inside the glass house

Waldorf woes: Ireland is Iceland and Brussels is Brazil
NEW YORK-- When the 191-member UN General Assembly wound up its high-level segment last week, virtually every single member state had taken to the podium. The only no-show was Somalia, described by the US as a "failed state" with no legitimate government to speak of.

Having skipped the opening of the General Assembly sessions in New York in order to participate in a media seminar in Finland, we missed all the ballyhoo surrounding the Sri Lankan delegation that consumed reams of newsprint in Colombo.

Perhaps our absence from New York was compensated by a journalistic re-union in Helsinki where three senior newshounds-- Manik de Silva, Iqbal Athas and Lakshman Gunasekera-- also checked into the same hotel, the Scandic Grand Marina, as guests of the Finnish government. Talk of coincidences?

The walk down memory lane was perhaps more rewarding than covering the usually laborious General Assembly sessions. Athas and de Silva are incomparable raconteurs whose anecdotes have to be preserved for posterity.

But then as that redoubtable and tart-tongued Hollywood comedian Groucho Marx once remarked: "Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity done for me?."

Meanwhile, back in Colombo, the political brouhaha sparked by a story in The Sunday Times of September 5 ("New York elite Luxuries for Presidential entourage") by our stringer Michael de Silva, hit several raw nerves among politicians and government officials.

The rejoinders came from former Permanent Representative to the UN C. Mahendran ("They call me Charlie because they cannot pronounce Chittambaranathan"), and a second right of reply by Saman Athaudahetti, media secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Our stringer and our political editor have both responded to the denials. ("Waldorf: the bills and spills" and "A porn twist to New York visit.") But still, the bone of contention appears to be the huge telephone bill (along with a cable tv bill) that was paid for with government funds.

The original story published in The Sunday Times of November 16 last year was unambiguously clear: "At a time when ministers and senior officials are on junkets every week at tax payers' expense (the last ministerial and media delegation to the UN left a $21,000 phone bill, along with a a cable TV bill for porn movies viewed in their hotel rooms), why is it that the government cannot afford to pay its UN dues on time as it did in early years?" we asked.

A legitimate question that went unchallenged for nearly 10 months before it was resurrected by our stringer in a story he filed from New York three weeks ago.

The bills came from rented cell phones, hotel rooms and an office that was used by the prime minister's delegation in the ground floor of the UN Plaza Hotel where the culprits did not leave any telltale marks accessing the office in the dead of night.

In his explanation last week, the media secretary went to great lengths to point out that members of the media were told about the limits placed on phone calls. But he hasn't said how many of the journalists really stuck to the guidelines.

In fact, he refers to two additional journalists who joined the team on condition their employers pay their hotel bills. The Sri Lanka mission was forced to pick up that tab as well.

The media secretary also says that the official media team (of six journalists) was selected on the basis of a roster which had been worked out after discussion with all the news organisations concerned. But as our political editor pointed out last week, The Sunday Times was not in that loop. Isn't the Times a legitimate newspaper? Or do these media invitations go only by favour?

With few exceptions, the journalists who arrived in New York to cover the UN sessions last year, were probably political hacks masquerading as newspapermen-- judging by the sloppy reporting full of howlers.

In more than one report filed from New York, Secretary-General Kofi Annan was referred to as "general secretary". Mercifully, the reporter didn't describe him as a "permanent secretary" because Annan's term of office ends December 2006.

Romesh Jayasinghe, our ambassador based in Brussels, was referred to in one story as the "Ambassador to Brazil". Obviously, the reporter had a hard time drawing a distinction between Brazil and Brussels.

The coverage of a meeting between prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and European Union (EU) officials was so full of errors that the EU was forced to send a clarification.

The EU press release said that Chris Patten was the EU External Relations Commissioner, not the "EU President", Javier Solana (referred to in the story published in Colombo as "Hamiyas Solana") was the EU Foreign Policy High Representative, not "defence observer," Portugal is an EU member state, Iceland is not.

The news report from New York said that Iceland (read: Ireland) was to take over the presidency from Italy. The member of the Sri Lanka media team obviously couldn't distinguish between Iceland and Ireland. And the UN was described as an institution by "a lagoon". Maybe a lake? Perhaps shades of "Beira Lake"?

Need we say more of the media team which was paid for with tax payers' money sent to cover the prime minister's visit to the UN last year?

Clearly, there may be a justification for a visiting president, prime minister or foreign minister to stay in a five-star hotel (former Foreign Minister A.C.S. Hameed once told a nagging MP, "Where do you want me to stay when I go abroad? In thosai boutiques?"), because the hotel suite also doubles as a place to meet other heads of state. But is there any justification for an entire delegation to stay in the same luxury hotel?

The Sri Lanka delegation to New York in September 2002 consisted of 27 members, including six ministers, six media personnel, security officers, career diplomats, political hangers-on and three officials of the BOI. With the exception of the three career diplomats, all of the delegates stayed at the Waldorf Astoria.

Last year, the delegation was reduced to 24. But it included two ministers and eight media personnel-- all of them checking in at the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel.

The delegation that came to New York last month consisted of 27 members, including two senior ministers, four media personnel and several career diplomats. While all of the minsters, officials and security officers stayed at the Waldorf, the media personnel were confined to a less luxurious hotel.

Contrast with the delegation that came to the US in the 1980s. "President Jayewardene's visit to the US was a State Visit -- the highest level of visit, the first and so far the only such visit by a Sri Lankan Head of State," says former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US Ernest Corea who was our man in Washington at that time.

"As it was a State Visit, at the invitation of the US President, the accommodation and travel expenses of the official delegation, including spouses, were met by the US Government, but for a maximum of 14 persons, including the visiting head of state and his wife. President Jayewardene kept strictly to that "ceiling," says Corea.

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