Transcript of the Derana Aruna Interview with Ambassador Robert O. Blake

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Derana Aruna: The U.S. Ambassador sometimes in the media for all the wrong reasons, but this time around he’s here to discuss a safer topic: education. Welcome Mr. Ambassador, Robert O. Blake welcome to the show.

Ambassador Blake: Thank you it’s a pleasure to be here.

Derana Aruna: OK we’re here to talk about a very special event that’s going to happen over the weekend on the 5th of September. You’re for the first time supporting an American education, higher education exhibition here in Sri Lanka. Tell us a bit about it.

Ambassador Blake:  As you say, it’s the first time that the U.S. Embassy’s ever sponsoring this kind of an exhibition. We’re going to have American representatives from 22 different universities coming to Sri Lanka to talk about opportunities for study in their universities, and to tell young Sri Lankan students about how to apply; what are the financial aid opportunities; what are the different courses of study; and any other questions that students have.

Derana Aruna:  What is the reason for the first time for the U.S. Embassy to come on board and partner such an event?

Ambassador Blake:   We think there is a big opportunity here, to try to attract more Sri Lankan students to study in America. There are already about 2,300 students which is very good, but we think that there are some shortages in terms of university capacity here in Sri Lanka, and we see that our friends--the British and others--are doing a lot to promote their own education. So we thought we should to do the same.

Derana Aruna: Ok. So what kind of universities will be on display? What kind of offers are you planning to give the students?

Ambassador Blake: Well of course the universities are sort of self chosen. We wrote to a lot of different universities, these are the 22 that decided to come, and I think one of the striking things about education in America is its diversity. We have 4000 different universities offering every imaginable kind of discipline. People can learn not only about these 22 universities but about all the other universities. We’ll have representatives from the Fullbright Commission who can talk about educational opportunities all over the United States.

Derana Aruna: Right you were that there are limitations in higher education opportunities in Sri Lanka.   If you look at the figures about 150,000 students qualify for higher education but only about 18,000 get placement into Sri Lanka’s 10 universities, so there’s a lot of limitation there.  While conceding that you’re giving a huge opportunity here for Sri Lankan students to get higher education don’t you think that investments need to flow in maybe even from your direction to Sri Lanka’s education sector to make it more competitive and liable?

Ambassador Blake: We would love to do more in that regard but there is a lot of resistance in this country still to private education. So I have many conversations with my friends in the JVP and the JHU to try to convince them that is actually a very good thing. As you say in the 21st century Sri Lanka is going to have to compete like every other country, there is going to be a great war for talent.  I think Sri Lanka’s economy is already very well diversified, but if it wants to maintain that edge, the university education system will be the tool to maintain that edge.   They’ve got to invest in education as we in the United States are doing and as many others countries are doing and they’ve got to allow private education.   So I very much hope that Sri Lanka will allow that and I think that if they do, they’ll see a lot of American investment.

Derana Aruna: Right. Now the central bank has also brought about some sort of, they’re trying to push in for these private educations to come into Sri Lanka, but as you said there is a lot of resistance, don’t you think this resistance also stems from some sort of animosity or negative attitude towards this western concept of education there is a sense of insecurity, that this is another mode of globalisation and neo colonialism. Do you think it’s that, what is the problem here?

Ambassador Blake:  I think that some of them are worried that perhaps there may be two tiers of education:  there will be the sort of private sector of tier that attracts all the best teachers and perhaps all the best students, and then the public sector where perhaps standards will be lower and therefore there may be some sort of inequity.   But I really think that’s a false argument. We have public sector universities in the United States that do extremely well and compete very effectively against the private sector universities. The whole point is to raise the entire level of all of them and so you do so through competition--our system is founded on that and that’s why we believe we have the best university system in the world.

Derana Aruna:  In the meantime we have exhibitions like you’re having over this weekend, then we’ll have a large number of students who are, to a certain extent, highly intellectual, who will naturally go abroad and the natural state of human phenomenon is that once they go abroad, the likelihood of them coming back are very, very slim so we suffer from this usual problem of brain drain. How does Sri Lanka overcome this problem? From one end we can’t give them the opportunity of higher education, but when we send them abroad they don’t necessary come back and as a result the economy suffers.

