Too many slips

Sri Lanka's new High Commissioner to the Court of St. James is the first to respond to an invitation from Sheffield University to field questions posed by a variety of sources through the LAcNet website.

High Commissioner Mangala Moonesinghe readily agreed to do so and at the last count had replied 50 questions or so asked by Sri Lankans and others from Surrey to Sydney, from Paris to Pittsburgh.

While most career diplomats would have shied away from such a challenge given the natural reticence with which they approach their work, Mangala Moonesinghe is a lawyer-politician turned diplomat and is driven by other considerations.

He, perhaps like many others, probably believes that Sri Lanka's reactive rather than pro-active approach to informing foreign policy makers, politicians and the media has led to the country often coming out second best in the highly professional and competitive business of effective public information.

Over the past couple of decades during which Sri Lanka has had to face a barrage of criticism from human rights and United Nations organisations over its blatant violations of human rights, the defence of the country's record and explanations of its general conduct had been left to career diplomats and dubious birds of passage who had been co-opted into the service for political and personal reasons.

The result was that this critical exercise was left in the hands of persons who were not properly equipped to handle the task because they lacked the professional expertise and experience for this specialised job.

The result was that without reacting quickly to incidents that necessitated the government getting to the media and policy makers quickly, our chanceries waited for word from Colombo which itself reacted with the usual bureaucratic lethargy and lackadaisical approach leaving the field open for critics of Sri Lanka and political opponents of the government to get in their word in first.

Perhaps those like Mangala Moonesinghe have realised over the years the need to conduct a more forward-looking and open relationship with both friends and critics of Sri Lanka in the hope of presenting the country's case in more a balanced light where faults and shortcomings are admitted and not covered up as though they never happened.

Mr. Moonesinghe who was our high commissioner in New Delhi for several years before coming to London about two months ago, had a good reputation at his last post.

I learned this when I was in India for the country's Golden Jubilee in 1997 and had the occasion to meet members of the New Delhi diplomatic corps and officials from the South Block.

I learned that he was involved in a pro-active and sustained effort to improve Sri Lanka's image in India and internationally by meeting and talking to people that mattered.

So one supposes that when he accepted to come online on the LAcnet website and answer questions on Sri Lanka it was with the same intent, to explain and influence movers and shakers.

But as the saying goes even the best-laid plans of mice and men can be thwarted by those who you are trying to help.

This is the perennial problem that those like Mangala Moonesinghe have to confront.

And in the case of heads of missions like him, the hardships are much more difficult because sometimes they are more personal than those, which face a career diplomat.

Mr. Moonesinghe was an elected Member of Parliament from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which is now the major constituent of the PA, which governed the country since 1994.

Though Mr. Moonesinghe left politics behind he still needs to account for the behaviour and actions of the government which is headed by the party of which he was once a part.

So his task becomes doubly difficult because even though he has eschewed politics he probably feels he has some moral obligation to his one-time party and its leaders.

That is precisely where he is more vulnerable than a career diplomat who can simply avoid a question as though he never heard it or simply read what Colombo has told him to say without any qualms at all.

I've so often read what our ambassadors in Geneva have to say whenever they appear before the United Nations Human Rights Commission or a similar body, that I wonder whether we are actually speaking of the same country.

I often wonder what it is to make such public statements when it is so well known that they are such blatant untruths. Somebody once said there were three kinds of lies- lies, damned lies and statistics. It seems our governments are quite adept at all three.

Mr. Kadirgamar says Sri Lanka's "precious democracy is in grave peril" and blames "a fascist terrorist group" intent on dividing the country. Certainly armed violence and challenge to an elected government, constitutes a threat to democracy.

But if Foreign Minister Kadirgamar is trying to say that this is the only threat to what is left of Sri Lanka's democracy then he is not true to himself and to the politics of his government.

If democracy has been devalued in recent times by attacks on the judiciary where Supreme Court judges have been accused of bribery, where there has been violence and thuggery to win elections and where there has been bribery and corruption as never before, it is time to ask Lakshman Kadirgamar whether this was the work of the LTTE or the government he represents.

Mr. Kadirgamar's plea at this conference must have sounded like neo-Churchillian oratory. "A challenge to democracy anywhere in the world is a challenge to democracy everywhere".

