Japanese special envoy Yasushi Akashi will start his four day visit to the island country on Tuesday with a tour of war-torn areas. But he will come in an atmosphere of renewed fighting between government forces and the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]. In the fresh battles in Vavuniya and Mannar districts of northern and eastern Sri Lanka 82 were killed on both sides . This follows the shooting of two Red Cross personnel in central Sri Lanka on Sunday.
A few days back Human Rights Watch[HRW] group had urged Japan to withhold further aid to Sri Lanka until it did something about it’s worsening human rights record and increasing violence. According to Sophie Richardson of the human rights watchdog 1,00,000 people were displaced in the month of March alone. Japan is the biggest donor to Sri Lanka and also the co-coordinator of all foreign money flowing into the country. It raised $4.5 billion in 2003 alone for the beleaguered nation. HRW wants Japan to use that leverage.
Japan has flatly refused to follow the example of Western countries who have frozen the flow of funds after the restart of fighting following the failure of the Norway brokered peace talks. Instead it is sending Yasushi Akashi with the hope of kick starting peace talks again under it’s benign presence.
Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE want Japan to play the mediator in any such talks . They want it to continue rebuilding all that is being destroyed while they fight each other. One country which does not like the idea of Japan of playing the peace-maker is India . It feels Sri Lanka is it’s back yard, it’s sphere of influence. Japan would be encroaching on that. India is not averse to Japanese development funds flowing into Sri Lanka but it wants a stop at that point. Japan resents the fact that it is called upon to dole out money without having any say in the war-torn country.
