Tens of thousands are fleeing

China is fomenting violence in Sri Lanka and risking the deaths of thousands of refugees in the civil war. This serious charge was made by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) on Thursday after a joint resolution on the conflict by the Security Council failed to materialise as a result of the opposition of the People’s Republic the day before. "With its blocking policy and its continued deliveries of arms China shares the responsibility for the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka”, criticised the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen. Peking has shown once more that human rights carry no weight in Chinese politics. It is clear that the Chinese leaders are pursuing their own interests at all costs and are only prepared to take responsible action in international politics when it suits them.

In a special meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday China refused to call for an immediate cease-fire since it feared the reorganisation and reinforcement of the Tamil "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam”. So the Security Council called on the Tamil rebels alone to lay down their arms. The government of Sri Lanka was called upon to grant free access for aid workers to the conflict region.

"Peking rejects all initiatives for stopping the war with the argument that this would be a interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. However China has been interfering in the conflict for years with enormous deliveries of arms”, criticised Delius. China has become one of the most important arms suppliers of the Sri Lankan army. Among the weapons used in the war are Jian 7 fighters made in China, JY-11-3D radar for monitoring the air space and ground-air rockets also made in China.

Without the weapons from China the Sri Lankan army would never have been able to pursue successfully the military offensive it began in January 2009, said the human rights expert. In April 2007 Sri Lanka signed an agreement with the Chinese company Poly Technologies on ordnance to the value of 37.6 million US dollars. The agreement included the delivery of 70,000 shells for the artillery. Bombs, machine guns and equipment for the modernisation of the Sri Lankan navy were also delivered.

The People’s Republic of China is not only the most important donor country for Sri Lanka, supporting the government in Colombo with grants to the value of one thousand million US dollars. It is also Sri Lanka’s most important trade partner in Asia. With large development projects like the new harbour in the town of Hambantota, which is due for completion in the year 2010, China has won Sri Lanka as an ally.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at tel. ++49 (0)160 95 67 14 03.