A new dawn at the Foreign Ministry

In a rare bit of good news, it has been reported that Aruni Wijewardena, a senior professional diplomat has been appointed as the Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This comes after two and a half years of colossal foreign policy mismanagement under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency. While it is unrealistic to expect immediate reversals in what has been a disastrous foreign policy, her appointment gives hope for a more professional handling of the country’s international relations at a time of grave need. 

The Sri Lanka Foreign Service has witnessed a significant deterioration in quality in recent years. There has been a freeze on recruitment and mediocracy, political patronage and a culture of favouritism has set in at the Ministry. A professional foreign service officer is recruited after a countrywide examination conducted by the Department of Examinations and a rigorous interview process. Such a recruitment has not occurred since 2018 and the Ministry has appointed numerous relatives of politicians to the most desired diplomatic posts abroad, both at junior and heads of mission level. This has not only deteriorated the quality of the service but demoralised those who had joined through the proper channels.

Senior foreign service officers also must be held accountable for this deterioration. Rather than ensuring higher quality recruitment, enhancement of skills and competencies they have enabled the politicisation of the service for their own narrow objectives. In a system where seniority matters more than competence those in higher positions are naturally inclined to prevent junior officers from adding value to themselves and professional growth. The result has been an increasingly incompetent career foreign service which finds itself unable to deal with modern advances and diplomacy. This deficiency has offered a justification to political authorities to appoint individuals from outside the service. 

The legacy of Wijewardena’s immediate predecessors is a diplomatically isolated Sri Lanka that has weakened its position in bilateral and multilateral spheres. For example, one of the first actions of the Gotabaya administration was to cancel the Light Rail Transit System and the East Terminal development project with the government of Japan and India which alienated two of Sri Lanka’s staunchest international partners. The damage done to relations with Japan is yet to be rectified. 

On the multilateral front, due to ill-advised, grandstanding at the UN Human Rights Council in 2020-2021 today there is an international mechanism set up at the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights with a mandate to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence and to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes on Sri Lanka. This mechanism does not need the consent or support of the Government of Sri Lanka to move forward and will come up for renewal in September this year.  Linked to the country’s human rights record is the renewal of the GSP plus trade concessions granted by the European Union. These concessions are at the verge of being lost due to the country’s appalling human rights records and may only be continued due to the economic crisis.

Wijewardena’s immediate predecessors are accused of corruption, favouritism and even being on the pay of foreign interest. It is hoped that she would immediately put a stop to such practices, investigate allegations of corruption including favouritism, recruit a new batch of officers through a competitive examination, minimise political appointments, enhance training and restore the dignity and the professionalism in what used to be an elite government service.This is indeed a high ask but nothing else would suffice at this moment of dire need for a professional diplomatic service. As Sri Lanka struggles to recover from its worst economic disaster since independence it will require all the international support it can muster. It is hoped that Aruni Wijewardena would usher in a new era at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.