Daily Financial Times
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Analysts described the talks and successful conclusion as a positive development as it was amidst continued political apprehension locally over the US-led resolution against Sri Lanka seeing successful passage at the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva last week.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce said yesterday that senior officials from the Governments of US and Sri Lanka met to continue their trade dialogue and evaluate progress under the TIFA.
The officials discussed a wide range of trade and investment issues including market access, the US-GSP, labour, trade promotion efforts, intellectual property rights, agriculture, promoting women entrepreneurs and sector-specific investment challenges.
“Officials of both Governments believe that progress on all these trade and investment issues foster economic growth, thus providing a strong foundation for inclusive economic development,” the Ministry said.
The United States and Sri Lanka agreed to establish a number of TIFA Committees to continue work throughout the year on a number of important bilateral trade and investment issues. The new TIFA Committees cover intellectual property, Customs cooperation and labour affairs. The two Governments also agreed to continue discussions on the possibility of establishing a Committee on Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs.
Signed in 2002, the TIFA has been the primary forum for bilateral trade and investment discussions between the two countries.
The TIFA process has been the focal point of a sustained and multi-faceted high-level engagement between the US and Sri Lanka on trade and investment issues, including addressing impediments to greater trade and investment flows between the Parties.
Sri Lanka is currently the 80th largest goods trading partner of the United States with $ 2.4 billion in bilateral trade in 2011, though balance of trade favours Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s exports to the United States were worth approximately $ 2 billion, demonstrating a growth of 20% over 2010. On the other hand, Sri Lanka is the 114th largest market for the US, with exports amounting to only $ 307 million though up by 71.7% from 2010.
Senior officials discussed a range of labour-related matters, including Sri Lanka’s progress in addressing issues raised pursuant to the 2010 GSP review and an International Labour Organization technical assistance project funded by the US Department of Labour. The Labour Affairs Committee will provide a forum for continuing dialogue and collaboration on labour issues of mutual interest.
The US team will participate at the opening of Sri Lanka’s Expo 2012 today by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. This is the first exposition for Sri Lanka’s exporters and industries since 1997. There will be a number of events and programs focusing on US-Sri Lanka bilateral trade and investment issues, including an opening address on US-Sri Lanka trade and investment cooperation and a presentation on the US-GSP program for private sector participants at Expo2012.
© Daily FT
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Geneva overshadowed as Colombo hosts SL-US TIFA talks
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
'Sri Lanka Expo foreign presence sign of confidence' : president
Lanka Business Online
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The fair is meant to show the world the new prospects for investment and trade in Sri Lanka after the end of its 30-year ethnic war in 2009, he said at the opening of Expo2012.
"Your presence in large numbers is truly encouraging and is a promise of future progress in our development," he told foreign delegates.
"The magnitude and arrangement of exhibits make it very clear that Sri Lanka is fully open to business."
Sri Lanka is a strategically important economic centre in the region, free of conflict, open to trade, and not held back by tough regulation with government encouraging the private sector," Rajapaksa said.
"That is why foreign direct investment has doubled. This year net inflows into the stock market are encouraging."
The Expo 2012 fair targets merchandise exports, services and investment with the travel trade and information technology and business process outsourcing firms also among the 370 exhibitors.
More than 1,300 foreign visitors had registered to attend the fair, Rishad Bathiudeen, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Industry & Commerce, said.
Export Development Board chairman Janaka Ratnayake said that after the end of the war Sri Lank is now in a position to attract new investments and boost tourism.
Despite the European debt crisis, sluggish world economy, and unrest in the Middle East, Sri Lanka is very resilient, he said.
"It is our aim to sustain and attain exports of 15 billion US dollars by 2015."
Trade delegations from USA (35 members), UAE (50), UK (45), Belgium (25), Singapore (35), Thailand (40), Malaysia (40), Korea (30), Pakistan (20), France (10), Russia (10) and Germany (10) will be attending.
China with 150 and India with 120 will be among the largest delegations. Ministerial delegations from Bangladesh, China, India, Korea, Maldives, Pakistan and the UAE are participating.
