Jayantha Dhanapala complains and lankanews Web responds:

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Jayantha Dhanapala Writes
2010-09-06

I write as a retired Ambassador of Sri Lanka out of a genuine concern that while the current staffing of our diplomatic missions with political appointees continues, you are also contributing to the demoralising of the professional career foreign service and the tarnishing of its image by allowing your website to be used for petty gossip about its members who are constrained by public service regulations from defending themselves.
Websites such as yours do perform a valuable service in keeping aloft the freedom of expression and dissent so important in a democracy. At the same time this freedom has to be exercised without harming another important democratic institution - an independent public service - of which the Sri Lanka Foreign Service (SLFS) is an integral part. It is an international practice adopted by all countries that the management of foreign relations is entrusted to a body of professional diplomats who are trained and equipped for that specialized task. I know that our diplomats are among the best.Many of the persons vilified in your articles are known to me given my own experience in the SLFS from 1965 to 1997. If there are legitimate charges against them there

are avenues for inquiries and punishment in the procedures of the public service and the legal procedures of the country to which you or your informants will have recourse as concerned members of civil society.
I am particularly distressed that former Foreign Secretary Palihakkara, our current High Commissioner to India Prasad Kariyawasam and current Foreign Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe are among the targets of slander because they have worked with me very closely and I know them to be men of exceptional integrity who have served Sri Lanka with great patriotism and dedication.
I appeal to you therefore to cease allowing your website to be exploited by persons who may have personal grievances and who therefore use your columns to damage the institution of the SLFS instead of going through the available processes to remedy perceived injustices.
Yours sincerely,Jayantha Dhanapala(former Ambassador and former UN Under-Secretary-General)
Editor’s note:
The LankaNewsWeb has no intention of slinging mud on any individual let alone the distinguished diplomats mentioned by Mr. Dhanapala. We agree with Mr. Dhanapala that the Foreign Service is being highly politicized, increasingly being filled with political henchmen and the aforementioned three senior diplomats are indeed distinguished personalities. Their conduct over the past decades, according to our information, has been exemplary.
But they have lately committed some grave errors of judgment that destoys all their previous goodwill; perhaps because of the influence by corrupt political henchmen like Dr. Palitha Kohona or may be they were simply following the footsteps of Rajapaksa brothers.
With all due respect to Mr. Dhanapala, the LNW stands by our revelations until the distinguished diplomats prove our stories are wrong. For example, can Romesh Jayasinghe prove that he did not appoint R.M.A. Ratnayake – or R.M.Abeyratne –as the additional secretary in charge of general administration and overseas administration? Can he prove that our story that it was the first such senior appointment from outside the foreign service was wrong? Can Mr. Jayasinghe prove that our story about his favouritisim towards an “elitist” group sidelining the senior diplomats was wrong?
The LNW’s intention is to see the foreign service in Sri Lanka working for the betterment of the country without any political interference by the presidential secretariat or the defence ministry. We have no intention of destroying it. But until such time the aforementioned distinguished diplomats prove our stories were wrong, we stand by our stories. We have no hesitation to apologise if they prove us wrong.