Sri Lanka development hostage to war, say donors
Source: Reuters
By Simon Gardner GALLE, Sri Lanka, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Civil war is choking Sri Lanka's economic and development potential, international donors said on Monday, urging the government to resume talks with Tamil Tiger rebels and forge peace. Donors estimate the conflict has shaved between 2-3 percentage points a year off gross domestic product since the war began in 1983, and say that the president's 10-year plan to lift four million rural Sri Lankans out of poverty depends on peace. Apparently emboldened by the capture of a key eastern rebel stronghold, the government has vowed to wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) military machine -- and analysts expect a war that has killed more than 67,000 people to deepen. "Looking forward (we must) place the conflict at the centre of any discussion about Sri Lanka," World Bank Vice President Praful Patel told a development forum in the historic southern port town of Galle. "This is not the topic for comfortable discussion but development assistance could be far more effective if the conflict subsided," he added. "The past year has not been good at all for the families of the more than 3,500 Sri Lankans killed as a result of increased conflict." The Tigers, who say they are fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils in the northeast, say they distrust the government and warn their guerrilla warfare capability remains intact. President Mahinda Rajapakse has vowed to push ahead with efforts to find a political solution to the conflict, but the forum comes a day after a mass defection from the main opposition party to the government left a cross-party pact to seek a permanent peace defunct. Aid agencies complain the government has hampered their access to areas of the northeast under rebel control, forcing some to shelve or abandon projects altogether. The government has budgeted $1.28 billion in defence spending in 2007, up nearly 30 percent from last year. It is forecasting the economy will grow around 7.5 percent this year, up from around 7.0 percent in 2006. "No amount of development assistance by the United States or any other government can have any lasting impact ... without finding a permanent solution to the conflict which has plagued Sri Lanka," said U.S. Ambassador Robert Blake. "There can be no military solution to this terrible conflict," he added. "We hope Sri Lanka will seize the opportunity to forge a power-sharing proposal that can form the basis for talks with the LTTE that can finally bring an end to conflict in Sri Lanka."
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