The all-pervasive climate of terror being engineered in the Jaffna peninsula is intended to stifle the revival of Tamil political and economic activity there.

The brutal killings, abductions, ‘disappearances’ and intimidation are not random or manifestations of ‘lawlessness’, but a deliberate campaign of targeted violence with specific political and economic goals.

The wave of terror in Jaffna by Sri Lanka Army-backed paramilitaries serves to undermine planned international efforts to restore normalcy in the peninsula.

The doubling of Sri Lanka’s main stock market index in 2010 has led to some effusive news reports, most recently in The Guardian. Inevitably, these reports have been lauded in Sri Lanka’s state-owned press, alongside its own hype.

But, as other recent analysis shows, these reports make two mistaken assumptions: [1] that the index’s rise is entirely due to fundamental improvement in the stocks, and [2] that the market is indicative of the wider economy’s progress.

Firstly, the index has been driven up by Sri Lankan government buying, while foreigners are exiting. Secondly, the Colombo bourse is unrepresentative of the wider economy.

This is what the Sri Lankan Sunday Times’ economic column warned last October about the mistaken presumption:

“There is little doubt that the recent [stock] market performance is not directly related to either economic performance or market fundamentals. It has been guided by market sentiments, speculation and government intervention.”

(See the full text of the cable here, and a summary of the sex-related crimes it outlines here.)

Tamil paramilitaries ran prostitution rings for Sri Lankan troops in government-controlled parts of the Northeast, and child sex trafficking rings using their networks in India and Malaysia, and they did so with the knowledge and support of the Sri Lankan government, the US cable revealed.

Article 7, para (g), of the Rome Statute lists “rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as crimes against humanity "when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population."

The US cable leak comes on the tenth anniversary of the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which specifically addresses the impact of conflict, particularly sexual violence, on women and girls.

The below report looks at the international legal context of the sexual crimes described in the US cable, Colombo's response, and some of the past documentation of rape by the Sri Lanka's armed forces.