The Tamil National People's Front's (TNPF) regional organiser in Kilinochchi has been detained by military intelligence officers said party leader, after officers arrived at the organiser's house this evening, instructing him to accompany them for questioning.

"Kilinochchi Organiser Jega is currently being forced by military [intelligence] to leave his house with them for inquiry," TNPF leader, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam had tweeted earlier this evening stating that they feared he had been detained after he was not answering any calls to his mobile phone.

"TNPF Kilinochchi Organiser Jega has texted party [General Secretary] S Kajendran saying he is currently being taken to Vavuniya by TID [Terrorism Investigation Division]" Mr. Ponnambalam tweeted moments earlier.

Writing in the online site, OpenDemocracy, Sivakami Rajamanoharan, from the Tamil Youth Organisation UK (TYOUK), explains why reconciliation in Sri Lanka continues to fail. 

When Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) called upon literary figures to boycott this year’s Galle Literary Festival, they were undoubtedly prepared to face the ire of the Sri Lankan state. What they would not have anticipated was the angry response provoked from event organisers and a small but prominent group of liberal advocates in Sri Lanka. What was particularly striking about the backlash was the hypocrisy inherent to the arguments about free speech and inter-ethnic harmony marshalled in defence of the GLF.

There appears to be no end to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s pompous self-regard. Having won the election and steam-rolled through the possibility of lifelong presidency, the president, through his ever obliging government, proclaimed the entire week, to be one of festivities, in order to commemorate his swearing in for a second term.

The Sri Lankan government is  apparently abandoning the garment sector if press reports over the weekend are to be believed. Given that the EU has withdrawn its GSP+ concession and the US is investigating its version of GSP, this is perhaps just the government accepting that garments are going to be hard to sell if the country's human rights record is not improved.

We live in an era when the Sri Lankan state is callously trying to eradicate the Tamil nation and its identity within the borders of Sri Lanka, first through mass killings and now the forced Sinhalisation of Tamil homelands.

Over the past year, the cracks in Sri Lanka’s façade of liberal democracy have started to show. Filling them with money, be it through direct aid, encouraging trade or international loans, has obvious appeal. Sri Lanka’s lack of liberalism however, is not due to economic hardship; precisely why economic development will not lead to its salvation.