However, the reactions from some international quarters and comments of certain foreign envoys based in our country, although limited only to articulation of their views for the moment that stem from the recent political developments in the country, cannot but engage our attention.

While one doesn't mind friendly comments here and there, comments have poured out from some of the envoys in viceregal tone on our internal matters quite regularly. It is time our leaders, past, present and future, took note of the implications of such comments and activities.

But it is not the foreign envoys alone that are to be blamed for the transgressions. Our politicians are also largely to be blamed for the rope that has been given to some of the envoys that has made them a party to the political bickering and inter-party discord. By seeking their intercession in our politics, regrettably, our politicians have legitimized the role of the envoys, even if that went beyond a diplomat's duties under the Vienna Convention.

Some of our private organizations and institutions have gone overboard in providing them the space, quite out of our tradition of hospitality and deference to our guests. Unfortunately, what has been done out of deference has caused us to be taken for granted by envoys who seem to have forgotten the very first lesson imparted in schools of diplomacy: that to say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy. Having been a soldier-diplomat once in command of a very sensitive UN peacekeeping mission, I remember being told that a diplomat was a man who always thought twice before saying nothing and that a distinguished diplomat could hold his tongue in ten languages.

If you are still wondering about what and whom I am talking, I am referring to the comments that have been made by the US ambassador in her recent speech at the American Centre, on the deployment of the army, and on the caretaker government. I am also referring to the recent motion passed by the European Parliament, also on the deployment of the military.

One could hardly take issue with anything that Ms Buetenis has said in her speech about our politics. In fact, her concern about our distorted political ethos and the destructive road that it is leading the country to, and her suggestions, echo that of the majority of the people. However, my concern is caused not by the impropriety of the statements; coming as they do from an ambassador, and relating to an internal matter of the host country, her statements are not only in gross violation of the convention under which a diplomat conducts herself or himself in the country of accreditation (Article 41 a of the Vienna Convention states: "They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State"), she has perhaps not realized the grave implications of her comments about the chief advisor and about the neutrality of the caretaker government, particularly at a time of political flux, and given the political parties' penchant for seeking legitimacy of their actions or the validity of their position on political issues, in the comments of foreign envoys and the development partners.

And the wording of the resolution adopted by the EU Parliament must be seen for what it is, a veiled threat of action that might prove uncomfortable and embarrassing for us, if the president did not reconsider his decision of deploying the army.

Let us take the comments of the US envoy first. She passed a value judgment when she remarked that the CA's resignation was an impractical proposition. She is entitled to her opinion, and she may have her rationale for such a view, and it can be conveyed to whomsoever she wishes in private.

However, if it is related to a political issue, it no longer remains a matter of private opinion but has direct influence on the political issue at hand, because that is exactly the demand of the 14-party alliance, and a foreign envoy has no business to be judgmental on the issue in public.

I am not aware that our ambassador to the US had ever passed any comment, for example, on the issue of racial profiling in the US that has become more pervasive after 9/11 and is seen as discriminating against a particular religious group.

The US ambassador also chose to be judgmental on the caretaker government when she said that it had not been neutral in addressing the political impasse. How well that must have gone down with the 14-party alliance -- because it is exactly the CA's neutrality that they have questioned all along and this was what they based their demand on when calling for the CA's resignation. Thus, the ambassador has not only contradicted herself, she has added to the compounding impasse also.

As for the EU, the threat conveyed by it must not be lost on the current leadership. One fails to see how the "use of the armed forces on a national level" can be ''inconsistent with Bangladesh's participation in international peace operations" as stated by the vice-president of the EU Parliament in her letter to the president, expressing its concern at the deployment of the army.

One fails to see the relation between the two. While there may be disagreement on the timing of the deployment, the army has been employed at national level and on election duty before. And it is a task that has the sanction of our statutes. And it is the sovereign right of the president to call upon the military. May one ask if similar apprehensions have been expressed by the EU Parliament to countries that have employed and continue to employ their military in aid of civil power, and whether similar veiled threats to cut off their peacekeeping engagements have been conveyed to these countries?

One wonders what the reaction of the EU would be if, for example, our parliament were to take up the issue of Turkey's entry into the Union and conveyed to it our apprehensions that tougher conditions being put on it were deliberate ploy to keep a Muslim country from joining what was a predominantly a Christian union.

Yes, there is everything wrong with our politics, and, yes, we have been not well served by our politicians, and, yes, we all understand that the army must not used to reap political benefits for any particular political party. But we don't need a foreign envoy sermonizing in public how he or she thinks the people should go about sorting out problems that are ours exclusively and for us to solve. However, it is for the political parties and our leadership to see that their actions do not provide the slightest excuse for our foreign friends to meddle in our internal affairs.

The author is, Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.