[AFP]

Japan, a top aid giver to Sri Lanka, on Wednesday urged the island’s government to probe war crimes allegedly committed while defeating Tamil rebels and pressed Colombo to improve human rights.

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[International Crisis Group]

Two years since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka is further from reconciliation than ever. Triumphalist in its successful “war on terror”, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has refused to acknowledge, let alone address, the Tamil minority’s legitimate grievances against the state. The regime destroyed the Tigers by rejecting the more conciliatory approach of prior governments and adopting the insurgents’ brutality and intolerance of dissent. Now, contrary to the image it projects, the government has increasingly cut minorities and opponents out of decisions on their economic and political futures rather than work toward reconciliation. As power and wealth is concentrated in the Rajapaksa family, the risks of renewed conflict are growing again. Partners, especially India, Japan, the U.S., UK, European Union (EU) and UN, should send a strong message against increasing authoritarianism, condition aid on transparency and restored civilian administration in north and east and support accountability, including an international inquiry into alleged atrocities by both sides in the war’s final stages.

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[HRW]

If the world continues to look away from the suffering of civilians in Sri Lanka, as it has largely done until now, it will be a failure of historic proportions. We believe that Japan, a powerful player on the humanitarian stage and the largest international donor to Sri Lanka, has an important role to play in saving countless civilian lives, as well as to implement aid policies that ensure sustainable peace, human rights and development in Sri Lanka. It is time for Japan to show that it is prepared to shoulder its responsibilities.

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[ AFP ]

Japan, Sri Lanka’s top donor, was cautious on Monday after the Tamil Tiger rebels’ capital fell, with an official saying that only a political solution could resolve the island’s ethnic war. Sri Lanka’s army last week captured the de facto rebel capital Kilinochchi and said it was now closing in on the headquarters of the Tigers, who have been fighting since 1972 to set up an independent homeland for the Tamil minority. Japan provides nearly two-thirds of Sri Lanka’s international aid and has sent its special envoy four times in the past three years to try to broker an end to the conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

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