Diplomats and Diplomatic Norms

Dhaka Courier, issue no 45, 29th May, 2009
M Serajul Islam

The Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in their Meet the Reporters programme recently hosted the US Ambassador who used the opportunity to discuss about our internal affairs. I am not sure whether our friends in the DRU are aware of it or not; there is a small matter of diplomatic norms and another a little bit more important, an international Convention at stake here.

Let me touch upon the Convention first. The Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations (VCDR), to which both Bangladesh and the United States are signatories, sets the guidelines on how diplomats should conduct their relations in the host countries together with other provisions. One of the important provisions of this Convention is on diplomatic immunity. Diplomats are exempted from persecution in the courts of the host countries and other legal obligations that the citizens of that country are subjected to. This immunity is however balanced by responsibilities. Article 41 (1) of VCDR reads: "Without prejudice to the privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving states. They have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that country". The following sub-para (2) of Article 41 is equally interesting as it states that diplomatic missions must conduct their relations with the host country either with the Foreign Ministry or through the Foreign Ministry of the receiving state.

The US Ambassador, while speaking at the DRU, was addressing a media group. He therefore knew that whatever he said would be covered in the media. He spoke freely and fairly but almost entirely on our internal affairs. He spoke on our elections; on agenda for the government and parliament and gave us ample advice on what the parliament and the government should do. He also warned us that Bangladesh is still facing the threat of religious militancy. What the Ambassador said may have been said with good intentions but what he said were also clearly our internal affairs and hence not his subject to discuss in the media. We cannot also overlook the fact that what he said also affects Bangladesh's image negatively. His intentions would have served better purpose if his views and perceptions were communicated to our Government directly.

In recent times, Ambassadors/High Commissioners are discussing our internal affairs much less frequently in public than was the case before 1/11 and also during the emergency. A lot has been written in the media about the role certain Ambassadors/diplomats played in our internal politics at that time. The BNP has openly accused at least one diplomat serving in a multilateral organization in Bangladesh about complicity to bring the emergency in January 2007. One High Commissioner, a son of the soil till his parents decided to settle abroad, behaved more like a local politician, and a partisan one, than a High Commissioner. During the imposition of emergency, he went around "interviewing" for Bangladesh our Chief Adviser. In his successor, a career diplomat, we are already seeing as clear as daylight the stark difference between the two in the way professional diplomats conduct their responsibilities in the country of their accreditation.

My purpose in writing this article is not to be critical about the Ambassadors. My focus is elsewhere; to examine and pinpoint what we should be doing. But we are not doing that to counteract the undue interference of Ambassadors and High Commissioners in our internal affairs. In my own experience as a diplomat, I have never witnessed such involvement of resident Ambassadors in the internal affairs of a host country in any of the capitals I have been posted, the way we see in Bangladesh. The reasons why this does not happen in other capitals are simple. Other capitals ensure that diplomats follow diplomatic norms and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The host government through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs ensures this. In other capitals, political parties do not reach out to the diplomats the way it happens in Bangladesh. In our country, diplomats have been brought into our politics by political parties. During Ershad's tenure, there was an Ambassador from Iraq who used to openly tout in parties that he could get anyone into the Cabinet and anyone out. During the 15 years of elected government before the present one came to office, the mainstream political parties have interacted with Ambassadors/High Commissioners for support in their politics of conflict fight who in turn have obliged although some of them have argued that they have done so in order to ensure that their contributions to our economic development in the form of aid and grants did not go down the drain. Also, there is no reason to doubt that in talking on our politics, the Ambassadors/High Commissioners had the welfare of Bangladesh in their hearts. One still remembers US Ambassador Harry Thomas' very sincere efforts to wake up a BNP government for a self-induced slumber to acknowledge religious militancy that eventually harmed Bangladesh as well as the BNP's chances of re-election.

There is a discernible positive change in the context of this article among those in charge at MFA at present. In the past, we have seen Ambassadors/High Commissioners openly criticizing our government in the company of those in charge of MFA during media briefings. The present Foreign Minister has shunned this practice for good measure. The MFA needs to be a little more proactive and engage with the diplomatic missions in a manner so that their concerns about Bangladesh are addressed out of the glare of the media and in the way diplomatic relations are conducted between the diplomatic mission and the host government in rest of the world's capitals.
The role of the media in the context of what we are discussing is very important, particularly the visual media. In their search for a scoop or "breaking news", these journalists often lose perspective of what their job expects from them as professionals. In this instance, the DRU's Meet the Reporters Programme's invitation to the US Ambassador should have ensured a number of things. First, there should have been a reference or at least consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out whether they can invite the Ambassador. There was a time when the MFA's permission was necessary for such an invitation. Article 42 (2) of the VCDR also requires such a reference. Second, the DRU should have set the topic for the Ambassador so that a foreign diplomat was not given a public platform to talk about our politics and embarrass us. At a time when President Obama has become an iconic figure in international politics, why the DRU did not request the US Ambassador to talk about the US President's initiatives in international politics beats me.

Our journalists often go after the Ambassadors and High Commissioners, chasing them at the corridors of power and then asking them questions about our domestic politics. There is a matter called reciprocity in conduct of diplomatic relations between two countries; reciprocity that does not seem to work in our case. Our journalists must bear in mind that the indulgence we give to resident Ambassadors/High Commissioners to interfere in our internal affairs is a one-way traffic, in addition to being a violation of VCDR. It is ridiculous even to think that our Ambassador in Washington would be able to talk to the media on US politics in the manner the US Ambassador has on our politics and does on a regular basis. Our journalists need to consider that their focus on Ambassadors/High Commissioners achieves no good purpose except embarrassing Bangladesh.

The most difficult part of establishing a professional conduct of relations with regards to the foreign diplomats is getting our politicians to do the right thing. They are the ones who are responsible for bringing the diplomats into our politics in the first place. They should know better than others that bringing them into our politics has not helped their cause in any way except give a poor impression about the quality of our politics. It does not serve their purpose; it never has. One hopes that they would see the futility of involving Ambassadors/High Commissioners in their hate politics and limit their talks to these diplomats on bilateral matters for which they have been sent to Bangladesh by their respective countries.

(The writer is a former Ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan and can be reached on his blog www.ambasssadorseraj.blogspot.com)