The Sri Lankan government cannot continue to blame members of the former regime for the lack of progress in furthering accountability said the Global Tamil Forum’s spokesperson Suren Surendiran, in a piece published in Colombo Telegraph on Saturday.

“Barely four months since [the] Government of Sri Lanka internationally committing by co-sponsoring Resolution A/HRC/30/L.29 in Geneva, the U-turn came in spectacular fashion from the highest authority in the country, the President himself,” said Mr Surendiran.

“As if there wasn’t enough trust deficit between communities in Sri Lanka, this major let down, haemorrhaged the trust of Tamils in the new President and in his new coalition government.”

Human rights issues in the Tamil North-East have not yet been settled and the Sri Lankan government is yet to prosecute members of the armed forces responsible for war crimes, said P Ramasamy, the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang.

In a piece entitled “End of war in Sri Lanka, but Tamils still suffering,” the deputy chief minister rebutted the argument that a piece dividend has arrived for the Tamils, stating that “One can hardly talk about the dividends of peace, when major human rights issues concerning the Tamils in the north and east have not been settled yet”.

“The call by international human rights agencies for the Sri Lanka Government to undertake reconciliation measures by accounting for the hundreds of thousands of Tamils who have gone missing, the more than one hundred thousand, mostly innocent women, children and the elderly who were killed during the height of the civil war as well as the rapes and torture inflicted on Tamil women, have not been addressed,” he added.

Mr Ramasamy went on to state,

“The new government of Maithripala Sirisena has failed to punish those responsible for war crimes. Unfortunately, despite calls by international human rights agencies including the United Nations, countries like India and the United States have shown no interest in addressing the human rights violations in Sri Lanka.”

"The war might have ended, but the civilian Tamil population, particularly in the north and east, are being robbed of their properties and land by the Sri Lankan armed forces."

Processes in Sri Lanka towards accountability and justice must keep victims at the centre, said Dharsha Jegatheeswaran in an article for the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s Rights Review Magazine.

Commenting on the erosion of victims’ confidence since UN Resolution 30/1, alongside the government’s reneging on its commitments thereunder, Ms Jegatheeswaran said,

“Initial cautious hopes of Tamil victims and war-affected communities have turned to distrust and skepticism of the government’s intentions as a result of this mixed messaging. This distrust has been further deepened by the government’s failure to undertake any meaningful confidence-building measures and address ongoing human rights violations, including: demilitarizing the North-East; repealing the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and releasing all political prisoners arrested thereunder; returning all illegally acquired lands; and ending a culture of impunity/condonation for sexual violence and torture.”

Could Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary (and brother of previous president Mahinda Rajapaksa), bring the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) together? Evidently a member of the country’s joint opposition has suggested that Rajapaksa be appointed to parliament, the implication being that this move would help to unify a political party that has remained divided since Maithripala Sirisena assumed the presidency in January 2015.