{"id":74115,"date":"2013-02-18T08:55:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T08:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=74115"},"modified":"2013-02-24T08:12:34","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T08:12:34","slug":"revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka&#8217;s Brutal Regime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\">Colombo Telegraph<\/a><\/span> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>UK Government database shows that arms sales continue despite litany of rights abuses,\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime-8498768.html\">the Independent<\/a><\/span> newspaper reports today, under the headline &#8220;Revealed: UK sells arms to Sri Lanka&#8217;s brutal regime&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_74118\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/david-miliband-and-mahinda-rajapaksa\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-74118\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74118\" class=\"size-full wp-image-74118\" title=\"David Miliband and Mahinda Rajapaksa\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/David-Miliband-and-Mahinda-Rajapaksa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/David-Miliband-and-Mahinda-Rajapaksa.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/David-Miliband-and-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-180x300.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-74118\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Britain&#39;s foreign secretary David Miliband with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Apr 29th, 2009 in Colombo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The newspaper said; &#8220;Britain is selling millions of pounds worth of small arms and ammunition to Sri Lanka despite the country\u2019s dire human rights record,\u00a0<em>The Independent<\/em>\u00a0can disclose today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According\u00a0to the newspaper, figures taken from the Government\u2019s own database show how the authorities in Colombo have gone on a buying spree of British small arms and weaponry worth at least \u00a33m.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The sales indicate how far President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s government has been welcomed back into the international fold by Britain, despite the behaviour of his armed forces during the brutal last few months of the 2009 civil war&#8221;, the newspaper said.<\/p>\n<p>The Independent reported ;More than \u00a32m of the sales came under the \u201cML1\u201d label \u2013 a category used by the Government to denote small arms and weapons. Export licences were granted on four separate occasions \u2013 once in July and three times in August. In total the Government approved the sale of 600 assault rifles, 650 rifles, 100 pistols and 50 combat shotguns. The sales also included \u00a3330,000-worth of ammunition and \u00a3655,000 in body armour.\u00a0<span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">It is not clear whether the sales are a one-off or represent a significant increase in British weaponry heading to Sri Lanka. From the beginning of 2008 to June 2012, the value of export licences to Sri Lanka amounted to just \u00a312m.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read <span><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime-8498768.html\">more<\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a0in the\u00a0Independent.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2013\/feb\/18\/britain-sri-lanka-arms-trade\">the Guardian\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":74121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2187,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-most-popular","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka&#039;s Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka&#039;s Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-18T08:55:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-02-24T08:12:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/\",\"name\":\"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka's Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-02-18T08:55:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-02-24T08:12:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg\",\"width\":\"550\",\"height\":\"440\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka&#8217;s Brutal Regime\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\",\"name\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka's Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka's Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2013-02-18T08:55:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-02-24T08:12:34+00:00","og_image":[{"width":550,"height":440,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/","name":"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka's Brutal Regime - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg","datePublished":"2013-02-18T08:55:12+00:00","dateModified":"2013-02-24T08:12:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg","width":"550","height":"440"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/revealed-uk-sells-arms-to-sri-lankas-brutal-regime\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Revealed: UK Sells Arms To Sri Lanka&#8217;s Brutal Regime"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3","name":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Britains-foreign-secretary-David-Miliband-with-President-Mahinda-Rajapaksa-Apr-29th-2009-in-Colombo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74115"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74932,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115\/revisions\/74932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}