Among the large buyers who have already confirmed are Walmart Global Sourcing, ASDA, Arcadia, H & M, Victoria's Secret, Bhs, M&S, Calzedonia, Lulu and Carrefour, the export agency said.
At a trade and investment symposium will kick off on March 29, with international co-operation minister Sarath Amunugama and Central Bank governor Nivard Cabraal.
Jean-Marie Paugam, deputy executive director ITC, Geneva; Sandro Venonesi, chairman Calzedonia, Italy; Mark Harris, general manager London Stock Exchange group Iran Ogilvie, global head of business services, HSBC, will be participating.
The Commonwealth Secretariat will hold a workshop on international investment agreement negotiations and trade.
© LBO
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Black Prados of Pakistan vs the white vans of Sri Lanka
By Umar Cheema | The News
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If the black Prado is a sign of fear for Pakistani journalists for its frequent use in state-sponsored abduction, the word ‘white van’ is nightmarish for Sri Lankan journalists as they are used by intelligence agencies for abducting journalists and human right activists.
Iqbal Athas, a Sri Lankan editor with 30-year professional experience, narrated in a conference here how the journalists in his country that he termed ‘endangered species’, are hounded, harassed and sometimes eliminated in a culture of impunity. Held at University of California (San Diego), the conference titled ‘Different Worlds, Similar Threats’ was jointly organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), Article 19 and Institute of Americas bringing journalists together from different parts of the world.
Although journalists from Russia, Latin America, Balkan and other regions also gave out presentations of the facts, Iqbal’s case has had a close resemblance of what happens in today’s Pakistan. His being a defence writer also adds his personal ordeals that he went through over the time ranging from attacks inside his house to the forced exile.
Like Pakistan, the critics of human rights abuses are branded traitors there, messaging services are scrutinised, journalists are abducted and killed and the entire exercise is carried out with full impunity.
As for white vans syndrome, Iqbal said ‘unknown but unarmed men’ who come in white vans kidnapped more than five journalists since 2006 and a number of other human rights activists. “So much so, the ‘white van syndrome’, because of the strong of white coaches the abductors used, became a fearful word. It forced some journalists to leave Sri Lanka.” Sri Lanka’s Military Intelligence is accused of these abductions, he said, and this practice has been going on since 2009.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka have excellent defence relations. Other than Pakistan that gets the major component, China trains Sri Lankan army in addition to providing ammunition and other defence needs of the force recently concluded a fight against the separatist Tamils.
Sri Lanka, declared the most dangerous country for journalists in recent years, has seen over 17 journalists killed and 27 injured since 2005. Iqbal has also suffered a lot and it started from 1998 when armed men stormed into his house, broke into the bedroom placing pitol on his right and left temples as he was watching TV with his seven-year old daughter. As he was marched out of the bedroom, his daughter started crying alerting the people in surrounding thus forcing the attackers to flee.
It turned out later that the assailants belonged to the air force chief as Iqbal had reported the malpractices and corruption in procurements. Iqbal returned to normalcy after some time but had to see a psychologist for next five-years for treating his daughter who could not recover that shocking sight. This was not the end of his trouble as he was forced into exile in 2009 other than the raiding incident at his residence and state-run media campaign dubbing him as a traitor.
His editor colleague Lasantha Wickrematunga was killed in January 2009 and another editor JS Tissainaygam was jailed and convicted on terrorism charges only to be released under international pressure.
Iqbal said recently a United Nations Human Rights Council’s resolution demanded investigation into the Sri Lanka’s alleged abuses of international humanitarian law during the war with Tamil tigers. Those journalists who supported this were dubbed traitors. Government sponsored demonstrators carried out protests near the residences of the ‘traitor’ journalists, shouting abusive slogans, carrying placards calling ‘terrorist acolyte’. Later these ‘protestors’ admitted they work for a local council and that they were ‘persuaded’ to carry placards and demonstrate for the reason they didn’t know.
So much so that the government’s minister for public relations Dr Mervyn Silva made a front-headline through a warning that he would break the limbs of journalists for making statements against the country. The latest assault on freedom of expression has come through an order by Ministry of Defence directing the mobile telephone operators to seek clearance for sending out SMS news on matters relating to ‘national security’.
