Girihagama who spoke of the universal event of Christmas which marked the birth of Christ over 2000 years ago. He stated that Christmas was a time to remember those who were less privileged, the sick, the hungry and the poor and the importance of treating one another with love and compassion. He also remembered the victims of the senseless terror attacks in    Sri Lanka on 21 April 2019 which occurred eight month ago.

The High Commissioner’s address was followed by a holy Mass conducted by Reverend Father Virgil Amirthakumar and Father Yacob Joseph. Hymns and Christmas carols in Sinhala, Tamil and English languages were rendered by the Tamil Group and the Ottawa-Sri Lanka Catholic Prayer Group.

Following the Vote of Thanks, the guests were served light refreshments and freshly brewed Ceylon Tea, complements of the Sri Lanka Tea Board and Basilar, while children were delighted by Santa Clause who distributed candy to the young guests.

The Christmas celebration was well attended by over 200 Sri Lanka nationals, Canadians of  Sri Lankan origin and Canadians among others.

Sri Lanka High Commission

Ottawa

23^rd December 2019

The new Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) Ambassador Dayantha Laksiri Mendis was appointed by Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Board of the Institute Professor G. L. Peiris. Ambassador Mendis assumed duties at the Institute's premises in Colombo on Wednesday (15). Also present on the occasion were members of the Board Suganthie Kadirgamar and Kosala Wickramanayake, Director General of the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute Ambassador Pamela Dean, Director of the LKIIRSS Chathuka Senanayake and representatives of the Foreign Minister's office.

Foreign Ministry

Colombo

16 September, 2021

(https://mfa.gov.lk/lki-new-ex-director/)

Mr. Chairman, distinguished panelists, ladies, and gentlemen. Both the Maltese Minister and the Rector in their remarks spoke of the interface between religion and foreign policy. There is clearly an interface. The Rector, in her concluding remarks, also used the word ‘cynical’. There's also a great deal of cynicism and skepticism that is all too evident, and I think there is a fundamental cause for this. There is the widespread conviction that foreign policy decisions are often made without any regard to ethical or moral factors. It is a question of loyalty to a group to which one happens to belong and then uncritically one follows a course of action that is dictated by that group. There is no attempt to search one's own conscience, decide what is wrong, what is right in a particular situation.

Now I think it is worth recalling that there was once upon a time, a very powerful movement called the Non-Aligned Movement. It still exists but it has lost a great deal of the vigor and vitality that it had in the Non-Aligned Movement. And a leader of that period from your part of the world certainly played a pioneering role in that. Joseph Broz Tito of Yugoslavia was one of the pillars of the Non-Aligned Movement. Then also in this part of the world, we had Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, who played a leading role together with world leaders representing different geographical regions and different cultures. Jawaharlal Nehru of India. Then you are going to have your interfaith dialogue next year in Indonesia. President Sukarno of Indonesia and a leader of my own country, the world's first woman Prime Minister, the late Sirimavo Bandaranaike was very much a part of that movement. There were others whose names are well-known. Nasser of Egypt and so on. Now, the whole point of the Non-Aligned Movement was look at each foreign policy issue on its merits. You don't come to a priori conclusions and membership of a group, fidelity to a group should not be regarded as something that overwrites and supersedes matters pertaining to one's own conscience. Of course, this movement began and flourished in a certain context, the context of a bipolar world.

The Rector mentioned the fact that there is no longer any Cold War. I think the Chairman said that there is no longer a Cold War. In some ways it makes life easier. Now the Non-Aligned Movement was developed in the context of a bipolar world. You don't align yourself to this camp or that camp. In one matter, you may agree with this camp, but in another matter, you would completely disagree with that camp and say ‘No! The other camp is right.’ So you preserve for yourselves the freedom of thought and the freedom of action. Now today we live in a unipolar world. There are no longer two warring camps. But that does not mean that the ideology underpinning the Non-Aligned Movement is entirely irrelevant or obsolete. Not at all. I think if you look at the troubled world in which we live, some elements of that philosophy remain very relevant and they have a kind of immediacy today, which they probably did not have in the 1960s when the movement had its heyday. So that is a point that I would like to stress to dispel this mood of skepticism and cynicism, to enshrine a state of things in which foreign policy decisions are made according to moral and ethical values. I think that's an important point. Then, reference was made also to the United Nations. The distinguished Foreign Minister of Malta referred to the fact that the UN Charter speaks of freedom from fear, freedom from want.

