Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has officialy opened the country's second international airport, constructed in his hometown of Hambantota after a $209 million Chinese loan.
State television showed Rajapaksa arriving at Hambantota airport on a state-owned Sri Lankan Airlines flight, with a 213-member delegation.
Teresita Schaffer, a former US ambassador to Sri Lanka, said,
“This recent huge increase in [Chinese] money was very convenient for Rajapaksa, who wanted to show he didn’t need the west and all its talk of human rights abuses”.
Addressing a gathering at the airport, Rajapaksa stated,
"We need international funding. We have not hesitated for external loans and we will not hesitate in future as well... We have been criticised for taking loans to build this airport... The loan was not for consumption, but to build infrastructure. We will build more power stations, highways and ports".
"It is not possible to build internationally important development projects such as this solely from internal revenue. It is true that we launch most development projects from the revenue of our own country, but we need international assistance, too. This is a practice followed by other countries too. It is necessary to obtain loans to build a country. We too obtain such loans and assistance and build many things for the development of the country. Therefore, I express the gratitude of our people and our country to all of you".
Meanwhile a poster has appeared in Sri Lankan newspapers depicting a Tamil father stating that since the end of the war they are now "living happily", which has only "increased" sicne his son obtained a job at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport.
See report from TamilNet here.
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