REFUGEE

Sri Lanka said its army chief left the U.S. without undergoing questioning about alleged human rights abuses during the civil war, after the government protested plans to interview him.

General Sarath Fonseka left yesterday after Sri Lanka told the State Department in Washington and the U.S. ambassador in Colombo that any information the chief of defense staff obtained while undertaking his duties is privileged, the government said.

“These representations in both Colombo and in Washington were followed by further diplomatic contacts and endeavors,” the Colombo government said. Sri Lanka “appreciates the receptive and constructive attitude adopted by the U.S. authorities.”

The State Department last month issued a report on human rights abuses by the army and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the final weeks of the war that ended with the LTTE’s defeat in May. Sri Lanka said Fonseka was called for an interview with the Department of Homeland Security while he was visiting the U.S. this week.

Fonseka “was not subjected to any questioning prior to his departure by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or any other agency of the U.S. government,” Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama met with Patricia Butenis, the U.S. ambassador in Colombo, earlier this week and conveyed the message that “the Department of Homeland Security should forthwith desist from any endeavor to interview” the general, the government said Nov. 3.

The president and the government “stand firmly” behind the office of the chief of defense staff and “we will not allow that high post to be denigrated or made vulnerable,” Bogollagama said, according to the government.

Rights Violations

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly confirmed at a briefing in Washington yesterday that the general wasn’t interviewed by officials from the office.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa last month appointed an independent committee to investigate the State Department report that civilians were shelled by the army in the last weeks of the war. The account listed killings and other abuses carried out by soldiers and the Tamil Tigers.

While Sri Lanka’s government described the report as “unsubstantiated,” Mahinda Samarasinghe, the minister for disaster management and human rights, said it was the responsibility of a democratic state to investigate such charges.

Domestic Probe

A domestic probe in Sri Lanka is an attempt by the government to evade an international inquiry, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Oct. 28.

Sri Lanka’s army defeated the last Tamil Tiger forces in a battle at Mullaitivu on the northeastern coast, ending their 26- year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the South Asian island nation.

The president, on a visit to the north yesterday that included Mullaitivu district, announced an immediate increase in the salaries of security forces, the Defense Ministry said on its Web site. It didn’t give details of the wage rise.