Sri Lankan General barred from US military training

by admin
Jan 25, 2013

The United States has refused an application for military training of Sri Lankan Army General, prompting the country's Defence Secretary to slam the decision as "wrong".

Major-General Sudantha Ranasinghe was refused entry into the US for military training, with speculation that it may be on grounds that Ranasinghe is suspected of overseeing human rights violations.

The Island reported Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa as having said the deicisonw as due to "him being the war-time General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 53 Division" and that this "wasn’t an isolated case".

Gotabaya was also reported as saying,

"I want to tell them that they are wrong... every time they (US diplomats and officials) meet me, they say they want to strengthen the cooperation with our military"

"If the US stops military training (completely), then Sri Lankan officers will only go to China, India and Pakistan."

Rajapaksa reportedly snubbed the United States last week, stating that the "biggest threat" the US had was to withold military training, for which Sri Lankan had India and China for anyway.

See our earlier post: ‘We Don’t Need You, We Got China’ (20 january 2013)

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