Foreign Ministry plays deaf and dumb

Sunday Times: Sri Lanka: Sunday, August 20, 2017.

The ruling Unity Government has always paraded the Right to Information (RTI) law as one of the jewels in its crown. Though the crown has been shedding some of its lesser jewels like a shaken tree drops its fruit, the RTI Act was shepherded through parliament and nurtured with care as with a new born baby.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was one of its early advocates and was trying hard to turn it into law since the turn of this century. I remember when I came to Colombo to help the London-based Commonwealth Press Union stage its conference in Sri Lanka in 2003, Ranil Wickremesinghe as chief guest promised to introduce a freedom of information law which was already in the making under his direction.

Unfortunately his government fell and the draft bill that was been readied at the time went into limbo until under the previous government opposition MP Karu Jayasuriya tried to resurrect it introducing a private member’s bill.

Despite some of its defects, the RTI law stands tall and has been hailed as one of the best laws of its kind. It is not necessary here to reiterate the value of such a law unless it is to educate some in the foreign ministry that right to information has come to be recognised and accepted as a fundamental right without which freedom of speech and expression would be far less meaningful even though it is constitutionally guaranteed.

Suffice it to say democracy functions more effectively when the public is informed and the activities of government are transparent, accountable and open to public scrutiny, not when petty bureaucrats try to undermine a major achievement of the government for which the media and public campaigned vigorously.

The gathering momentum of a political maelstrom in Sri Lanka in the last few months has now shaken the unity government to its core. It is fast losing the unity it proclaimed with jubilation two years ago as politicians of different hues try to devour each other and more recently chew their own.

These swirling political developments lapped up by a public thirsting for this theatre of tragedy and farce as political parties threaten to bring down their own ministers, have overshadowed other happenings that would otherwise have gained more prominence and public attention.

Early this month the new Minister of Finance and Mass Media Mangala Samaraweera addressing a gathering at the Sri Lanka Press Institute made some observations on how the media should function in this day and age.

Always interested in the observations of Minister Samaraweera though one does on occasion disagree with him on foreign policy issues he seemed to have a grasp of the needs of media and their professional practitioners. That is why one was sorry his address did not get wider coverage in the local media. Unfortunately I could not lay my hands on his speech to see where it was headed rather than make assumptions from the few paragraphs reported in a website.

The headline to Minister Samaraweera’s address quoted him saying that journalists are “duty bound” to report news without ‘fabrication’. The brief report ended with these words by Samaraweera: “Journalists must work to uncover the truth and work with ethics in this new age of media technology”.

One need not quarrel with that except uncovering the truth is a fundamental of journalism and remains a permanent verity not limited to the “new age of media technology.” Uncovering the truth often blocked by over-zealous bureaucrats and political lackeys, is a basic function of the media.

Minister Samaraweera surely knows that it takes two to tango. Uncovering the truth becomes a much harder task and one wrought with danger in authoritarian and repressive societies in which journalists have paid with their lives or with years of incarceration and torture to achieve the very thing that Samaraweera expects journalists to do.

In a democracy which the yahapalana government says it has resurrected and where a right to information law has been constitutionally protected uncovering the truth should be easier if information in the hands of the state and state bodies is made available to the public. In short state institutions and those bodies covered by the RTI Act are legally bound to provide the information sought by the public.

This is hardly a case of seeking the acquiescence of reluctant bureaucrats and others in possession of such information. It is an issue of officials responding readily and truthfully to required information that does not transgress restricted provisions as set out under the Act.

Petty bureaucrats shuffling files around, especially when they don the garb of diplomats remind one of Isabella’s words in Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”: “but man, proud man/ Dress’d in a little brief authority.”

However much Minister Samaraweera might exhort the media not to fabricate news and to uncover the truth it would defeat the purpose of ‘ethical’ journalism if officialdom tries to suppress information, prevaricate and procrastinate as the Foreign Ministry tried to do when I raised some questions relating to the functioning of our overseas missions that come under its purview and the ministry’s rules and regulations with regard to the transfer of diplomats and their extension of service at the behest of their superiors or others.

