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While it could be anticipated that the prime minister would chose India for his first official visit, the intriguing question was where he would go next. Would he turn west or east?

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (L) shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe (R) following their joint news announcement at Abe's official residence in Tokyo October 6, 2015. While Wickremesinghe won plaudits from the Japanese as he strove to re-establish old links and invite Japanese support to strengthen regional economic ties and in maritime security, there was a side bar to this visit which seems to have gone unnoticed or was deliberately downplayed (REUTERS)

As it happened he turned east but not to visit China, as many expected but to Japan, a country with which Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP has had historic and close relations. His uncle Junius Richard Jayewardene, then finance minister representing Ceylon at the post-World War Two San Francisco peace conference, won the hearts and respect of a cowed Japanese nation by refusing reparations for the war damage caused to our country.

That was not the only reason why Wickremesinghe settled on Japan for an official visit. Japan in turn honoured him by inviting him to address the Japanese Diet and for an audience with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, who as Crown Prince and Princess visited Sri Lanka in1984 when I had the privilege of meeting them at the Japanese ambassador’s residence.

While Wickremesinghe won plaudits from the Japanese as he strove to re-establish old links and invite Japanese support to strengthen regional economic ties and in maritime security, there was a side bar to this visit which seems to have gone unnoticed or was deliberately downplayed.

Only a couple of media picked it up. That was decidedly unfortunate because it is an issue that should concern us very much but appears to have been kicked into the long grass by those who would like to retain the status quo. The prime minister is said to have castigated Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry and some of our diplomatic missions dismissing them as not fit for purpose.

It is not clear what sparked the prime minister’s decimating remarks that virtually reduced the foreign ministry and its denizens to ground zero. But for him to have reportedly said that as prime minister he is working in the belief that the foreign ministry does not exist is surely a chastisement that should not only shake up that establishment in Republic Squarebut also reverberate in our missions abroad where some so-called diplomats languish in the belief that foreign postings are a vacation rather than a vocation.

One report quoted him as saying that “there seems to be utter confusion in Sri Lankan foreign missions and I will resolve this issue when I get back to Colombo.” Prime Minister Wickremesinghe should have hands on experience in that ministry having been deputy minister in the first J.R Jayewardene government before being elevated to cabinet rank with a different portfolio.
Having served as prime minister several times and also as opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe must be well aware of the quality of our diplomatic corps which he would have observed has deteriorated over the years.

Understandably the ministry or its diplomats abroad cannot divulge state secrets or information that affects security or sensitive negotiations. But why it cannot answer simple, straightforward media inquiries leaves one naturally puzzled, a situation which will hopefully be rectified when the Right to Information legislation is passed.

More recently the ministry appointed a spokesperson. If queries addressed to the spokesperson go unanswered or considerably delayed to the point that they become dated and useless, one cannot really blame that official. My own experience has been that most often the answers to the questions have to be obtained from other divisions in the ministry. Therein lie the stumbling block for the heads of divisions or their subordinates have no interest in answering media queries, sometime even queries from its own diplomatic missions.

Some months ago I asked the ministry whether it was accepted protocol for an acting head of mission to nominate another to act for him/her when leaving the host country for whatever reason. That is a simple enough question because I am aware that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)-probably it is the same practice in other capitals too- does not permit acting heads of missions to nominate a junior. Fortunately any embarrassment that might have been caused by the FCO rejecting it, was averted by our Foreign Ministry replying that the next senior career diplomat should act and not the junior being pushed to the fore.

Strangely – or is it – I have still not received a reply to that question which only reiterates a commonly-held belief that the mills of the foreign ministry grind slowly, if they grind at all. But they do grind exceedingly fast when internecine warfare is unleashed with jealousies, cut-throatism, struggles for postings, denigration of colleagues and blood-letting (metaphorically speaking) supersedes official responsibilities and tasks.

Such internal strife meticulously practiced at Republic Square by leaked information spills over to our missions when the over-ambitious and over-rated readily trample their colleagues by planting viciously false stories, sometimes in websites run by individuals whose antecedents are found in Sri Lankan High court records, several news reports and even Interpol alerts.
A few months ago a senior career diplomat serving in London was subjected to this treatment and the Sri Lankan community was quick enough to spot from where the false information about a career colleague was leaked.

The prime minister refers to the confusion in our missions. It is more than confusion in some of them. He has travelled to London or through London often enough to be aware of how the mission functioned over the years and the capable officers who served here including his own secretary now Saman Ekanayake.

A posting to London is a much sought after prize especially by career officers. It is our biggest and earliest diplomatic mission. Since President Sirisena’s assumption of office at least four persons in Sri Lanka are said to have been approached to accept the post of high commissioner. Each of them had turned it down I understand.

Ranil Wickremesinghe is an experienced politician with the skills of a technocrat. If he is intent on making the all-important corrections he has pledged to make to lift the diplomatic service from its shambolic state exemplified by our premier mission, major surgery is unavoidable.

The prime minister reportedly said that he will not ask for any reports from the foreign ministry or take any of its officials when he travels abroad. That surely is the ultimate indictment of an institution that obviously requires urgent repair.