The international rules of war decree that warring parties have an obligation to protect religious sites. However, in the context of the Sri Lanka’s majoritarian drive, non-Buddhist sites have in fact been the targets and objectives of military campaigns.

Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a "hell-disaster".

But we have used these parallels before and they have drifted away in the Tigris breeze. Iraq is swamped in blood. Yet what is the state of our remorse? Why, we will have a public inquiry – but not yet! If only inadequacy was our only sin.

Despite the biblical injunction not to answer fools, an exception can be made for you, Mr. Ambassador.

You may deny it for all you are worth, the Tamils of Sri Lanka comprise a nation. There is ample evidence to show that the Tamils have lived in the island for centuries. The Tamils have preserved a language, religion and culture with which they are identified. It is a fact of history that there are two nations in the island – the Tamils and the Sinhalese.

Based on field trip between 10 and 14 December 2007, the author continues to query the much heralded liberation of the East in this the third of a three part series.

Dear Friends,

I want to share my experience at the Hillary Clinton campaign speech in Houston, Texas on March 3rd.

It was a very well attended event. President Clinton gave a half hour speech mainly on the economy and the future of the country. My husband and I displayed placards that we prepared and took to the event.

We were at a vantage point from where the President could easily spot us and as he was being introduced by a fellow politician, Bill Clinton looked toward us, read the messege on the placard and gave a "thumbs-up".

Why has this conflict proven impossible to ‘resolve’?

Reacting to Kosovo's declaration of independence, Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United Nations warns his government: never withdraw the armed forces from the Tamil areas and never permit a foreign presence in the country

Demands for self-rule and independence stem not from isolationist tendencies, but a desperation to escape state repression.

Imagine a country whose greatest asset truly is its people. A country in which over a third of its citizens speak fluently one or more of English, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Creole, Zulu and many more, in addition to speaking the worlds oldest living classical language, Tamil.

A country with one of the highest literacy rates in the world, which has for decades exported professionals – doctors, teachers, scientists, engineers, accountants, computer programmers - as far a-field as Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, much of Africa.

They lay lifeless. Row by row, lines upon lines, bodies of young Tamil women draped in cloths, as horrified family members search frantically for their daughters, nieces and sisters, fearing the next covering they lift up will expose the face of their loved one. I was disgusted. Disgusted with myself, disgusted with what the world had become. I was at disgust with myself, for I was behind a computer screen, in the safety of my own home. A home in a first world nation that does not have to face such conflicts. I turned my speakers off thinking without sound these images of absolute sadness would be bearable.