Sri Lanka on Friday accused the IMF of politicizing financial aid following the fund’s delay in considering a US$1.9 billion bailout for the war-ravaged economy.
“Never ever has the IMF taken political factors into account. Now, it seems for the first time they are doing that — indirectly,” Sri Lankan Trade Minister G.L. Peiris told reporters in Washington ahead of talks with fund officials.
Sri Lanka tapped the IMF for aid in March in a bid to stave off its first balance of payment deficit in four years after the island’s foreign currency reserves fell to around six weeks’ worth of imports.
The loan has been put off amid political pressure from the US, Britain and other Western nations over Colombo’s handling of the final stages of a battle against Tamil separatists and charges that thousands of civilians were killed.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated last month.
Peiris said the IMF and Sri Lankan authorities had completed what he called “tactical discussions” over the US$1.9 billion standby facility as early as April, but that the fund’s board had still not met to consider the issue.
“So we think that it is wrong and, apart from the fact that it is unfair because Sri Lanka has to be helped in this situation, not obstructed, it is a very unsound and dangerous precedent for the future,” he said. “The IMF is now going to be embroiled in controversial political issues as part of the criteria governing their judgment in respect of particular transactions. That is very much our view.”
The IMF declined to comment on Peiris’ remarks.
The fund said on May 15 that it was at an “advanced stage” of discussions with Colombo on the bailout prospects and that it looked forward to having a program brought to the board for approval “in the coming weeks.”
The US, the main shareholder in the IMF and whose approval is key to the release of the money, has welcomed the end to the Sri Lankan fighting, but urged Colombo to meet the needs of 300,000 war displaced people who remain in temporary government shelters.
Washington has also supported calls for a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lankan government troops.
“We continue to press the Sri Lankan government to grant humanitarian relief organizations full access to the internally displaced persons who are now residing in the camps and to engage in political reconciliation with Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority,” Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake said.
“Overall access has improved, but more progress is needed,” he told a congressional hearing on Thursday.
Peiris said Colombo was not prepared to allow international non-governmental groups into the camps, saying the authorities had not completed “screening” the occupants. Fifty-two NGOs are scrambling for access to the camps.
The UN has also been at odds with the Sri Lankan government over its treatment of the displaced persons. Sri Lanka has arrested two UN employees, both ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils.
Human rights organizations claim Sri Lankan authorities have taken thousands of Tamils from the camps for the displaced.
Some rights campaigners compared the plight of the Tamils in the camps to that under Nazi Germany.
“This connotation of a Nazi concentration camp is a figment of their imagination. It is not true,” Peiris said.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS