{"id":82521,"date":"2018-10-31T00:42:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T06:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=82521"},"modified":"2018-10-29T16:45:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T23:45:46","slug":"western-nations-breaching-vienna-conventions-on-diplomatic-relations-interfering-into-internal-affairs-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/10\/31\/western-nations-breaching-vienna-conventions-on-diplomatic-relations-interfering-into-internal-affairs-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Nations breaching Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations interfering into internal affairs of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) Article 41 clearly states that diplomats cannot interfere into the internal affairs in the receiving country and such interference is construed as a violation of diplomatic protocol. If so the US, UK, EU, Canada, Indian envoys are all breaching diplomatic protocols with their regular demarches against the Sri Lankan Government issuing statements &amp; visiting Sri Lankan political parties, their leaders, local NGO heads, local media etc and often dictating how they should function. If Western diplomats are breaching the very rules that they have created they might as well remove them altogether.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Vienna Convention &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/bbm%3A978-94-011-8792-3%2F1.pdf\">https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/bbm%3A978-94-011-8792-3%2F1.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Article 4I &#8211; I. Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Article 41 &#8211; 2. All official business with the receiving State entrusted to the mission by the sending State shall be conducted with or through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the receiving State or such other Ministry as may be agreed. (how many instances of Western envoys &amp; Indian envoys did as they liked in Sri Lanka?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the Vienna Convention, Article 2.7 of the Charter of the United Nations also provides that \u2013 &#8220;Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Immediately reconvene Parliament\u201d US urges Sri Lankan President<\/strong> (NDTV)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>US calls on President to reconvene parliament immediately<\/strong> (Daily Mirror)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>EU, UK envoys urge Sri Lanka to follow due process according to the constitution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-82508\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-SL-300x170.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"379\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-SL-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-SL.jpg 451w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EU_in_Sri_Lanka\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/EU_in_Sri_Lanka<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eeas.europa.eu\/delegations\/sri-lanka\/52898\/joint-statement_en\">https:\/\/eeas.europa.eu\/delegations\/sri-lanka\/52898\/joint-statement_en<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The biggest breach of protocol was seen when inspite of the President of Sri Lanka sacking Ranil Wickremasinghe as PM and appointing Mahinda Rajapakse as PM and issuing gazette notifications to this effect, the envoys of EU, UK gather &amp; visit Temple Trees where Ranil Wickremasinghe the sacked PM refuses to vacate claiming he is still the PM.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-82549\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-Templetrees-300x140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"452\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-Templetrees-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/EU-Templetrees.jpg 451w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 452px) 100vw, 452px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What is baffling is that none of the envoys wishes to make any statement regarding the reason given by the President in a very emotional speech to the effect that what prompted him to sack the PM was as a result of his plan to assassinate him.<\/p>\n<p>It is not for the US, UK, EU or Indian envoys to decide what is constitution or legal in Sri Lanka. There is the Attorney General &amp; the Sri Lankan Supreme Court to advise the President on this. Therefore, the President does not require to take the US, UK, Indian or EU permission to appoint anyone or obtain their nod of approval either. We don\u2019t decide who Trump, Theresa May, Macron or Modi appoint or sack, do we?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These all constitute violations of the Vienna Convention \u2013 so what happens when envoys violate diplomatic protocols? In the least the UN Members of the General Assembly should be appraised of these regular interferences other than social media &amp; alternative media exposing the bias &amp; hypocrisies at play.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We all recall how President R Premadasa declared David Gladstone the UK high commissioner \u2018persona non grata\u2019 when he tried to interfere in the elections of Sri Lanka. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Archives\/1991\/05\/30\/British-envoy-ordered-to-leave-Sri-Lanka\/6697675576000\/\">https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Archives\/1991\/05\/30\/British-envoy-ordered-to-leave-Sri-Lanka\/6697675576000\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) Article 41 clearly states that diplomats cannot interfere into the internal affairs in the receiving country and such interference is construed as a violation of diplomatic protocol. If so the US, UK, EU, Canada, Indian envoys are all breaching diplomatic protocols with their regular demarches against the Sri [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82521","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\/1498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}