Iranganie Manel Abeysekera, Sri Lanka’s first woman entrant to the Sri Lanka Foreign Service (then Ceylon Overseas Service), passed away on Thursday. She was 93. The funeral was held yesterday at the Borella Kanatte Cemetery. Ms Abeysekera was born on August 14, 1933. She was the daughter of a civil servant and Senator, E.W. Kannangara. [...]
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Iranganie Manel Abeysekera, Sri Lanka’s first woman entrant to the Sri Lanka Foreign Service (then Ceylon Overseas Service), passed away on Thursday. She was 93. The funeral was held yesterday at the Borella Kanatte Cemetery.
Ms Abeysekera was born on August 14, 1933. She was the daughter of a civil servant and Senator, E.W. Kannangara.
Her entry into the Foreign Service in 1958 came at a time when the public service was an exclusively male domain, but she made her mark and came to be recognised as one of the country’s best diplomats, serving as Ambassador in Germany and Thailand.
Her best diplomatic skills of persuasion and negotiation were put to the test while serving as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Thailand when Sri Lankan national Sepala Ekanayake hijacked an Italian airliner with 169 passengers on board and threatened to blow it up on the tarmac of the Bangkok airport. Her persuasive skills paid off when, after nearly 40 hours of negotiations with the hijacker, the matter was settled with no one on board being hurt.
She also served as Chief of Protocol during the Non-Aligned Summit in 1976, which was attended by 92 heads of state and government.
Ms Abeysekera titled her 2010 memoir “Master-Sir”, which gives a glimpse into the dilemmas of woman diplomats in an era when men dominated such positions.
In 1970 she arrived in Bangkok to take up duties as chargé d’affaires when she was greeted by the driver who had come to the airport to pick her up.” “Welcome, Madame-Sir”,” he said being unaccustomed to seeing a lady diplomat and had hence instantaneously coined this novel greeting.
Manel Abyesekera blazed a trail which many Lankan women have gone onto tread so much so that many of Sri Lanka’s top diplomats serving in important capitals of the world today are women.
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Print Edition – The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka
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