The Government deserves plaudits for recalling 16 unqualified diplomatic personnel including Ambassadors and High Commissioners who had been posted to various world capitals solely due to their political links or relationships to powerful figures in former Governments. There are many more of them but this is a good start.
According to newspaper reports, political appointees serve even in some key capitals such as London, Washington DC, Jakarta and Abu Dhabi. Some of them have been appointed during the tenure of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the others during the tenure of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Recently, there was a huge scandal involving a top Sri Lankan diplomat in the UK, eerily reminiscent of a similar scandal involving a former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US, a close relative of a former President. Such incidents are a black mark on Sri Lanka’s diplomatic service, which was once adorned by illustrious men and women of the calibre of Dr. Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe (instrumental in drafting the Law of the Sea), Sir Claude Corea (a former President of the UN Security Council), former UN Under Secretary General Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala, Dr. Vernon L.B. Mendis, Bernard Tillekeratna, Manel Abeysekara (first Sri Lankan female career diplomat), Nihal Rodrigo and Yogaraj Yogasunderam, to name a few.
From time to time, Governments have also appointed non-career (i.e.non Foreign Service) academics, intellectuals and others with exceptional talents to top diplomatic posts. Dr. Ananda W. P. Guruge, the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka to UNESCO, France, and the United States from 1985 to 1994, was one of those rare non-career Sri Lankan diplomats to gain worldwide fame. He was, however, a member of the Ceylon Civil Service, (later Sri Lanka Administrative Service).
In more recent times, we have examples such as Dr. J.B. Dissanayake who was Ambassador to Thailand for a few years. This is a practice in many other countries as well. But, Sri Lanka is perhaps the only country which sent totally unqualified persons as diplomatic staff, even to top world capitals. A recent list doing the rounds on social media revealed that most of them are politicians’ kith and kin or their close supporters. Most of them cannot even speak English properly, a fundamental requirement for diplomacy. It goes without saying that they have no understanding whatsoever of diplomacy itself.
As well-known US Diplomat John Roos once said, “Diplomacy is fundamentally working with people, bringing people together to deal with difficult issues”. This needs excellent negotiating, listening and creative skills, that only a trained diplomat or a highly talented academic will possess. An unqualified person will have no such skills. But the end result of stuffing Sri Lankan Embassies and High Commissions with such persons is that even many Global South countries had failed to see eye-to-eye with Sri Lanka on human rights and other issues at the United Nations.
Indeed, we have to mend fences with many countries in the Global North as well as the Global South. The anti-Western attitude and rhetoric of certain former Governments have had a chilling effect. Sri Lanka, under a previous Government, even rattled Japan, one of Sri Lanka’s closest allies. As a strategically located island, Sri Lanka cannot afford to be isolationist. We also have to shed our “Island mentality” and integrate closely with the rest of the world. Island mentality can lead to serious consequences a la Brexit. Sri Lanka gets plenty of attention from world powers and regional powers due to its strategic location on the East-West sea route. But we cannot afford to take sides in this high-stakes regional power play. This is one more reason why we should have top-notch diplomatic staff in world capitals from New Delhi to Beijing.
They should be fully committed to the task in hand – not worrying about educating their children overseas and getting Permanent Residency (PR) for them. It is also no secret that many minor and unqualified staffers at Sri Lankan missions “vanish” in the countries they are stationed in, never to return to Sri Lanka. The Government should probe all such instances and purge Sri Lanka’s Foreign Service of all bad eggs.
Diplomacy covers a gamut of subjects from international treaties to bilateral relations. But at the end of the day, the aim of diplomacy should be enhancing people-to-people relations. We commented in these spaces recently that Sri Lanka has plummeted in World Passport Rankings, with Sri Lankans getting visa-free access to only about 40 countries, which include some insignificant islands. It is incomprehensible why Sri Lankans need visas to visit even some of the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) in Africa. Our missions abroad must work on improving the status and recognition of the Sri Lankan passport, a topic alluded to by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his inaugural speech. But all this requires competent hands in Sri Lanka’s overseas missions. We should, indeed, have a better diplomatic outreach in Africa, Asia and Latin America, quite apart from Western capitals.
We live in a world driven apart by conflict and war, among other challenges such as Climate Change and food insecurity. There are two major wars, in Gaza and in Ukraine. Perhaps, the world has never been closer to a nuclear war than it is at present, with at least one of the warring parties in both these war theatres having nuclear weapons. Diplomacy is sorely needed to heal the world and Sri Lanka’s diplomatic service must also be manned by competent persons who live and breathe diplomacy. This is the only way to restore its glory days.
