Sajin de Vass Gunawardena, Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs, has sent what he calls the following "clarification":
"Reference the article that appeared in the Sunday Times of 13 May, 2012 under the heading, "Sajin, GL cause of grave commotion in South Africa"
"The article states that the Hon. Sajin de Vass Gunawardena has issued a condolence message on the demise of the late Radhakrishnan Padayachchee at the State Funeral held in South Africa. This is an absolutely false statement which is factually incorrect. The condolence message issued by the Hon. G.L. Pieiris was issued by the Ministry of External Affairs on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka. No two condolence messages were sent as stated in the said article either officially or personally by the Hon. Sajin de Vass Gunawardena and or his office.
"This attempt by the Sunday Times article (not being the first) is with very clear malicious intent and is a total fabrication in order to create disrepute to the Ministry of External Affairs and thereby the Government of Sri Lanka. There is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever as to who the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka is and I wish to request the Sunday Times to be more responsible and uphold the proffesional (sic) nature of the newspaper especially when making publications of this nature with malicious intent, which would bring disrepute to Sri Lanka."
NOTE BY OUR DIPLOMATIC EDITOR:
Contrary to MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena's claim, my front page report did NOT say that he has "issued a condolence message" on the demise of Radakrishnan (Roy) Padayachie, a South African Cabinet minister.
As my report revealed, the names of Sajin Vass Gunawardena and G.L. Peiris "were to cause some confusion at the Kingsmead Stadium in Durban, South Africa last Wednesday." In addition, as I reported, there were two condolence messages, "one from Minister Peiris and another from Mr. Gunawardena."
This indeed caused confusion. This is why a Protocol Officer of South African President Jacob Zuma inquired from one of their own officials familiar with Sri Lankan matters which one was the Sri Lanka External Affairs Minister, Mr. Peiris or Mr. Gunawardena. The official opined, not us, that Gunawardena was perhaps a reference to Sajin de Vass though he was not altogether certain.
It was Trevor Manuel, South Africa's Minister in charge of the Planning Commission who functioned as "funeral director." He wanted to determine the identities before reading out the messages. When he failed to get the right answer, what he did was to say there were two tributes from the Government of Sri Lanka, one from Dr. Peiris and another from Mr. Gunawardena. He said a third came from the Tamil National Alliance. This was broadcast live on South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the national television network.
The Sunday Times made further inquiries from Durban about the confusion that occurred at the funeral where two condolence messages from Sri Lanka we referred to last week were indeed read out. It has now come to light that the Mr. Gunawardena the South African Protocol Officer was checking on happened to be Sri Lanka's Water Supply and Drainage Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.
He told the Sunday Times yesterday, "I sent a condolence message in my capacity as the President of the Sri Lanka-South Africa Parliamentary Association." Hence Mr. Dinesh Gunawardena's name was confused by the South Africans for Sajin Vaas Gunawardena. So, two Sri Lankan ministers had sent separate condolence messages.
They have been transmitted through the South African Embassy in Colombo. There is no dispute about Mr. Vass de Gunawardena sending a condolence message or not, since my report did not mention that. Had Mr. Vaas Gunawardena asked an official in the Ministry to have checked on this, rather than shoot off a letter to the newspaper, he would have found out what had happened.
To return the gratuitous advice Mr. Vaas Gunawardene has offered, it would have been better if the 'Hon' Monitor of the Ministry of External Affairs also responded to what was in the rest of that same story, viz., about the Ministry being riddled with in-fighting among senior officials and ambassadors serving abroad that has now spilled over to the public domain.
It is not this newspaper that has brought disrepute to the Ministry of External Affairs and the Government of Sri Lanka, but his own Ministry, which he so professionally seems to be monitoring. |
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