US Foreign Policy and Sri Lanka

November 19, 2011 by Gibson Bateman

Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister for Disaster Management and Human Rights of Sri Lanka, addresses the Human Rights Council’s Special Session on the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka. Jean-Marc Ferré/UN

After three decades of war, Sri Lanka is still a mess. President Mahinda Rajapaksa could not care less about national reconciliation. Here is a president who did not hesitate to assert his authority at the end of the war. Yet now, he is afraid to be a strong and thoughtful leader, reluctant to take a stand.  The widespread human rights violations that occurred during final phases of the war (by both government forces and the LTTE) have been well-documented.

Unfortunately, nothing has been done to address this, as government security forces continue to harass civilians in the country’s predominantly Tamil north and east. What members of the international community have failed to understand is that a lack of accountability for what transpired in 2009 has only encouraged further human rights violations, which are still widespread.

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