Rajiva Wijesinha

“ Then there are those politicians who believe that abandoning our sovereignty is the best way of achieving their own goals. Some of them may genuinely believe that, in what they see as a unipolar world, keeping the West – or their concept of what the West amounts to – happy is the best solution, others are probably more cynical, but do not realize that the West is more adept at using them than they are at using the West. ”

“ In a pamphlet on ‘The Parliamentary System of Government’ that was published during the Second World War, the British academic Sir Ernest Barker wrote that ‘One of the great principles which the genius of France has contributed to civilization is the principle of national sovereignty’. ”

“ Thus the European Union puts all its money for what it terms humanitarian assistance into international NGOs. When I suggested that they work with local ones, the head of the EU aid agency said sanctimoniously, as though he regretted this, that he was constrained by EU regulations which insisted on working through international NGOs.
The wind was taken out of his sails when I pointed out that much EU funding for what is termed advocacy was given to local NGOs such as the Centre for Policy Alternatives, itself funded almost entirely by the West. ”