(April 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The attention of the Government of Sri Lanka has been drawn to reported statements alleging that a visa had been denied to the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt to visit Sri Lanka together with the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.This allegation is baseless, as there was no formal application received for a visa by the Sri Lanka Embassy in Stockholm. At no instance did the Sri Lanka Government deny entry to Minister Bildt. In fact, an invitation had been extended by Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, to his Swedish counterpart to visit Sri Lanka in early May.
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Was Swedish minister denied visa?
A note from the Editors of Sri Lanka Guardian
We ourselves were shocked when the news item about the denial of visa to the Swedish Foreign Minister caught the attention of the media. But we did check immediately and found that it was baseless, Evidently, some information to the contrary had slipped through the Swedish or Sri Lankan bureaucracy and it looks like mischief was intended. But we could be wrong in that assumption and it may have been just a mistake..
However, the Swedish Foreign Ministry would have been aware that their minister was due to be in Sri Lanka in May and looks like someone has done a lot of mileage to discredit Sri Lanka. We hope the Swedish government or the embassy officials in Colombo will issue a statement verifying the truth.
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Further it may noted that when the visits by the Foreign Minister of France and the British Foreign Secretary were discussed with Sri Lanka both at Presidential and Ministerial levels, there was no indication of the participation of the Swedish Foreign Minister. The Government of Sri Lanka envisages the visits of the French and the British Foreign Ministers purely on a bilateral basis and not in terms of their membership in a regional or United Nations context. Further it was found to be rather unwieldy to facilitate three Foreign Ministers at one given time at such short notice. In addition, there is an EU-TROIKA visit scheduled to take place from 12 – 13 May 2009 where Sweden would be represented. It was in these circumstances that Sri Lanka requested that the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister be undertaken in early May, which was communicated to the Swedish Foreign Ministry.
It is extremely regrettable that the Government of Sri Lanka is being wrongly accused of preventing the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister by stating that it would be interpreted as a challenge to the dialogue with the EU and consequences will follow bilaterally and multilaterally. It needs to be understood that in this instance there had been no formal prior consultations with the government of Sri Lanka with regard to the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister. The statements made in this regard seem to be emanating from a unilateral decision made on the part of Sweden and the EU with regard to the said visit.
A note from the Editors of Sri Lanka Guardian
We ourselves were shocked when the news item about the denial of visa to the Swedish Foreign Minister caught the attention of the media. But we did check immediately and found that it was baseless, Evidently, some information to the contrary had slipped through the Swedish or Sri Lankan bureaucracy and it looks like mischief was intended. But we could be wrong in that assumption and it may have been just a mistake..
However, the Swedish Foreign Ministry would have been aware that their minister was due to be in Sri Lanka in May and looks like someone has done a lot of mileage to discredit Sri Lanka. We hope the Swedish government or the embassy officials in Colombo will issue a statement verifying the truth.
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Further it may noted that when the visits by the Foreign Minister of France and the British Foreign Secretary were discussed with Sri Lanka both at Presidential and Ministerial levels, there was no indication of the participation of the Swedish Foreign Minister. The Government of Sri Lanka envisages the visits of the French and the British Foreign Ministers purely on a bilateral basis and not in terms of their membership in a regional or United Nations context. Further it was found to be rather unwieldy to facilitate three Foreign Ministers at one given time at such short notice. In addition, there is an EU-TROIKA visit scheduled to take place from 12 – 13 May 2009 where Sweden would be represented. It was in these circumstances that Sri Lanka requested that the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister be undertaken in early May, which was communicated to the Swedish Foreign Ministry.
It is extremely regrettable that the Government of Sri Lanka is being wrongly accused of preventing the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister by stating that it would be interpreted as a challenge to the dialogue with the EU and consequences will follow bilaterally and multilaterally. It needs to be understood that in this instance there had been no formal prior consultations with the government of Sri Lanka with regard to the visit of the Swedish Foreign Minister. The statements made in this regard seem to be emanating from a unilateral decision made on the part of Sweden and the EU with regard to the said visit.
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It is a pity if it was a misunderstanding! Sri Lanka has all the rights to tell the saintly viking to visit Sri Lanka whenever it is convenient for her.
It is also a pity that Sri Lanka did not close its mission in Norway due the security threats posed by the Norwegian citizens (aka Tamil Tigers who are Norwegian citizens now) to its mission and staff.
It is time Sri Lanka and other developing countries tell these neo-colonial bullies to get lost.
For centuries, they have been exploiting people, plundering wealth from poor countries and continue to do so even now - only these days they have a humanitarian halo around their heads and have the economic whip behind their backs.
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