Agencies/Colombo

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday reappointed three senior ministers to his new government, days before a visit by a US envoy and crucial talks on a UN war crimes report.
Mangala Samarweera, Wijedasa Rajapakse, and D.M. Swaminathan - from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) - return as foreign, justice, and resettlement ministers after last week’s general election victory.
Sirisena has yet to name other cabinet ministers in the national unity government that is taking shape between the UNP and his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
“The foreign minister’s appointment was key because of the top US State Department official’s visit (today),” a government official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to talk to the media.
“There are some issues of international importance that need to be discussed, including the upcoming UN report. Both justice and resettlement ministers need to be in these discussions,” this source said.
Nisha Biswal, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, is due to arrive today, the foreign ministry said. Sirisena should receive an advance copy this week of the UN report on alleged war crimes in the final phase of a 26-year conflict.
The US sponsored a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014 for an international war crimes probe after former president Mahinda Rajapakse failed to implement the recommendations of a local panel, including probing alleged rights abuses by the military.
Allies of Rajapakse, whose bid to come back as prime minister failed at the polls, have told Reuters that the report could name him and some top military leaders as responsible for war crimes.
The UN has previously estimated that the final offensive to crush a Tamil insurgency claimed the lives of around 40,000 people. Human rights groups say that, six years after the civil war ended, incidents of torture persist.
Meanwhile, Lankan police yesterday arrested four army personnel, including two senior officers, in connection with the disappearance of a dissident cartoonist that triggered international condemnation of the island’s rights record.
Two lieutenant colonels, a sergeant and a corporal were arrested following the testimony given by three other suspects already in custody over the abduction of Prageeth Eknaligoda in 2010, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.
“The four men were questioned today and arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department,” Gunasekera said in a statement.
Eknaligoda, who contributed to the pro-opposition Lankaenews.com website, did not return home after work in January 2010, two days before the island’s presidential election which was won by Rajapakse.
The cartoonist was never seen again and his case was raised at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as well as several other fora where Rajapakse’s rights record was severely criticised.
Some 17 journalists and media employees were killed in Sri Lanka during Rajapakse’s regime, which also blocked pro-opposition websites.