Sri Lanka is actively using paramilitary groups in a campaign of terror in Tamil areas, alongside the military’s own harassment of business and civil society activity, to “actively deny the conditions – physical security and societal stability – necessary for a fully fledged post-conflict revival,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in an online comment Thursday. Sri Lanka is opposed to societal revival in the Tamil areas [because] with economic progress and the restoration of normalcy will undoubtedly come renewed Tamil demands for political rights, including greater freedom from Colombo’s rule and stronger links with the "globalised" economy and community, the Tamil Guardian argues.
Extracts of the Tamil Guardian’s comment follow:
“Eighteen months after Colombo declared victory and the end of the armed conflict, Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee and Batticaloa remain places of militarized terror and economic decline.”
“Despite the rhetoric, Sri Lanka has no interest in allowing Tamil entrepreneurship and business to flourish. Instead, the state is seeking to establish a hierarchical economy in which state-backed Sinhala interests dominate the northeastern economy, with the population there serving as little more than a desperate pool of labour for the former’s profits.”
“The only exceptions are the commercial interests of the Tamil paramilitaries such as the EPDP and TMVP through which Colombo continues to keep Tamil areas unstable and insecure.”
“Through the war – and the Norwegian-led peace process – international actors tacitly accepted the government’s use of paramilitaries, as well as their sordid sources of finance, as an integral part of its counter-insurgency against the LTTE.”
“Today these murderous actors are being deployed by the Sri Lankan state, alongside the military’s own harassment of Tamil business and civil society activity to actively deny the conditions – physical security and societal stability – necessary for a fully fledged post-conflict revival.”
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