A report titled ‘Island of Impunity?’, due to be released later this week by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre’s (PIAC) instructed International Crimes Evidence Project, found that Sri Lankan security forces were responsible for a vast majority of alleged war crimes during the final months of the ethnic conflict.

In what may have been an attempt to destroy evidence, the report also found that the regime had systematically destroyed mass burial sites of civilians.

Reports have emerged that 30 Indian fishermen have been arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy, the day after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa wrote to the Indian Prime Minister conveying her “deep anguish” at the repeated arrests.

The Hindu reported that 30 fishermen were arrested on Monday, bringing the toal number of Indian fishermen held by Sri Lanka to 87.

The New York Times has called on the United States and international community to persevere in holding Sri Lanka to account for human rights violations committed during the final stages of the island’s armed conflict, in an editorial published on Monday. 

The editorial, published as the government prepares lavish celebrations for Sri Lanka’s 66th Independence Day, applauds the recent visit by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs Nisha Biswal, as the United States prepares to bring about third resolution on Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Sri Lankan government, today, refused a visa to the US Ambassador at Large for Women’s Issues, Catherine Russell, who had to cancel a 2 day visit scheduled for February 10.

Responding to the announcement, the US Embassy Spokesman said,

“It is regrettable that the Government of Sri Lanka has refused to grant a visa to Ambassador Catherine Russel for the trip. Ambassador Russell’s mandate is to promote stability, peace and development by empowering women politically, socially and economically around the world.”

Mel Gunasekara, a senior journalist in Sri Lanka has been found murdered today in her home in Battaramulla, according to local reports.

She was a former journalist for the AFP news agency, the founding editor of Lanka Business Online, and an assistant editor of the Sunday Times newspaper.

Rejecting comments made by the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Biswal, following her visit to Colombo and Jaffna, the Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris allegedly said,

The second day of the international conference on the Sri Lankan state’s forcible and militarised procurement of Tamil lands in the Northeast took place in London on Saturday.

The conference, organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils alongside British Tamils Forum, opened with a screening of ‘This Land Belongs to the Army’, a documentary by Tamil Nadu journalist Tamizh Prabhagaran, who was arrested and deported from the island last year. The documentary focused on the extent of militarisation in the Northeast.

Professor Oren Yiftachel of the Ben Gurion University, Israel, delivered a talk examining ethnocracies, saying that they “might have elections and citizenship on paper… but below this facade it is about the expansion of one ethnic group”.

In a panel discussion, Dr Shapan Adnan from Singapore University, pointed out that “army of archaeologists were released [into the Northeast] after war ended, “rediscovering” religious sites” which espoused a “state sponsored rewriting of history”. Dr David Rampton, a fellow of the London School of Economics, asserted that “the international community is only now beginning to comprehend it was Sinhala nationalism that created the dynamic for many of [the island’s] problems”. Dr Jochen Hippler from University of Duisburg-Essen argued that oppression is a useful tool in Sri Lanka’s nation-building project. On the question of genocide, Hippler stated that “Sri Lanka is trying to turn Tamils from a nation into a minority.”

Photograph @kajeepanv

Meeting Nisha Biswal, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs yesterday, Sri Lanka's Minister of External Affairs, G. L. Peiris, warned that “there is a very strong perception of a lack of objectivity and impartiality on the part of the US."

Lamenting what he described as the "woefully inadequate acknowledgement [by the US] of the developments that have taken place [in Sri Lanka]" Peiris alleged that "Sri Lanka has become a soft target".