Erik Solheim is Norway’s Minister of Development Aid and Minister of the Environment. His extensive negotiations on Sri Lanka has made him, at least among some, an extremely unliked man. In a post on the official website of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence Erik Solheim is accused of having looked the other way while the LTTE guerilla violated human rights and international law. Excerpt below:

Was Solheim wearing tinted eye lenses to be blind to all the atrocities committed by the LTTE, over the years? Your request to the UN to restrict the investigation only to the last phase of the war, is understandable, to save your soul, since you propelled the terrorism to great heights by providing facilities to terrorists. Why did you never complain of LTTE atrocities during all the phases of the 30 year war? In his mind, they were not crimes, war or otherwise!

Surely you knew well of child soldiers. Children forcibly conscripted from the arms of wailing mothers to fill the ranks of the depleted Tiger forces. Mothers kept in custody until children surrendered and agreed under compulsion, to wear battle fatigue. Where were you, Eric, in the midst of those human rights violations, which, in fact, was accelerated by the LTTE during the last phase of the war? Not a word of those ghastly acts to Ban kin moon. He does not see; He does not hear; He does not speak.

The Norwegian government will probably not take this criticism to heart, if this statement from the Foreign Ministry to Aftenposten is anything to go by:

- The article on the webpage of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence has a tone and a content which does not provide us with any reason to comment upon it, says head of information  Trond Viken in the Foreign Ministry.