© The News
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
After UN vote, Sri Lanka to shut few embassies in Europe
IANS | First Post
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The external affairs ministry said Tuesday that the embassies in Europe that were not serving any purpose in winning support for Sri Lanka’s national issues will be shut and new embassies will be opened in Asia.
“President Mahinda Rajapaksa had discussed the issue with the government. It will now be decided exactly which embassy in which country in Europe will be closed,” a ministry spokesperson told Xinhua.
He said the move was not a result of several European countries deciding to vote against Sri Lanka on a resolution over human rights violations at a 22 March UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.
But the spokesperson quoted External Affairs Minister GL Peiris as saying that with almost all Asian countries, excluding India, voting for Sri Lanka in Geneva, it was felt that strengthening ties in Asia will be helpful for Colombo.
“The government has limited resources, so it is difficult to maintain embassies in every single country. So the government feels it will be more productive to have embassies in countries where we can gain something,” the official said.
The European Union voted for the US sponsored resolution asking Sri Lanka to fully implement the recommendations of an accountability commission following the end of the war in 2009.
© IANS
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Sri Lankan war crimes have not lost their resonance
By M.C.Rajan | Mail Online India
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With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh bending over backwards to placate our tiny southern neighbor, there is nothing much to cheer about.
But the Lankan Tamil issue has returned to centre stage with all parties in the state speaking in one voice.
Even the normally reticent Tamil Nadu Congress Committee hasn't gone against the tide. Clearly, the issue of Lankan war crimes has not lost its resonance.
The Congress is accused of being a silent collaborator in the war. Worse, DMK was seen as a betrayer of the Tamil cause.
As a recent opinion poll shows, the plight of the Lankan Tamils continues to exercise the masses so much that many even favour the creation of an independent Eelam.
It is hardly surprising that the Congress has been reduced to a fringe player in the state.
The vote and its aftermath have exposed the lack of clarity on the part of New Delhi as well as the political class in the state.
It is sad that the politicians in Tamil Nadu and those in the forefront of the Lankan Tamil cause appear to remain content at raising their decibel levels.
They are far removed from the mainstream discourse of the Sri Lankan Tamil question.
No one has attempted a critique of the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission appointed by the Sri Lankan Government.
Even the panel didn't give a clean chit to the island nation's army. Independent sources put the scale and magnitude of the human rights violations at a far higher level.
The Geneva resolution is only a logical extension of the international reaction to the human sufferings in Lanka. While the geopolitical interests of the Western nations are a reality, justice demands that large scale killings should not go unaccounted for.
In the absence of an informed public discourse, the Centre prefered to take an ostrich-like attitude. Some media critics went to the extent of questioning the rationale of the country's support for the resolution and lamented that foreign policy is becoming a prisoner of regional sentiments.
But, Dr Singh's letter to Sri Lankan premier Mahinda Rajapaksa, apart from being apologetic in its tone and tenor, doesn't suggest a change of stance-which is very necessary for a meaningful resolution of the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
'The PM should not have written the letter to placate Rajapaksa,' opines Lanka expert Prof Suryanarayanan.
In his view, it was unwarranted as New Delhi, though appearing to be hesitant in voting against Colombo, had enough reasons to justify it, despite getting the resolution diluted. In his view, the placatory letter has undermined the vote.
For, India has enough levers to influence Colombo and the Chinese threat vis-à-vis Sri Lanka is vastly exaggerated. New Delhi's hands-off policy after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi had only helped Sri Lanka to subvert the 13th Amendment, a grand vision of the former Prime Minister.
Though Rajapaksa talks of going 'beyond the 13th Amendment' he is yet to spell out what he has in mind. India needs to make its engagement more meaningful and result-oriented.
On the contrary, thus far, there is reluctance on its part to goad Rajapaksa to be accountable and move towards genuine reconciliation. Given this scenario, it is disappointing that Sri Lanka is adopting a hawkish position instead of seeing reason.
While India seems to have beaten a hasty retreat after the UNHRC vote, Colombo apparently seems emboldened. But, the yearning for justice by the Sri Lankan Tamils cannot be held hostage to imagined geopolitical calculations.
Needless to say, justice should not only be done but be seen to be done.
