What the world is reading

With the Tigers contributing to the humanitarian crisis,their defeat can ‘only be a good thing’. However,the Lankan government’s actions lead an apprehensive international community to believe ‘it has something to hide’. A democracy like Sri Lanka is expected to act more responsibly—it must protect its civilians and defend the interests of the country’s Tamil minority,says the writer. 

The Guardian/

Lanka must now listen to its friends 

In its ‘all-out push to end the war once and for all’,the Rajapaksa government has made three fundamental mistakes. One,the author writes,‘legitimately elected governments are expected to behave better than insurgent or terrorist groups’. Another,the government’s belief that a military solution was possible,or even desirable,is misplaced. And third,the government’s belief that the country could go it alone,defying international opinion and law,is flawed. The George Bush administration’s and the Israeli government’s moral justification for every war they waged was shredded in the eyes of the world and so maybe the case with Lanka now. And though Rajapaksa may win an early presidential election,he will ‘struggle to win the peace’.

Times Online/

Innocence crushed by two guilty forces 

Long inaccurately described as a war between Tamils and Sinhalese,the crisis in Sri Lanka is actually ‘a war of the armed against the unarmed’. Holding the government and the Tigers equally responsible for the humanitarian crisis in the island nation,the author says,‘One more civilian life lost is unbearable as it is unnecessary and inexcusable’. The LTTE can no more claim to be the protectors of Tamil rights given their complicity in civilian slaughter. And the Rajapaksa government with its ‘atrocious human rights record’ should be given no right to ‘detain’ fleeing Tamil civilians in ‘so-called welfare camps’. The government’s efforts at rebuilding a just and pluralistic country ‘must begin in the no-fire zone,and the world must hold all to account’.

The Independent/Victory will be hollow without constitutional reforms 

The misery of the Tamil civilians has largely been ignored and the response of the international community has lacked collective will. The war headed towards its ‘bloody denouement’ may end the LTTE,but does not guarantee the end of terrorism in Sri Lanka. While the government’s ‘desperate bid for an endgame’ is understandable,what is needed is a package of constitutional reforms that offer Tamils ‘real’ rights and an ‘effective’ share in power. Otherwise,‘an aggrieved minority at home and an embittered diaspora abroad will ensure that peace remains elusive in Sri Lanka’.

The Telegraph/Sri Lanka’s war may finally be over,but no one is celebrating 

The manner in which this ‘perpetual tragedy’—that is ‘beyond diplomacy and politics’ and of late ‘beyond the care of the rest of the world’—is unfolding reveals two facts: the LTTE can no more claim to represent genuine Tamil anger and the government seems to be wasting a ‘historic opportunity to draw ordinary Tamil civilians into the country’s mainstream’. The government’s gambling may help keep terrorism at bay,but it also throws up another possibility—’a humiliated,invaded and displaced people’ may take to terrorism if their grievances continue to go unheard. With a hard-hit economy,Rajapaksa may consider a generous political settlement.