Foreign Ministry responds to British summons

The attention of this Ministry has been drawn to the above captioned article which appeared as the lead story of your newspaper on Sunday 16 December 2007 written by a Special Correspondent. At the outset let it be established that this communication is confined to the headline of the article and its reference to Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Mrs. Kshenuka Senewiratne. The references contained in this article are completely false and fabricated.

According to your Special Correspondent, “the High Commissioner was summoned to the British Foreign and Commonwealth office (FCO) for a meeting on Tuesday, over issues relating to Karuna entering Britain with the official backing of the Government of Sri Lanka”. Please be informed that the High Commissioner was never summoned to a meeting by the FCO on Tuesday and therefore the question of failing to turn up at a meeting on that date is factually inaccurate. In fact the FCO was extremely flexible on scheduling this meeting. Furthermore the article alleges that the High Commissioner “did not turn up” and also “had not intimated to the FCO her inability to turn up on that day”, which was completely erroneous. There is no issue whatsoever of the High Commissioner dodging a meeting with the FCO.

It is noted that you have also published a photograph of the High Commissioner alongside the article, thus attempting to personalise the issue. It is deeply regretted that your newspaper has chosen to publish erroneous and defamatory material without verifying the facts about an individual public servant knowing very well that public servants do not have the luxury of defending themselves.

It is regrettable that your newspaper did not exercise the caution and courtesy of contacting the Ministry or the High Commissioner in order to ascertain the factual position, before publishing such damaging references to her. I would appreciate, if this reply is published in full giving it equal prominence with the original article in question.

It is noteworthy that Ravinatha Aryasinha, Director General / Public Communications is confining his "communication", to use his own words, to "the headline of the article and its references to Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ms. Kshenuka Senewiratne." In doing so, he is not contesting the other facts that form the key elements of The Sunday Times front page lead story last week. That is, the UK Government' s serious accusation that renegade Tiger guerrilla leader, Karuna alias Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, entered the country by fraudulent means with the official backing from the Colombo Government. Even if I don't say so, the reasons for his assertions are obvious. But we know that he is only carrying out instructions and asked to send a response on the specific request of High Commissioner Senewiratne.

Firstly, my report that she did not turn up for the meeting on Tuesday December 11 at the Foreign and Commonwealth office is correct. FCO sources have not only confirmed this to me again but added that she called only thereafter to explain that she was unable to be present since President Mahinda Rajapaksa and wife Shiranthi were in London. That was how she agreed to the meeting on Monday December 17. I stand by all the facts contained in my story.

I spoke with Sri Lanka High Commission sources in London this week. They told me the High Commissioner was upset because of the use of the word "summoned" in my story. The sources said I should have instead used the word "invited" or "called."

The fact that there is so much confusion and contradiction in the Sri Lanka High Commission in London over this matter is public knowledge. Friday night's BBC's Sandesaya Sinhala news broadcast is one such instance that tells the story. They said they recorded an interview with Maxwell Keegel, Spokesman at the High Commission. They said it was done this week, on Tuesday December 18. In his own voice Keegel says that his High Commissioner (Ms. Senewiratne) had not met anyone in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

That statement came just a day after Ms Senewiratne had called at the FCO.To make it worse, BBC Sandesaya contradicted Keegel, the official HC spokesman with a quote from the FCO spokesman to say the meeting did take place. Who is trying to fool whom? Here again, the concern was over Ms. Senewiratne.

High Commissioner Senewiratne was not 'invited' or summoned to the FCO to be extended Christmas greetings and box of bon-bons last Tuesday. She was told in no uncertain terms of the British Government's "complete displeasure" and "great concern" over the issue of a diplomatic passport by the Government of Sri Lanka for Karuna to enter Britain. They made clear a visa was issued by the British High Commission in Colombo only on the strength of a Third Person Note (TPN) issued by the Foreign Ministry. Of course, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to the Court of St. James had said that her Government was unaware of a TPN or about the issue of a diplomatic passport. Going by British newspaper reports, the matter will not end there. Karuna may be tried for war crimes and more details of how he entered Britain will unfold then.

I will not give respectability to Mr. Aryasinha's other assertions except to remind him of one well known fact. He complains that a photograph of the article had been published in The Sunday Times to "personalise the issue." I am aware that he has been a journalist in Sri Lanka before joining the foreign service. If Ms. Senewiratne is in the news, he knows only too well that the media would use her photograph.

And by his own argument then, we should not personalise any issue by carrying the photograph of the Foreign Minister, which I understand, his Ministry keeps sending to the local media almost on a daily basis.

The concern is only over the photo of an envoy. To hell with the image of the country that has been ruined by the allegation that the Foreign Ministry dishonestly misled a friendly country by issuing a Third Person Note, and makes every Sri Lankan travelling abroad carrying a Sri Lankan passport to be treated like piece of dirt at all entry points in every country in the world.
Having now seen what High Commissioner Senewiratne has told the British FCO, i.e. that the Government is unaware of a false passport being issued to Karuna, I can't but resist using the old quip that envoys are sent to lie abroad for their country.

Foreign Ministry responds to British summons - Right of reply