The head of Sri Lanka’s air force was invited to attend a military conference in Hawaii earlier this month, as Sri Lankan increases its military relations despite concerns regarding human rights abuses committed by troops.
Kapila Jayampathy attended the conference of Chiefs of Defence in Honolulu, Hawaii earlier this month, meeting with other senior military officials from across the Asia-Pacific region.
US Marine Corps General Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters before the conference that leaders will be discussing “the military dimension of that free and open Indo-Pacific and where there are opportunities to enhance our cooperation, to enhance our interoperability”.
Sri Lanka has been growing its military relations with several governments, most notably the United States, though both local and international human rights organisations continue to raise concerns over the military’s history of human rights abuses.
Though the Sri Lankan government pledged to convene an accountability mechanism with international judges and prosecutors to try those accused of war crimes, as per a UN resolution that Colombo signed on to, no such mechanism has been set up. Meanwhile the Sri Lankan military continues to receive and give training to its foreign counterparts.