New York, March 10: China has overtaken Japan and
India among Sri Lanka's major donors, pumping over USD one
billion in aid with no strings attached and is carrying out
major development projects there, including a new port in the
home town of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Chinese assistance has increased five fold in the last
year and Beijing is now building a highway and developing two
power plants in the island country, a top official was quoted
as saying by the New York Times.
Sri Lanka also buys a lot weapons from China and its
ally Pakistan, the New York Times reported in the context of
Colombo scrapping a 2004 ceasefire with Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam.
The move has led to a barrage of criticism over alleged
human rights abuses and Colombo has lost defence aid from the
United States.
But in recent months, Sri Lankan government officials
have increasingly cozied up to countries that tend to say
little to nothing on allegations of abductions and assaults on
press freedom, the report said.
Lanka's Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona says that Sri
Lanka's "traditional donors," namely, the United States,
Canada and the European Union, had "receded into a very
distant corner," to be replaced by countries in the east.
He gave three reasons: the new donors are neighbours,
they are rich and they conduct themselves differently. "Asians
don't go around teaching each other how to behave," he said.
"There are ways we deal with each other perhaps a
quiet chat, but not wagging the finger," Kohona was quoted as
saying.
Bureau Report