Indeed Mr. Foreign Minister. But would it not be better if these resounding words were uttered not in Warsaw but to the government of Sri Lanka which has negated your own words in Warsaw: "A democracy even at the time of war has to remember the rule of law, the freedom of the press and all those requisites of a practising democracy".

If High Commissioner Moonesinghe was asked on the website whether he agreed with his foreign minister's words and whether he thought the government he represented practised what the minister preached, I wonder what he would say.

Would his slip also show as does his minister's?

A place to open up and seek help

Perhaps the most reward-ing aspect of counsel-ling is the appreciation voluntarily expressed by those who have been helped. There was the old gentleman who had walked a long distance to reach the National Christian Council Centre who said, in Sinhala, that he felt he had been given "a nourishing and strengthening meal." A Muslim client once confided: "I am feeling like someone now. One time I thought I would end up in the mental hospital at Angoda. Now my wife and children are happy to see me smiling."

Said a Hindu law student: "So much was dammed up within me. I needed a place like this to open up. Coming here has made me joyous." The wife of an alcoholic said, "I came here hiding from my husband. It took me seven weeks to realise that I could help him only if I learnt to live my life. He has stayed sober for ten months now. There should be more centres like this. I felt suicidal before, but am full of life now. " This is what makes it all so worthwhile.

A family counselling centre was the vision of the Christian Home Committee of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka (NCC), and in particular of its Chairperson at the time, Dr. (Mrs.) Indrani Jayewardene who, together with her husband, the late Prof. Leicester Jayewardene, was one of the pioneers of family counselling in this country. This vision became a reality with aid from the World Council of Churches channelled through the NCC. The late Rt. Rev. Cyril Abeynaike, then Bishop of Colombo, made available a section in the Cathedral at Bauddaloka Mawatha, and the Family Counselling Centre (as it was first known), was formally opened without any fanfare in the Cathedral premises on August 4, 1975.

Its first Director was R.V.G. Daniel, former Asst. Commissioner of the Department of Probation and Child Care. In 1977, Fr. Francis Xavier who had qualified and worked as a Counsellor in the USA, was appointed Director/ Counsellor of the Centre and as its services became more generally known, the clientele grew.

Fr. Xavier left the island in 1982, but before he went he put the Centre on a sound financial footing by means of a substantial donation he obtained from "Venture in Mission" of the diocese of Richmond, Virginia, USA. This money was placed in fixed deposits and the Centre has been run on the interest. It was Kamala de Silva who, together with Myrtle Mendis, next took charge of the Centre, now known as the NCC Counselling Centre, when it moved to premises in the grounds of the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church facing Lipton's Circus.

Fr. Xavier had also instituted pre-marital counselling for engaged couples and this programme too was carried on, a "Young Couples Workshop" being held every quarter. Mrs. de Silva retired in 1990, but did a shift as a counsellor for many years while she resided in Colombo. She also continued to hold training programmes and in 1997 she conducted a comprehensive 170 - hour Counsellor Training Course for the Centre. The Centre has lacked a Director, but continued to maintain its services through the good offices of two trained and competent Senior Counsellors, Manel Jayatunge and Indrani Abeysekere who were responsible for arranging the roster and special programmes, and also seeing to the day-to-day work of the Centre.

A momentous decision was recently reached by the Board of Management this year, after much consideration and consultation, to separate from the NCC and become autonomous., although seeking affiliation with the NCC. This means that an annual grant of Rs. 75,000/- received from the NCC in the last three years, will cease so more funds will have to be raised locally. Today clients are encouraged to make a donation to the Centre if they can and most of them are glad to do so. The NCC may not have made a huge impact in 25 years, but they have made a difference in the lives of the hundreds of people who have sought their help with various problems ranging from marital difficulties to parent/child and other family relationships, to sexual problems, depression, bereavement and grief, loneliness, anxiety, ageing, alcohol and drug dependency, pre-marital concerns, personal dilemmas and ways of coping with situations that can't be changed.

The NCC is now in the process of re-organising the Centre and also finding a new name. Rev. Dr. Sumith Fernando who has his own "Agape Christian Counselling Service" in Texas, USA, but who spends part of each year in Sri Lanka, is the Director designate. He is in Sri Lanka presently to participate in the small celebration planned to mark the Centre's 25th anniversary.

-A.A.A.

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