Sri Lanka: Ban Ki Moon praises the flexibility of President Mahinda Rajapaska

By Santhush Fernando | Asian Tribune
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United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has praised President Mahinda Rajapaska for his flexibility shown in resolving the issue of the visit of United Nation Expert Panel on Sri Lanka.

In response to the UN Panel visiting Sri Lanka to meet the LLRC, the government said today that any requests made by the UN will be considered.

“ If a formal request is made by the UN Panel to visit Sri Lanka, the government will consider it”, External Affairs Ministry Public Communication Director General Bandula Jayasekara yesterday told the media.

Less than a month before its report on Sri Lanka is due, United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Panel of Experts “is now able to visit Sri Lanka and meet with the Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation,” Moon told media on Friday.

The UN Panel of Experts was appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sri Lanka to look into alleged violations of international law during the war, although no such probe has been launched by the UN over the atrocities committed by United States and its allies in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Yesterday it was announced that the deadline for the submission of evidence to the Panel will be extended.

While dodging question posed by US media of whether he will make public his Panel's report, due on January 15, Ban praised “the flexibility of President Mahinda Rajapaska on this issue.”

But the Panel, Ban says, will travel to Sri Lanka, if only to speak with the Sri Lanka Government’s Commission on reconciliation - LLRC.

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Sri Lanka allows UN war crime visit

Al Jazeera
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Sri Lanka has announced that it will allow the UN to send representatives to take part in an investigation into war crimes alleged to have taken place during the country's civil war.

Colombo had previously said that it would not allow a three-member UN panel appointed by Ban Ki Moon to enter Sri Lanka to look into the alleged war crimes. Instead Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's president, set up the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), a national body to carry out investigations.

Doubts over the LLRC's impartiality prompted major human rights groups to refuse to work with it. But the foreign ministry on Sunday announced that it had reversed its position, saying that foreign investigators are welcome to take part in the inquiry.

"In the event of the panel of the Secretary-General wishing to present representations to the commission, the Ministry of External Affairs will make the arrangements that are necessary to enable the panel to do so," the ministry said in a statement.

"This position has already been conveyed through diplomatic channels, to the United Nations in New York," the ministry added, without giving any details.

Body criticised

The LLRC has been widely criticised by international human rights groups for lacking independence from the Sri Lankan government, which has been accused of violating the laws of war in its crushing defeat of the Tamil Tiger separatists after a quarter of a century of civil war.

After the conflict, the UN had hoped to send an "expert panel" to Sri Lanka to report back to the UN secretary-general, but the Sri Lankan government blocked it, saying that war crimes investigations were a national matter.

James Ross, a legal expert at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that the Sri Lankan government is not capable of carrying out credible investigations alone. "One hopes that they have now recognised that this expert panel is an important body," he said.

"The Sri Lankan commission does not really have credibility. It won't conduct impartial investigations. If the Sri Lankan commission could be of assistance to the expert panel that would be useful."

Fresh doubts

But in Sri Lanka, experts doubted that the UN investigators will be allowed to operate freely even if they are allowed into the country.

"There is no point in the UN panel coming here, if it is only allowed to meet only the LLRC and not allowed to meet the civil society and people affected by the war and to travel around the country," a political analyst told the Reuters news agency, asking not to be named fearing repercussions.

"The submissions the LLRC have got is mostly on reconciliation for the future and not what happened in the last day of the war. The U.N. panel is meant to see what happened in the last day of the war."

The expert panel is not be mandated to issue a formal report, but would instead present their findings to the UN secretary-general.

Sri Lanka has faced sanctions over its failure to set up an independent probe into alleged war crimes, with the European Union withdrawing trade concessions worth $150 million a year over the issue.

U.S. diplomatic cables, released by the Wikileaks website, also put the alleged human rights abuses in the spotlight, revealing that the United States believes there is little prospect Sri Lanka will hold anyone accountable for the bloody end of the war because top government figures are involved.

© Al Jazeera

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Liam Fox cancels Sri Lanka trip amid claim in cables of Colombo's war crimes complicity

By Nicholas Watt, Mark Tran and Jason Burke | The Guardian
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Liam Fox, the defence secretary, was tonight forced to abandon a private visit to Sri Lanka this weekend after a row with William Hague, who feared that he would upset Britain's carefully balanced approach to Colombo.

Fox announced his change of heart as US embassy cables leaked tonight provided fresh allegations of the Sri Lankan government's complicity with paramilitary groups in last year's offensive against the Tamil Tigers.

Labour accused the government of adopting a "chaotic" approach to diplomacy when Fox announced that he would instead make an official visit to the country in the new year.

Fox's decision came after talks with Hague, the foreign secretary, and a warning by the British Tamils Forum that his trip would send mixed messages to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is facing strong international pressure for an investigation into allegations that Sri Lanka forces committed war crimes.

The Ministry of Defence blamed the delay on the need for Fox to extend a visit to the Gulf. A spokesman for the defence secretary said: "Dr Fox has postponed his private visit to Sri Lanka due to an extension to his scheduled official visit to the Gulf. He intends to carry out an official visit to Sri Lanka next year, during which he proposes to fulfil the speaking engagement that he had planned."

