Is G L Pieris better than Bogollogama

By Simple Simon

(April 26, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It must have been some relief for President Mahinda Rajapakse that the outgoing Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollogama was defeated in the general election. It was an easy exit without acrimonious politicking. The nation too deserves such an unexpected blessing for a peaceful booting.

Bogollogama’s successor Prof. G L Pieris is an academic and in the recent times has proved him an unprincipled man. He is known to have contradicted his own statements many times and have ventured into unchartered territories to earn bad names for him. His communication skill is badly managed and makes him to fail because he lacks the vision and charisma needed for such a position.

When it comes to international diplomacy, the man can play rocky games and become heavily defensive to create more problems for Sri Lanka. I have met GL many times in meetings. My opinion of him holding a position of Foreign Minister is worrying for me. I thought Mahinda will offer him the ministry for Vedamahatya’s (doctors indigenous medicine), as his conduct is so indigenous that he can listen to and address their needs better than being a Foreign Minister.

Power hungry GL will do anything for his masters. For the past one year, he has been a castigator of foreign governments that are critical of Sri Lanka. His castigations had gone beyond bounds that he has to mitigate his stance become amenable.

I felt saddened when GL’s name was announced as Foreign Minister, as I thought he can make further mess over the mess created by his predecessor. He is a man who will say one story to one foreign dignitary, and a different interpretation to the same story to dilute the meaning to another. Such matchless ability is only available with our GL.

There are many international issues that are put on hold for the past few months due to the presidential and general elections. These will soon fester Sri Lanka. Now that an orderly situation is developing the human rights, humanitarian and international law issues are expected to move into to the centre stage that GL needs the charisma and honesty to deal with them in a non-hostile manner.

His stubborn and scatter brain approach of these issues could only cause further harm to Sri Lanka. The onus is on Sri Lanka to be honest without prevaricating and stubbornly playing trivial politics to masturbate in the international arena.

GL’s appointment proves that all the symptoms of dangerous way forward for Sri Lanka.