Ambassador Blake:  Well it’s all about opportunity. I served in India before coming here and one of the most wonderful things that I saw while I was in India was that all the young Indians who were living in the United States and elsewhere, started to come back to India, started to come back to places like Bangalore and Hyderabad because there were big opportunities for them and they felt that they could really prosper in the new India.  My dream is to see that the same thing happens here in Sri Lanka. You’re right there has been a lot of brain drain; there are a lot of very qualified people overseas, but I really believe if Sri Lanka could end its conflict and get back on a more positive cycle that a lot of these people will come back, because you do have a very dynamic private sector here. You go out to these export processing zones, one sees tremendous vitality, great prosperous exporting companies, those are really models for how the future of Sri Lanka can really develop and a very important part of that will be to attract those young people back to your country.

Derana Aruna: You spoke about ending the conflict. According to all reliable and maybe unreliable sources we seem to be getting closer to that target. Now when one day event, post-conflict-Sri Lanka happens, what sort of investments need to flow into education and other areas to give these opportunities that you are talking about?

Ambassador Blake: Well I think what needs to happen is that there needs to be a very good dialogue between the private sector and the government about how to structure the higher education system so that the higher education system is turning out graduates that will be needed for the 21st century economy of Sri Lanka. Too often in Sri Lanka and elsewhere one finds that people are taking courses in humanities or they’re taking courses in areas that they are not really interested in---but those are the only real slots available.  That really needs to change--it needs to be much more focused and there needs to be a real policy about how to structure that education so that it really is serving the needs of the 21st century economy.

Derana Aruna: But you need not wait for the conflict to end to do that.

Ambassador Blake: No, not at all, but the conflict takes up so much time and energy and thoughts of people that it sort of crowds out thinking about strategic planning and things like that. So I think that’s one of the problems.

Derana Aruna: What kind of advocacy are you doing from the Embassy to get the government to get to maybe focus a bit more on other areas other than the predominantly conflict?

Ambassador Blake: I try to use just public speaking opportunities to talk about that, it’s not so much to scold them in any way, it’s to educate people about the opportunity and to show a positive vision and I think there is a positive vision to articulate.

Derana Aruna: Ok but when you try to do that, you take a lot of scab for crossing the boundaries of diplomacy and maybe into going into the territory of intervention. What are your thoughts about diplomacy and intervention? Where do you cross the line?

Ambassador Blake: Well my job is really to represent America’s interests and I try to do that in a very respectful way. I try to advance ideas that I think most of Sri Lankans would agree with. Certainly there are always going to be some people who are going to disagree with what you have to say and perhaps object. But I’m very proud to stand up for concepts like free and fair elections, that’s something that we in America are known for and if I get some criticism for that, that’s ok.

Derana Aruna: Ok. So do you think a Sri Lankan diplomat in the USA could go into the elections office and say “maybe you should have a free and fair election.”

Ambassador Blake: Sure you’d be welcome to. People may be a little perplexed to see him, but I’m sure he’d be welcomed.

Derana Aruna: So you don’t think this fine line, crossing the fine line between diplomacy and intervention could be sort of purging into Sri Lankan sovereignty and those issues? Don’t you think that’s not uncalled for?

Ambassador Blake: Well I’m always careful when I do these kinds of things to talk to the government in advance about what I’m going to do so that there are no surprises. The government was aware about what I was going to do in this case and you didn’t hear the Government issue any kind of statements criticising me.  I try to do this always in a respectful way and I was not in any way trying to intervene, I was just really there to learn from the election commissioner what his plans were for monitoring the election. I had a very good meeting, that was the sum total of it. I was certainly not there to tell him what to do. He is a very experienced and knowledgeable man.

Derana Aruna: OK going back to in some safe territory, we’ll go back to the education and sometime back in May I believe you were addressing an audience at the University of Moratuwa and you were talking about the knowledge economy and the importance of investing in this knowledge economy, riding the business process outsourcing wave, but we know for a fact there is some resistance in your home country, America about this BPO, of its impact in America’s unemployment. So what is the sustainability of us investing in BPO, when there could be a lot of resistance, when the country of business might actually turn away from this trend?

Ambassador Blake: I wouldn’t say there’s that much resistance. BPO is really the wave of the future. Everybody understands if American companies are going to stay competitive they have to outsource a certain number of their processes. So I say we are going to see the BPO process continue in a very important way. America is like many other countries, there’s always going to be small groups of people who resist those kinds of ideas, but you know the vast majority of people will outvote them. There has never been a bill in the U.S. Congress restricting outsourcing despite all of the public heat on this issue--that’s because people understand it’s in our interest to do this kind of thing and it helps American companies.  That’s really the bottom line.

