The recent disruption of day-to-day life and tourism in Sri Lanka due to heightened risk warnings by several foreign nations, has pushed the island nation's porous border control system, and its Foreign Affairs apparatus back into the spotlight.

With the United States issuing a security alert for tourists, and officials regarding visiting the west-coast surfing magnet – ‘Arugam bay’, the warning opened a can of worms for the local tourism industry and the Government, who were both left with their pants down, and struggling to damage control. Many have vented their frustration at the US for potentially sinking Sri Lanka’s December tourism season, a vital revenue earner which the island is dependent on to raise State income.

While the sudden US warning has opened the door to the rise of many theories and conspiracies, the failure to manage the information and maintain operational cohesion with ‘partners’ lands on the doorstep of the Sri Lankan State. The Government, once critical information was received, should have laid down information control parameters and decided on trip-wires for public warnings, on condition that Sri Lanka should be the first out of the gate to indicate a security concern to its public and visiting tourist, before the respective foreign partners, fired off their ‘duty of care’ warning to their respective countrymen. Herein lies the need for statesmanship, professionalism and the political will to be assertive when necessary, the Sri Lankan Government must get its act together and impress on its ‘partners’ that Sri Lanka must have command of both security and information control on matters within its borders. Had the Government eased in with a security warning, using effective language and communication tools, the public would not have had to wake up to a foreign security warning about a threat on home soil. Further, such announcements, when made by foreign sources and governments, with the Sri Lankan State following suit to only acknowledge that they knew of it before, but did not act to inform, only helps further the trust gap between the State and its citizenry. The fact is that the State, with due consideration to operational secrecy, should have better managed the information flow with stremlined cooperation with the ‘partnering’ nations, be they the United States, India or anyone else. This episode in security relations and management, begs the question as to if the State needs to improve synergy between its own foreign relations apparatus, which by the looks of it was blissfully unaware, like many times before, and its national security apparatus, which is itself compartmentalised and always awaiting the ‘nod’ from the political leadership, to act swiftly.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that ad-hoc changes to the immigration and border control mechanism in Sri Lanka, has complicated the collection and dissemination of vital data pertaining to governance, tourism and national security being unavailable to the State. The decision to eliminate arrival and departure slips, a legal requirement for all passengers entering and leaving Sri Lanka, from 1 May, has raised significant concerns regarding national security, particularly in locating Israeli citizens currently in the country, it is learnt. Sri Lanka Immigration and Emigration Officers’ Association Secretary K.P. Manawadu had addressed this issue in a letter to the Controller General of the Department of Immigration and Emigration on 30 April.

It is learnt that from 1 May, on the order of the former Controller General, the use of arrival and departure slips had been suspended at all airports and seaports. According to officials, the removal of these slips, mandated by the Immigrants and Emigrants Act No.20 of 1948, is seen as a critical misstep, especially given the slips’ role in monitoring the entry and exit of individuals. The letter had highlighted the importance of the slips in collecting, analysing, and surveilling data vital for border control activities conducted by the Immigration and Emigration Department.  The letter states   that this data was also crucial for State security, aiding investigations by the State Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Last week Police Spokesperson DIG Nihal Thalduwa confirmed that the department was facing challenges at present in locating Israeli citizens who have arrived in Sri Lanka. “The arbitrary decision to remove these legal requirements has severely hampered our ability to maintain national security,” a government official said. Such data is not only valuable for planning, tourism policy formulation, but also vital for crime prevention, crime fighting, transnational infection spread control, counter terrorism and countering violent extremism. Let us hope that the Government moves to act on these shortcomings, and do so quickly.