© Mail Online
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Sri Lanka reacts to the UN
The Economist
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Three decades of war ended in 2009 with a bloody climax that left thousands of civilians dead and the Tigers defeated. Rights groups now want the government to account for the civilians who were killed by the army and to investigate allegations of serious war crimes that have been levelled against its soldiers. Having gained the UN’s support, the activists now face the wrath of a nationalistic public.
A very different group of critics say that the resolution, which was passed by a clear majority on March 22nd, was so watered down that it bordered on the blasé. But Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president, is bristling. Speaking at a function in a remote village on March 24th, he insisted that Sri Lanka will not tolerate “arbitrary interference” in its affairs.
So no deal, and no compromise. That was the position Sri Lanka took at the Geneva-based council, explained G.L. Peiris, the external affairs minister. Addressing a crowded press conference on March 26th, he blamed India squarely for having swayed the council in favour of the resolution.
Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, had announced two-and-a-half days before the final session that his government was “inclined to vote” for the resolution. His statement was swiftly circulated among the council’s members. Several among them who would have opposed the initiative consequently chose to vote for it or to abstain, Mr Peiris said.
Some analysts in Colombo saw this as an admission of just how influential India has become in shaping international opinion on South Asian issues. Others felt the Sri Lankan government was fumbling around for a scapegoat.
The real trouble was that India had said initially that it would oppose the resolution. Things changed after a senior member of the Sri Lankan delegation indiscreetly announced India’s position to the press. Major political parties in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which claim to share an affinity with the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, then combined forces to demand a policy reversal.
After weeks of relentless haranguing from their coalition partners, India’s central government backtracked. Mr Peiris says this came as a “shock”. Hours before the vote, however, India’s diplomats negotiated with America to dilute the draft’s language. That intervention however, did not earn India any kudos with its neighbour to the south. Instead, Sri Lanka’s media is accusing the Indians of duplicity.
Sri Lanka’s political relations with India will weather this storm. As Basil Rajapaksa, the powerful economic development minister and the president’s brother conceded, “We will never forget our relationship with India”. By contrast, China—which voted against the resolution and denounced it for good measure—is being praised generously.
Sri Lanka’s strained ties with the West will undoubtedly get worse, not least because the resolution is regarded here as a hostile move. Western diplomats prefer to characterise it as a means of pressing the Rajapaksas’ lethargic government into keeping promises it has made in the name of accountability and reconciliation.
America’s initiative was co-sponsored by 40 countries. (Among them was Norway, which once attempted—and failed—to negotiate a permanent peace between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels.) Among other things, its language urges Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of a presidential commission that tried, ineffectually, to unravel the confusion of the war’s final stages.
The conclusions of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) are widely regarded as being inadequate, when it comes to the task of fact-finding. Still its report offered other proposals to solve the country’s longstanding ethnic grievances. For instance, it called for devolution of power and a rapid demilitarisation of the island’s north and east, where large numbers of the Tamil minority live. The government has so far resisted both.
Even before the dispute at the Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka was shifting its foreign policy emphasis to Asia, Africa and Latin America. As a part of this change, several of its diplomatic missions in Europe are to be closed down even as more are opened on other continents.
The government is seething that the West will not let up on demands for accountability. It sees these as being motivated by the pro-Tamil Tiger diaspora. During the weeks that preceded the resolution’s passage, government ministers went so far as to accuse America and its allies of conspiring to topple the regime.
The same sycophants warned that their heroic president was on the verge of being hauled up before an international war-crimes tribunal, though in fact he never was. Crowds protested outside Western diplomatic missions, burning effigies and jeering. One minister called for a boycott of all American products, including Google, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
It is grimly ironic that there is still no discussion on the contents or aims of the resolution. For its part, the government seems to be growing ever more belligerent. Nimal Siripala de Silva, a senior minister, said on March 27th that the commission had “gone beyond its mandate” and that careful consideration would be given before its proposals were implemented.
For months, the government had flaunted the very fact of the LLRC as a means of fending off international calls for a war-crimes investigation. Now it is questioning the commission’s own report. This is precisely what independent analysts had feared would happen. But at least Sri Lanka is officially under watch—if only overseas.
© The Economist
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