Derana Aruna: In all reality if you look at the reality of the BPO Mr. Ambassador, the reality is that the only reason why firms from your country’s companies, from your countries, would come to a country like Sri Lanka or India or China for that matter is because the labour is cheaper. So within that context what do you feel about the labour exploitation aspect, do you see it as a labour exploitation?

Ambassador Blake: I don’t see it as exploitation. I think, again that with international trade, wages will rise, opportunities will increase and if so I think this is a wonderful opportunity for countries like India and Sri Lanka to seize  and that they should see it in that context.

Derana Aruna: Right well but if you look at the industry as a whole, I’m asking you this because you drive the need to invest in innovation and BPO etc. but if you look at the industry most of them, I’d say there are some software firms and accounting firms and etc. but most of them are very basic core centres where you see even graduates are employed in these core centres and they’re basically service providers who are very confined in their roles they don’t get the opportunity to diversify, enhance their careers. Over the years they have just been a person who has been answering the phone for an American firm or an English firm. How do you see the development of labour within this context in countries like Sri Lanka?

Ambassador Blake: I wouldn’t say they’re mostly call centres, I’d say you have a lot very high quality groups here. You have companies like Virtusa, HSenid, many IT companies who are doing very top quality work here in this country. And you also have a lot companies like MAS  Holdings, like Brandix who are doing a lot of very innovative work--not just in apparel but in things like nanotechnology. You saw recently that MAS,  Brandix and others announced a new joint venture to set up a nanotechnology park here which is a very clever thing to do and I really applaud that--that’s a very good example of investing in innovation and they’re going to use nanotechnology to improve their apparel processes.  Loadstar the big tire company is another investor. They’re looking at how they can use nanotechnology to reduce costs and reduce the amount of materials they use to provide more clean products, etc. So there are a lot of opportunities like that and I think those investments are taking place here. There are very good examples--there just needs to be more of it, that’s all.

Derana Aruna: We were just talking about private sector initiatives into investing into research development and innovations.   We see a lot of companies doing that and starting incubators in universities you see a lot of private companies joining the bandwagon doing what the government should be doing as far as their concerned in investing and research development, how could the government of the USA support these ventures? Are you supporting such ventures with the investments etc?

Ambassador Blake: We don’t per say support that kind of thing, we do through our policy dialogue with the government. We believe that the role of the government is to put in place an enabling environment and then the private sector will invest. I think that one of the great global phenomenons right now is that there is a huge reservoir of global capital out there looking for good investment opportunities around the world--in my country and other countries. The United States happens to be the leader in things like nanotechnology and biotechnology and that’s no accident.  It’s because we have the best research facilities in the world; we have the most innovative venture capital in the world; and we have very strong rule of law so that people know that their good ideas and new inventions will be protected and they can profit from them----that’s a very important reassurance for investors. That’s why you see that most of the innovations that come out are started in the United States in these sorts of new technologies.

Derana Aruna: Ok we have been discussing for sometime I think the U.S. embassy is also supporting this venture of setting up a skills development centre, maybe in the eastern area, am I correct that the U.S. embassy is looking at this investment?

Ambassador Blake: Correct.

Derana Aruna: Ok can you tell us a bit about this and what your goals are? Are you going to take this on to the northern area? What is your aim in establishing a skills development centre?

Ambassador Blake: Well these are all vocational training centres. We are establishing a total 10 of them in partnership with the Vocational Training Authority, the Ministry of Vocational Training, and the idea is to try jumpstart private sector activity in the east and the south--but the way to do that is to provide trained labor.  We’ve partnered with the private sector to make sure that the centers we establish will actually be turning out the right kind of labor and the graduates will have the skills so that they can instantly get a job in those areas. One of them for example, which just opened last week ,was in Koggala.  That was done in cooperation with the Joint Apparel Association Federation--a big apparel trade group here--and they were the ones that really advised us on everything to do with the layout, what kind of process needed to be there, what kind of machines they needed to be trained on.   They will, in turn, now hire each of the 500 graduates that come out of there. So it’s a very good example of the public private partnership and using good ideas and good advice from the private sector to inform our activities.

Derana Aruna: To develop on that question--now with that conflict apparently drawing nearer from more than what it seems, there is a thinking that post-conflict-Sri-Lanka need a lot of focus on the young men and woman who will be released as cadres or troops from the government who will have nothing to do now that they’ve fought years of a war they will be having nothing to do. Has the U.S. government focused on this crisis that could merge into a crisis? Has there been any dialogue? What kind of developments could happen in that area?

