Britain warns could withold aid to Sri Lanka

Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:14am EST

(Updates with fresh UK government comment, details)

By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Britain warned on Sunday it will withhold millions of pounds worth of aid to Sri Lanka if the island's government fails to provide assurances it is fulfilling agreed human rights and defence spending conditions.

Britain agreed in 2005 to provide Sri Lanka 41 million pounds ($79.9 million) in debt relief through 2015 in yearly instalments of around 4 million pounds, as long as it meets conditions related to various issues, including human rights and defence expenditure.

The British government has written to its Sri Lankan counterpart asking it to clarify whether those conditions were still being met.

"If the response doesn't reassure the UK government that conditions agreed by both governments are being met, we will not disburse the next instalment," a spokeswoman for Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) said by telephone from London.

The British warning comes as both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels ignore repeated pleas from the international community to halt a new chapter of a two decade civil war that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983.

Truce monitors and rights groups have accused both government forces and the Tigers of repeated violations of a now tattered 2002 ceasefire pact, and a team of international experts has been appointed to observe a probe into a series of killings and abuses blamed on both sides.

Britain this week offered to play a bigger role in Sri Lanka's moribund peace process, including talking directly to Tamil Tiger rebels it has labelled as terrorists, as part of efforts to end the war that has killed around 4,000 people in the past year alone.

Apparently emboldened by the capture of a key eastern Tiger stronghold, the government has vowed to wipe out the Tigers' entire military machine, worrying diplomats.

The Tigers resumed their fight for an independent state after President Mahinda Rajapakse flatly rejected their demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east.

Suspected Tigers have mounted a series of ambushes and bomb attacks against the security forces in recent months, the latest on Saturday, when four people were killed by a roadside bomb in the besieged, army-held northern Jaffna peninsula.




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