Expatriates continue to return to Lanka

The Diaspora has offered help in every possible manner to develop the country particularly the North and East. We are in fact gathering their help to spread the message, said Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US Jaliya Wickramasuriya in an interview with the Business Today

Following is an excerpt:

Sri Lanka and the US have the best relationship at present. We have been working with the US for a long time, especially in the field of trade. Although we got independence from British rule 62 years ago, we have a history of trade relations with the US that spans beyond 200 years.

Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US Jaliya Wickramasuriya

Two senior staff members Senator John Kerry and Senator Richard Lugar, who are the Chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on foreign relations, came to Sri Lanka last year.

The staff members Senators Lugar and Kerry had the opportunity to speak to a broad cross section of the community, including the Secretary of Defence, other senior Government and Opposition leaders, as well as with civil society.

Upon returning to the US, their report, “Re-charting US strategy in Sri Lanka,” stated the importance of Sri Lanka to the USA, both in terms of location and otherwise. This report was a key turning point in the relationship between the US and Sri Lanka.

The second turning point in US-Sri Lanka relations was highlighting Sri Lanka as a tourism hotspot, particularly by New York Times. The Embassy of Sri Lanka in Washington DC and I worked extensively with the media. In January, The New York Times published an article that said Sri Lanka was the number one place to visit in 2010.

And it was not just The New York Times. National Geographic named Sri Lanka one of its 20 top places to visit in 2010. A luxury-lifestyle website, Dailycandy.com, also gave us a great write-up. It actually said, “There’s only one downside to Sri Lanka - eventually you have to leave.”

The third turning point was the visit of the newly appointed External Affairs Minister, Prof G L Peiris. We had been trying to get an appointment with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Though the US has always been supportive of us, it was difficult to schedule a meeting with the Secretary. In the last two years we have been informing and educating various US officers about the positive things we do in Sri Lanka, and by the time the new External Affairs Minister was appointed we were able to set up a meeting with Secretary Clinton. Assistant Secretary of State Ambassador Robert Blake and the US State Department were very positive in this effort. It was Prof Peiris’ first official international visit in the capacity of External Affairs Minister.

The very fact that his first visit on his own as Minister was to the US sent out the message that Sri Lanka wanted to work closely with the US and that they are important to us.

When Secretary Clinton met Prof G L Peiris, she was very supportive of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. She stated that, “such commissions of inquiry have played an important role in advancing accountability and redressing wrongs in other countries emerging from periods of internal strife.” She also said that “experience in other countries has shown that such a commission that has the credibility and legitimacy within the country has a valuable role in advancing accountability” and that they are “very supportive of the approach taken by the Sri Lankans.”

During the discussions, with regard to resettlement of IDPs, we compared our resettlement plan with other countries. In Sri Lanka, resettlement was not after a disaster; it was after a war. There is a considerable difference between resettlement after a natural disaster and resettlement after a war. The international resettlement average in the world is over 17 years, according to the New York Commission on Women’s Rights. But we have resettled more than 90 percent within less than one year.

The Secretary of State has contributed greatly to our ever improving and expanding relationship.

The US Defence establishments, including the Defence Department and FBI, have always been supportive, and in fact the US was the first country in the Western world to ban the LTTE. That was a good example that set the trend and it helped us to get other countries as well to ban the LTTE.

Thus, the US ban of the LTTE immensely helped us. The US not only banned the LTTE, but followed numerous measures against terrorism that included banning the TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organization) and Tamil Foundation and bringing criminal cases against arms smugglers and money launderers.

Of course, there are still a handful of people who are creating trouble in the US, but we continue to have a dialogue with Government officials on the real situation; it is my responsibility to diplomatically handle these issues, which I am doing now.