Elephant diplomacy between Korea and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, a haven for wild and domesticated elephants, is in an elephant-diplomacy with Korea.

According to Lakshitha Ratnayake, charge d’affaires of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Seoul, two elephants, a male and female, from the Dehiwala Zoo in Colombo, the capital, are getting ready to be shipped to Korea.

“I am sure within the next two or three months, they will arrive in Korea,” Ratnayake told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

The elephants will take shelter at the Seoul Zoo, a public park run by the Seoul metropolitan government.

The diplomat said the donation illustrates close ties between Korea and Sri Lanka.

“We don’t donate elephants except for a very special friend like Korea,” he said.

But who really gets the credit is rather controversial.

The formal request was made by the Seoulmetropolitan administration.

“Three months ago, the Seoulmayor sent a letter to the Prime minister, and I forwarded it to the Prime Minister’s office,” the diplomat said, and that’s what the Korean government is hoping to make the whole thing look like.

However, according to Kim Hae-sung, president of Global Village, an NGO helping foreign workers in Korea, the seed for the whole story began with himself.

About 10 years ago, one winter day, Kim met two Sri Lankan workers at a bus stop outside Seoul. “They were here to find a job, and I offered them a ride and fed them,”

What began as mere benevolence paved the way for him to establish a Sri Lankan foreign workers’ community, which Kim is still involved with.

“One day, we were getting ready for a Sri Lankan New Years feast, and one of the Sri Lankan workers asked me to invite his uncle, who was then a lawmaker for the opposition party,” Kim said.

The uncle was Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was later elected as president of the country. He was elected in 2005, and is still in office.

According to Kim, the idea of an elephant donation came from Sri Lanka early this year. “They asked whether we were interested in taking an elephant as a gift,” he said, which is considered as an expression of gratitude, and he initially rejected it.

“We didn’t know what we could do with an elephant.”

Learning that the elephants in the Korean zoo were on the brink of extinction, however, he changed his mind, asking for an additional elephant.

“As far as I know, the government led by the foreign ministry had once attempted to get an elephant from Sri Lanka, but failed. Now, the Korean Embassy in Sri Lankawants to present it as the embassy was a sole player behind the whole thing,” Kim said.

The Korean Embassy is known to have been engaged in arranging meetings with the Sri Lankan zoo authorities when Korean officials visited Sri Lanka over the donation.

Neither the zoo authorities nor the government was available for a comment. (If I get their comment, I will include it)

A new elephant couple is expected to come as a relief to the Korean zoo authorities, which have had trouble securing enough them.

As an endangered species, elephant trade is stringent.

The Convention of International Endangered Species (CITES), an international agreement signed in 1973, requires exporters and importers to earn a permit from the local government prior to trade. Shipping methods and costs also complicates the elephant trade. In Korea, a total of 21 elephants are currently in zoos nationwide.

Sri Lankais home to a relatively large number of elephants, both wild and domesticated. An accurate figure isn’t available.

National parks maintain wild animals for visitors, and an elephant orphanage at Pinnawela in central Sri Lanka, also keeps a herd of elephants looked after by humans.

“It is a famous tourist destination,” Ratnayake said.

^koreatimes