“Just as in Kosovo if enough civilians died in Sri Lanka the world would be forced to step in” – Pulidevan of LTTE to a pal in Europe (quoted in Harrison 2012: 63).

Guided by a series of studies that I have indulged in over the years 2010-15, let me summarize my findings in point form. The focus is on the period 2008-to-May 2009. However, four facets of the broad historical context must be stressed initially: (I) Prabhākaran had one goal only: Eelam and a separate state; (II) the LTTE used two ceasefire periods in 1995 and 2001-06 as recuperating periods for renewal of their war effort; (III) as Ben Bavinck and the UTHR reports have insisted Thamilīlamunder the Prabhākaran was a fascist state; and (IV) the Rajapaksa government which struggled for survival against the LTTE proved the validity of the Marxist dictum that there is an unity in any contradiction: it became distinctly authoritarian itself, albeit still populist in its self-convictions.

The Chairman of Sri Lanka’s three-member probe commission says that certain isolated incidents that may have occurred outside the activities of the war should be investigated in depth to come to conclusion. 

He said that whether to permit foreign involvement in the mechanism, more than observing, is a political decision. “Those are political decisions we never wanted to tread,” Maxwell Paranagama told Ada Derana in an interview. 

The Commission of Inquiry that probed Abductions and Disappearances (better known as the Maxwell Paranagama Commission) has found that it was the LTTE which killed majority of Tamil civilians during the last 12 hours of the final stage of the war, according to the commission report tabled in Parliament yesterday.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe tabled the Maxwell Paranagama Commission report and the Udalagama Commission report along with the UNHRC report on alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

A Parliamentary ‘debate’ on the OHCHR report and the related resolution is scheduled for the 22^nd and 23^rd of October, if I’m not mistaken.  All indications are that the Government will trounce the opposition by branding them ‘extremists.’  (By ‘opposition’ what I mean are those who see the OHCHR report as inimical to Sri Lanka’s interests, and want to resist the related recommendation for a ‘Domestic Mechanism.’)

The opposition, meanwhile, seems to lack a coherent and focused plan of action.  Their strategy appears to consist mainly of various efforts at informing the public that the predicament Sri Lanka faces at present is really bad (i.e. similar to 1815 or worse) which is all true, but hardly useful if what one wants is a practical way to address the said predicament.