Besides noticing the names of some who I knew personally and have associated with during my journalistic days in Colombo, I also noted that we are to have a couple of new missions.

Nothing wrong with that if we have the money for it and there would be some gain in economic terms. Politically there is very little to gain in a world that has been stood on its head since the end of the Cold War, unless, of course, we are seeking to be in the frontline in the international scene and need all the support we can get.

Having just attended a non-debate at the London School of Economics on Global Civil Society before and after September 11, I was still wondering how our new set of envoys would use their particular skills to ensure that the human race is not Bush-whacked, when the second email arrived from the same source.

This time it was a lament by the president of some private elephant owners' association bemoaning the fact that in 10 years or so there will not be elephants to participate in festivals such as the Kandy Perahera.

This message was accompanied by a cryptic sentence which simply said refer previous email.

As one who was born in Kandy, had witnessed many of the annual festivals, it seemed to me that the Esela Perahera without the gaily decorated pachyderms, though now and then they have run amok, would be like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark as the weathered saying goes.

Among the new diplomats were some who had been UNP members of parliament. There was Rupa Karunatilleke who was in the 1977 parliament and who I last met about two years ago at a supermarket in Kirillapone. Mr Karunatille is due to go to The Netherlands where I'm sure he can still feast on the Dutch breudher that our own Burgher ladies loved to make come Christmas time.

Also in the list is U.B.Wijekoon, a Peradeniya university contemporary of mine and one time minister of textile industries (if I remember correctly) who I have not seen since he got out of active politics. Well, he might still be able to spin a few yarns when he presents his credentials to Vladimir Putin.

Another former parliamentarian is Ariya Rekawa, who was deputy chairman of committees (again if my memory serves me correct) who is scheduled to go to The Philippines.

There are a couple of other UNP supporters but I suppose those who could legitimately be called elephants are the three former MPs, because their party symbol- like that of George W Bush's Republican Party- is that of the elephant.

It is not generally known that Sri Lankan elephants had a military history that dates back to Alexander the Great. When Alexander's armies were pushing through central Asia and invading India, it was the Sri Lankan elephant that was used in warfare. Alexander's generals found the Indian elephant unsuitable for war because it was not aggressive enough.

So elephants from Lanka were ferried across in specially constructed rafts from the port at Mantota in the northwest, that was to become an important entrepot for trade between east and west.

Former President J.R.Jayewardene was no Alexander when it came to warfare, though he might have matched the Greek, a student of Aristotle, in political philosophy. But Junius Jayewardene was ready to use the elephant in his battle for power with Dudley Senanayake for the party leadership.

This story told to me by 'JR' as he was popularly called but rarely to his face, must however await a longer story I have to tell in the pages of a book.

No doubt other members or supporters of the UNP have found themselves in our 40 or so diplomatic missions around the world. Every government in the world posts its party members, supporters and donors to diplomatic missions. That is the pay-off ( no doubt at tax payers' expense) they get for whatever services they have rendered. Several decades ago the then US president was trying to send a chain stores owner and a strong party supporter as US ambassador to Colombo. At the US senate hearings he was asked for the name of the prime minister of Ceylon, who at the time was SWRD Bandaranaike.

Naturally the presidential nominee Maxwell Gluck did not known the name and even if he did, he could not pronounce it.

I hardly think that our own parliamentary committee that scrutinises high appointments would want to stump friends, colleagues and fellow politicians of one vintage or another. After all, as Mark Antony said of those who stabbed Caesar in the back, front and wherever else, "they are all honourable men".

It seems the only one who could not pass muster was President Jayewardene's former secretary Menikdiwela who has been struck down by President Kumaratunga.

But then as another journalist friend emailed me from Hong Kong, if John Glenn can go into space at the age of 80, why not Menikdiwela to the land of the rising sun and hara kiri.

But governments should learn to strike a fair balance between career and political appointments. If the plumb posts are going to political appointees, irrespective of whether they are capable of functioning effectively in those positions or not, whether they have political/economic/ diplomatic savvy or not, why have a foreign service at all. When the prime minister of the country was also foreign minister, Mrs Bandaranaike ran a career-oriented and efficient foreign service. It was also the time that Sri Lanka played a leading role on the international stage.

Attempts to create an efficient and knowledgeable foreign service in recent years where at least 70-75 per cent of our heads of missions should be career diplomats or high officials who attained their positions by academically or professionally qualifying, has been vitiated.

It is a pity that while those who have dedicated themselves to pursue a diplomatic career are languishing at the number two or three levels, those whose capabilities at the highest diplomatic levels might be questionable, are catapulted to high office and then lost in the mists of time.

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