"Dark triumphalism clouds Sri Lanka", Financial Times

Dark triumphalism clouds Sri Lanka

Put simply, while the conflict has ended, Sri Lanka is careering back to where it was when the conflict began. Its precarious identity as a mix of ethnic and linguistic, cultural and religious influences is in danger of being swept away by a triumphalist wave of Sinhalese chauvinism.

Dark triumphalism clouds Sri Lanka

The government has stepped up its intimidation of dissidents, lawyers and human rights workers as well as journalists. Five doctors who were the sources for the outside world on the final civilian bloodbath in the Tigers’ last redoubt have somehow been persuaded to recant in public, downgrading the number of civilian deaths to a tenth of UN estimates.

Meanwhile, 280,000 Tamils are being held in camps largely sealed off from aid workers. The notion of devolution to deal with Tamil grievances has been taken off the table. The government no longer wishes to discuss minority rights, only individual rights within the new national identity it intends to forge. US and British officials fear this may involve the forced dispersal of Tamils across the island so they can no longer cluster.

Even before last month’s $2.5bn reconstruction loan package from the International Monetary Fund, Mr Rajapaksa’s ability to find new sources of finance, especially from China, had made him relatively immune to international pressure.