New post: Def. Sec. surprised

Defence Secretary Engineer Karunasena Hettiaratchchi must have raised his eye brows the other day when he opened a letter that had arrived addressed to him from P.B. Abeykoon, Secretary to the President.

It conveyed the news that he has been named as Sri Lanka’s next Ambassador to Germany. His personal details, known in diplomatic parlance as agrément, had even been forwarded by the Foreign Ministry in Colombo to their counterparts in Berlin. Other than that, no one had spoken to him personally about his new assignment.

Upon acceptance, Hettiaratchchi, a classmate of President Maithripala Sirisena, will be officially named Sri Lanka’s new envoy. The move comes amidst reports of the Defence Secretary being embroiled in a string of controversies. Before assuming office as Defence Secretary, he was Chairman of the Water Board.

If accepted by the German Government, Engineer Hettiaratchchi will succeed Karunatilleke Amunugama. The latter whose three year term ended in August last year – nine months back, was asked to continue in office until a replacement was announced. During that period, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs first nominated Ranjith Uyangoda, a senior career diplomat and then changed its mind even after his agreement was accepted by Berlin and nominated Saroja Sirisena, a career officer with over twenty years’ experience and now serving in Mumbai. President Sirisena had not given his consent to the latter appointment causing a disruption in succession to head our mission in Berlin. In the meantime, Uyangoda was made a Secretary of a ministry.

That in itself is an indictment on the Government’s handling of diplomatic postings. Other than finding foreign postings to those who were being relieved of other positions or naming political nominees, they have not been able to come up with any names of qualified professionals while several senior career officers were hard done by intrigue within the Foreign Ministry.

This is in marked contrast to the election pledge that they would introduce professionalism in the Foreign Service – an election pledge that was repeated ad nauseum. Some Sri Lanka head of mission appointments have turned out to be hilarious if it was not so tragic. One ambassador, a trader from Polonnaruwa was recalled after he made a fool of himself in a South Asian capital. Another has been appointed to a West Asian capital because a topmost Government leader claimed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s comrades would have to be separated from him. That was why he had named the one-time Rajapaksa confidante to the post and added that it would then be easy to deal a political blow to the former President when they are taken to the Government side. He was obviously unaware he was making more enemies within his own ranks by such action.

Set to succeed Hettiaratchchi as Defence Secretary is Kapila Waidyaratne, presently Additional Solicitor General in the Attorney General’s Department. He has already given his consent to President Sirisena to serve in this capacity, according to sources close to the presidency. An upright public servant, he is due to retire in June.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also named Buddhi Athauda, son of former LSSP MP and UPFA Minister Athauda Seneviratne as the Ambassador designate to France. His personal details have already been forwarded to the French Foreign Ministry for approval. He succeeds Ambassador Tilak Ranaviraja whose three year term ends in August this year.

Government sources said yesterday that among the other appointments in the pipeline are to have Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Korea Manisha Gunasekera cross-posted to the UN in Geneva unless current Ministry spokesperson Mahishini Collonne is to be sent there, as incumbent Ambassador Ravinath Aryasinha will likely be assigned to the Presidential Secretariat.

Ambassador in Brussels (EU), Rodney Perera and in Vienna Priyanee Wijesekera are likely to get extensions, while the post of Consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has been offered to a member of the family of A.H.M. Ashraff, the late leader of the Muslim Congress (SLMC), in a bid to unite the family with the current leadership of the SLMC following estrangement in recent times.

(When the Cabinet meeting ended last Tuesday and he together with ministerial colleagues Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema were chatting when Sajith Premadasa came by.)

( I told Sajith I would not have left the UNP if he made his (May Day) speech two years ago.)

Others broke into laughter. In his speech, Premadasa praised UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

(Sajith asked me what it was all about. I told him he had said we must protect the leader and help him keep the leadership. I said if he had made that speech two years ago, I would not have left the party.

or his (Premadasa’s) face turned red as he walked away.

There is an interesting postscript. Those words in Sinhala were all recorded. The microphone had been made active long before the news conference began.