Sunday Times 2
Diplomacy and identity crisis
Prior to the December 14 Supreme Court decision which led to the reinstatement of the Wickremesinghe government, two former Sri Lankan ambassadors from the pro-Rajapaksa front had been publicly pushing the notion of the diplomat as “messenger” with a duty only to convey messages between the sending state and receiving state through the formal channel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They rebuked certain Western ambassadors for becoming “players” in the Sri Lanka political scene. These arguments are so far from the reality today – one wonders in which remote ideological world these former ambassadors are operating!
The notion of the diplomat as messenger may apply to how business is done in an authoritarian state like North Korea, but has little practical application elsewhere in the world. With globalisation and rapid communications, the old state-centric international relations model in which the Vienna Convention was drafted, has given way to the new transnational model with non-state actors, INGOs and public diplomacy. Modern day diplomats are public actors like anyone else, and are encouraged to be “players” reaching out to the many different levels of society in the receiving state. Diplomats are expected to follow both official and social media and to offer corrections of misinformation or “fake news” wherever required. In doing so, they should, however, be smart enough to know what the line of their government is and not to cross the sensitivities of the receiving state, although admittedly in Sri Lanka that is sometimes difficult to discern. Social media by its very definition represents conversations between people. As much as social media is a platform for deeper engagement with people, it also means that public persons like MPs should be careful about their postings if they do not want pushback. In Sri Lanka, the barrage of court cases and police entries over statements at public meetings and media shows indicates both current sensitivity and public determination to use all available channels of protest.
Why is it important to challenge the arguments of these former ambassadors? This is because their views have been advanced from the “Eliya” platform and reveal a certain ideological slant in that camp which should be corrected. They appear to champion a rejection of liberal values and return to a closed society of authoritarian bent where the government controls everything and the individual disposes of little freedom. Is this really what we want for Sri Lanka where everyone has his or her own opinion and wants to air it? Take by comparison the new constitution reportedly adopted by Cuba’s Parliament, opening up the economy to the outside world, yet a copy of this constitution is still not available in the public domain!
Even in ancient times, as a maritime hub, Sri Lanka remained open to the world and was able to compete with the neighbouring South Indian kingdoms, mainly due to its even handed approach to visitors from many different cultures, Romans and Greeks, Arabs and Chinese. Today Sri Lanka is a low middle income developing country with heavy social expenditure and insufficient revenue, hence its dependence on foreign aid, trade, investment and tourism. In times of crisis like the tsunami, the head of state called for international assistance which was quickly mobilised by the United Nations. In normal times, Sri Lankan diplomats are routinely urged to practise economic diplomacy to harness international cooperation overcoming stiff competition from other developing countries. Is it not ironic then that the Western ambassadors, whose conduct is now denounced by the former Rajapaksa ambassadors, are the same envoys to whom all our governments have gone when they wanted to mobilise economic assistance? What is required is careful constructive diplomacy to win over objections not a frontal ideological charge and “name and shame” strategy as suggested by the former Rajapaksa ambassadors. Since the major share of our exports goes to European Union nations and the United States what is needed is to cultivate good relations with these countries and work towards removing barriers to trade such as conditionality embedded in the GSP schemes.
One cannot discount the presence of “loose cannons” among diplomats as in other professions. However, we face a different problem at home which is likely to become aggravated in the coming months. With the rift in the government between the President and the Prime Minister, it is quite likely that some ambassadors with close political connections to the head of state may feel it opportune to set out their own opinions and their own work agenda which can only lead to confusion in the receiving state and the general public. Our ambassador in Moscow, for example, has been running articles on the current political situation in the local press, giving his own perspective. For example he had argued that the Sri Lanka President has overreaching authority over Parliament which view was carried as a banner headline in the state-run press until that view has been corrected by the recent judgment of the Supreme Court. Has the ambassador briefed the Russian Foreign Ministry of the subsequent turn of events? Fortunately the Russian Foreign Ministry officials are 100 percent professional and well able to make correct assessments of the complex situation in Sri Lanka on their own account.
Embassies issue press releases to reflect the positions of the governments they represent not to show their activism or reflect the personal opinion of the envoys concerned. Take for example the normal practice for newly arrived ambassadors to call on their counterparts and to brief their Foreign Ministry of any point of interest raised. Usually these conversations are conveyed in confidential reports to the home office, so as not to cause any discomfort to the foreign representatives concerned. Such first calls are generally balanced including reaching out to our neighbours in South Asia and the wider Asian family, member states of the Commonwealth, our main trading partners etc. It is one thing to burnish one’s personal “Marxist” credentials in meetings with the Cuban and Chinese ambassadors but to relay them as releases to the Sri Lanka press is not good diplomatic practice. However, the very professional Cuban and Chinese representatives would have known how to guard the official line with our ambassador given his predilections!
Our Foreign Ministry has for years faced enormous challenges in dealing with controversial political appointees who engage in political and business activities while serving abroad ignoring financial and administrative rules ranging from basic requirements like prior approval for publishing to maintenance of embassy accounts. There have also been instances when professional diplomats have stood up to question wrong-doing on the part of political ambassadors. Such courage has been vindicated now in the US where, for the first time in our diplomatic history, a former envoy, a Rajapaksa appointee, is to be indicted on charges of fraud over a property purchase on behalf of the Sri Lanka government.
This is the time Foreign Ministers like Lakshman Kadirgamar are missed. Mr. Kadirgamar valued and nurtured professionals in the diplomatic service, setting the bar high for professional ambassadorial appointments at 60 percent and political at 40 percent. But then he had the national interest at heart and was not pursuing any personal political agenda.