The United States limited ‘counterterrorism cooperation and training’ with Sri Lanka in 2012 due to allegations of human rights abuses, according to the State Department’s ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2012‘, which was released on Thursday.
In the overview on Sri Lanka, the report stated,
“Counterterrorism cooperation and training with the United States in 2012 was limited, however, due to statutory and policy restrictions based on concerns about alleged past human rights abuses committed by Sri Lankan security forces”.
The report went on to say,
“The Sri Lankan government claimed that it continued to uncover abandoned weapons and explosives in areas of the country formerly controlled by the LTTE. Although there were no known LTTE activities in Sri Lanka in 2012, the government asserted that peaceful protests at Jaffna University in November were organized by students trained by overseas LTTE supporters and made several arrests.”
It was noted that Sri Lanka was “a proactive partner with the U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, and Energy on securing its maritime border”, adding that the US Coast Guard had trained the Sri Lankan Navy and Coast Guard in October last year.
The LTTE was still designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation”, with the report noting,
“there have been no known attacks in Sri Lanka that could verifiably be attributed to the LTTE since the end of the war”.
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