Galle (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Sri Lanka will lose millions of dollars unless it moves to end its bitter conflict with the Tamil rebels, diplomats and officials warned as a crucial review of international aid entered its second day in Galle, southern Sri Lanka.
The two-day meeting of more than 200 delegates representing more than 50 countries is reviewing the Sri Lanka’s ten-year development plan. But most participants stressed that development was impossible without peace.
Despite pressures from the United States, the World Bank and Japan, Colombo seems prepared to resist, convinced that the donors should separate aid from the conflict and allow the administration to press ahead with its own economic and political agenda.
President Rajapkse said that in addition of peace, the defeat of terrorism was important for the country’s growth.
The United States led international concern that Sri Lanka was slipping back to full-scale war as security forces gained ground over Tamil rebels.
“We remain unwavering in our conviction that there can be no military solution to this terrible conflict,” said Robert Blake, US ambassador to Sri Lanka.
He urged Sri Lanka to “seize the opportunity to forge a power-sharing deal that can form the basis for talks” with Tamil rebels.
Praful Patel, the World Bank's vice president for South Asia, and Japan, Sri Lanka's single largest donor, agree.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting since 1972 for a separate and independent Tamil nation in the north-east part of the island nation, claiming that Tamils are discriminated by the Sinhalese majority.
A ceasefire was reached in 2002 and is still in force, on paper. The conflict has cost the lives of more than 60,000 people.