Word: foreigners
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...territory: Sri Lankan Army soldiers posing on duty, and desperate civilians seeking their help. The enemy is all but invisible, reinforcing the Sri Lankan government's position that its conflict with the LTTE isn't a conventional war at all, but what Colombo calls a "war on terror." British foreign secretary David Miliband, in a speech to the house of commons on April 30, called it "a war without witness...
...enter the war zone to help them. On April 28, the government denied a visa to a Swedish diplomat who was supposed to be part of a European mission to Sri Lanka. On April 29, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President's brother, met with the British and French foreign secretaries and upbraided them for being "duped by the misinformation campaign the LTTE was carrying out," according to a report of the meeting published on the Defense Ministry's website. The Red Cross and U.N. agencies have raised several alarms about civilian casualties - a U.N. document leaked last week estimated...
...Lankan government has been more welcoming of delegations from sympathetic countries, such as India, South Asia's regional superpower, and Japan, Sri Lanka's largest donor country. Neither has tried to exert similar public pressure. The Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, met with Rajapaksa on April 24; three days later the Army announced that "combat operations have reached their conclusion," a declaration that was quickly clarified - it meant the Army would cease only heavy bombardment. On April 30, the Times of London reported that the U.S. and Britain were trying to use Sri Lanka's application for a $1.9 billion...
...Foreign aid is critical to Sri Lanka as it struggles to set up camps with decent food, water and sanitation for tens of thousands of refugees. It will be even more important as the country tries to rebuild the north after nearly 30 years of war. Spending on military pay, pensions and hardware has put a huge burden on Sri Lanka's budget. This year, the government's total tax revenue, after debt servicing, will not be enough to meet its expected spending. And yet the Sri Lankan government has not only refused to accept humanitarian conditions...
...summit between the Pakistani leader, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Barack Obama, U.S. officials were doing their best to soothe congressional skepticism over sending Pakistan's military and political authorities desperately needed infusions of cash. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that Zardari has the Administration's total backing. "He should be treated as the leader of a country who vitally needs our support and whose success is vitally related to American interests," Holbrooke said. Asked whether the Obama Administration had any contingency plans for the possible...