Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, in an interview with the Daily Mirror expressed confidence that the EU debate on the situation in Sri Lanka would not prove overly negative for the country. “We should be okay,” he said.to face trial in India, sources in the agency said.

Meanwhile Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona was quoted on the Hindustan Times newspaper as saying the government was still awaiting official confirmation from Thailand over reports of the Tiger frontman's arrest.

The Minister admitted however that there was a ‘negative sense’ prevailing right now in ‘all these circles’.

“But I don’t think the result will be negative even if the debate is. There are always two stages in a debate of this nature. They will first go straight off into the ultimate conclusions, and then they will stop short of that and look at optional arrangements. We can always play within these two determinations,” he added.

In a statement to the EU Parliament which convened in Brussels, HRW researcher Ms. Charu Lata Hogg said while disappearances and abductions showed a temporary lull in Colombo, in the rest of the country, families continued to report abductions of relatives by unknown persons.

“The National Human Rights Commission in Jaffna reported that in the first three weeks of August alone, 21 cases of enforced disappearances and 13 cases of unlawful killings had taken place. On September 3, the ICRC reported that in the previous three weeks, it had documented 34 such abductions countrywide,” Ms. Hogg told the EU Parliament.

HRW said what was obvious since it published a critical report against the government recently was that the government had shown itself unable or unwilling to stem the tide of ongoing human rights violations by state forces.

“In June, Sri Lankan police arrested 16 people, including four policemen and a member of the Air Force, in connection with the spate of burgeoning abductions, and claimed to have broken the back of the racket. As our report shows, government security forces have been implicated in enforced disappearances, forcible returns of internally displaced persons to unsafe areas, restrictions on the media that undermine press freedom, apparent complicity with the abusive Karuna group, and widespread impunity for serious human rights violations,” Ms Hogg said.

Human Rights Watch also told the EU that it has consistently documented abuses by the LTTE, in particular its abominable use of child soldiers and coercive fundraising tactics in Canada and the UK, as well as targeted killings and other serious violations of Sri Lankan and international law.

“We have called for the UN to impose targeted sanctions against the LTTE due to its repeat offender status with regard to child soldiers. Our research on the LTTE’s international fund-raising tactics is presented on the government’s Peace Secretariat website and the Sri Lankan government has used our report on that topic in its advocacy to get the LTTE proscribed in Europe,” she said.

Minister Bogollagama who met French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris recently meanwhile told the Daily Mirror that there was no ultimatum issued on Sri Lanka to improve the human rights situation. “Every friend of ours is concerned. No ultimatums have been given to us. We are a sovereign nation,” he added.

He opined that there was attention on Sri Lanka because it was an EU assistance receiver.

“So if we fall short of what they believe is our so-called yard stick that they measure us from, and then there is ground for them to make comments. That is how these complaints arise. Sometime when you explain matters they tend to take a different line and their perceptions get changed,” he said.

The French Foreign Minister had reportedly expressed criticism on the situation in the North and the East at a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart recently. Informed sources at the Foreign Affairs Ministry revealed that he had expressed keenness to see the situation improved by January when he is expected to visit Sri Lanka.

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