Last week's the Sunday Times front page report headlined "President's UN list has more than 50 names" has drawn terse, almost identically worded responses both from the Presidential Secretariat and the Foreign Ministry.
Both have written to say that the report is "entirely fictitious" and charged that "the source quoted is unfounded."
Lucien Rajakarunanayake, Director, Policy Research and Information at the Presidential Secretariat states:
The attention of the Presidential Secretariat is drawn to the prominent news item headlined "President's UN list has more than 50 names" carried on page 1 of the Sunday Times of 9th August. This is to inform you that His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa has not been scheduled to attend the 64th Session of United Nations General Assembly in September this year. As such, there has been no list of delegates or any other persons prepared to accompany the President for this purpose.
Accordingly, the said report in The Sunday Times is entirely fictitious and the sources quoted are wholly unfounded. Contrary to what is reported, the Presidential Secretariat has at no stage compiled any list of delegates for this scheduled visit."
A letter bearing the illegible signature of Director General/Public Communications on behalf of the Secretary to the Foreign Ministry states:
"Reference news item ‘President's UN list has more than 50 names’ carried in the Sunday Times of 09th August 2009.
"H.E. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has not been scheduled to attend the 64th UNGA and consequently, there is no list of delegates.
"Therefore, the above-mentioned report in the Sunday Times is entirely fictitious and the source quoted is unfounded".
Our Diplomatic Editor
responds:
Both the Foreign Ministry and the Presidential Secretariat are dead wrong in their false assertion that "President Mahinda Rajapaksa has not been scheduled to attend the 64th session of the UN General Assembly" in New York. The Foreign Ministry's right hand apparently does not know what the Presidential Secretariat's left foot is up to.
Either the Ministry or the Secretariat, unbeknownst to each other, made a formal request to the United Nations seeking a speaking slot for President Rajapaksa. And as early as July 2, the United Nations released an official list of provisional speakers (see copy of the UN's official document) for the opening day of the General Assembly on September 23.
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| The list of speakers showing Sri Lanka’s ‘Head of State’ slotted for ninth place on the first day. (Source:UNGA document) |
Sri Lanka's head of state (HS) is listed as the ninth speaker for that day, ahead of US President Barack Obama, Brazilian President Inacio Lula da Silva and Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi . Clearly, the United Nations provides speaking slots only when a member states makes such a request.
As a result of that formal request to address the General Assembly, there have been feverish lobbying in Colombo by politicians, ministers and political hack writers (masquerading as journalists) wanting to join the band wagon to New York. The unofficial list of delegates kept changing, as and when the political lobbying intensified.
But during the last few weeks or so, the Government has had second thoughts about a Presidential visit to the UN -- primarily due to security reasons in New York and conspiracy theories back home. Since there will be more than 150 world leaders in New York that week, President Rajapaksa and his proposed delegation (which was to include at least one former LTTE leader) could not be guaranteed additional security by the host country.
Additionally, the President was scheduled to visit the Buddhist temple in neighbouring Queens and pay homage to an imposing, newly installed Buddha statue in New Jersey-- all of which warranted a phalanx of gun-toting security officers. The construction of the statue was partly funded with financing provided by the Sri Lankan Government.
The Foreign Ministry apparently also feared that some of the delegates, including those with one-time ties to the LTTE, may not have received their US visas to visit New York causing additional embarrassment to a government already perceived as anti-West by the US.
Meanwhile, if the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister is substituted for the President, Sri Lanka's speaking slot will be downgraded, as UN protocol demands, because only heads of state are given priority in the first three days of the General Assembly sessions.
Since Sri Lanka's Prime Minister is neither head of state nor head of government (HG) -- constitutionally -- he will be confined to the back benchers.
Contrary to what the Foreign Ministry asserts, it is not our story that is "entirely fictitious" and "unfounded" but the Ministry's own letters. Since both letters used similar language and similar phraseology, it is apparent that either the Ministry or the Secretariat wasn't competent enough to draft a response on its own. At least one of them pilfered the draft from the other. It was obviously a case of the blind leading the deaf.
And what is more, it is hard to believe any communique from the Foreign Ministry anyway after its own staff members not so long ago challenged the contents of a communique issued by their own Ministry, and called it one big fib. Reproduced is the UN document which, contrary to claims, both by the Presidential Secretariat and the Foreign Ministry, prove that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has indeed been scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly. |
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