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The Commonwealth heads of government meeting will focus on unity in a country still suffering from fragmentation
When the sun goes down over Jaffna, the northern Sri Lankan town dominated by the island nation's Tamil minority, the streets empty. Even the ubiquitous rickshaws disappear. Habits learned through 26 years of brutal civil conflict die hard.
But in the busy city of Colombo, where the Commonwealth heads of government meeting will open on Friday, wartime worry has long gone. All night, luxury cars drop off the city's party people outside the Cinnamon Grand hotel, where David Cameron and other heads of state will stay during the summit. New restaurants open every week.
The contrast is typical of Sri Lanka which, despite its external image as an island paradise, has long been a deeply divided nation in a fractured region. The many splits fissure the country. Even the Tamil minority is divided by history, by caste, by political allegiance.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, now in his eighth year of power, has benefited from this fragmentation.
Mutual suspicion between the largely Hindu Tamils and the largely Buddhist Sinhala majority is still deep. Rajapaksa, with his brother as defence secretary, won a crushing military victory over the brutal Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. An inscription on one war memorial in the northern town of Kilinochchi, once the LTTE headquarters, reads: "Terrorism shall never rise again in our great land. We are free." It is much photographed by Sinhala tourists who are often visiting the north for the first time. They dismiss as "foreign propaganda" charges that Rajapaksa allowed or even encouraged the Sri Lankan military to kill thousands of civilians in indiscriminate bombardments and summary executions in the bloody closing phase of the war, and describe the president as a hero.
Few of the Tamils who live in and around the town agree. The memorial was opened by Namal, Rajapaksa's 27-year-old son, an MP tipped as a future minister and his father's political heir. "I feel angry just looking at it," said one farmer, who did not want to be named.
Another division is between the rural areas and the often western-educated, Colombo-based political elite that ran the country for decades. Rajapaksa's folksy, gruff bonhomie and his canny direction of development funds to the countryside has paid dividends at successive polls. So too has his encouragement of a set of newly wealthy entrepreneurs who have taken on more established businessmen. Though born to a political family, Rajapaksa is from the deep south and plays up his outsider status. This, along with the victory over the LTTE and sustained economic growth since the end of the war, has sustained popular support.
But the power of the Rajapaksas is bolstered through other means too. Since the end of the war, there have been scores of abductions of critics of the government. Prageeth Eknaligoda, a cartoonist, disappeared two days before presidential polls in January 2010. Activists and unionists are intimidated. Independent newspaper editors face threats and violence. More recently there has been an upsurge in sectarian violence – another fracture line. Muslims have suffered attacks from hardline Buddhist groups that appear to have some tacit backing from figures within the government.
Sri Lankan officials privately admit "excesses", but claim these are inevitable and will cease as the country stabilises. They deny any "unconstitutional actions" and say it's economic growth that will bring reconciliation between the nation's 22 million inhabitants, not international pressure. Some talk of the necessity of a period of "firm rule". In September Rajapaksa told the United Nations General Assembly of his concern at "the growing trend in the international arena of interference by some in the internal matters of developing countries in the guise of security, and guardians of human rights.".
But Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, has expressed concern about growing authoritarianism, and critics such as the Colombo human rights lawyer JC Weliamuna accuse the Rajapaksas of "state capture". Analysts say that Sri Lankan politics have always been a "zero-sum game", but the current government is going further than others have before.
This weekend the emphasis will be on unity and reconciliation within Sri Lanka and between Commonwealth members. Stephen Harper of Canada, who has been strongly critical of the Sri Lankan government's human-rights record, and Manmohan Singh of India, who fears angering Indian Tamils five months before a possible general election, will be absent. The breakfast meetings, cocktails, roundtables and press conferences will all be without incident. But the country and the organisation will remain divided. And the streets of Jaffna will remain empty after dark.
Sri Lanka may have peace, but fears of authoritarianism still linger | World news | The Guardian
When the sun goes down over Jaffna, the northern Sri Lankan town dominated by the island nation's Tamil minority, the streets empty. Even the ubiquitous rickshaws disappear. Habits learned through 26 years of brutal civil conflict die hard.
But in the busy city of Colombo, where the Commonwealth heads of government meeting will open on Friday, wartime worry has long gone. All night, luxury cars drop off the city's party people outside the Cinnamon Grand hotel, where David Cameron and other heads of state will stay during the summit. New restaurants open every week.
The contrast is typical of Sri Lanka which, despite its external image as an island paradise, has long been a deeply divided nation in a fractured region. The many splits fissure the country. Even the Tamil minority is divided by history, by caste, by political allegiance.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, now in his eighth year of power, has benefited from this fragmentation.
Mutual suspicion between the largely Hindu Tamils and the largely Buddhist Sinhala majority is still deep. Rajapaksa, with his brother as defence secretary, won a crushing military victory over the brutal Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. An inscription on one war memorial in the northern town of Kilinochchi, once the LTTE headquarters, reads: "Terrorism shall never rise again in our great land. We are free." It is much photographed by Sinhala tourists who are often visiting the north for the first time. They dismiss as "foreign propaganda" charges that Rajapaksa allowed or even encouraged the Sri Lankan military to kill thousands of civilians in indiscriminate bombardments and summary executions in the bloody closing phase of the war, and describe the president as a hero.
Few of the Tamils who live in and around the town agree. The memorial was opened by Namal, Rajapaksa's 27-year-old son, an MP tipped as a future minister and his father's political heir. "I feel angry just looking at it," said one farmer, who did not want to be named.
Another division is between the rural areas and the often western-educated, Colombo-based political elite that ran the country for decades. Rajapaksa's folksy, gruff bonhomie and his canny direction of development funds to the countryside has paid dividends at successive polls. So too has his encouragement of a set of newly wealthy entrepreneurs who have taken on more established businessmen. Though born to a political family, Rajapaksa is from the deep south and plays up his outsider status. This, along with the victory over the LTTE and sustained economic growth since the end of the war, has sustained popular support.
But the power of the Rajapaksas is bolstered through other means too. Since the end of the war, there have been scores of abductions of critics of the government. Prageeth Eknaligoda, a cartoonist, disappeared two days before presidential polls in January 2010. Activists and unionists are intimidated. Independent newspaper editors face threats and violence. More recently there has been an upsurge in sectarian violence – another fracture line. Muslims have suffered attacks from hardline Buddhist groups that appear to have some tacit backing from figures within the government.
Sri Lankan officials privately admit "excesses", but claim these are inevitable and will cease as the country stabilises. They deny any "unconstitutional actions" and say it's economic growth that will bring reconciliation between the nation's 22 million inhabitants, not international pressure. Some talk of the necessity of a period of "firm rule". In September Rajapaksa told the United Nations General Assembly of his concern at "the growing trend in the international arena of interference by some in the internal matters of developing countries in the guise of security, and guardians of human rights.".
But Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, has expressed concern about growing authoritarianism, and critics such as the Colombo human rights lawyer JC Weliamuna accuse the Rajapaksas of "state capture". Analysts say that Sri Lankan politics have always been a "zero-sum game", but the current government is going further than others have before.
This weekend the emphasis will be on unity and reconciliation within Sri Lanka and between Commonwealth members. Stephen Harper of Canada, who has been strongly critical of the Sri Lankan government's human-rights record, and Manmohan Singh of India, who fears angering Indian Tamils five months before a possible general election, will be absent. The breakfast meetings, cocktails, roundtables and press conferences will all be without incident. But the country and the organisation will remain divided. And the streets of Jaffna will remain empty after dark.
Sri Lanka may have peace, but fears of authoritarianism still linger | World news | The Guardian