The six questions I posed had nothing to do with Article 5 of the Act which restricts, if not prohibits, the release of certain categories of information. The questions arose because of widespread comments and criticisms circulating in Sri Lankan diaspora organisations which reflected negatively on the government and the country.

The questions were forwarded to the Spokesperson of the ministry, the acting Director-General of Public Communications who had perforce to refer them to the relevant divisions. More importantly they were sent to the ministry’s Information Officer nominated under the RTI Act.

While there is no need to repeat the questions though the contents of these questions were very much at the heart of public discussion here and elsewhere, the answers came back through the Information Officer. They were monosyllabic responses so reminiscent of answers tabled by ministers in parliament, and very assertive.

It was clear that the ministry – in this case the Director-General of the Overseas Administration Division to which the queries had been forwarded – was in total denial though at least two of the replies were not correct.  In fact the Sunday Times of 25th June said this in its Café Spectator column under the headline “Diplomats’ tussle draws big boss’ retort”.

“It was the intervention of the big boss of the land that has prevented the change in the status quo of a Sri Lanka diplomatic mission in Europe. Feuding in that mission are the number one and two. Insiders say that the tussle has been going on ever since the numero uno turned up and assumed duties. The crisis reached a climax last week.

This was when the numero uno declared that there would be no option other than give up the posting. This is if the number two is not removed forthwith. An angry big boss at home said that it was wrong to dictate terms to his Government. Those posted should be willing to work with others who were also representing Sri Lanka, he said.”

This newspaper scrupulously avoided mentioning which particular mission was involved only referring to a “diplomatic mission in Europe”. But, as Sri Lankans say “knowing people know” that it was not a mission in continental Europe. Most importantly neither President Sirisena nor his media division denied what the Sunday Times wrote though the ministry replying through the DG/OAD seems to feign ignorance of what had been going on for some time under their noses, so to say, and it should have been aware of it.

Surely the President would not have intervened if the entire episode had been “fabricated” as the ministry’s denials implied.

In answer to Question 6, the OAD wrote authoritatively that the “Ministry will decide on all transfers and extensions for officers and will not be influenced by any Head of Mission”.

This is an untruth if ever there was one. My five and a half years in two postings provided clear evidence this is not true. Heads of Missions and others have intervened not only in the transfers but in obtaining extensions of service. The Foreign Ministry is not the final arbiter in all cases as the DG/OAD makes out.

This question was sent to test the veracity of answers supplied to questions asked under RTI law. Since the reply was so obviously wrong I wrote back to the Information Officer RTI asking whether it was the consistent policy of the ministry that it alone makes all decisions relating to transfers and extensions because there have been horrendous cases of arbitrariness and abuse over the last decade or more.

But the pundits that supplied the answers and the RTI Information Officer seemed to have taken a vow of eternal silence for I had no response at all to the supplementary questions.

Despite several reminders the ministry’s panjandrums quickly adopted the postures of the three proverbial monkeys. The OAD seemed to have gone into slumber having probably exhausted its capacity to concoct answers. The OI/RTI who should have replied to me under the law when I asked him as late as this month to let me know whether the ministry intended to reply or not seemed to have fallen back on that old wise saw that silence is golden. It appears that deadlines matter little though the Act has set time limits.

If this is how officials of a ministry that should know better treat the right to information law proudly flaunted by government then what is one to expect from small state institutions and bodies which are congenitally lethargic and nonchalant in dealing with public requests and needs.

I took up this issue because it concerns two ministries – foreign affairs and mass media. Now that the MFA has got itself a new minister who is a respected and experienced lawyer and a seasoned diplomat as the new ministry secretary they should act to ensure that RTI works. It should not be left to diplomatic bureaucrats to find ways to cover their faux pas.

But release of information and responding to media queries should not stop at the ministry’s door. Since Sri Lankan missions abroad are an extension of the ministry then they are bound-morally at least – to respond to media and public inquiries for information. The more important missions at least should assign officials to act as spokespersons or information officers without adopting a philistine hostility to the media.