Feb 23, Colombo: The United States Monday expressed dissatisfaction over the legal process of Sri Lanka's detained opposition presidential candidate General (retd) Sarath Fonseka and urged the government to bring charges against him promptly.
In an interview with BBC World News, U.S. State Department top official, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake said the progress of government's case against Fonseka is less than what was expected and urged the government to handle everything according to the law.
"So far I think it has been less than we might have hoped for, but we’ve certainly encouraged the government of Sri Lanka to ensure that he is charged promptly, as you said, and that everything is handled in accordance with Sri Lankan law as they move forward," Blake said responding to a question.
Blake, the former Ambassador to Sri Lanka, declining to comment on the charges against General Fonseka as he has not seen them yet, said the U.S. have encouraged the Sri Lankan government to make public as quickly as possible what those charges are.
The Assistant Secretary however, commented on the manner the defeated presidential candidate was arrested.
"But I think that Sri Lankans themselves have spoken about the manner in which General Fonseka was arrested. Several monks, for example, several Buddhist monks have noted that this was handled in a very unprofessional and undignified way," Blake said.
When asked about his view on the respect now being shown for the Tamil minority, Assistant Secretary Blake said one of the highest priorities now is first, to complete the resettlement of the remaining 100,000 internally displaced people and allow them to return to their homes and villages in the north as quickly as possible.
He said it is important for the Sri Lankan government to pursue a process of national reconciliation and power sharing, particularly with the north as quickly as possible and following that to begin a process of accountability for many of the human rights abuses that may have occurred during the war.
Emphasizing that Sri Lanka has a very proud democratic tradition, Blake said one aspect of democracy is respect for human rights.
"Again, I think there can be, there needs to be improvements in that area. We've spoken particularly about the importance of greater respect for freedom of the media and freedom of the press," he stressed.
The third priority Blake said is to address the issue of possible war crimes that may have occurred during the last phase of the war.
"Again, that will be an important part of the larger reconciliation piece," he said.
However, Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in a recent interview with BBC vehemently rejected the West's call for a war crimes inquiry against the country's military.
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