US, India Face Sri Lanka Challenge

By Anuradha Sharma and Vishal Arora -August 9, 2012

Vishal Arora

Sri Lanka is not only refusing to bring about reconciliation in the north of the island, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the last phase of the war against ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009, it is also fast descending towards dictatorship.
A key question surrounding the country’s future is whether its two main trading partners, the United States and India, have the leverage to deter Colombo, or can it resist international pressure with China’s help?

Three years after the war ended, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has deployed military personnel in large numbers in Sri Lanka’s north and east, formerly under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

“The construction of large and permanent military cantonments, the seizure of private and state land, and the military-led cultural and demographic changes – all threaten Sri Lanka’s fragile peace,” Alan Keenan, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst, said in a recent report. “Instead of giving way to a process of inclusive, accountable development, the military is increasing its economic role, controlling land and seemingly establishing itself as a permanent presence.”

The overall atmosphere of the country is also gloomy, affecting all, including the Sinhalese people in the south. The media, the civil society, the judiciary and the opposition have all been rendered powerless.

” … Human rights groups and opposition leaders warn that the country is descending toward dictatorship, with dissent brutally crushed, the media cowed and the minority Tamils, whose insurrection caused the war in the first place, still treated like second-class citizens,” writer Simon Denyer noted in an article in The Washington Post on July 13.Read More