Sri Lanka’s president on Tuesday ruled out giving Tamils greater political autonomy, appearing to back away from his long-stalled promise to empower the ethnic minority as part of the country’s reconciliation process following a bloody quarter-century civil war.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa made his about-face despite growing international pressure to compromise with the minority and to investigate allegations of war crimes.
Sri Lanka is expected to face questions from the UN Human Rights Council in March on its progress in implementing its own war commission report, which also recommends investigating alleged human rights violations and giving autonomy to Tamils.
The United States has said it will sponsor a resolution at the council for a second straight year on the implementation of the war commission report.
The pressure comes nearly four years after the government, dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, defeated the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, who had been demanding an independent Tamil nation after decades of perceived discrimination. According to a United Nations’ estimate, 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed during the war, which ended in 2009, but other reports suggest it could be much higher.
“When the people live together in unity there are no racial or religious differences,” Rajapaksa said in his independence day speech.