Rocca to visit Sri Lanka

US Assistant Secretary of State Christina B. Rocca will visit Sri Lanka on April 19 and 20 to survey United States-funded tsunami reconstruction efforts and meet government officials. She is scheduled to meet President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on April 20.

Rocca will travel to the eastern coast on Tuesday to see tsunami reconstruction efforts funded through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In Kalmunai, she will meet representatives from GOAL, an NGO working with USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to build transitional shelters, sponsor clean up operations, and reinforce local agriculture.

She will also visit cash-for-work reconstruction sites, where she will present tool kits to tsunami-affected carpenters, masons and welders repairing schools through USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI).

Rocca is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Rocca became Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs in 2001.

This will be her fourth visit to Sri Lanka as Assistant Secretary.Rocca heads the US State Department's Bureau of South Asian Affairs, which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.