April 29th, 2012

US tells Lanka; Unveil action plan in Colombo

In a clear-cut checkmate, the Obama Administration is attempting to make Colombo commit to implement the LLRC recommendations to its own people, before presenting it to officials in Washington DC.

The US Government wants Sri Lanka to unveil its ‘action plan on the implementation of the LLRC proposals in Colombo, one week before the Sri Lankan delegation led by External Affairs Minister G.L. Pieris arrives in Washington DC, Ceylon Today learns.

The Sri Lankan Government’s action plan for implementing the recommendations of the LLRC is presently being drafted by Additional Secretary to the UN Division, Kshenuka Seneviratne in consultation with Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs, Sajin Vaas Gunewardane and UPFA Hambantota District MP Namal Rajapaksa.

According to highly placed diplomatic sources, the US government wants Sri Lanka to unveil its ‘roadmap’ in Colombo before bringing the action plan to present to officials in Washington because it does not want to be seen as arm-twisting Sri Lanka into doing things that will then fuel tensions about ‘Western conspiracies’ back in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government maintains the same position because it does not want to be seen as bowing to the dictates of foreign powers.

Minister Peiris, who will be accompanied by MPs Gunewardane, and Namal Rajapaksa and Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunge to Washington on 18 May in response to an invitation from US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in January this year, for further engagement with US officials on reconciliation and accountability issues. Apart from Secretary Clinton, the Sri Lanka delegation is set to meet with several key members of the Obama Administration, presently overseeing human rights issues in Sri Lanka and other countries.

The Sri Lankan delegation will meet with US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan E. Rice and Head of the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Samantha Power.

The delegation will also meet with US Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights Maria Otero who visited Sri Lanka in February during their visit to Washington.

Minister Peiris is also scheduled to make a presentation at the prestigious Brookings Institute, a high profile Washington- based think tank.

The US has also told Sri Lanka to translate the LLRC report into Sinhala and Tamil so that a larger majority of the people would have access to the report and they could find for themselves what Sri Lanka’s own commission has recommended for implementation for speedy recovery and reconciliation.

However this has not found favour with the government and the External Affairs ministry was not keen to translate the same paving the way for a few English speaking people to have access to the LLRC report.

Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton is scheduled to visit India and Bangladesh between 6-8 May but it is not immediately clear whether Sri Lanka will feature in her talks with Indian officials during her visit