Political cronies in diplomatic posts

During the past few years the External Affairs Ministry has been so overloaded with unprofessional or non-qualified diplo-muts that Sri Lanka’s foreign policy has been badly messed up or muddled so much so that the Rajapaksa regime is facing one of the worst ever crises in the relationships with India, the United States and many countries in the European Union.

Analysts of external affairs attribute this mainly to the large-scale appointment of party political cronies to important diplomatic posts. As a result the Central Bank of Sri Lanka recently admitted that it had entered into a one-year contract with a United States advertising firm to present a proper image of Sri Lanka among American leaders including members of Congress and thereby improve relations.

Parliament was told last Wednesday that the controversial Central Bank Governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal had signed a contract with Thompson Advisory Group  at the cost of a staggering US$ 800,000 or about Rs. 100 million to do the work that Sri Lanka’s Embassy in Washington should be doing. Instead of that the embassy itself is reported to have hired another well-known public relations firm at a staggering cost to improve Sri Lanka’s image and help repair ties with the US administration.
Despite all these high-profile and high-cost publicity work the internationally-reputed Washington-based Time magazine this week carries a cover story titled ‘The True face of Buddhist terror’. The focus of the article is Myanmar or Burma and the continuing conflict between Buddhists and Muslims there. This has resulted in hundreds of Muslims being killed or injured while tens of thousands have been displaced in a campaign lead by a monk who describes himself as the Buddhist Bin Laden. The article also refers to Sri Lanka and charges that a pro-Buddhist government has allowed extremist groups to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka and of the hallowed Buddha Dhamma itself. The 'Time' magazine says that while other major religions had been tarnished by extremism or fundamentalism, Buddhism had been at a higher dimension but now extremists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka were tarnishing it.

The UNP’s parliamentarian and economist Dr. Harsha de Silva who raised questions about Central Bank’s deal with the US advertising company accused the Central Bank of playing politics at public expense. Dr. de Silva said the Central Bank should not be using or wasting public funds to indulge in political activities with US authorities, as it was clearly the responsibility of the Ministry of External Affairs. Responding to the allegation, the Central Bank Governor said the contract had been signed to restore the country’s image, which had been tarnished by some elements with ulterior motives. Dr. Cabraal said the campaign included plans to bring two groups of Senators to Sri Lanka so that they could see the ground realities.

In the past and specially during the term of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike from 1970, Sri Lanka’s foreign policy was handled brilliantly by diplomats like Arthur Ratnavale at the Foreign office here and Hamilton Shirley Amarasinghe at the United Nations.

The Rajapaksa regime, instead of busting up so much precious foreign exchange to improve Sri Lanka’s ties with the West and India, needs to make an immediate policy change and stop appointing party politicians to leading diplomatic posts abroad and bring in more professionals with a clear vision and goals to the External Affairs Ministry.  

But as the Rajapaksa regime prepares for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, reports indicate that it is again going in the direction of political links rather than professionalism in the publicity work. Insiders say the main publicity work is likely to be given to a firm connected to a political VIP.