(June 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka Rohita Bogollagama received an official rebuke from the President by not allowing him to lead an important delegation visit to India.
According to news reports, Sri Lanka's top leadership team comprising of Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, President’s Secretary Basil Rajapakse and Lalith Wiretunge have met the India's top officials on Wednesday. The Indian delegation comprised of national security advisor M K Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh. The Lankan delegation had met the foreign minister S M Krishna at the end of the visit.
The position of the Foreign Minister is progressively becoming untenable due to centralisation of power with the President and his brothers and the President’s inability to trust anyone not closely connected to him. Both Gotabaya Rajapakse and Basil Rajapakse are President’s brothers. In order to keep sensitive matters under his wrap, the President is said to have sidelined the Foreign Minister on the latest visit to India. Even the Foreign Secretary Dr Palitha Kohana or Foreign Office officials were not included in the visiting team.
This is not the first time Foreign Minister Bogollagama was humiliated by the President and his brothers. The Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse has carved out the foreign affairs of the South and South East Asian region under his ministry’s control and the Foreign Minister has very little powers in dealing with this region.
Minister Bogollagama was rebuked few weeks ago when the Defence Ministry decided to deport the former Prime Minister of Ontario Bob Rae who visited Sri Lanka after obtaining visa clearance from the Foreign Office in Colombo.
It is unclear whether the Foreign Minister is resisting the pressure imposed on him and threatening to resign over the public humiliation he is experiencing in handling his progressively shrinking ministerial duties.
Home Unlabelled Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama rebuked
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Bogollagama shouldn't complain! He's had a good run for his money, swanning around the world with his family at the expense of the country's tax payers. This happened because he was all too willing to kneel at the feet of the Rajapaksas. Now they are turning their backs on him. Perhaps he should have acted with the good of the people in mind instead of trying to squeeze as much out of the job as possible.
J
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