Sunday Times 2
The lighter side of life in our diplomatic service
View(s):By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS – In the Sri Lankan diplomatic service there is never a dull moment. Or so it seems, with a perennial controversy over career diplomats versus political appointees, mostly unqualified for the job. The only exceptions were professionals, including lawyers, academics and journalists who served in several major cities, including New York, Beijing and Washington DC.
In the US Foreign Service in a bygone era, virtually all diplomats were white males, mostly from prestigious Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia—with hardly any women. The process was best summarised, rather sarcastically, in three words: MALE, PALE and YALE.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Service Association (SLFSA) has continued to voice strong concerns over diplomatic appointments, arguing that most governments have disregarded professionalism, meritocracy, and diplomatic expertise in favour of politically motivated selections.
When career diplomats reach the retiring age of 60, they are forced into retirement, with few exceptions. But there are no such age limits for political appointees, mostly in their late 60s, 70s or even 80s.
Perhaps by accident or by design, some of our ageing political envoys were accredited to Egypt, with some dying while holding office—prompting an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official to tell a visiting Sri Lankan official, “The only thing older than your ambassadors are our pyramids.” Forget prehistoric mummies.
When a senior career diplomat was once offered a new posting as ambassador to the United States back in 2009, he gracefully declined the offer. In a private conversation, “strictly off-the-record and not-for-attribution”, he told me, “Being a Sri Lankan ambassador in Washington DC is like walking on a slippery tightrope with the bucket of s—t on your head.”
Perhaps he was notoriously right because the government at that time was virtually “blacklisted” by the US and battling charges of human rights violations, civilian killings and war crimes in northern Sri Lanka. The task ahead for any envoy was not only to deny these allegations but also to justify atrocities, if any.
Meanwhile, there was the hilarious story of a newly appointed ambassador, accredited to an Asian country. He downgraded his brother-in-law to the rank of a cook, just to include him as a member of his staff so that the Foreign Ministry can pick up the tab for his travel and his upkeep.
Some of our foreign ministers were also the source of many jokes and anecdotes. We had a foreign minister whose sister-in-law, brother-in-law and intended daughter-in-law were all assigned diplomatic appointments in different world capitals. The joke in the ministry was when he ran out of “in-laws”, he was looking for “outlaws” in his family circle.
Meanwhile, every Sri Lankan delegation included the country’s foreign minister, some impressive and knowledgeable and others not-so-impressive and ignorant of international affairs.
At least one foreign minister was caught fast asleep on his wife’s shoulder as he occupied the Sri Lankan seat in one of the front rows in the General Assembly hall—an act considered a diplomatic insult, and more so because the speaker at the podium was the foreign minister of India. Luckily, he did not snore.
And then there was a story of a foreign minister summoning an urgent meeting of his senior staff to cope with a hostage crisis, of all places, in Siberia, where our workers were being held for ransom or in danger of being killed. But the puzzled officials looked at each other. Siberia? Sri Lankan hostages?
It apparently didn’t make any sense until one of the officials who had read about a hostage crisis in Africa asked the minister, “Sir, are you sure it was Siberia and not Liberia?”
“I say, Siberia? Liberia? What’s the difference? “They are all the same,” he retorted.
Perhaps he received a crash course in world geography when he visited the UN for the next General Assembly sessions.
A visiting foreign minister was in New York at a time when there were reports of a possible reconciliation between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). And equally significant was the rumour that if the peace negotiations succeeded, the LTTE fighters were expected to be absorbed into the
Sri Lankan armed forces.
Asked to confirm, he said, “Yes,” and jokingly added, “If that happens, we can send some of our suicide bombers on UN peacekeeping missions.” And then added, “But don’t quote me on that.” And this was a time when Sri Lanka was dispatching hundreds of our troops on UN peacekeeping missions to Africa and Central America.
Meanwhile, at the Sri Lanka Mission to the UN, the Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) is the second highest-ranking official, mostly with ambassadorial rank, just below the Permanent Representative (PRUN) in the bureaucratic hierarchy. Back in the late 1970s, there was a widespread rumour that a Sri Lankan academic, with outstanding credentials, was in the running for the post of DPR.
So, at a dinner for visiting officials, including the Foreign Secretary, I buttonholed the professor and asked him either to confirm or deny the rumour. He looked at me—and at the visiting officials at the dinner table—and said, “You mean, you want me to carry these guys’ bags to the airport!” Perhaps that was part of the job description. There was deafening silence at the dinner table. And you could hear a pappadam crumble.
Over the years, governments of all political hues sustained a longstanding tradition of appointing retired and ageing former military chiefs, including generals, air marshals and brigadiers, as ambassadors and high commissioners overseas. A senior career diplomat, with an offbeat sense of humour, posed what seemed like a logical question: “If former army chiefs can be appointed as ambassadors, why shouldn’t former ambassadors be appointed as army chiefs?”
When I first met Ambassador Charlie Mahendran (“They call me Charlie because they cannot pronounce Chitambaranathan”) outside a UN committee room, he said he was planning to pay a “courtesy call” on me. “No, no, no,” I responded, “It’s the other way around. I will have to pay a courtesy call on you.”
During his tenure as Permanent Representative (2002-2004), he was saddled with several non-diplomatic political appointees at the mission. One of them was a Sinhala-speaking driver who had a driver’s license but was unable to read English road signs. So, whenever Mahendran was invited to a social function, particularly outside New York City, one of the junior diplomats took him on a drive and guided the driver, who faithfully took down notes in Sinhala.
When I invited Mahendran and his wife for dinner at my residence on Burgher Avenue in Staten Island, the driver got lost on a rainy night, despite a trial run that morning. A furious Mahendran called me from the backseat of his limo, and I helped guide the driver. The resulting joke was that the driver who translated directions to our house was really looking for a non-existing “Lanci Para”.
(This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That” authored by Thalif Deen. A Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree (MSc) from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he twice shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon and at the Vijitha Yapa bookshop.)