“I don’t believe merely having the President changed at the top is going to solve anything. But merely removing the individual at the top, without the prospective new President having concrete proposals to solve the Tamil national question, is not going to be a ‘Regime Change’ but merely a ‘Personality Change.’ Such an exercise is going to be irrelevant to the Tamils.”

“So far we are yet to see all the prospective common opposition candidates saying anything on the ethnic question and what they see as a solution,”

Ryan Goodman, Professor of Law and Co-Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law has called on the United States to prosecute Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for war crimes, highlighting various laws that the administration may be able to pursue charges against the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary.

Writing in Just Security this week, Goodman stated that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a US citizen, could face charges under the War Crimes Act of 1996, as well as coming under investigation from other agencies for immigration fraud and possible tax evasion.

Goodman added that the Justice Department could also consider pursuing civil liability, for charges such as “torture committed by a US citizen abroad of foreign nationals” and witness tampering.

His piece is the second in a series arising out of a presentation he made to a US Congressional briefing earlier this year.

See his full opinion piece here.

11:19 BST

Journalists protested today in Jaffna, against the ongoing media repression of press in the island's North. 

Carrying placards calling for an end on the war against the media, Tamil journalists together with locals and Tamil politicians, staged a protest by the main bus stand in Jaffna at 12pm local time.

Photograph Tamil Guardian

The protest was organised by the Jaffna Press Club (JPC), and endorsed by journalists from the South.

"Even after the armed conflict in the North has ceased, as the intimidation of journalists has increased, many journalists are fleeing the country having received death threats. Meanwhile, those journalists who continue to work on the ground, continue to have death threats sent to them. In these circumstances, the media community is gripped with fear over the dangers that journalism is going to face in coming days," said the JPC said in a statement published shortly after the protest.