Foreign service depoliticised

Career diplomats appointed to 27 overseas missions:

by Manjula Fernando

The new Ambassadors and High Commissioners to 27 Sri Lanka’s overseas missions will start leaving for their respective postings by next month, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said. “Most of them have already received their letters from the host country,” he said.

The Government recalled the non career diplomats in Sri Lanka’s overseas missions soon after the Presidential election in January which brought about a regime change. The top posts of these missions had been vacant since then.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the move was to depoliticise the foreign service and build Sri Lanka’s tattered image. Seventeen of the newly appointed Envoys are senior career diplomats. The former Foreign Secretary Kshenuka Seneviratne is among those who have been cleared by the High Posts Committee of Parliament for a new top post, Foreign Ministry official Spokesperson Maheshini Kolonne told reporters earlier.

Seneviratne will shortly assume duties as Sri Lanka’s next envoy to Thailand.

An internal inquiry and the High Posts Committee cleared her of the charges that she had handed over the renovation work at the residence of the Geneva head of mission to a company owned by an LTTE activist. She was accused by a former envoy to Geneva Tamara Kunanayagam.

“The internal audit revealed that the awarding of the contract to the construction company was done before she assumed office in Geneva on November 16, 2009 and that the owner of the company Turairaja Thangarajah was neither a ‘listed person’ in Sri Lanka nor had terrorism charges against him by the Swiss authorities,” Kolonne said.

Among the recalled envoys were the High Commissioner and Deputy High Commissioner in Australia Retired Admiral Tisara Samarasinghe and Luxman Hulugalla and the Heads of Missions - in France Prof. K. Hangawatte, Japan Retired Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, Korea Tissa Wijeratne, Italy Bennet Cooray, Israel Sarath Wijesinghe, Pakistan Retired Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody, Russia Udayanga Weeratunga, South Africa Sarath Kongahage, Saudi Arabia Hussain Mohamed and Sweden Oshadi Alahapperuma.

The orientation program for the Ambassadors designate will be inaugurated by Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Deputy Minister Ajith P. Perera at the BMICH tomorrow June 22.