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| Bogollagama and Burns: Sri Lanka merely urged to ‘do more’ |
Sri Lanka was merely urged to “do more” in a meeting between the US Under Secretary of State, Nicholas Burns, and the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama.
Burns and Bogollagama reviewed the human rights situation in Sri Lanka during a 45-minute State Department meeting, a US statement said.
But not only did the US fail to take any action, even the wording of the statement was weak, analysts said.
Burns merely urged Sri Lanka “to do more to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations and to put an end to disappearances on the island nation” according to the statement.
"Burns welcomed progress in reducing abductions in Colombo. However, he noted serious concern over credible reports of continued severe human rights abuses in Jaffna and other parts of the country and ongoing threats to freedom of the press," the statement said.
During the meeting Burns also urged Sri Lanka to make progress on a power-sharing proposal that would give a political voice to moderate Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese, the statement said.
"Burns urged the government of Sri Lanka to do more to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations and to put an end to disappearances on the island nation," the statement said repeating similar words from previous statements that have had no impact on the deteriorating situation on the ground.
Rights groups say hundreds of people have been killed or abducted in Sri Lanka since last year, when the ceasefire agreement broke down and the war resumed after a near four-year lull.
The state security forces and paramilitary forces working with the Sri Lankan military have been implicated in many disappearances and killings.
International rights monitors have called for a UN human rights monitoring mission to work in Sri Lanka, but the government has responded by saying the reports are overblown and designed to tarnish its image. It has slammed foreign governments and rights groups for the criticism.
Sri Lanka also rejected calls for a United Nations human rights monitoring mission, with the foreign minister saying such an outside force would interfere with local investigations.
Bogollagama said his government has stepped up arrests, prosecutions and convictions of those accused of rights abuses.
“There is still room for improvement,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press. But, he said, the government can continue to progress without any outside so-called presence.
“When we have this type of presence coming in, that has an unwieldy effect on the local investigations that Sri Lanka has started,” Bogollagama said of the proposed UN mission.
The government has come under increasing international criticism for a series of high profile killings under unexplained circumstances amid a new wave of fighting in the past two years, including the execution-style slaying last year of 17 workers for the aid group Action Against Hunger.
In a separate interview Sri Lanka's foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona, said an outside human rights intervention “could divert attention” from a democracy struggling against a terrorist organization and provide a lifeline to a terrorist organization at a time that it is coming under increasing pressure to rejoin the mainstream.
The meeting between Burns and Bogollagama was released in the same week as a meeting between US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert A. Blake and the Sinhala-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
The USA led international community, instead of preaching to the Sri Lankan Government of the values of engaging in talks with the LTTE, must extend their support to wipe out terrorism, the JVP Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa had told the US envoy, according to reports in The Island.
Meanwhile, in the same week, the United States reported that it is likely to share its most advanced spy technology with Sri Lanka and several other Asian countries.
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| The US is planning to share intelligence gathered by the Global Hawk aircraft with Sri Lanka |
A highly placed Sri Lankan defence official told the Daily Mirror that unofficial discussions had taken place in this regard between the US and Sri Lanka although an official request or invitation to attend such a conference in the US had not been received.
The Reuters news agency, quoting the U.S. Pacific Command, said the conference tentatively planned for April in Hawaii would discuss an informal regional grouping to support the high-flying, remotely piloted Global Hawk built by Northrop Grumman.
“Our intent is to involve as many nations as possible in whatever capacity they want to be involved,” the command's air component said in e-mailed replies to questions from Reuters.
Global Hawk entered service after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. It is designed to survey vast areas with near pinpoint accuracy from as high as 65,000 feet for up to 35 hours. The data can be fed from the $27.6 million aircraft nearly instantly to commanders on the ground.
With its advanced radar, optical and infrared sensors, it will become a key U.S. intelligence asset in Asia and the Pacific when it starts flying from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam in 2009.
Partner countries could allow alternative landing and launch sites for the Global Hawk.
