By going ahead with his planned visit to Sri Lanka next week, Defence Secretary Liam Fox is irresponsibly undermining Britain's calls for an independent inquiry into war crimes in Sri Lanka and international protection of human rights. It matters little that Britain is not paying his way.
A secret US embassy cable Wikileaked Thursday outlines in detail how the US was well aware in 2007 of the extent of Sri Lanka’s active use of Tamil paramilitaries as an integral part of its war against the LTTE. Sri Lanka funded paramilitaries directly, then allowed them to extort funds, loot supplies for internally displaced Tamils, and run forced prostitution rings using girls and women from the refugee camps. However, Tamil voices who argued a t the time that the soaring killings, extortion and crime were linked directly to Sri Lanka's paramilitary-led war against the LTTE were largely ignored. For example, compare what one of our columnists wrote on the subject in January 2008, with the US cable of May 2007:
Britain’s Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt responded Tuesday to MPs questions on Sri Lanka. See the transcript here . Amongst the issues raised were the British government’s position on Sri Lanka’s closure of ICRC offices in the Tamil areas, Sinhala colonization, investigation of war crimes and British Defence Secretary’s ‘private’ meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his controversial visit to UK earlier this month. See also: - Gap between UK’s rhetoric and action - Too close for British comfort - Britain must take the lead
One of Scotland's largest companies, the Weir Group, was this week fined £3m for breaching UN sanctions on Iraq by doing business with Saddam Hussein's regime. £13.9m of illegal profits were also confiscated, the BBC reported . Last year four British Parliamentary committees issued a joint report arguing that all arms licenses to Sri Lanka should be investigated, as UK-supplied weapons had been used against Tamil civilians. See these reports by The Times , Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 .
Despite its Sinhala nationalist rhetoric and ethos, international pressure continue to bite, compelling President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime to implement the pro-market economic reforms that it has bitterly opposed. Concluding its visit, a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) observed this week: “The authorities’ structural reform agenda under the program … appears to be broadly on track.” ( See p33-35 of President Rajapaksa's ideological manifesto, 'Mahinda Chintana ' to see the policies the IMF seeks to roll back.) Amongst policies insisted on by the IMF are cutting of...
Sri Lanka's national anthem will only be in Sinhala from now on and the Tamil version will no longer be played at any official or state functions, the Cabinet decided on Wednesday, according to the Sunday Times . President Mahinda Rajapakse told the cabinet meeting that there could not be ‘two’ national anthems, and that this was a ‘shortcoming’ that must be rectified. (See this on state ethnic policy also.) The logic? "We must all think of Sri Lanka as one country." The President cited an instance where then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike had walked out of a function in the island’s...
“It is the responsibility of the global Tamil community living beyond Sri Lanka's murderous reach to do everything it can to contribute to, and support, international efforts to bring President Rajapakse and the rest of the leadership to justice. “This is both our right and our obligation. Most importantly, this campaign is not only about the past, but the future : it is only in this way that we can ensure the chilling horrors being unearthed by global rights activists are not visited again and again on the Tamils.” See our new editorial, ‘Justice is Security’, here . See also discussion of...
Which was the high point of Indian External Affairs minister S. M. Krishna’s visit to Sri Lanka in late November?
New investigations by Channel 4 and Human Rights Watch link the Sri Lanka Army's (SLA) 53 Division to war crimes recorded by a soldier on his mobile phone. "This horrific new evidence demonstrates graphically that the Sri Lankan army engaged in summary executions of prisoners during the final days of fighting in May 2009," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government's failure to investigate these serious war crimes in the face of overwhelming evidence shows the need for an independent, international investigation ." Meanwhile, Amnesty International Asia-Pacific...
“The President came to UK and returned back to Sri Lanka, happy as a lark. Now what happened to these … Tamil Tiger Terrorist Lawyers?” “Your nudity is apparent, spineless shameless Britishers!” Not unexpectedly, President Mahinda Rajapakse’s disinvitation from speaking at the Oxford Union last week amid mass protests and new evidence of war crimes, has fuelled the Sri Lankan establishment’s hostility towards both the Tamil Diaspora and the UK. However, the invective-laden opinion published Monday on Sri Lankan government websites is striking. Accompanied on one by a disclaimer, the article...