Things are moving fast in Sri Lanka since the election. 10 days ago, straight after the Sri Lankan election, Erik Solheim and I wrote of the hopes and challenges ahead. Already now, there have been important developments – notably with regard to the upcoming 14 September – 2 October UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva. In particular indications of a shift in US policy – or at the very least emphasis – with respect to its oft-voiced earlier demand for an international investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by government forces and Tamil Tiger guerillas during the final stages of the country’s 26-year long civil war.
Simply stated, during a visit to Sri Lanka last week by US Assistant Secretaries of State Nisha Biswal and Tom Malinowski, the former announced that the US will now support the Sri Lankan government’s position of favouring the establishment of a ‘credible’ domestic accountability mechanism, and will be tabling what Biswal termed a ‘collaborative’ resolution with the Colombo authorities on accountability issues and how to address them during the course of the upcoming UNHRC session. A resolution she said, moreover, that takes into account the ‘changes in the landscape’ that had taken place in the country in the past year, and what she described as the ‘substantial progress’ towards reconciliation made in the past few months.
This apparent US turnaround continues to divide Sri Lankans, human righta organizations and international observers alike. A number of political commentators – notably, but not exclusively Sinhalese ones – are emphasizing the geo-strategic context of the new US realignment. With Rajapaksa out of power, so the argument goes, the US now has an opportunity to help prise Sri Lanka aware from its erstwhile political – and no less importantly, economic – dalliance with China and bring it back into the Western fold: and by extension, its strong traditional linkages to ‘Big Brother’ (aka India) across the Palk Strait.
