MR seeks China's support

10 August 2011 02:36 am Views - 6963

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse landed in China yesterday in search of support against an aggressive Western push for a probe into war crimes allegations and tighter economic ties in a stormy financial world.

Rajapakse was due to attend the Universiade sporting event in Shenzhen and will later meet President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Beijing. The Sri Lankan leader on Monday said economic cooperation was his focus.

China is Sri Lanka's largest bilateral donor and in June committed $1.5 billion (Dh5.50 billion) to Sri Lanka's $6 billion post-war rebuilding plan, having already financed a power plant and new port in Rajapakse's southern Hambantota electorate.

"They want to make sure the same magnitude of money flows in, in times of insecurity," said a Colombo-based diplomat on condition of anonymity, referring to the global debt turmoil that has hit world markets. That, however, is not likely to be at the top of his list.

"The fact is he is awfully disturbed by the pressures he is getting from the Western hemisphere on the war crimes issue," said Kusal Perera, a political analyst at The Centre for Social Democracy.

But ethno-political reconciliation is still distant and the island nation is facing an aggressive campaign to probe civilian deaths at the end of the quarter-century conflict in May 2009, when China, Russia and neighbouring India stood by Rajapakse's prosecution over the war.

Washington has told Colombo it wants the findings of Sri Lanka's internal probe, the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, to be submitted to UN Human Rights Council session after they are given to the government on November 15.

That would open up a host of material critical of Sri Lanka's handling of the war that could end up before the rights council at its March session, and give momentum to calls for an external probe to which Sri Lanka has refused to submit.

Reuters