Tasks Forced

The armed resistance of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ended at Mullivaikkal in 2009, when the army indiscriminately shelled a “no-fire zone” for civilians, killing over forty thousand people, according to some estimates. Eleven years on, the Sri Lankan government and military have not been held accountable for the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and disappeared during the 26-year-long military conflict. The right of Tamils to commemorate the dead and missing remains precarious, not just in Sri Lanka. The government has continued to encroach on Tamil lands and commit violence against the country’s Tamil minority with impunity.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who directed the campaign against the LTTE a decade ago as defence minister, was elected president last year. His brother Mahinda,