Feb 24, 2016
It has been a confusing couple of weeks for those following Sri Lanka’s delicate progress back towards peace. Sri Lanka’s President gave two perplexing interviews in which he made troubling and factually inaccurate statements about how Sri Lanka is intending to deal with the past. His Prime Minister also made public comments, firstly seeming to contradict him, then seeming to support him. In the midst of all this, a visit from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights came and went with surprising smoothness.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, we attempt to pick through what was said and make sense of it all. What emerges is very worrying for Sri Lanka’s future, but not yet unsalvageable.
What was said
Many comments were made over the last couple of weeks by different people in different languages. It is important to look in detail at what was said and meant on each of these occasions.
