inside the glass house

Dabbling in diplomacy with dollars and drinks
NEW YORK - In the United States, there are a myriad things that a sackful of hundred dollar bills can buy. And one of them is the job of an American ambassador.

While the US foreign service is largely a highly-professional and elite service, politics and money still play a key role in some of the plum postings overseas, offered mostly to super-rich businessmen or political cronies of the White House.

If you make a significant financial contribution to the ruling Republican Party (or the Democratic Party if it is in power), you can stake your claim to an ambassadorship overseas. The bigger your contribution, the more important your posting.

As the Washington Post pointed out recently, the investment guru Ronald Spogli made a contribution of $700,000 to the Republican Party and found himself appointed as US Ambassador to Italy.

Closely behind him were William Timken Jr ($462,000) who was appointed Ambassador to Germany and David Mulford ($235,000) who was offered the US ambassadorship in India. Perhaps an all-time high was the $1.1 million contribution made to party funds by Roland Arnall, who was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands.

As the cost of wining and dining keeps skyrocketing, so does the cost of buying a diplomatic haven overseas. Under the former Clinton administration, the ambassadorship to India went to Richard Celeste for a measly $2,550 contribution he made to the Democratic Party. Under Clinton, only Felix Rohatyn paid the princely sum of $768,000 to the party to get the job of Ambassador to France.

The Sri Lankan foreign service, like the US, also has a mix of career diplomats and political appointees. But our political appointees are mostly post-election payoffs for services rendered to the party, including financial contributions.

When the late Lakshman Kadirgamar was Foreign Minister, he revamped the foreign service and streamlined it into a thoroughly professional service. He also tried to sustain the ratio of 60:40, meaning 60 percent of all our heads of missions would be career diplomats and 40 percent political appointees.

When Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera was in New York last month, we pointedly asked him about his plans for the foreign service. "Basically, my plans are to continue the splendid work done by my predecessor Lakshman Kadirgamar, who made the foreign service one of the most professional government institutions in Sri Lanka". He said he will not only maintain the 60:40 ratio but also strengthen the service.

Adlai Stevenson, a former US Ambassador to the United Nations, once came out with a classic definition of diplomacy. He said that diplomacy was 97 percent alcohol, two percent protocol and one percent geritol (the last will set your stomach right after heavy portions of rice and curry). "My assessment of the mental psyche of many of our diplomats -- and I don't mean all -- is that diplomacy means having cocktail parties and dinners", Samaraweera said.

But diplomacy is far beyond that, he said, pointing out that in the modern world, "we know how much developing countries can canvass commercially (to promote trade and aid) on behalf of their own countries".

Sri Lanka must also use its diplomats more to encourage commercial and economic activities, to get increased foreign direct investments (FDI), and to concentrate on exploring for more expatriate employment in regions such as the Middle East, Samaraweera added.

In addition, he said, he will focus on what he calls "performance based diplomacy." Each of our heads of missions will be given "key targets" where their performance will be assessed at the end of every year. "Depending on their performance, we will decide whether to extend their terms or not". This will apply both to career diplomats and political appointees.

Samaraweera said that while the peace process was the first priority, Sri Lanka's overseas missions should also continue to focus on trade and commerce overseas. "It is going to be a two track policy," he explained.
The foreign minister said that even while the war was waging-- and while there was instability in the country -- Sri Lanka managed to achieve a growth rate of 5.5 to 6 percent. Last year's growth rate, he said, was around 6.2 percent. "That shows the capacity of Sri Lanka and its great economic resilience. Can you imagine what we could acheive if we had peace in the country?. Sri Lanka could be flying high".

Last month U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new policy relating to the American foreign service. She warned that she will shift hundreds of diplomatic posts, mostly at secondary levels, from Europe and Washington to "difficult assignments" in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere where the US is facing unbridled hatred. She calls the change "transformational diplomacy."

According to the Washington Post, many of the diplomats who were expecting coveted posts in European capitals this summer may find themselves in politically troubled capitals such as Beirut, Kabul and other hotspots in Asia and the Middle East.

Perhaps the Sri Lankan foreign ministry should take a cue from the US. We have to break the tradition of plum postings in multilateral diplomatic missions such as Geneva, New York and Vienna, and also in European capitals such as London, Paris and Berlin being handed down only to some of the blue-eyed boys and blue-eyed girls of the foreign service.

Chittambaranathan Mahendran, for example, spent virtually his entire professional career in Asian capitals, including Tokyo. And his first assignment as head of mission in a Western country was when he came to New York as Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN. But that was long after he had retired from the foreign service.

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