inside the glass house

The way out of Canada crisis
NEW YORK-- The Canadian government clearly dropped a diplomatic bombshell when it unceremoniously rejected Sri Lanka's nominee to be the next High Commissioner in Ottawa.

Chandrananda de Silva, a former Elections Commissioner and ex-Defence Secretary, is perhaps the first ambassadorial nominee from Sri Lanka to be given a rejection slip by the host government.

When the Australians threatened to reject the nomination of a former army chief of staff many moons ago, the Sri Lanka government stood firm. If Australia refused to accept the nominee, Sri Lanka told the Aussies, the High Commissioner's chair in Canberra will be left vacant. The Australians, who may have had a legitimate right to reject the nominee, ultimately relented.

Canada's action, which apparently took the Foreign Ministry in Colombo by surprise, is also completely within legal rights – and Canada is under no obligation to justify the rejection.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which has been in force in Canada from 1966, says: "the receiving State (in this case, Canada) is not obliged to give reasons to the sending State (in this case, Sri Lanka), for a refusal of agrement" (Article 4, Para 2).

But is Canada justified in taking such drastic action considering the longstanding relationship between the two countries? Clearly, such a vibrant relationship should not be sustained only by the letter or spirit of international conventions. They involve history, tradition, and the quality of the bilateral relationship as it has grown over time.

Historically, it was Canada that came to Sri Lanka's aid and funded the construction of our international airport at Katunayake, when the US cut off all assistance in response to the nationalization of American oil companies in the 1950s.

Canada bankrolled construction of the Maduru Oya dam. And last week, when Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin unveiled a new foreign aid policy, he announced that beginning 2010, Canadian bilateral assistance would be restricted only to 25 countries. Sri Lanka was on that privileged list.

The bilateral relationship was also strengthened during the three-year stewardship of High Commissioner Geetha de Silva, a senior member of the Foreign Service, who was pulled back to Colombo to make way for the former Elections Commissioner, a non-career political appointee, who was rewarded for services rendered to the government.

As The Sunday Times pointed out in its lead story last week, the reason for the Canadian rejection is that as a former Secretary of Defence, Chandrananda de Silva was mandated to oversee Sri Lanka's armed services, which have been accused of "human rights abuses."

The Canadians do not accuse de Silva of personally violating human rights or torturing prisoners. If they did, they could have perhaps asked de Silva to check his torture equipment with the Canadian Customs before entering Ottawa. But this goes far beyond a single individual.

And by excluding any Secretary of Defence as a possible High Commissioner from Sri Lanka, Canada has now restructured the talent pool from which the Sri Lanka government can choose a head of mission. Is Canada, therefore, interfering in Sri Lanka's diplomatic appointments? Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry, it is gratifying to note, has refused to accept the rationale for the rejection.

The Canadian decision is clearly political, designed to pander to the LTTE lobby at a time when the minority government of Paul Martin is mired in scandal and facing growing criticism. The beleaguered government needs every vote it can possibly muster, when an inevitable "snap" election is called-- sooner than later.

However, LTTE propagandists claim they have control over voting blocks in 15 "ridings" (i.e. constituencies) including those held by Prime Minister Martin, Defence Minister William Graham, Foreign Minister Stewart Pettigrew, and Revenue Minister John McCallum. The constituency of Jim Karygiannis, the Liberal Party MP who visited the eastern province shortly after the tsunami disaster, is also among the 15.

Asked to comment on the current deadlock, Ernest Corea a former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Canada, said: "What has happened is unfortunate. In whatever way the current problem is resolved, the relationship will pick up and survive. Both countries have too many shared instincts for the relationship to crumble."

A previous "diplomatic incident" between the two countries took place when the J.R. Jayewardene government nominated Gen. Tissa "Bull" Weeratunga as Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Canada. The Canadians delayed granting agreement to this nomination, and let it be known informally that Sri Lanka should withdraw the nomination because there was widespread opposition to it within Canada — on grounds of "human rights violations."

When then Foreign Minister Shahul Hameed conveyed the Canadian message to him, Jayewardene said that Weeratunga had nowhere been tried and found guilty of any charges of human rights violations and, that as far as he was concerned, the nomination would never be withdrawn. Eventually, the Canadian Government relented, and Weeratunga took up duties in Ottawa.

Meanwhile, a major blunder was caused by a Sri Lankan official in Colombo whose daughter was appointed to a mid-level diplomatic position in Ottawa in 1979. A few days before she left Sri Lanka, her father told a senior Canadian diplomat at a cocktail party in Colombo that although his daughter would hold diplomatic rank at the High Commission, she would not really be working there, because she would actually be enrolling at a Canadian university.

This was at a time when the Canadian Government was tightening up on the practice of foreign diplomats and family members joining universities as local applicants and thereby avoiding the higher fees they would have to pay if they were enrolled as foreign students. The Canadian diplomat in Colombo tipped off his bosses in Ottawa of the real role of the new woman "diplomat." As a result, the Canadian government refused to issue her a diplomatic ID card, or give her any kind of recognition as a diplomat. She would have to apply for a student visa.

Foreign Minister Hameed stepped in to sort out the problem by promptly transferring the young woman to Sri Lanka's Permanent Mission to the UN. The Headquarters Agreement between the UN and the US Government does not provide for restrictions of the kind the Canadian Government imposed.

Perhaps one way out for the government may be to post the former Elections Commissioner to the Sri Lanka Mission to the UN as a deputy permanent representative.

Since Sri Lanka is running in three crucial elections this year, for the International Law Commission, the Economic and Social Council and for re-election to the Human Rights Commission — not including the mother of all elections, the race for the Secretary-General's post — de Silva could be in charge of all UN elections, and perhaps share his knowledge with some of the UN member states on the fine art of ballot box stuffing practised by Sri Lankan politicians.

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