Writing in Himal, the BBC's South Asia foreign correspondent, Charles Haviland, shares his recent experiences in the North-East.

Extracts reproduced below, see full article here.

"In Kilinochchi, right by the road, half a dozen soldiers, supervised by an officer, scrupulously tended to a huge monument (see photo) to the government’s war victory. One soldier snipped at the grass with scissors.

Its centrepiece is a massive concrete cube representing the Tamil Tigers’ violent insurrection, pierced and cracked by a large bullet said to symbolise the ‘sturdiness of the invincible Sri Lankan army’, and topped with a ‘flower of peace’.

The adjacent tablet says President Mahinda Rajapakse was ‘born for the grace of the nation’.

While we were there, a busload of Sinhalese tourists from the highlands, including a Buddhist monk, arrived to gaze admiringly at the monument before continuing on their way. By contrast, few local Tamil people seem to visit. One told us he finds the monument insulting, bombastic.

The same sharply contrasted emotions apply in places where the military and the government have simply razed LTTE cemeteries and constructed new buildings – including at least one military base – on top of them."

"Clusters of soldiers went by on tractors and, with extraordinary regularity, there were neat, manicured army camps and signs showing how northern Sri Lanka is divided up: Welcome to 66 Division, Welcome to 561 Brigade. For how much longer will the north remain essentially one huge garrison? For a lot longer, it seems."

"There are a few large, white Buddhist dagobas – stupas – some of them newly put up. A politically conscious Tamil might tell you there are too many. A Sinhalese will tell you absolutely not: Why shouldn’t the security forces have their Buddhist places of worship? In Sri Lanka, nothing can be seen in isolation from politics, from the war, from the often conflicting worldviews of the different ethnic identities.

Haviland concluded,

"A curious journey indeed, and one capped by the ex-rebels playing a cricket match against a team including the former Sri Lanka captain and now government MP, Sanath Jayasuriya. The former Tigers won. It must have been a sweet victory indeed."