Diplomacy:

An ex-foreign service don assesses the President's pep talk

The President of Sri Lanka addressed his diplomats and stated some home truths. Leaving aside the political appointees (quite a few distinguished sons of Lanka have done far better than their career counterparts, but quite a few 'nobodies' have been made 'somebodies' because of their political connections or because they are relations of VIP politicians and given a free ride at the expense of the public purse....) the career service is uneven in quality.

Much of the blame should go to bad and sporadic recruitment in the years before Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar took over as FM. There has been no assessment or evaluation of work, no management audits. Many career officers have done little of value during their tours of duty; they have neither been tasked nor monitored.

However the large gatherings of diplomats such as the one just held may help to get the general message across. But if the objective is to inform our heads of missions of government policy and to motivate our missions to perform better, lumping everyone together and therefore implying that they are all the same and giving them maximum publicity is also, on the other hand, probably counter productive.

If the President wishes to build a professional foreign service, as is found in all other countries, perhaps he should also take a leaf from the book of Lakshman Kadirgamar. He was the only Foreign Minister who never interfered with recruitment into the service; he placed great emphasis on training and the sharpening of diplomatic skills and led by example - he led from the front and those in the service were proud to have served under such a Minister.

The President and Minister Mangala Samaraweera should also secure the Service by introducing a Foreign Service Act as has been done in certain countries. The Foreign Service must be built into a real professional service capable of protecting the interests of the country and it should also be protected from political predators who seek to use the service to have a good time and to educate their children.

The President should also transform the Foreign Ministry into a coordinating Ministry and place it right at the top of the administration.

The Foreign Minister should have the rank of Deputy PM to enable him or her to coordinate all aspects of our foreign relations. I presume that the President wishes to obtain the optimum benefit from our external representation; therefore he should then restructure the principal institutions and ensure coordination through inter-ministerial committees presided over by the PM or the Deputy PM to enable our missions to become more effective to 'deliver the goods'.

The President referred to the 5.4 billion budget of the Foreign Ministry but it is also relevant that of this sum more than 3/4th is spent as recurring expenditure and less than a fourth is available for effective operational work including PR, countering LTTE propaganda and promotion of trade.

We should have officers from our Trade Service too heading missions it goes with the importance we need to place on the promotion of trade and investment, in order (to use the words of the President himself) "to play a more multi-faceted role to ace the global challenges facing our motherland"

The President has also called upon the heads of missions to "transcend established diplomatic services' and get away from "routine administrative and departmental tasks such as attending to immigration matters". Extremely rarely however, do Missions get involved with Immigration matters.

There is also a reference to "new visions and concepts envisaged in our foreign policy", which unfortunately has not been spelled out. There is a lot that was perhaps unsaid in the speech about the work of Missions and their problems.

Perhaps the exact nature of the work of a mission is not known to the experts at the top. This speech in that aspect, contrasts to the speech made by the President to the Asia Society in New York recently where he articulated the concept of peace with security and the concept of holistic development as his government's policy.

Having noted the positive aspects of the President's speech, it is somewhat unfortunate I think that there has been a lumping of the 'good, bad and the ugly' and that everybody has been scolded, as if nothing of any consequence has been done or achieved in the foreign service. The President should have been advised I think of the silent but effective work done by our Missions for example in Europe in recent times.

The ban on the LTTE did not just happen there. There was indeed a tremendous amount of lobbying done by our heads of missions in Europe and elsewhere, countering the efforts of Norway and the Tamil Diaspora. There was also the Resolutions in the European Parliament. I can state without fear of contradiction that all this requires tremendous effort. An appreciation of this should have been placed on record, I must say.

That would have inspired, officers to greater efforts and it would surely not have, then, demoralized those who have been doing hard work for the country. As for those who use foreign postings to have a good time and to obtain for their children a good education (what a commentary on the education system in the country), that is no doubt the objective of most political appointees! Governments also make ridiculous appointments to pay off political IOUs as for the education of children of Foreign Service officers the children actually suffer as a result of having to change schools every three years.

I wish to also refer to a few other issues raised in this speech. Though it was stated that we can only attract less than half a million tourists whereas Cuba has more than 2.5 million tourists a year, it has to be noted that Cuba has no international Diaspora bad-mouthing the country other than for a few in Miami.

We certainly could and should do better but the image of the country is one in which there is an ongoing "civil war', of bombs and the possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Travel advisories are issued by foreign countries and there are inadequate air connections, and this does not help.

Needless to say, to promote a positive image of the country we need to get our act together. In this day and age of instant communications when the world media, most times very unfairly, carries reports of political instability, conflict, assassinations of journalists, strikes and other forms of labour unrest, how could even a Kissinger project a positive image?

This is true not only with regard to tourism promotion but also for investment promotion. In regard to this the high cost of electricity and lack of infrastructure also acts as a disincentive when compared with other possible locations in the region.

K. Godage