Pursuant to a provision of the recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, DDTC announced that it is now its policy to deny export licenses for defense articles and services to Sri Lanka. A last minute amendment to the embargo provision in the Appropriations Act exempted “technology or equipment made available for the limited purposes of maritime and air surveillance and communications.”

The legislation provides that the embargo will continue until the State Department certifies to the Appropriations Committee that three conditions have been met: (1) members of the Sri Lankan military alleged to have engaged in human rights violations are suspended and brought to justice; (2) journalists and humanitarian organizations are given access to all parts of the country consistent with international humanitarian law; and (3) the Sri Lankan government has consented to a field office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights with sufficient access to monitor and to report on allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

Since the resumption of fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Tamil Tigers group in 2006, various organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have documented a number of human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government and by its military forces in particular. These violations have included attacks on displaced civilians, extrajudicial executions, “disappearances” and abductions, and failure to take action against the allied Karuna group’s forced enlistment of child soldiers. Full details of these abuses can be found in this report released by Human Rights Watch last August.