Sweden's FM denied Sri Lanka visa

Posted by Lasantha Janaka on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Comments: (0)

Carl Bildt
Mr Bildt said he had been given no explanation

Sri Lanka has refused entry to Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who was to have joined a European diplomatic mission, Mr Bildt has said.

Mr Bildt was to have arrived on Wednesday with David Miliband from the UK and France's Bernard Kouchner.

Sweden is to recall its top diplomat for consultation, Mr Bildt said.

A Sri Lankan foreign ministry official told the BBC this was not a snub but it could not cope with so many high-level delegations at one time.

Sri Lanka has had tense relations with the Scandinavian former monitors of its peace process but its main problems have been with the major ex-mediator, Norway.

Mr Miliband and Mr Kouchner have not been excluded from the visit. Mr Bildt said they would continue as planned.

Ceasefire pressure

Mr Bildt told Agence France-Presse news agency: "The Sri Lankan authorities have said that they don't accept me.

"I am not persona non grata because they say I am welcome at another time, but I am not intending to take up that invitation," he said.

Mr Bildt said the Sri Lankan action was "exceedingly strange behaviour" and that he was recalling the top Swedish diplomat in Sri Lanka, charge d'affaires Borje Mattsson, for consultation.

The senior Sri Lankan foreign ministry official told the BBC the country could not cope with all the delegations when facing the challenge of taking care of tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The official said there had been an invitation to Mr Bildt for next month.

Wednesday's diplomatic mission is part of international efforts to put pressure on Sri Lanka to call a ceasefire in the north-east, where the army is battling the rebels.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday joined the UN in the call for the truce.

The Sri Lankan military has restricted the rebels to a small stretch of land and believes final victory is near.

Obama Admin hold inter-agency meet on Lanka

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With the humanitarian situation worsening in Sri Lanka's northern war zone, the Obama Administration recently held an interagency meeting to review the situation in the island nation where the military offensive against the LTTE is coming to an end.

The interagency meeting - the first if its kind for Sri Lanka - is believed to have taken place later last week, which was attended by senior officials from the State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council, USAID, and several other agencies, a senior White House official told.

Officials familiar with the meeting said this indicates that the US is taking the current situation in Sri Lanka very seriously, wherein both the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE had repeatedly refrained from heeding to its call of protecting the civilians trapped in the armed conflict.

While US President Barack Obama has been receiving latest update on the situation in Sri Lanka as part of his daily presidential briefing, it is unlikely that he had any special briefing on the island nation. However, officials said the White House is closely monitoring the situation in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, the State Department said it was "very encouraged" by the Sri Lankan Government's statement that it's ending combat operations and use of heavy weaponry.

Sri Lanka war zone closed to UN

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Thousands of civilians are trapped inside a strip of land held by Tamil Tiger fighters [AFP]

The United Nations' humanitarian affairs chief has failed in his attempt to bring a halt to fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka.

John Holmes was unable to get permission from Mahinda Rajapkase, the Sri Lankan president, to allow a UN aid mission into a pocket of rebel-held land that is surrounded by the Sri Lankan military.

"We don't have agreement on this [failure to get a UN team into the conflict zone] ... I am disappointed about this," Holmes said during his visit to the country on Monday.

The United Nations estimates that up to 50,000 non-combatants are still in the conflict zone, although the government maintains that the number is less than 20,000.

'No change'

Holmes met Rohitha Bogollagama, Sri Lanka's foreign minister, before visiting camps in northern Vavuniya where more than 113,000 civilians have sought refuge in camps that are overcrowded and still without enough supplies.

Focus: Sri Lanka
Q&A: Sri Lanka's civil war
The history of the Tamil Tigers
Timeline: Conflict in Sri Lanka
'High cost' of victory over Tigers
Caught in the middle

But David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, said that the UN official had not managed to secure access to the combat zone for a small team from the world body.

"Absolutely nothing has changed as a result of John Holmes' visit, apart from another ten million dollars in humanitarian aid being pledged," Chater reported.

"[That money could provide] at least a bit of relief for those who got out of the combat zone, but no relief for those still inside."

Aid organisations, journalists and other independent observers are banned from entering the conflict zone, making independent assessment of the continuing fighting impossible.

'Army halted'

The Sri Lankan military on Monday ordered its troops to end the use of heavy weaponry and aerial bombardment in their fight against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.

The government said it would stop the intensive fighting in an effort to ease the suffering of civilians, although the statement contradicted earlier assertions that it would continue its fight against the Tigers who had offered a ceasefire on Sunday.

A statement from the president's office said on Monday: "Combat operations have reached their conclusion."

Soldiers will "confine their attempts to rescue civilians who are held hostage and give foremost priority to saving civilians".

The military has also ordered troops not to use "heavy-calibre guns, combat aircraft or aerial weapons, which could cause civilian casualties", the statement said.

The Sri Lankan government had previously said that no heavy weapons were being used in populated areas and that the operation was merely a "rescue" exercise.

But Chater said that hostilities have not necessarily ended.

"The government is determined there should be no pause in the fighting ... [The government] says it knows how ruthless [the Tamil Tigers] are and have no intention of negotiating with them unless they lay down their arms and surrender."

LTTE accusation

A pro-Tamil Tiger website on Tuesday accused the military of continuing to pound civilians.

A day earlier, the website quoted S Puleedevan, an LTTE spokesman, as saying the government's announcement on non-use of heavy weapons was an attempt "to deceive the international community, including the people of Tamil Nadu [a Tamil-majority Indian province]".

The Sri Lankan military has denied the LTTE claim, but says it does aim to capture more territory and that its aim is to wipe out the Tamil Tigers.

Holmes' attempt to get access to the conflict zone was rbuffed by Colombo [AFP]
Tamils in India have been pressuring the Indian government to intervene to bring about a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan forces are continuing with "humanitarian operations aimed at rescuing" the remaining civilians trapped in the island's northeast, where the LTTE is defending a narrow strip of jungle, the military said on Monday.

"We reduced the coastline they have to 6km from 8km last week," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said.

"Our operations are continuing, and yesterday we managed to rescue another 3,200 civilians," he said.

About 110,000 civilians escaped from the LTTE-held combat zone last week after an ultimatum by the government for the Tamil Tigers to surrender.

Sri Lanka's government has said it is on the verge of defeating the LTTE after 37 years of conflict, and has consistently brushed off international calls for a truce.

On Sunday, the government also rejected an LTTE call for a unilateral ceasefire.