The Tamils of Sri Lanka
THE worries expressed by the United Nations about the fate of two of its employees held without charge in Sri Lanka since last June are a reflection of what may have been going wrong in that country. Since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, certain moves by the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse have given rise to concerns in the international community about whether the administration is really building a structure of peace. The government has won the war. When it vanquished Velupillai Prabhakaran and his LTTE, it was expected that it would move fast and decisively to build a society based on reconciliation between the majority Sinhala and the minority Tamils. That clearly has not happened. As many as 280,000 Tamils, all of them inhabiting areas earlier controlled by the Tamil Tigers, have remained in camps or behind barbed wire in unhygienic, threadbare conditions. All questions of the human rights they are entitled to have been brusquely rejected by the Colombo authorities.
The government's refusal to allow human rights and aid activists as well as the media into the Tamil camps has naturally raised questions about its treatment of the Tamil population. Indeed, much as the Rajapakse administration would like to tell the world it is doing nothing wrong, recent footage about the shooting of captured LTTE men allegedly by Sri Lankan soldiers only makes the case worse for Colombo. Compounding matters is the refusal by the authorities to allow the International Red Cross access to 10,000 Tamils held on suspicion that they used to be part of the LTTE. Only recently, Unicef spokesman James Elder was served with an expulsion order on the charge that his attitude had been pro-LTTE. Worst of all the bad moves made by the government has been the handing down of a 20-year prison sentence to Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam. The journalist, who has been in jail since early last year, has been accused of sympathizing with LTTE rebels and will undergo hard labour in incarceration.
The Sri Lankan authorities are clearly making things difficult for themselves. Their rejection of concerns expressed by governments around the world and their harsh treatment of journalists and aid workers are acts that must be reined in. President Rajapakse stands to be isolated by the global community if he does not move toward building an inclusive society in Sri Lanka. Treating Tamils badly, as in the matter of those in the camps, can only keep alive the very reasons for which Prabhakaran went to war.
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