They are two sides of the same coin. But I think we need to ask ourselves, Mr. Chairman, in a spirit of frankness of candor, whether the United Nations system is functioning today in the manner that was envisaged by the founding fathers. If you look at the seminal documents of the United Nations system- the Charter of the United Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights- are we really behaving in the manner that was envisioned by these sacrosanct instruments? I don't think one could sincerely answer that question in the affirmative.

Today, reference was made to COVID-19 and the responses to that. Look at the Bretton Woods institutions. The Bretton Woods institutions were also fashioned in a certain political context that is the end of the Second World War but the world has changed a great deal since then. But those institutions remain largely as they were. Now the developing world in particular, if the World Bank, for example, were to agree to a policy of debt forgiveness in the excruciatingly difficult circumstances that we have today, then countries that are developing would be able to use their own scarce resources for projects connected with the welfare of their populations. Now take my own country Sri Lanka. We normally earn 4.2 billion dollars a year from tourism. That has come almost to a complete stop. Then our trade relations have been affected. Money coming into the Sri Lankan Treasury from the efforts of our expatriates working abroad in countries like Italy has been affected. So in that situation, if the World Bank were to agree to a policy of debt forgiveness, I think that would greatly accelerate and facilitate the economic development of our countries.

Then look at the composition of the Security Council. Does that in any way reflect the reality of the modern world? It does not. It reflects a certain balance of powers that was only realistic at the conclusion of the Second World War. But today there are other emerging powers. I won't name countries but the entire organization needs to be basically overhauled to bring it in line with contemporary realities. The Economic and Social Council needs to be strengthened. Again, there has to be an emphasis on equality, on human dignity. The whole world, not a section of the world. It is not one section - affluent, powerful, dominating the rest of the world and using the United Nations system as an instrument for their domination. That is what creates a certain lack of confidence in the organs and the structures associated with the United Nations system. So I think these are some of the critical issues, imperative issues that we need to address at this time.

Just a couple of short points. The other one is that any enlightened foreign policy has to be based upon the concept of mature nationhood because foreign policy is in a sense, an extension of domestic policy. So, you know, the country has to be united in formulating foreign policy. You can’t do it in an acrimonious, divided way. Now many of our countries, certainly my own country, we have different parts of the population speaking different languages, professing different religions. Their cultural backgrounds are completely different. That's a problem. Now, how do you work on that? I think the key to that, Mr. Chairman, is the educational system. You know, the young, impressionable minds, certainly in our part of the world, the Indian subcontinent- Sri Lanka, Malaysia, that part of the world- you have different ethnic communities in schools and universities being taught in completely different compartments, and there's hardly any opportunity for young people to get to know each other. Not because there's hostility. There's no hostility at all. It's just that they can't speak to each other. There's no communication possible because of the problem of language. So not only their academic lives but even their cultural and social lives tend to be entirely compartmentalized. Therefore, language plays a key role in communication, a link language for example.

Then the final point I want to make is this that we have to look at ethnic or religious political parties. That is also a critical problem with regard to the formulation of foreign policy and in many of our countries, we have political parties that profess overtly to be ethnic in character and complexion. We represent this ethnic group. We represent this religion. I don't think that's a good idea. It does a great deal of damage. In my own country Muslims, Tamils, members of minority communities have reached the pinnacle of political power and authority as members of the national political parties.  National Political Parties! And that has not inhibited their rise within the democratic system. So there is no need for them to detach themselves from the national polity, to segregate, to compartmentalize the national polity by the formation and the emergence of political groupings that seem sectarian. They have a very narrow perspective, and that is hugely detrimental to the solidarity and the unity of our countries. You are contemplating these matters in the G20 Interfaith Forum. So these are some thoughts that I would like to leave with you, not as concluded by any means, but merely as a basis for a very stimulating discussion that we have under your distinguished chairmanship.

Thank you very much.

(https://mfa.gov.lk/fm-sl-bologna/)