Below are extracts from a frontline Sri Lankan soldier’s eye witness account of what happened in the final days of the war in May 2009 (see Channel 4's report here):

"When I look at it as an outsider I think they're simply brutal beasts. Their hearts are like that of animals, with no sense of humanity.”

A Sri Lanka Army officer has given Channel 4 his account of how, following orders from Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the commander of the 58 Division, Brigadier Shavendra Silva (now Major General) gathered his officers in the closing days of the war and ordered them to take no prisone

Tamil youths in London, Paris and Sydney marked the anniversary of ‘Black July’ with activities to raise public awareness of the mass killings of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

British Tamils held a candle light vigil Saturday evening opposite the Prime Minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street, to remember victims of Sri Lanka’s 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom.

Based on a speech at the  vigil in London on July 23, 2011 to remember the victims of Black July.

Every year, for 28 years, the Tamil people and our friends across the world have come together in July to remember a crucial turning point in our history. Black July was the largest and most significant of Sri Lanka’s pogroms, more horrific and unrestrained in its violence than the Nazis’ Kristallnacht.

“The resounding victory consolidates the Tamil National Alliance's status as an authentic representative of ethnic Tamils in negotiations with Rajapaksa's ethnic majority Sinhalese-controlled government in sharing political power and postwar rehabilitation. The party had appealed to voters to give it a mandate to demand self-rule in the Tamil-majority areas.”

From the Associated Press:

Sri Lankan Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage told AP while campaigning in Kilinochchi: This election victory "is of value to the government.  ..It will enable us to tell the world that we have won the confidence of the Tamil people after winning the war."

A ‘top official’ in Sri Lanka’s External Affairs ministry is quoted as saying the Clinton- Jayalalithaa meeting Wednesday had not been as consequential as Colombo had feared.

“It is not as bad as we expected,” the official told the Daily Mirror.

He said the ministry had been alert to any ‘negative fallout’ from the meeting in Chennai, and had expected a stronger statement than Ms. Clinton had made.