The move by Fox came as the latest batch of US embassy cables to be published by WikiLeaks show that:

• US officials expressed concerns that the Sri Lankan government was complicit with paramilitary groups. One cable, sent in May 2007 by the then US ambassador, Robert Blake, details abductions, extortion, forced prostitution and conscription of child soldiers.

• Five Sri Lankan doctors were coerced by the Sri Lankan government to recant on casualty figures they gave to journalists in the last months of the civil war.

• The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) were guilty of human rights abuses and demanded a cut of international NGOs' spending in the areas they controlled.

• The US ambassador to Colombo, Patricia Butenis, said on 15 January that one of the reasons there was such little progress towards a genuine Sri Lankan inquiry into the killings was that President Rajapaksa, and the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, were largely responsible. "There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power," Butenis noted.

It is understood that Fox, who held a private meeting with the president in London two weeks ago, abandoned his private visit after intense pressure from Hague. Foreign Office sources said that Fox's private visit could have jeopardised Britain's nuanced approach to Sri Lanka, in which ministers put pressure on Colombo to agree to an investigation into last year's offensive against the Tamil Tigers while acknowledging the Tigers were responsible for terrorism.

One Whitehall source said: "William has said to Liam: 'This is the Foreign Office line, Liam.' In brackets William will have said: 'You have needed my support in the past.'"

Fox still plans to deliver the Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial lecture after being invited by the widow of the late foreign minister who was murdered by a Tamil Tiger sniper in 2005. But he will do this as part of his official visit next year.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "Chaotic diplomacy like this does no good for the government's standing on such a significant issue. It also raises serious questions about the defence secretary's judgment.

"What on earth has he been doing holding 'private' meetings with the Sri Lankan president while refusing to say if he has pressed for the war crimes investigation we need or supported the foreign secretary's position? William Hague must be spitting mad."

President Rajapaksa, who won a second term in January following the military victory over the separatists last year, has repeatedly denied any involvement in or knowledge of human rights abuses.

But the latest cables published by WikiLeaks highlight human rights abuses committed by the LTTE, against whom the paramilitaries and the government forces were engaged. Sources told representatives of the US embassy to Sri Lanka that the LTTE regularly demanded a cut of international NGOs' spending in the areas they controlled. Other sources described a harsh regime of compulsory conscription into fighting forces. "If they fail to report, they are taken forcibly, often at night," one said. Cables from early this year referred to "progress" by the Government of Sri Lanka on a range of human rights issues in recent months.

"There has been a dramatic improvement in the treatment of IDPs and their living conditions … [and] numbers of disappearances have experienced a steady and significant decline across the island since the end of the war," one dispatch said.

Another affirmed that "child soldiers affiliated with the [paramilitaries] have been significantly reduced over the past year, with just five reportedly remaining at the end of 2009."

One senior journalist had been released from detention, the cable added, and diplomats were "not aware of any additional physical attacks on journalists since June [2009]".

There was even some tentative steps" on "accountability" for human rights abuses during the civil war, Washington was told.

"Accountability for alleged crimes committed by [government of Sri lanka] troops and officials during the war is the most difficult issue on our bilateral agenda, and the one we believe has the lowest prospect for forward movement," a cable sent in late January said. "In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate [and former military commander] General Fonseka."

© The Guardian

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Sri Lanka to receive enhanced World Bank support

The Island
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World Bank's Managing Director, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-lweala has announced moves for Sri Lanka to receive increased support from the world development funding institution. Speaking at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka's 60th anniversary celebrations on Friday, Dr. Okonjo-lweala reaffirmed the World Bank's strong and expanding support to Sri Lanka as it transitions towards a middle-income country in lasting peace. The announcement came after she met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal and senior Central Bank officials at the event.

In recognition of the country's emergence as a growing economy she announced Sri Lanka 's new eligibility for financing from the IBRD, the World Bank's lending arm for middle-income countries in addition to the current assistance from the IDA. This development has the potential to more than double the amount of resources available to Sri Lanka from the World Bank each year, to close to half a billion dollars - $200 million from IDA, which it continues to access, and now up to an additional $265 million available from IBRD.

"Sri Lanka's remarkable rise from past challenges is a testament to the tenacity of the Sri Lankan people and the commitment of the country's leadership," said Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. "Eligibility for IBRD borrowing is an important recognition of Sri Lanka's middle income country status and signals an important step in the evolution of our relationship going forward - a relationship that is founded on knowledge and experience-sharing that complements the available financing."

Conveying the news on IBRD financing to President Rajapaksa, she reiterated the World Bank's commitment to Sri Lanka, especially in supporting programs designed to encourage inclusive growth throughout the country. She also noted the World Bank's willingness to increase support to complement the ambitious development aspirations of doubling per capita income and growth in excess of 8%, which will be aided by increasing private investment from both foreign and domestic sources as envisioned in the Mahinda Chintana, the Government's vision for future development.

President Rajapaksa conveyed his appreciation to the World Bank for providing support to complement the country's development goals and noted that he looks forward to working with the Bank on the implementation of the Mahinda Chintana.

In her speech to the Central Bank, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala also emphasized the importance of investment and innovation towards development and exchanged ideas from global perspectives that could help Sri Lanka reach its full potential as a growing middle income country. "The expansion of the knowledge economy and the search for innovative ideas by all Sri Lankans will be important to successfully accelerate growth and improve living standards," she said.

© The Island

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