[Washington Times]

Sri Lanka will hold accountable every person accused of war crimes during its decades-long civil conflict, the island nation’s ambassador to the U.S. says.

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[Journal of Foreign Relations]

Led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, post-war Sri Lanka is a sad place. In May of 2009, the Sri Lankan government achieved a resounding military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[AFP]

Voters in Sri Lanka’s capital went to the polls on Saturday to elect a local municipal council, in a contest widely seen as a mid-term test for President Mahinda Rajapakse.

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[Al Jazeera]

Almost 2,000 former rebel fighters in Sri Lanka have been released. They were among thousands of Tamil Tigers who surrendered or were arrested near the end of the country’s bloody civil war, which spanned more than a quarter of a century. At a ceremony to announce their release, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said, called on the 1,800 former fighters to move forward and work together with the government in the future. Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez reports from the capital, Colombo.

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[Reuters]

Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils say President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s post-war development and infrastructure projects in the former war zone in the island’s north have yet to address their real concerns and have not excluded their participation.

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[AFP]

Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapakse has cited constitutional immunity and refused to go before a US court where he is being sued for $30 million over the killing of a Tamil man, an official said Sunday.

A US-based Tamil lobby had filed the case claiming damages from him as commander-in-chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces for the alleged killing of Raghiar Manoharan, a member of the island’s ethnic Tamil minority.

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[The Independent]

The news that the Sri Lankan government has rejected Gordon Brown’s appointment of the former defence secretary Des Browne as special envoy comes as little surprise to anyone who has been following the situation there. The Sri Lankan government has become increasingly paranoid and defensive about all matters relating to the vicious civil war being waged in the north of the island. For years this conflict continued with very little outside involvement and the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) were able to establish a de facto independent state-within-a-state, with their capital at Kilinochchi. A year ago, the Sri Lankan government unilaterally withdrew from the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire, and under the leadership of its hawkish President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, embarked on this current campaign which seems to be reaching its climax.

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[Reuters]

The United States and Britain urged a temporary cease-fire in Sri Lanka to evacuate casualties and allow relief into the war zone as the Island nation celebrates independence from colonial ruler Britain on Wednesday. President Mahinda Rajapaksa was due to preside at a parade of military might in the capital on Wednesday morning that will include fighter jets flying overhead and attack boats sailing by to mark the 61st independence anniversary. The military was on high alert as troops surround the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 300-sq-km (115 sq- mile) slice of jungle in the Indian Ocean island’s northeast, aiming to end a war that started in 1983.

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[The Sunday Times]

MORE than 250,000 terrified Tamil men, women and children were trapped between rebel Tamil forces and the army in no man’s land in northern Sri Lanka last night as the 25-year civil war appeared to be nearing a violent conclusion. A 48-hour ceasefire was due to end after the government promised to eliminate terrorism once and for all. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, vowed that there would be no let-up in the army’s offensive. The International Committee of the Red Cross said a humanitarian crisis was unfolding and described horrific conditions in the conflict zone… Although the government has issued statements saying that it will not injure civilians, I know how hollow they sound to those caught up in the fighting because I have encountered the Sri Lankan army.

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[Economist]

THE good that men do is not always interred with their bones. This week saw the publication of a remarkable posthumous column by Lasantha Wickrematunge, a Sri Lankan newspaper editor. He had written it in anticipation of his own murder. That duly came on January 8th, when gunmen on motorcycles shot him on his way to work in the capital, Colombo. He was a brave campaigning journalist. And like too many brave campaigning journalists in Sri Lanka, he is now dead. But at least from the grave he has left an eloquent warning to the government, led by a man he called ‘friend’, President Mahinda Rajapaksa…

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