Sri Lanka: A Change Agenda, or More of the Same?

Sri Lanka's newly re-elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa wasted no time in using his substantial (if questionable) electoral mandate to send an unequivocal message to his opposition: It's my way, or the highway.

After promptly raiding his opponent's campaign office, arresting 37 people in connection with an alleged assassination plot, and just yesterday arresting the opposition leader himself -- whether such a plot actually existed, the world may never know -- the president was quick to address the long-standing conflict with the country's Tamil minority, hundreds of thousands of whom are still displaced from decades of civil war that finally came to a very violent close last May.

At face value, Mahinda's claim that he has a "responsibility of uniting the hearts of all ethnicities" is welcome. The caveat however, is two-fold: First, he disavowed all foreign engagement in the country's still-fresh post-conflict situation, and second, his track record is one of violent repression of dissent and lethal disregard for the lives of Tamils, much less their social, economic, and political concerns. Last year, intense international pressure was required simply to release 250,000 from camps cut off from journalists and most humanitarian aid. Progress toward sustainable peace and reconciliation has since been notably lacking.

In other words, true progress toward "uniting hearts" will require a complete about-face in Mahinda's approach to the ethnic minority. Many observers worry that a refusal to address the many problems created by the historic marginalization of the Tamils, not to mention over two decades of violent war in which crimes against humanity were committed by both the government and the rebels, will lead Sri Lanka back down the path toward war.

A transformation in Sri Lankan politics and social relations would be more than welcome, but until evidence of this is apparent, skepticism at Mahinda's proclamations should prevail, and the rest of the world shouldn't honor his request to "butt out."

Photo credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.