Rights group says Sri Lanka post-war policies threaten peace

(March 16, 2012) An international human rights group on Friday warned that the militarization of Sri Lanka's former war zone and discrimination against minority ethnic Tamils threaten to lead the island back into violence. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report that there are government moves to change the demographics in what were once Tamil majority areas by sending in ethnic Sinhalese settlers. Sinhalese are the largest ethnic group in the country, wielding the most power in the government, military and business. “By adopting policies that will bring fundamental changes to the culture, demography and economy of the Northern Province, the government of Sri Lanka is sowing the seeds of future violence there,” the International Crisis Group said. Sri Lanka's civil war ended in 2009 when government troops crushed separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, who fought for more than 25 years to create an independent state in the island's north for Tamils after years of discrimination by Sinhalese-controlled governments.
Earlier on Thursday, ethnic Tamil lawmakers in Sri Lanka asked the United Nations Human Rights Council to press the government to investigate alleged wartime abuses and share power with the ethnic minority to prevent the country from sliding back into violence. The United States is planning to bring a resolution before the Human Rights Council, currently meeting in Geneva, urging Sri Lanka's government to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and to seek reconciliation. The ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government has arranged protests across the country against the resolution, which it calls interference in Sri Lanka's affairs. More than 10,000 people marched in the capital to denounce the proposed resolution. Smaller groups met with U.N., British, Norwegian and German officials at embassies to urge them not to support it.