Ambassador Blake: Well as you say we believe there is a big opportunity to try to stabilise Eastern Sri Lanka and to ensure development there and do so in a way that will employ young people and prevent the LTTE from coming back into that region.  As always, we believe that the best way to do that is to work with the private sector, to encourage private sector development so we’re doing a lot of projects that I just described. We’re going to have what I call a challenge fund which will essentially encourage private sector companies to apply for U.S. government money, to basically have a partnership to fund almost anything. I just had a conversation the other day with the tourism authority about setting up perhaps a vocational centre for tourism because there are wonderful opportunities in the east and tourism is obviously very labour intensive industry, so I encouraged them “go talk to John Keels, go talk to Aiken Spence have them apply with you and I’m sure we’d be glad to approve that kind of thing.” That’s a small example but there are many, many other examples that we can envision.

Derana Aruna: From what I understand you’re in very close relationship with Pillaiyan and I believe you’re in close dialogue with him to a certain extent that you’re working together as far as development is concerned in the region. How do you see these people opening up to democracy and development efforts? Do you see a concerted effort on their part to get into democracy to lour investment? What do you see in the future for this area?

Ambassador Blake: As I say, I think there is a big opportunity there. One of the most important things that needs to happen is that the TMVP needs to demobilised and need to either be given vocational training or perhaps some of them can enter the army and be paid by the army or the police, but I don’t think its sustainable to have a paramilitary operation operating alongside the elected civilian government of the eastern province.  I think that establishing security is one of the major prerequisites for getting that private sector investment going. I spent a lot of time talking to our friends in the government, talking to the people in the east about establishing that security-- establishing the conditions for private sector investment.

Derana Aruna: We saw on the Daily Mirror today that the U.S. State Department is apparently monitoring within quotes “war crimes in Sri Lanka.” Now there are various parties to these war crimes, there could be the government, the LTTE, as you said the TMVP, how do you see this situation in the country? Do you see the TMVP having a genuine will to move away from the violent background? Do you see that there is a fear psychosis in the area? Is the violence still a problem?

Ambassador Blake: Violence is still an issue, I wouldn’t say it’s a problem in the east anymore. I think that there is very much willingness on the part of the TMVP. This is a process that we definitely want to encourage. We want to see ex-terrorist groups become part of the civilian administration solution. So we’re happy to support this kind of this process;  that’s why we’re investing in these and that’s why we’re spending a lot of our time and effort on this process. We believe very much that there’s been a lot of progress that we should try to help in that regard.

Derana Aruna: Ok going back to your favorite topic I bet, diplomacy when you talk about ex LTTE’s member or coming into democracy, we see ambassadors, diplomats like you working closely with theme on these issues and then we see other diplomats who I might not perhaps name who wouldn’t touch them with a barge board but whereas they would have discussions with the leader of the LTTE. What is this duality? What is this dichotomy in diplomacy?

Ambassador Blake: Well I can’t speak for my other colleagues, by the way I don’t think there’s that much of a double standard as you say and I think almost everybody that I know has great reservations about the LTTE--there’s not a sustained dialogue with the LTTE on these kind of issues.  I’d say there’s a fairly good consensus within the diplomatic community that we all need to work with the TMVP, with the government, to try to stabilise the east. So I wouldn’t say there’s a big double standard there. We’re united in trying to work on the east. We’re also united on confronting the LTTE, confronting terrorism and I’d say that’s a good summary of our policy.

Derana Aruna: There has been a critique that the diplomatic circles usually point fingers at the government and perhaps not so much at the LTTE. What is your take on this accusation?

Ambassador Blake: Again I wouldn’t say that’s true. We, and speaking again for the United States, we have taken a very tough position against the LTTE. We banned them in 1997---we were one of the first to do so.  We have banned the TRO, Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation in the United States so they’re not allowed to raise money there for rehabilitation purposes because we felt a portion of that was going to the LTTE. We are one of the few countries that have provided military assistance to Sri Lanka;  in this case provided radars to help stop LTTE arms shipments coming into this country. So we’ve taken a very tough line on the LTTE. We’ve arrested a lot of people who have tried to raise money in the United States, to buy arms in the United States. So again we take a very tough line on terrorism and a very tough line against the LTTE. We don’t believe there is any double standard there.

Derana Aruna: Ok going back to maybe America and maybe the U.K. there are a lot of things that are done in the name of national interest and then there is again a very thin line on violation of human rights on national interest. What is this thin line and do you think there is a thinner line for smaller states like Sri Lanka? And a thicker line for countries like yourself?

