[ALOCHONA] What is happening in the foreign ministry?

What is happening in the foreign ministry?

Courtesy New Age 1/5/09

 

Confirmed and unconfirmed reports do not suggest that the foreign ministry is performing that well. The foreign minister, who embarrassed herself and the nation during the visit of the Indian foreign minister with the faux pas on the question on ‘buffer state’, has now embarrassed herself, her ministry, her prime minister and the Saudis by her eagerness to claim a first for her prime minister. In claiming that Sheikh Hasina’s meeting with the Saudi King was the first by a Bangladesh prime minister with the Saudi monarch in seven years, she found out quick enough that as prime minister, between 2002-2006, Khaldea Zia had met the Saudi King on four occasions.
   The post of Bangladesh’s ambassador to Germany has been vacant for over a year now. So are a large number of ambassadorial posts that are now in the process of being filled up. Retired ambassadors are being recalled to fill important posts while political patronage is also getting a few of these positions. A former vice chancellor of Rajshahi University is going to London. The brother of the finance minister is being sent to Saudi Arabia. Together with him, two other former ambassadors who are being given important posts are all US citizens. A post where unequivocal loyalty to the country is absolutely fundamental, it is illegal, immoral and unethical to give these individuals who have given their loyalty to another country as Bangladesh’s ambassadors.
   In this policy or lack of one, the BCS (FA) cadre officers are being treated most summarily. Whenever a foreign secretary has been sent abroad, he has usually gone to a post of his choice in the US, UK or the United Nations at New York. The present foreign secretary who has been in the post for nearly three years was, as the rumours go, offered Cairo that he declined and is now being considered for Geneva. These developments in the foreign ministry are creating a breakdown of morale in the ministry that will only make the foreign ministry weaker where the need of the time is to create a strong and effective foreign ministry with top grade professionals as career diplomats to take up the challenges of globalisation.
   The foreign minister is very quickly turning out to be a big disappointment for her priority seems to be is to make the prime minister happy as one can easily conclude by the faux pas she made over the credit she has given Sheikh Hasina for being the ‘first’ prime minister to meet the Saudi King in seven years. The state minister for foreign affairs, not to be overshadowed by his boss, took pride that the Saudi King addressed her as ‘sister’ as if this is rare for a Saudi king to do. If either had even the rudimentary grooming in conducting diplomacy, he/she would have known that on common sense both statements were wrong. A foreign minister with some knowledge of diplomatic norms would have known that one cannot please one’s boss in conduct of foreign relations where a foreign head of state is involved without checking facts. Her error is not a simple one; it has embarrassed Bangladesh to the Saudis.
   In the context of the present day world, a nation can either make or break on its understanding of the forces of international politics. In dealing across national frontiers, it is imperative that a country has a good foreign policy and a mechanism for conducting its external relations. In Bangladesh, we have none. We still, when it comes to policy, have a one line foreign policy which is now not even worth the value of a cliché: friendship for all and malice towards none. In terms of mechanism, we have a foreign ministry that is only so in name and cannot decide on anything except matters so exclusive to the ministry that the rest of the government is not even interested to know about. In this situation, we now have two novice ministers who are more eager to please the prime minister and very little about the ministry they head.
   I don’t think the foreign ministry has ever been in such a pitiable state of affairs as it is today. To me, the way things are being allowed to be in this important ministry signifies more than anything else that our governance level is sliding and all the talk about Vision 2021 and Digital Bangladesh are to take us for a ride.
   Rashed Ahmed
   Gulshan, Dhaka

 

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