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Dr.Dayan Jayatilleke has done more to Sri Lanka than many other diplomats put together.
By Charles S.Perera
For once we have in Dayan Jayatilleke, an intelligent outspoken patriotic son of Sri Lanka who does not fear to call a spade a spade. A little heard of Sri Lankan High Commissioner in UK seems to have taken exception to an article by Dr.Dayan Jayatilleke, in which he says that the Independent day message sent by the British Foreign Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka is out of context, and does not appear as a diplomatic note of good wishes.
Dr.Dayan Jayatilleke has written that article not in his capacity of an Ambassador of Sri Lanka, but as a patriotic citizen, to point out to the British Foreign Secretary Mr. Milliband that his message to Sri Lanka on the day it was celebrating its 60th year of independence from colonialism was inappropriate, and its contents lacks the respect and sincerity expected from a person speaking on behalf of the Islands former colonialist. Mr. Milliband perhaps is not aware that we have no good memories of the period of British colonial rule in Sri Lanka. Many were our national heroes who suffered under the British Colonialism, and we have no lessons to learn from them now.
Ms. Kshenuka Seneviratne has neither the right to make critical remarks on a statement made by Dr.Dayan Jayatilleke in an article to a journal in Sri Lanka, at a meeting of diplomats at the Office of the High Commission, nor to offer apologies for what Dr. Jayatilleke had written. Ms. Seneviratne cannot deny the correctness of the facts Dr. ;Jayatilleke had stated in his article. Though these facts are well known, it is difficult to drive them into the thick skulls of the British Ministers and their Diplomats.
When the Ambassadors of USA and UK were making inappropriate statements in public interfering into the affairs of the Sri Lankan Government, Ms.Seneviratne was not heard of having made any criticism. Ms.Kshenuka Seneviratne, makes an issue of nothing at the end of her term of office to draw attention to herself by discrediting a colleague, perhaps hoping that by doing so, she may have the chance to fill a probable vacant diplomatic post in the near future in Geneva, if Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke were to be recalled.
Leaving diplomatic correctness apart, Ms. Seneviratne should have the politeness not to level criticism against another diplomatic colleague from her own country in her diplomatic dealings with other diplomats else where.
Within a short time since Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke had been in the Geneva Embassy, he has brought greater credit to Sri Lanka, than Ms. Kshenuka Seneviratne during her longer term of office.
Even before Dr.Jayatilleke was posted to Geneva, he wrote very pertinent articles, some of which appeared in the Island News Paper, about the political situation of he country. He will continue to do so whether he is in the diplomatic service or not, and it not the likes of Ms.Seneviratne who would stop him.
We should be proud of the role he played in Geneva on the issue of
violation of Human Rights in Sri Lanka.
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