Foreign service officers miffed at Imran’s jab
ISLAMABAD, MAY 7: Anger has been building among the foreign service officers over Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comments accusing them of harbouring ‘colonial mindset’ and ‘callousness’ in dealing with the expatriate community.
Prime Minister Khan had, while speaking to envoys posted in 19 countries through video conferencing on Wednesday, said that he had noticed “shocking callousness” of Pakistani diplomats posted overseas after a few recent incidents involving the expatriates.
He was in particular critical of the missions in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, which host the largest Pakistani communities overseas, but the way the comments were delivered made it look like a censure of the entire foreign service.
“Indifferent attitude is unforgivable, unacceptable,” Mr Khan had said, telling the officers to give up their ‘colonial mindset’ and extend special treatment to the expatriate communities.
- Posting of officials of allied departments on merit urged
Mr Khan’s comments came after the government suspended outgoing envoy to Saudi Arabia Raja Ejaz and recalled six other diplomats from Riyadh for not properly serving the community and inefficiency.
The prime minister’s comments led to angst, and demoralisation among the officers of the foreign service. To quote the words of one officer, the anger over the “caustic remarks” is very intense and the comments “have made even the reticent ones to speak up”.
There is no denying that overseas communities have faced problems at the embassies, but in conversation with Dawn, officers contended that prime minister’s own presentation of the issues displayed his lack of understanding of the issues and that he solely relied on complaints while making the allegations instead of first studying the issue.
Although serving officers, because of the official discipline, could not publicly respond, former foreign secretaries took the lead in denouncing the premier’s comments on social media.
Former foreign secretary Tehmina Janjua wrote on Twitter: “Deeply dismayed at the unwarranted criticism of the Foreign Ministry. There seems to be woefully inadequate understanding of Embassies’ consular work, the acute resource constraints, and the role of multiple departments which [are] not under the control of Ambassadors.”
Another former foreign secretary Salman Bashir explained on
Twitter: “Usual services to the community are essentially in the domain of
other departments that handle passports, nicop [National Identity Card for
Overseas Pakistanis], consular attestation etc.”
There are structural reasons behind these problems and if
thoroughly and dispassionately probed, it would become evident that the rot is
due to the dysfunction of various governmental institutions and not the Foreign
Office alone. Blaming FO would only cover up the real structural issues, officers
posted at the FO stressed.
The prime minister himself mentioned that most of the
complaints pertain to passports and ID cards, which come under the domain of
Ministry of Interior and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
“Officers of the Machine Readable Passports and ID cards
have their own issues, there are problems with their posting, which is mostly
not done on merit, whereas the flak is taken by foreign service officers who
neither post them nor can hold them accountable as they don’t sign their
performance reports, commonly called ACRs,” a Pakistani diplomat at an overseas
mission pointed out.
More significantly, the officials from directorate general
of passport and Nadra are not trained to function in foreign environments. “A
majority are rude, make applicants take multiple rounds and in most of the
cases with shortcomings, these officials use the ‘over-rule’ button — implying
that the applicant is ‘not’ a Pakistan national, rendering thousands of
Pakistanis stateless who then have to pay large amounts to get their names
cleared,” another foreign service officer said.
Similarly, going online for visas, ID cards, and passports
has created lots of problems. The blind jump on the “online” wagon too has been
made without enough research. The common Pakistani in the Middle East, Europe
and even in North America cannot write Urdu let alone English. An exasperated
officer said: “You have pushed Pakistanis into the hands of agent mafias
dominated by Indians, Bengalis, Afghans and Pakistanis. All Pakistanis abroad
pay them hefty fees, and the data reaches hostile countries.”
Overseas Pakistanis based in UAE, Portugal, Italy and Greece
say that “now even the gatekeepers at Pakistani missions abroad, akin to
Western embassies in Pakistan, just shoo away visa applicants”. One wonders
whether security implications of even starting online passports were studied
before its hasty implementation.
`Angst is palpable’
The angst in the Foreign Office is palpable and widespread.
“There are numerous sterling examples,” said a senior officer at the
headquarters.
The Strategic Communications Division under the foreign
minister has aligned Pakistan’s social media initiative for the first time in
Pakistan’s history on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The FM direct
application allows communication with heads of missions and it is frequently
used. New missions are being opened in Africa.
Officers at the FO said the Foreign Office has emerged as
the custodian of Pakistan’s moral stand on Kashmir. The FO has defended
Pakistan’s nuclearisation in a hostile world as well as its defence needs.
It is not that diaspora only has complaints against the
Pakistani missions. They in WhatsApp conversations recalled that the entire
staff of the embassy in Greece contracted coronavirus and had to function
minimally; the consulate in Milan issued travel documents late into the night
when immigration opened in Italy last year. The state legislature of New York
passed a resolution on Kashmir due to the efforts of the consulate and the
community there. The Los Angeles consulate has worked with Amazon to give
Pakistan seller status. The Barcelona consulate is famous in Europe because it
remained open on Sundays during Covid 1 and 2, making Pakistan the first
country to take back its coronavirus victims.
They pointed out that the UAE and Saudi Arabia might be in
the eye of the storm but they too evacuated thousands of Pakistanis from Dubai
and Jeddah in the most difficult situations, in a very difficult host country
environment. A letter of the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser dated July
27, 2020 surfaced on Thursday in which he had praised the now suspended former
envoy to Saudi Arabia Raja Ejaz and the embassy staff for their role in
repatriation of Pakistanis during the Covid-19 crisis.
Ms Janjua in a tweet recalled: “Officers displaying colonial mindset? Far from it. Only during Covid, officers volunteered to be with community in Wuhan, embassies looked after stranded Pakistanis, distributed food.”
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COURTESY DAWN NEWS
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