Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in May 2009. For years, the lack of accountability for the grave human rights abuses committed during the last phase of the war has seemed for many actors to be the sole issue of concern. Powerful states, international human rights organizations, vocal sections of the Tamil diaspora, alongside some NGOs and courageous activists in the country, brought increasing international pressure to bear on the authoritarian Rajapaksa regime. This culminated in March 2014 when the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) established an investigation into the violations during the war.
The UN report is likely to be released in September. In January 2015, a wide spectrum of Sri Lankan society democratically overthrew the Rajapaksa regime, electing a new government under President Maithripala Sirisena. It is uncertain how it will respond to the UN report and whether it will pursue accountability. What is certain is that the international effort for accountability and the national debate about it have both been deeply politicized. The UN report itself may do little to promote the introspection by both Tamil and Sinhala communities that is so urgently needed to achieve genuine reconciliation.
Geopolitical reasons, particularly the proximity of the Rajapaksa regime to China, led the United States to sponsor the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka. The report it called for was to have been published in March 2015. But when President Sirisena was elected, interventions by powerful western states and India led the UN to delay publication, giving the new government a chance to pursue its own investigations. However, Tamil nationalist sections both in Sri Lanka and in the diaspora vehemently protested even this modest delay.
