Sri Lanka found itself under renewed international pressure yesterday over its human rights record, with the EU threatening to withdraw the island’s preferential trading status.
At the same time, New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned what it described as unacceptable delays in the government’s release and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians displaced in the final months of the island’s long-running ethnic conflict.
“Enough is enough,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It is well past time to release civilians detained in the camps. Sri Lanka’s international friends should tell the government that they will not accept any more broken promises.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
The displaced Tamils have been held in military-run camps, which the government calls “welfare centers,” where rights groups say they are deprived of their liberty and freedom of movement, in violation of international law.
More than a quarter of a million people have been kept in the camps since May, when government troops finally defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who had been waging a bloody separatist insurgency for decades.
The government has said it needs to screen the civilians for former Tamil Tiger fighters.
On Monday, the EU Commission said a year-long probe had uncovered “serious problems” with Sri Lanka’s human rights record and warned that the island risked losing a deal giving its exporters easier access to the EU market.
The commission’s report says it “will now decide whether to propose a temporary withdrawal of the special incentive arrangement.”
Trade spokesman Lutz Gullner said member states would be consulted and stressed that the commission would be looking for improvement that was “sufficiently serious, rapid and verifiable.”
The Sri Lankan foreign ministry said only it would “study” the findings of the probe, which was launched during the final military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka had refused to allow the EU inquiry mission access to the country and insisted that its preferential trade access with the EU should be extended without any conditions.
Earlier this month, Washington had pressed Colombo to allow the displaced Tamil refugees to move freely around the country and to foster political reconciliation on both sides of Sri Lanka’s ethnic divide.
Sri Lanka “must also seek to improve human rights and accountability,” Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake said.
Walter Kaelin, a representative of the UN secretary-general, called during a trip last month for “immediate and substantial progress in restoring freedom of movement for the displaced.”
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