Enter Navi
Louise Arbour, the last UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Sri Lanka, arrived in the country in October 2007, just over a year into the Government’s ‘humanitarian operation’ to liberate the north and east from the Tamil Tigers.
Government forces had recently secured the strategic LTTE base in Thoppigala, flushing the Tigers completely out of the Eastern Province with that major victory. The Sri Lanka Army then headed by Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka was turning its eyes on the LTTE’s major bases of the north, a battle that would last two years more and have lasting effects on the country’s post-conflict narrative.As security forces began the offensives to surround and contain the LTTE to its Wanni stronghold, concern was already rising about the plight of civilians caught in the fighting. When the military overran LTTE bases in Mannar in January 2008, the Army Commander announced that the war would be over in six months.
