The war ended officially on 20th May 2009 in a final flourish of brutality by both sides where almost the entire LTTE leadership was killed, much as the JVP leadership was decimated in 1989. As then, the hypocrisy and the attendant brutality remained after the conflict ended, leaving the gates open for future schism. Human rights had in the late 1980s been a game of politicians who used it to beat the UNP government with. At the same time these politicians were working with the security forces to deal with the JVP痴 murderous rampage extra-judicially. The extra-judicial culture has again grown acute in recent times, with the present government feeling no qualms about killing someone for their views ・ indeed a 蘇 ome grown・ substitute for the rule of law.

For the nearly 300 000 people held in internment like camps, the end of the war has not brought about the respite they deserve. They continue to suffer in squalid conditions of camps made not to last more than a few weeks. Living conditions including families packed into tents and the deteriorating hygienic conditions from the lack of proper sewage to garbage disposal are leading to further disease and suffering. These displaced peoples who had suffered much under the LTTE do not deserve to be held in these conditions. The Government in restricting people the choice of movement out of the camps is responsible for their suffering. While the screening should be much quicker, there is no justification for detaining those who are clearly not combatants.

Nurtured amidst appalling human rights violations by the Sri Lankan state from 1977, the Tamil militant movements made a virtue of impunity. The upshot was the LTTE whose astounding military success was founded on despoiling the social fabric of the Tamils and making everything, from child bearing to education, creatures of its military needs.

The LTTE politically took Tamil society hostage from the mid-1980s through systematic terror. Militarily stymied, it took physical hostage of 300 000 people in its final stages, repeatedly provoking the Army to underpin its claims of genocide, shooting or shelling hundreds who tried to escape and forcing thousands of their children who could barely carry a rifle to man the frontlines. Even as the LTTE leaders were discussing surrender terms, they were sending out very young suicide cadres to 僧 artyrdom・ to slow down the army advance.

Through repeated abuse of peace processes to strengthen its war machine, the LTTE again and again resuscitated the Sinhalese majoritarian agenda which had lay dormant when peace seemed possible. Such provocative action during the last peace process enabled President Rajapakse to come to power backed by hawkish allies intent on a military solution to the ethnic problem.

In turn, it is ironic to see the Sinhalese polity is being taken hostage by the very elements of Sinhalese extremism that fuelled and exacerbated the conflict in the first place. These elements within and outside the major parliamentary parties have derailed every attempt at a political settlement since 1957. The present government too has relied on Sinhalese narrow nationalism, within the state and judicial apparatus and without it, to undermine any authentic investigation demanded by world opinion into major human rights violations and political crimes. The same abusive response is in evidence as the government attempts to defend itself against worldwide criticism of the way military operations were conducted in the last stages of the conflict.

Sections of the Tamil Diaspora blindly supported the LTTE痴 terror at home and its political articulation of people as weapons of mass suicide. In turn they became accomplices in extending its dreadful fiat over the Tamil social and political space within Western democracies. Without batting an eyelid, this same Diaspora is using human rights campaigns to challenge the Lankan government. They enhanced the legitimate stories of profound suffering of their people with well-publicised lies that the people were staying with the LTTE willingly, all the while denying as always its abuse of children and blaming the Government squarely for all their ills.

While challenging the majoritarian exclusivism of the State as the primal cause of the violent ethnic conflict, the UTHR(J) were among those who saw with alarm that in resisting the State, the Tamils had become prisoner of a deadly fascistic dispensation. The transition to armed struggle from parliamentary nationalism exposed the weakness of our society and the futility of politics which relied on nationalist rhetoric that equated dissent with treachery. Those who tried to charter a broader and clearer vision were soon isolated and marginalised. The UTHR(J) were convinced from the start that failing to challenge this nihilistic trend would achieve nothing but debilitation and polarization that would lend legitimacy to the Sinhalese chauvinistic agenda. Our colleague Dr. Rajani Thiranagama felt this very keenly and wrote these prophetic words in the Broken Palmyra exactly 21 years ago and paid for her convictions with her life:

・ i-The Tigers・ history, their theoretical vacuum, lack of political creativity, intolerance and fanatical dedication will be the ultimate cause of their own break up. The legendary Tigers will go to their demise with their legends smeared with the blood and tears of victims of their own misdoings. A new Tiger will not emerge from their ashes. 0nly by breaking with this whole history and its dominant ideology, can a new liberating outlook be born.・ nbsp

for full report see http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport32.htm