Ambassador Blake: I wouldn’t say that at all. I’d say we have the same standards that we apply all around the world and we apply them very stringently. In our own country as you know there’s been quite a lively debate in the United States about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib; people forget that this was exposed by our own civil society. It was the United States press that exposed a lot of these abuses. There was outrage in our country about them, as there was overseas and our judicial service, our system prosecuted those who were responsible for it. So in that case the system worked and that’s all that we’re asking in terms of our partners around the world. We would just like to see that same kind of system in place where you have a free civil society where you have independent judicial system and you have a good police service that arrests those who are believed to be responsible for a crime, be they human rights crimes or other crimes.

Derana Aruna: You’re talking about checks and balances, moving back to Sri Lanka there has been a lot of uproar against the conduct of the government sort of like ostrich like approach, if you don’t see it you can wish it away, kind of like approach but if you look at the judiciary of Sri Lanka, it has been making some landmark positions as of late. Don’t you think people like you while nudging the government should also praise the judiciary for the wonderful work it’s doing?

Ambassador Blake: Sure I think that there have been  a lot of very important as you say decisions by the judicial system, but it’s also important to point out that there have been very few convictions of very high profile cases. Be they assassinations of people like Lakshman Kadirgarmar or Raviraj but also of the many high profile human rights cases that for example are being considered now by the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the President. So we commend the President for appointing that Commission and we hope it will be able to do its work, make recommendations to the judicial system and then the appropriate people will be prosecuted, if in fact there’s evidence against them.

Derana Aruna: Well you have to admit that fighting a war isn’t an evening tea party. So do you feel that perhaps the government as a responsible elected government has more of a duty than perhaps terrorist outfit than the LTTE to safeguard these rights that you’re talking about?

Ambassador Blake: We do in the sense Sri Lanka like every other country has an elected civilian government that is sworn to uphold the highest standards of democracy and so we do hold them to higher standards.  The LTTE is a terrorist group, we expect them to act like a terrorist group, to kill civilians and that’s why we’ve taken these very stringent measure that I’ve described. We don’t expect them to have an independent judiciary or anything like that--they’re a terrorist organisation so we do hold the government to a higher standard just as we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Derana Aruna: Ok and do you think honestly eye to eye that the countries such as you, the big states are upholding these standards in the world?

Ambassador Blake: Yes I do. I’m very proud of that.   I think we have a very strong system of checks and balances in our country and we certainly have our warts, we certainly have our problems but we also have a system in place to deal with those problems and to punish those that are responsible for them if that’s appropriate.

Derana Aruna: Right so we’ll move bake to educations once again, now we’re having this fair on the weekend a road show so to speak, 22 universities are participating maybe you can invite the people of Sri Lanka to participate in this event. You can extend us an invitation right now if you like.
Ambassador Blake: Well I’d like to just say to all of the young people who might be watching this program it will be from 10 to 6 Friday and Saturday at the Hilton Hotel and it’s free. It’s just a wonderful opportunity to come and learn about the American university system, to learn about financial aid, I know that it’s very difficult for many people to afford to go to get a university education in the United States there are many opportunities for financial assistance, people are allowed to work in the United States while their pursing their education. So remember 2,300 Sri Lankans already in America and they have performed magnificently, they are always well integrated into whatever the university system is, they are very welcomed and I think they are wonderful representatives of your country. So I think that’s why you see 22 people coming all this way because they want to see more Sri Lankans coming because precisely they’ve had such a good experience. So we just want to do our small part to help expedite and expose as many Sri Lankan students as possible to the opportunities available to them. So I really do encourage as many people as possible to come and we promise them a warm welcome and lots of good information.

Derana Aruna: Now hopefully you’ll send some of them back to Sri Lanka.

Ambassador Blake: Right I should also mention that we will have some of our visa officers there who can explain the visa system. There’s a perception that it’s difficult to get a visa to the United States   That is not true, certainly not for students. Anybody who is well qualified and who has the ability to support themselves or has financial assistance will get a visa and similarly we’ll have some Sri Lankan graduates of American universities. We have an association here of graduates and many of them will be on hand to describe their experience as Sri Lankans in America  and again all of them are very enthusiastic proponents of our system. So we’re very happy to have them as well

Derana Aruna: Ok that was a very special discussion with Ambassador Robert O. Blake, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka. That we have to conclude today’s program Mr. Robert O. Blake took up a lot of our time. It was a very interesting discussion and we deviated quite a bit from education unfortunately. Thank you so much for joining us and for joining us for this very special discussion. With that we have to end today’s program we’ll be back tomorrow at the same time