"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," says Robert Blake, the top US diplomat for South Asia.
In an interview Monday with the 'Associated Press,' Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake expressed disappointment that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has indicated he will not pursue political reconciliation until after presidential elections are held, probably in January.
"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," Blake told AP.
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.
Blake while noting some progress on the matter, including Sri Lanka allowing about 10,000 displaced people to leave the camps said, the people in the camps were being "held against their will."
"They're not allowed to leave," Blake told AP. "It's important for them to have this freedom of movement."
The United States said Monday that it was donating $15 million in food aid to help Sri Lanka resettle some of the Tamils displaced by the war. The USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development said the aid will provide those returning to their homes with a six-month ration of essential foods.
Commenting on that Blake said, Washington will not put conditions on humanitarian aid, but he said, "longer term reconstruction assistance really will be dependent on the progress that they make" on resettling displaced people and in power sharing efforts.
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