Ten am­bas­sadors ap­point­ed by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion have re­ceived let­ters from the new Gov­ern­ment re­vok­ing their ap­point­ments, with six al­ready re­turn­ing home and an­oth­er ex­pect­ed last evening.

The For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry con­firmed the re­calls yes­ter­day and de­fend­ed its han­dling of the process amid crit­i­cism from at least one diplo­mat who ex­pressed con­cerns over the tran­si­tion.

In an email re­sponse, the min­istry said ex­ist­ing pro­to­cols re­quire all mis­sion heads to of­fer their res­ig­na­tions fol­low­ing a change in ad­min­is­tra­tion. It said in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 135 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter ad­vised the Pres­i­dent of the re­vo­ca­tion of mis­sion head ap­point­ments fol­low­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, which re­sult­ed in a new Cab­i­net ap­point­ed on May 3.

The min­istry said it is­sued for­mal cor­re­spon­dence to mis­sion heads on May 7, in­form­ing them of their ex­pect­ed de­par­ture on or be­fore June 4. The state­ment said this pro­vid­ed one month’s no­tice to fa­cil­i­tate nec­es­sary arrange­ments, in­clud­ing co­or­di­nat­ing ship­ping and trav­el lo­gis­tics. The of­fi­cial in­stru­ment re­vok­ing the ap­point­ments was is­sued by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent on June 5 and be­came ef­fec­tive on June 7.

“The min­istry has re­ceived ac­knowl­edge­ments from all 10 con­firm­ing re­ceipt of these com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Out of the ten, six have ar­rived, an­oth­er is ex­pect­ed tonight (last night). The oth­ers are al­so ex­pect­ed to con­clude all arrange­ments and ar­rive short­ly there­after,” the state­ment said.

The min­istry said it has been as­sist­ing the re­turn­ing for­mer mis­sion heads with all lo­gis­ti­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments, in­clud­ing air­port cour­te­sies, to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion.

The min­istry’s re­sponse fol­lows crit­i­cism from for­mer South Africa am­bas­sador Dr Lovell Fran­cis, who ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment over “an abrupt and dis­ori­ent­ing end” to his diplo­mat­ic as­sign­ment in a Face­book post on Mon­day.

Fran­cis said he for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion weeks pri­or in keep­ing with pro­to­col and, along with oth­er diplo­mats, was in­struct­ed to re­turn to T&T by June 4th.

He claimed he pre­pared thor­ough­ly and await­ed lo­gis­ti­cal arrange­ments but was met with si­lence.

“That date came and went, and noth­ing,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Fran­cis, the on­ly fol­low-up came late on a Fri­day evening, when he re­ceived a sud­den call in­struct­ing him to leave South Africa with­in hours.

“If the crick­ets were play­ing tiny vi­o­lins, even they were on mute. And then just so, just-so on Fri­day evening a call comes in, like a Mike Tyson punch out of the dark: your trav­el has been ap­proved, and I am to leave that same evening, in a few hours. No no­tice, no good­bye to staff, no farewell to col­leagues, no pro­to­cols fol­lowed. Noth­ing,” he wrote.

He de­part­ed South Africa on Sun­day and de­scribed his re­turn to T&T on Tues­day evening as be­ing “like a thief in the night.”

Fran­cis not­ed that South Africa takes diplo­ma­cy very se­ri­ous­ly but he was forced to break pro­to­cols due to the abrupt man­ner in which he was ush­ered out.

“My in­ter­est is not in bash­ing any­one or cast­ing blame around but in re­mind­ing peo­ple that some struc­tures and con­ven­tions ex­ist for very good rea­sons and when we treat with them ar­bi­trar­i­ly, we dam­age our stand­ing with our friends and our stature as a coun­try,” he said.

In a point­ed cri­tique, Fran­cis said the state’s dis­re­gard for its own process­es and per­son­nel re­flects a broad­er lack of na­tion­al self-re­spect. He ques­tioned how a re­pub­lic can ex­pect loy­al­ty and re­spect from its cit­i­zens when it ap­pears un­will­ing to ex­tend the same to those who serve it with ded­i­ca­tion.

In con­trast, T&T out­go­ing am­bas­sador to Brazil, Ger­ard Greene, ex­pe­ri­enced a much smoother tran­si­tion.

Greene, a for­eign ser­vice of­fi­cer for near­ly 36 years, said, “I sim­ply, you know, ten­dered my res­ig­na­tion as most am­bas­sadors did and I prompt­ly put things in place to re­turn to Trinidad with­in the most fea­si­ble pe­ri­od.”

Asked if he felt dis­re­spect­ed, Greene added: “No, no, no, no prob­lems at all. I sug­gest­ed a date, but then even­tu­al­ly we com­pro­mised on a date and it was fine for me. So, we sim­ply arranged our things and I’m hap­pi­ly back in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a re­sponse when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day but none came up to press time.