inside the glass house

Lanka’s ageing foreign service gold mine for political appointees
NEW YORK - When our diplomats and clerical staff posted overseas are pulled out of their duty stations, some of them react rather predictably: either they go underground and live as illegal immigrants (as in New York) or seek asylum-- political, not mental (as in Canada and France).

Last week three of our defence attaches -- in Paris, London and Ottawa -- were recalled home. But one of them, soon after attending a farewell party, didn't turn up at the airport the next morning for his departure home.
Apparently, the ex-army officer has vanished, along with his family and domestic aide. The Foreign Ministry has taken the cautionary step of cancelling the privileged diplomatic passports of the missing family.

But whether there were any justifications -- except perhaps political or personal-- for their unceremonious withdrawal from three Western capitals is a matter of conjecture. The rule with successive governments in Sri Lanka is that all political appointees in overseas assignments -- even if they have performed admirably well -- will necessarily receive marching orders, if and when a new regime takes power (or for that matter if a new foreign minister takes office).

But politics has rarely determined the future of career diplomats -- with perhaps few exceptions. If, however, you play politics in your professional career as a government servant -- whether in the foreign service or the administrative service -- you ultimately pay a price for your partisanship.
Sri Lanka's foreign service -- revitalized by the late Lakshman Kadirgamar -- is headed by a consummate professional, H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, who unfortunately has also been saddled with the additional task of keeping track of the country's shaky peace process leaving him with relatively little time to focus on his primary job.

The crunch time will come soon with 10 impending vacancies for ambassadorial appointments -- in Bangladesh, Jordan, South Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Vietnam and Italy.
So far, the Foreign Ministry has submitted four names to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his "consideration". All four are senior career officers. But presumably the ministry cannot come up with additional names because there is a deficiency in senior career diplomats caused primarily by the lethargic recruitment process, mostly during the years when Kadirgamar was out of office.

The Foreign Ministry’s loss will be a gain for political cronies who will be joining a mad scramble for overseas assignments -- specifically seeking some of the "more comfortable, non-hardship" posts such as Italy, South Korea and perhaps Russia and South Africa.

In the post-Kadirgamar period, the government has made five ambassadorial appointments. In Belgium, it replaced a career diplomat with a political appointee; in Brazil, the new envoy and the outgoing envoy are both political appointees; in Iran and Kuwait, the configuration is the same as in Brazil; in Canada, the pending appointment is that of a political appointee replacing a career diplomat. The foreign service, therefore, has lost two slots -- both important postings, in Brussels and Ottawa.

The High Commission in Ottawa has remained headless for nearly 12 months now, partly due to the disagreement between the two countries over our first nominee for the job. We took nearly one year to fill the vacant position of head of mission in Brussels.Already, 18 officers have retired from service, and a further six will retire this year -- as the retirement process continues with no corresponding intakes into the service. Currently, the total strength of the foreign service is around 150.

The shortage of career officers is expected to be aggravated by the fact that there has been no recruitment to the foreign service for more than three years now. If the present state of affairs continues, the Foreign Ministry will set a new record for the longest period without any recruitment to the service. In years gone by, the Foreign Ministry has also violated its own rules, primarily for political reasons. Our honorary consuls, most of them non-Sri Lankans described as archaic or antiquated, were thrown out when they hit 70. Perhaps this is, as it should be, although no one would accuse the ministry of age discrimination. But yet we appointed a 73-year-old for the post of counsellor in one of our embassies in a European capital.
We had similar experiences in Cairo where most our ambassadors were either ageing or aged, prompting an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official to jokingly complain to a Sri Lankan official that ''the only things older than your ambassadors are our pyramids and the sphinx."

Still, despite the ongoing skirmish between professionals and political appointees, the coveted post of Foreign Secretary has been held by career officers since 1989, with one interruption.

The only brief exception was when Lionel Fernando (a virtual terror during "rag week" in the bygone days of the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya) held the post for nearly 18 months since July 1999, when he completed an exceptional professional career as ambassador, government agent, chairman of several corporations and Governor of North and East Provinces.

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