Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Dr Rais Yatim has said something right in relation to the issue of foreign diplomats of 12 countries who attended the closed-door briefing on Anwar Ibrahim's health condition.
He shows better understanding of international laws and conventions of modern diplomacy than both the prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and minister for Foreign Affairs, Syed Hamid Albar.
The fact that Indonesia has later claimed it was an 'human error' for its diplomats to attend the function does not change the essence of the issue.
Rais said: "It is not wrong for a diplomat to be invited to listen to a speech by any political party so long as he or she does not take an active part in it or show a prejudiced stand."
He also said it is not wrong for political parties to invite diplomats to attend their functions.
His opinion which was reported in the New Straits Times on April 7, is entirely in compliance with the spirit and letters of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) and generally accepted practises of modern diplomacy.
He was also right when he said that the government of Malaysia has the right to ask any foreign diplomats to leave and also to declare them persona non grata .
Indeed, any government of any sovereign state has the right to do so under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) which states that the receiving state may at any time, and without giving reasons, notify the sending state that any member of the mission is persona non grata .
Other countries that host diplomats from Malaysia also enjoy the same right.
Accepted standards
However, according to R.G.Feltham in the Diplomatic Handbook (seventh edition, Longman, 1998), "There are two principal grounds on which a diplomat may be declared persona non grata : those which spring from personal weakness, and result in criminal or anti-social behavior; and deliberate acts hostile to the security or other interests of the state, carried out under the cloak of diplomatic immunity."
It means that besides international laws on diplomacy such as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) , there are also the generally accepted standards of practise, or norms, governing the expulsion of diplomats and declaration of persona non grata .
As far as the first criteria stated by R.G.Feltham is concerned, there is no ground at all to expel any of the diplomats who attended the briefing session. What about the second criteria?
As far as 'security of the state' is concerned, there is also no grounds because the venue where the briefing was held was not a zone into which 'entry into which is prohibited or regulated for reasons of national security' as stated in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961).
The organizers of the briefing, whether in their capacities as leaders and members of Keadilan, or as family members or friends of Anwar Ibrahim are not convicted criminals, fugitives or persons associated with illegal parties.
The diplomats also did not break into the hotel by using unlawful means. They entered into the place peacefully at the invitation of the organisers.
Over-imaginative
To construe the mere act of attending the briefing session as being hostile to the 'other interests of the state' is over-imaginative.
The diplomats have not declared their opinions or judgements on the information they have received after attending the briefing session. To declare stands is not the job of any diplomats.
Diplomats are only supposed to gather and obtain information and to send it back to the governments of their sending states. It is the governments of the sending states that make or not make stands on the advice of their foreign affairs and international relations experts.
Usually and normally, many independent sources of information have to be weighed, studied, analysed and considered before a decision or a stand is made.
To be sure, if we are legalistic enough, we can also debate the conceptual and legal differences between 'the state' and 'the government', as suggested in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1933).
However, it suffices here to quote Michael Akehurst to illustrate the point : '... the state must not be identified with its government; the state's international rights and obligations are not affected by a change of government' (p.56: A Modern Introduction to International Law , Routledge). In common parlance, the 'state' is the country, not the government of that country.
No reasons
Despite the normally accepted practices of giving reasons of expelling diplomats and declaring them persona non grata , the government of Malaysia can still rely on the strength of Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) if it chooses not to give reasons.
Rais suggested that "many countries in the Carribean, South America and China have resorted to this action".
He is not wrong in points of international law, but in the conduct of international relations.
Let us pause for a moment and imagine now the political, economical, psychological and other consequences of diplomats from the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Holland, Germany and New Zealand being expelled from Malaysia without reasons being given, in the midst of our economic and financial woes, and in the fast-changing post-Cold War scenario and re-alignments of forces in Asia, particularly in East Asia.
May God bless our strategic thinkers and foreign policy planners.
JAMES WONG WING ON is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and also a leading Mandarin-Chinese opinion writer and columnist. He read economics and political science at the Monash University in Australia from 1983 to 1986. All views expressed herein are his own, and are open to criticisms and debates.