By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : The US has stopped the supply of military equipment and services to Sri Lanka, as key countries rapped the Mahinda Rajapaksa government for unilaterally abrogating the 2002 Norway-brokered truce with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
A US government website said the country has suspended the issuance of licences for the sale or transfer of military equipment and services to Sri Lanka with effect from Dec 26, 2007, as per the Department of State Foreign Operations and Related Programmes Appropriation Act.
The Sri Lankan government had Wednesday decided to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement it had signed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) citing its failure to bring peace to the country.
“It is the policy of the United States to deny applications for licences and other approvals to export or otherwise transfer defence articles or services to Sri Lanka,” a communiqué issued Thursday by the US State Department Directorate of Defence Trade Controls said.
However, it added that licences might be granted “on a case by case basis” for the transfer of technical data or equipment for the limited purposes of maritime and air surveillance and communications.
A $500 billion appropriation bill passed by the US Congress late last year had said that before any military supplies were made to Sri Lanka, the secretary of state should certify that the Sri Lankan government had improved its human rights record in certain specific areas.
Listing the conditions, Congress had said the Sri Lankan government would have to show that it had prosecuted military personnel who had helped the recruitment of child soldiers or committed extra-judicial killings.
The island’s government would also have to show that it had provided humanitarian groups and journalists access to the Tamil areas of the country.
International human rights organisations and the UN had consistently complained that some Sri Lankan armed forces personnel, fighting against Tamil Tiger rebels, were “complicit” in the recruitment of children by the pro-government Tamil armed group led by Karuna in the eastern district of Batticaloa.
Human rights groups had charged that army personnel had killed 17 workers of the French aid agency Action Against Hunger in Mutur in 2006. The “execution style” killing of 16 young Tamil men and women and one Muslim had attracted worldwide condemnation.
Recently, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US government company, had de-listed Sri Lanka from its 2008 funding list, in a move that was interpreted as a censure of this country for its failure to make meaningful efforts to restore peace in a land torn by a long drawn out war with the separatist LTTE.
The US State Department said Thursday that it was “troubled” by the Sri Lankan government’s abrogation of the truce pact.
“All parties to the conflict share the responsibility to protect the rights of all Sri Lanka’s people,” the department’s spokesman said in Washington.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he “regrets” the termination of the ceasefire agreement (CFA).
“He is deeply worried that the withdrawal from the agreement comes amidst intensifying fighting in the north and increasing violence across the country, including Colombo,” a statement from Ban Ki-moon’s office said Thursday.
The secretary general stressed the “urgent need to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka through a political solution”.
“Withdrawal from this important agreement will make the search for a durable political solution more difficult,” Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in Ottawa Thursday, while “deeply” regretting the Sri Lankan decision.