Lankan minister questions the right of Blake to speak on behalf of Tamils

The Sri Lankan government yesterday questioned the right of US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake to speak on behalf of the displaced Tamils in the North.

Robert O' Blake was quoted in the international media saying that US has been disappointed by the recent statements by the president (Rajapakse) that he is not going to be in a position to take any measures on the devolution of power until after a presidential election.
Blake said: "The government needs to find a way to move more quickly than January 2010, because the risk, of course, is that people will become disaffected and that will give new impetus to terrorism."

Sri Lankan Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has told local media 'It is irrelevant, as it is the right of the Sri Lankan people to decide on what makes them happy as a nation'...I am sad to note that a senior diplomat of the caliber of Robert Blake would comment on this.'

Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert O Blake, in an interview with rediff.com has expressed US's deep disappointment with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse for relegating the devolution of power in the Tamil majority areas, in the country's northern province, to the back-burner.
Blake told rediff.com "We have been disappointed to hear recent statements by the president (Rajapakse) that he is not going to be in a position to take any measures on the devolution of power until after a presidential election." He added "something needs to take place more quickly than that and we certainly are encouraging the government to do so."
Asked what the latest US position on Sri Lanka was, Blake said, "We have encouraged progress on two particular fronts."
"First, on the humanitarian front, there are still more than 250,000 internally displaced persons who are residing in camps under detention conditions, and so we have encouraged the Sri Lankan government to allow them freedom of movement, and more importantly to allow them to be resettled as quickly as possible," he explained.
Blake pointed out that the Sri Lankan government "has pledged to resettle the majority of the IDPs by the end of this year, which would certainly be a very welcome step." "So, we just encourage rapid progress towards that goal, but also steps (should) be taken so that the international community, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross and others have access to the camps, so that the IDPs can be assured of receiving treatment and everything that goes on there is up to international standards," he said.
"Secondly," Blake added, "We hope that our friends in Sri Lanka will make progress towards political reconciliation because really that's the only way that there's going to be a definitive end to terrorism. And that means figuring out ways to have a dialogue with the Tamil community."
This includes "the wide Tamil community inside, but also outside Sri Lanka, about exactly what those measures should entail," he said. He emphasised that this "needs to take place sooner rather than later."
Earlier, on Monday Blake expressed similar comments on Sri Lanka in an interview with 'Associated Press.'
Further he told AP that Sri Lanka's failure to share power with minority Tamils following the end of a bloody 25-year civil war in May could lead to renewed violence.
"The government needs to find a way to move more quickly than January 2010, because the risk, of course, is that people will become disaffected and that will give new impetus to terrorism," he said.
He said the government must make Tamils feel like they are part of the political process after a civil war that killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.
Blake also said that Sri Lanka should allow more freedom of movement for the nearly 300,000 Tamils displaced by the war and confined to government camps. Some aid groups fear the camps are actually military-run internment centers designed to indefinitely hold the displaced.