Notes on Kazakhstan-Sri Lanka Ties  

-From DR. ABDUL RUFF

[Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal, Specialist on State Terrorism ;Chancellor-Founder of Centor for International Affairs(CIA); Commentator  on world affairs, Analyst on Middle East, Chronicler of Foreign occupations & Freedom movements (Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya, etc.) Former university Teacher; website: abdulruff.wordpress.com/mail: abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com]

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Central Asian Kazakhstan and South Asian Sri Lanka established diplomatic relations on June 29, 1992. Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent three-day state visit to Kazakhstan comes when Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan are celebrating 20 years of diplomatic relations. President Rajapaksa met his counterpart President Nursultan Nazarbayev on 21 November for bilateral talks.

President Nazarbayev welcomed his counterpart with a military guard of honor.  Prez Rajapaksa was accompanied by First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa and the rest of the Lankan delegation. Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev pledged his country’s wholehearted support towards Sri Lanka’s post conflict development during discussions held with his counterpart President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana. The two leaders discussed ways of further improving trade-economic cooperation and tourism between the two countries.

The leaders discussed on the possibility of increasing direct flights between the two countries to strengthen the tourism flow in to Sri Lanka and open new avenues for trade and investments. During discussions while Kazakhstan voiced interest in buying Ceylon tea, Sri Lanka showed interest in purchasing gas and fuel from Kazakhstan.

Attention was also drawn to setting up of factories to develop gem and graphite industries in Sri Lanka with the help of Kazakh investors. President Nazarbayev said that he will support to organize Sri Lankan gem exhibitions in his country.

Kazakh President Nazarbayev also congratulated President Rajapaksa on the political and economic transformation that took place in Sri Lanka after the conflict. Speaking on certain international pressures against Sri Lanka based on false allegations, Nazarbayev assured Rajapaksa that his country would stand by Sri Lanka. On the occasion he pointed out that a country should look for home grown solutions for its difficulties.  

Sri Lanka is an island nation lying below India and now threatened by fast climate conditions and Indian nuclear terror project in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu. Due mainly to its geopolitical circumstances, Colombo pursues a proactive foreign policy cutting across spectrum of global nations. Equal weightage has been given to all entities, big and small, in the domestic arena, and on the larger stage of global relations. This has resulted in remarkable dividends, domestically and otherwise, and a good example is the support they get from countries in international forums, with Uganda and Kazakhstan being two nations among many that have expressed solidarity with them when the country has faced unfair measures internationally.

The World Bank's full throated cheer for Lankan growth rates, as reported in these spaces, reaffirms the fact that the international lending agencies and other powerful international bodies still dominated by the big powers absolutely identify with the gains we are making, and are supporting us all the way through to upper-middle income status. Meanwhile the opposition in Colombo just laughed at the Mahindra’s visit saying that the President visits 'small countries' and that therefore his visit to Kazakhstan represents some kind of political failure.

Nazarbayev assured President Mahinda Rajapaksa that his country would stand by Sri Lanka against all international pressures .He also pointed out that a country should look for home grown solutions in dealing with its problems. President Rajapaksa said that Sri Lanka will help Kazakhstan to obtain host status for the EXPO exhibition slated to be held in 2017. He also invited his Kazakhstan counterpart to visit Sri Lanka.

In the meantime, UK premier David Cameron is being urged by UK MPs to consider boycotting next year's Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka in protest at its human rights record.  At least 100,000 people died in the 26-year war between government authorities and Tamil separatists which ended in 2009. Earlier this month, 27 prisoners were killed during clashes at a prison in Colombo. A 2011 report by the Foreign Office cited "frequent" human rights violations - including terrorist suspects being held without charge for long periods, reports of torture in custody, restrictions on freedom of expression and little progress in investigating disappearances of political activists. Opposition parties claim it was a massacre but the government says the deaths happened in exchanges of fire during a riot after prisoners obtained and used weapons. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already said he will boycott the biennial event in November 2013 unless Sri Lanka's human rights record improves.

Lying off the southern tip of India, the tropical island of Sri Lanka has attracted visitors for centuries with its natural beauty. The island fell under Portuguese and Dutch influence after the 16th century, and Britain began its conquest in the 1790s. There was a long-established Tamil minority in the north and east, and Britain also brought in Tamil labourers to work the coffee and tea plantations in the central highlands. This made the island, then called Ceylon, a major tea producer.

The growth of assertive Sinhala nationalism after independence fanned the flames of ethnic division, and civil war erupted in the 1980s against Tamils pressing for self-rule. International concern was raised about the fate of civilians caught up in the conflict zone during the final stages of the war, the confinement of some 250,000 Tamil refugees to camps for months afterwards, and allegations that the government had ordered the execution of captured or surrendering rebels.

 In recent years, there have been talks between the Sri Lankan government and the biggest Tamil party which may lead to constitutional reforms including substantial regional devolution, which the Tamil party wants given that the north and east are largely Tamil-inhabited.