{"id":57416,"date":"2016-08-08T16:05:56","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T23:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57416"},"modified":"2016-08-08T16:05:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T23:05:56","slug":"watch-out-another-american-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/08\/watch-out-another-american-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Out \u2013 another American coming!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kumara Gopallawa\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Another top official of the US government is visiting Sri Lanka. News reports that Charles Rivkin is coming to Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan political leaders need to note that he is not a career professional diplomat, but an Obama government appointee like Ms. Biswal, Samantha Power et.al. If there is a change of government, both Power and Biswal will no longer serve an incoming regime. Power, for example, will most likely be removed by a Hillary Clinton administration because Power once called Hillary a “monster”during the 2008 Presidential nomination process. Definitely in a Trump administration, both Biswal and Power will have to look for work outside the State department.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rivkin is not a career diplomat, but a trade negotiator. Only started working in the State Department in 2014. So he is another political appointee who served as Ambassador to France under Obama. He is an educated and smart man. He is looking for US investments in Sri Lanka and probably for a market for US goods, tied to Human Rights. He has an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelor in Political science from Yale. He is a good and successful businessman. He is definitely looking to sell and invest.<\/p>\n

Charles Rivkin is an American ambassador of a peculiar kind. He is not a career diplomat but a political appointee, with no previous professional experience in international relations.He has received rave reviews for his performance in Paris both in official State Department audits and from his embassy\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t Rivkin\u2019s diplomatic skills that landed him the coveted political ambassadorship. Rather, it was his skillful fundraising for President Obama during his 2008 election campaign. So, like so many Sri Lankan politically appointed Ambassadors and High Commissioners, he too is a Political appointee. Under Obama the percentage of political appointees has reached a new high, after he broke a promise not to have too many political appointees. Another example of a high profile Political Appointee is Carolyn Kennedy, late JFK\u2019s daughter. But the difference is usually Obama\u2019s political hacks have been highly educated and have credentials, unlike Sri Lanka\u2019s appointees, almost none of who have a tertiary education.<\/p>\n

Beware of those who come bearing gifts. US have not hidden its selfish interests in coveting Trincomalee and hoping to partner with Sri Lanka to encircle China, in keeping with their long term strategic goals and interests.<\/p>\n

Kumara Gopallawa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kumara Gopallawa\u00a0Courtesy The Island Another top official of the US government is visiting Sri Lanka. News reports that Charles Rivkin is coming to Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan political leaders need to note that he is not a career professional diplomat, but an Obama government appointee like Ms. Biswal, Samantha Power et.al. If there is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}