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All is not what it seems in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankans are almost copycats in the way they emulate what the Israelis do and their responses to world opinion.

The general view, certainly as conveyed in the media, is that all seems to have settled down in Sri Lanka now that the war with the Tamils is over. Not so!

FPIF reports in "Sri Lanka's Wartime Abuses":

"Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, both famous and infamous for his government’s May 2009 military victory over the 25-year Tamil Tiger insurgency, was in India earlier this month. And he promised to resettle the war-displaced Tamils and find a political solution to the ethnic issue – assurances his government gave to the United States two weeks earlier. But will he deliver on his pledge?

In Tamil Nadu, a south Indian state separated by a narrow strait from Sri Lanka, and home to around 65 million Tamils, people and parties protested Rajapaksa’s visit. They hold him responsible for the death of innocent Tamils in his government’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the Tamil Tigers are also known, which had been fighting for a separate state since the 1970s, alleging discrimination by successive governments led by the majority Sinhalese. Of the 20 million people in Sri Lanka, around 18 percent are Tamils (mainly Hindu) and 74 percent are Sinhalese (almost all Buddhist).

According to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-governmental organization headquartered in Belgium, between 30,000 and 75,000 people died as the Sri Lankan military bombed and shelled civilian targets inside LTTE-held areas in Sri Lanka’s north and east. Further, it is estimated that around 80,000 displaced civilians are still awaiting resettlement."

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