The 26 year old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka ended when president, Mahinda Rajapakse, announced victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels earlier last week. The leader of the LTTE, Prabhakaran, was found dead and a majority of his senior commanders were killed in an epic battle between the rebels and the Sri Lankan Army. The Army has taken a relentless approach to eliminating the rebels at the cost of civilian lives. Although urged to avoid the bloodshed, Rajapakse pressed ahead with his pursuit by explaining that a ceasefire will only slow down the army’s momentum.

With peace coming at such a high cost of human life and tragedy, more stories are emerging from ordinary Tamil civilians who have managed to escape the battlefield. Some of these stories tell of unbelievable cruelty committed by both opponents. The Tamil Tigers are said to have shot civilians as they were fleeing the area, and a much larger proportion of civilians have been killed with the aid of heavy weapons at the hands of the Sri Lankan army. Survivors are held in refugee camps, which were often referred to as ‘concentration camps’ by the rebels because of the poor conditions and limited access granted to aid agencies in an attempt to weed out potential rebel infiltrators. Apparently during battle, army gunmen killed Tamil Tiger leaders as they were waving white flags of truce. Another interesting story tells of the army piling up bodies of dead women and children in the war zones and burning them, as to lessen the verification of civilian deaths. This would explain why independent monitors were refused access to war zones for such a long time. Sri Lanka is basically writing its own history.

The country once titled the pearl of the Indian Ocean, is at the brink of a new era of peace and possible reconciliation between both communities, or so it seems. History has taught us that successive Sri Lankan governments, often backed by Sinhalese extremists, have failed to address the Tamil identity, and as a result alienated them from the rest of the country. One has to acknowledge that a Tamil resistance only emerged after 30 years of ‘state terrorism’, where Tamils have asked for basic human rights and received violent responses from Sinhalese extremists.

The war has left a large fraction of the country’s minorities feeling less Sri Lankan. The president was quick to address this concern, distinguishing between ordinary Tamils and Tigers, stressing that equal rights for all is a reality, not just a concept.

According to Erik Solheim, a Norwegian minister for International development, the lasting solution to this issue is to give up a substantial amount of power to the Tamil people to govern the north-east of the country autonomously. Mr Solheim previously brokered a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, and he understands the obligations and priorities of both parties. The coming months will tell whether this regime is different from its predecessors.

The government’s unjustified military action without any concern for human life has caused a lot of upset with the United Nations and the European Union. Far more worrying is the fact that not a single Sinhalese political figure has openly condemned the deaths of Tamil civilians. Not a single gesture of human compassion has been expressed to the Tamil community by a government that is claiming to care for the well being of all inhabitants of this blood-stained island. Instead, the capital of Colombo was too quick to light its fire crackers in celebration over the victory that is said to bring so called peace to Sri Lanka.

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