Word: sri
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...people detained in the welfare centers had no intention of becoming refugees. They all have their documents, families willing to take them in and the means to support themselves. The men worked as fishermen or shopkeepers, and those who fled the fighting by boat paid at least 100,000 Sri Lankan rupees per person (about $876) to escape. "We told all these things to the army commander," says a detainee, who also describes losing count of the number of letters he has written asking to be released. Fearing reprisals by the army, those in the camp ask to remain anonymous...
...Sri Lankan government insists that its human-rights record is excellent compared with that of the Tigers. "In a war situation, you can't stop violating human rights in small ways," says Lakshman Hulugalle, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry. "In Iraq, how many innocent people were killed?" Hulugalle says any concerns raised about the army's practices should also acknowledge the abuses of the LTTE and that there are many. Indeed there are. People from the Vanni say they left home not just to escape the fighting but also to get away from the forced recruitment...
...female suicide bomber killed 28 people, including 20 soldiers, at a screening point for IDPs. This kind of asymmetrical warfare--the LTTE was the global pioneer in the use of suicide bombers--allowed a few thousand fighters to hold their own for decades against the Sri Lankan army's 50,000 soldiers. So the most recent army offensive uses a new strategy. The military clears people from every stretch of territory it captures. Those displaced must either seek shelter deeper in Tiger territory or surrender to government forces, which move them into camps. The result is a sort of scorched...
Such security measures, like the detention camps, have so far prevented the Tigers from taking back Mannar. But this strategy may not be sustainable throughout the Tamil-majority areas of the north and east. The Sri Lankan government holds up the eastern province of the nation as a model of postconflict governance; the army took control of the area in 2007, and the government held local elections last year. But even in the east, 50 civilians were killed in November alone, according to local media, in violence involving two former Tiger factions as well as military and paramilitary forces. This...
Though many outside Sri Lanka have called for a political settlement, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has staked his leadership on a military defeat of the LTTE. Since taking office in 2005, he has redefined the conflict as a "war on terrorism" and cast himself as a son of the soil, a loyal defender of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. "The average Sinhalese person trusts him," says Saravanamuttu. "He's seen very much as a man of the people." The war has the overwhelming support of Sri Lanka's rural heartland in the south, and Rajapaksa is unlikely to seek a truce when...