Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

JHU leader warns of AIDS plot against monks

you are ignoring me!!

ltte will be a great military and a political force if there is some space for them to practice. their abilities will contribute so much to the island divided or not divided

Monawa karath berenna bea machang! Angatamai anne.

Jrj
you are ignoring me!!

Bambalapitiya Inspector Abeyratne Dissanayake said at around 11.30 pm on Thursday, Malaka had come to the police station to lodge a complaint that Chaminda Senasinghe had hit him

Please note , all tourists who may wants to visit Sri lanka please be careful of politicians and the govt of SL. if president accept such a people as ministers.

What diplomats and ex-diplomats do to their country?
Sun, 2007-09-09 13:47
Colombo, 09 September, (Asiantribune.com): President Mahinda Rajapakse was right in summoning the diplomats abroad and giving them a pep talk telling them that there are greater missions in the diplomatic world than circulating in the cocktail circuit with a glass in hand. He told them to pull up their socks and work for the good of the nation in these critical times.

But nothing seems to have changed since then. Some of them don?t even turn up at their desks in time. And those who turn up late go early for lunch and wait long till they finish their afternoon siesta.

Equally, bad or worse, are the ex-diplomats. Most of them are political appointees who work according to their political masters and not according to the greater interests of the country. There are some notable ex-diplomats scattered all over the globe. Some even go round selling curry powder in Western capitals. Once they leave the job they deny their roots and prefer to enjoy the benefits they derived from being diplomats. These ex-diplomats do not even bother to lift a pen to write a letter to the media or their political representatives in parliaments or congresses defending the country that gave them the best opportunities. They believe that they must activate themselves only when the Sri Lankan government gives them diplomatic status, with free cars, drivers and other perks.

The worst are the ex-diplomats who work against the nation exploiting the recognition they earned through the courtesy of the Sri Lankan government. A good example is Devidna Subasinghe, who was appointed as Ambassador to Washington by Ranil Wickremesinghe. On August 31, 2007 he has told the academic staff of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) that the Mahinda Rajapakse government is on the verge of collapsing. It is this academic staff that is due to conduct a seminar for the Sri Lankan armed forces.

Having introduced himself as the Sri Lankan Ambassador, Subasinghe had said that the Sri Lanka government has authorized him to address individuals and organizations in the US on the current political situation in Sri Lanka. In the Q&A session during the briefing, he has said that the Sri Lanka government is unstable and that its collapse is inevitable. He had also cautioned NESA that any assistance to be given to Sri Lanka should be with due consideration to this fact.

Subasinghe was appointed Sri Lanka Ambassador in the US by Ranil Wickremesinghe in September 2002 and he held this position until succeeded by current Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke in April 2005.

As an appointee of Wickremesinghe he actively pursued a policy of negotiating with the former Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, to open the closed American gates for the late Anton Balasingham to visit the US . What was the purpose of that endeavor? As everybody knows, the US administration listed LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) as far back as 1997. According to our sources there was more than one compelling reason for him to engage in such an enterprise. One was to provide the LTTE access to the US as the precedent created by allowing such a visit would have helped that organization to make additional forays into the US using Balasingham?s visit as precedence. The other reason was much more ominous. If Subasinghe succeeded it would have provided Balasingham easy access to the Department of State, and given him every opportunity to plead the case on behalf of the LTTE, with a view to removing the FTO status given to the LTTE. The argument used for getting Balasinghan inside USA, through the courtesy of Wickremesinghe, was that once the FTO status was lifted the LTTE would be more amenable to return to the negotiating table.

This attempt could have succeeded if Armitage were to lobby on behalf of the LTTE as he was closely associated with the Sri Lanka peace process. However, the tables turned when the LTTE engaged a woman suicide cadre to assassinate the Army Commander in April 2006, which made Armitage to abandon the project. The fact that the LTTE was ready to go the extra mile and pay heavily to achieve their objective was seen when the FBI arrested dozen or more LTTE agents in New York last August last year. Among the charges against the arrested was attempting to bribe State Department officials for getting their cooperation to remove the LTTE from the FTO listing.

In diplomatic circles it is rumoured that Subasinghe has been wooing until recently the Rajapakse administration to get back into the Ambassador?s seat once the current Ambassador, Bernard Goonetilleke, leaves the post at the end of his tenure. How well he can perform as ambassador to a government that is about to fall (Wickremesinghe?s line) is very much in doubt. It appears that he is counting on a regime change and expecting Wickremesinghe to come back. He was first appointed by Wickremesinghe because he claimed to know the American system inside out. His record is not that brilliant either to retain him as the next ambassador. Career diplomats like H. M. G. S. Palihakkara and Bernard Goonetillee have performed far better than the political appointees of Wickremesinghe. In fact, Wickremesinghe is noted for appointing his scrity man as attaché to UN mission in New York.

It is obvious that a new culture is needed to revitalize the foreign missions abroad and one way is to keep those ex-diplomats who have been acting against the nation out in the cold.

- Asian Tribune -

Loads of sexually frustrated Sinhalese men can indeed be a problem, but that affects more the Sinhalese women.

Sinhala ministers also found that UN Diplomats Alan Rock, John Holmes, Norway facilitator Erc Solheim, Amnesty International and LTTE leader Prabakaran as 'terrorists' but Malaka Silva and Sareth Fonseka as liberators.