US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robert Blake, asserted today that Sri Lanka is moving backwards in terms of democracy.
Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Asia and the Pacific, Blake picked up on the Sri Lankan government’s failure to provide adequate devolution of power to the Tamils, stating ,
“We’ve been disappointed that there hasn’t been no dialogue between the Tamil National Alliance, the umbrella group for the Tamil groups, as well as for the TNA to dialogue with the government for devolution.”
Blake also expressed concern regarding the slow progress towards implementing recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report, emphasising that the United States only supported the LLRC under the premise of “rapid progress towards reconciliation and accountability.”
Recalling the unaddressed circumstances at the end of 2009, Blake reiterated the need to provide justice before closure, pertinently asking ,
“At the very end of the war the question is, what happened to those 10,000 to 40,000 civilians who were killed?"