The UN absatained !They saw the light of day and hey...everybody loves a winner!
The Eelamists are slowly getting marginalised as the true facts of the war emerge and the gradual resettlement of IDPs takes place.The manner in which India is also taking immediate advantage of the situ by stepping in totally on Lanka's side is also unsettling the wstern powers who earlier had some influence in the island.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... =12&page=2
[quote]IMF approves controversial $2.5bn Sri Lanka loan
(Reuters)
Tim Reid and Rhys Blakely
The International Monetary Fund last night approved a controversial $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion) loan to Sri Lanka, despite concerns over the treatment of the Tamil minority and an unprecedented move by the UK to abstain from voting in protest.
Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said in a letter to MPs that the political situation in Sri Lanka posed risks to the programme’s success and expressed concern about thousands of displaced refugees who are being detained in camps.
The programme was passed by the IMF board last night despite the UK’s decision to abstain for the first time since 2004 when it opted out of a vote on technical grounds.
The move comes two months after the army crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending a 26-year civil war that had weighed heavily on the nation’s economy and claimed at least 70,000 lives.
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The loan — desperately needed by Sri Lanka to stave off a looming balance of payments crisis — was delayed initially by Britain and the US in an attempt to force a ceasefire, which would have allowed hundreds of thousands of civilians to escape the battle zone during the brutal climax of the conflict in May.
Mr Timms wrote to members of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Sri Lanka and for Tamils. The letter said: “The UK did not support the IMF’s proposed Stand-By Arrangement. The UK believes that it is not the right time for this programme to be taken forward.”
The UK wanted to “secure long-term peace and prosperity” for Sri Lanka through reconciliation between its communities, he said. However, we remain concerned with the humanitarian situation in the Internally Displaced Peoples’ (IDPs) camps. It is important to secure freedom of movement for the IDPs,” Mr Timms said.
“We support the UN’s recent call for the government of Sri Lanka to develop a comprehensive resettlement strategy for IDPs, to allow them to return home as soon as possible and urge the government to implement this without delay.
“In this context, we believe that the political situation in Sri Lanka poses risks to programme implementation. The humanitarian situation also remains of concern and we urge the government of Sri Lanka will make good its public commitment to allow the return of the IDPs from the camps to their homes within 180 days.”
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, said this week that the organisation had agreed the terms of the deal with the Sri Lankan Government after four months of talks.
The IMF’s decision to proceed angered human rights groups, who say it is turning a blind eye to the continuing humanitarian crisis.
They accuse Sri Lanka of breaking international laws by detaining nearly 300,000 refugees, mostly Tamils, who were forced to flee their homes and are still being held in internment camps.
The Government has restricted severely access to the camps to aid agencies, the media and independent monitors.
Testimonies smuggled out to The Times in May described shortages of food and medical supplies. Aid agencies say conditions are now stabilising, but people are still being held against their will.
“To approve a loan while they have hundreds of thousands of people penned up in these camps is a reward for bad behaviour, not an incentive to improve,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The IMF needs to change its approach.”
The loan, which Mr Strauss-Kahn said would give an “exceptional level of access to resources” will be used to shore up Sri Lanka’s finances, which have been battered by the global credit crisis and an increase in military spending to $1.5 billion last year and a projected $1.6 billion this year.
In March, when Sri Lanka applied for the loan, its foreign currency reserves had dropped to $1.4 billion — enough for about six weeks’ worth of imports — from $3.4 billion in September.
At that time, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan President, vowed that he would not accept any conditions from the IMF, whose officials were expelled from the country in 2004.
“We will not pawn or sell our motherland to obtain any monetary aid,” he said.
The IMF’s conditions will, however, require the reconstruction of areas devastated by years of conflict, Mr Strauss-Kahn has indicated.
Controls on military spending — which will amount to about 17 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total expenditure this year — are also likely to be one of the IMF’s conditions.
A British Government source said yesterday that Britain would “look to see that military expenditure falls appropriately over the course of the programme, facilitating greater spending on social programmes and reconstruction”.
Britain was also calling for money to be earmarked for the wellbeing of the camp refugees, the source said.
Sri Lanka has made some cuts in arms procurement, cancelling deals worth $200 million to buy ammunition from Pakistan and China this month. Its huge army continues to grow, however, even though the war is over.
Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, told The Times that between 15,000 and 20,000 soldiers had been added to its ranks in the past two months, taking the number of battle-ready troops to about 200,000. He said there were no plans to reduce the force.
Britain holds 5 per cent of the votes on the IMF executive board. The body had the power to block the deal, which needed 51 per cent of the votes to pass, but the IMF and many foreign investors believe Sri Lanka can reap a substantial peace dividend now the war is over.
Sri Lanka’s stock market closed at its highest level for more than a year on Wednesday on news of the IMF deal.
). Sardeshpande is better in that regard but Yashwant Deva has done the most.