Amid criticism from West, Sri Lanka turns to less picky donors as Iranian president visits

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka has hailed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit here Monday as an important step in cementing closer ties between the two nations.

But the trip also highlighted Sri Lanka's slow turn away from the West, which has expressed concerns about Colombo's human rights record, and its embrace of donors less critical of its escalating war against ethnic Tamil rebels.

"In Asia, we don't go around preaching to our neighbors and our friends," said Sri Lanka's foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona.

As if to drive home the point, the capital city of Colombo was plastered Sunday with posters showing smiling photos of Ahmadinejad and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa over the slogans: "The Friendly Path to Progress" and "Traditional Asian Solidarity."

In the past 18 months, Rajapaksa visited China twice, dropped in on neighbors India and Pakistan and traveled to Iran in November.
During that trip, Iran pledged US$1.9 billion (€1.2 billion) in soft loans and grants to Sri Lanka to help it expand its only oil refinery, develop an irrigation and hydropower project and buy Iranian oil, Kohona said.

"It is the biggest development assistance package for Sri Lanka at the moment," he said.

It is money Sri Lanka desperately needs as it continues to wage civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels — a fight projected to cost US$1.5 billion (€1 billion) this year.

Ahmadinejad was expected to meet top officials and to tour development projects during his two-day visit. It has not been announced whether he will come bearing further aid for this South Asian nation.

China is also giving about US$1 billion (€640 million) in aid for a massive new port, an arts center, a power plant and other development projects, Kohona said.

Meanwhile, Western nations have been giving far less money and much heavier criticism of Sri Lanka's conduct of the war.

A U.S. State Department report issued in March accused the government and allied militias of attacking civilians and practicing "torture, kidnapping, hostage-taking, and extortion with impunity."

Sri Lanka's increasingly close ties with less traditional donor nations are allowing it to resist the Western pressure on its rights record, analysts say.

"It is sending a message to the international community ... that the government does have other options," said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank.

But he warned that Sri Lanka could be taking a risk by too closely embracing countries with shaky reputations in the West, which remains Sri Lanka's most crucial trading partner.