Last updated 00:49 GMT 16 Nov 2013 Cameron meets Uthayan journalists in Jaffna British Prime Minister David Cameron made a historic visit to Jaffna on Friday, during which he met with journalists and staff at the Uthayan newspaper, displaced people at a refugee camp and Tamil political leaders. Mr. Cameron pointedly left the much vaunted Commonwealth summit just after it was officially launched to travel to Jaffna, having arrived in Colombo the previous night from his visit to India. He is the first foreign leader since 1948 to visit Jaffna, once Sri Lanka’s second wealthiest city after Colombo, before decades of armed conflict and discriminatory state policies. Jaffna has been under government control since 1995. The symbolic move boosted Tamil morale in a city gripped by an all pervasive military presence which prevents many from resettling in their army-occupied homes and terrorises political, civil society and media activity. It also infuriated the Sri Lankan government, particularly his planned visit to the Uthayan, press reports said. Mr. Cameron flew to Jaffna by military plane, after the Sri Lankan government cancelled all flights to the north earlier this week, to be confronted by what he later described as "incredibly powerful" images. The first of these came at the outset of his visit, when Mr. Cameron's vehicle and those of accompanying British journalists were mobbed by relatives of people ‘disappeared’ by Sri Lankan security forces in Jaffna, desperate to seek his help in locating the missing. Mr. Cameron had been meet in the library with Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, accompanied by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan and TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran. Police struggled to hold back hundreds of people waiting for the Premier to arrive, and as his convoy left the library, they broke through the cordon to thrust pictures of their loved ones against vehicle windows, Britain’s ITV reported . Others pressed photographs and petitions into the hands of the foreign journalists. See below a video of the chaotic scenes taken by The Telegraph journalists from inside their vehicle. Saro Sripavan, mother of three, told The Hindu she has been looking for her husband for seven years now. “He was working as manager in a cooperative society and went missing in 2006. Till date, I have no information about him,” she said, looking at his photograph. “Every time someone important comes to Jaffna, we all assemble and try to highlight our concern, but ultimately I know only I have to look for my father,” said her son Sripavan Daneesh, who works as a sales executive. Speaking to Tamil Guardian later in the evening, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), reflected on what he had seen at the protest through out the day. "They [relatives of the disappeared] have lost it all and have nothing else left to lose," said Mr. Ponnambalam, "but they still hope, because that is all that they can do and t hat is what drew them out in such numbers, despite the security forces." He explained, "the agony and pain that the parents, children and relatives of the disappeared and those surrendered does not end here. What we saw today was a transcendental agony which forms part of their daily existence." Describing the moment when hundreds of protesters rushed forwards and broke through the police blockade, Mr Ponnambalam said, "even the security forces could not contain their pain." "Despite so many broken promises by the world and its leaders, these people still come for these protests hoping that one day they will be able to hear about their loved ones whether dead or alive." Mr. Cameron was also confronted by a state-sponsored demonstration condemning international pressure over Sri Lanka’s war crimes. (See the BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson’s revealing report here ).

Updated: 18:25 GMT British Prime Minister David Cameron clashed with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today, after an hour long direct meeting where allegations of war crimes were discussed, reported the BBC. Cameron had said after the meeting that he had "pressed his points very directly and robustly" with Rajapaksa, calling for a "truth-telling" process to take place and for an investigation into the final months of the armed conflict. The Prime Minister had also reportedly discussed the No Fire Zone documentary, which he had said last week contained "chilling" scenes and warranted a...

As India’s External Affairs Minister arrived for the CHOGM summit today, he sought to underplay the significance of the Indian Prime Minister’s absence. Manmohan Singh was forced to withdraw in response to concerted political pressure from Tamil Nadu where the State Assembly has unanimously passed two resolutions demanding an Indian boycott. Whilst Tamil Nadu insists that India must make justice for the Tamils central to its policy in Sri Lanka, Delhi thinks otherwise. Wedded to an out of date Cold War framework in which great power interests are calibrated by spheres of influence, and subsequently driven by paranoia about Chinese investments in the region, it desperately seeks influence in Sri Lanka and is willing to collude with Colombo’s crimes to that end. But this conciliatory approach is bound to fail. The central obstacle to Indian interests on the island is the Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian order that produced the Rajapaksa presidency. Until India works to undermine and contain this, it will not be able to realise any of its commercial, political or diplomatic objectives on the island.

Writing in the Tamil Guardian today, Britain’s Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, said Premier David Cameron, having rejected calls, including by the Labour Party, to boycott this week’s Commonwealth summit in Colombo, should now ensure Sri Lanka is not permitted to chair the Commonwealth for the next two years. The full text of Mr. Miliband’s opinion follows: The Prime Minister flies to a summit in Colombo today amidst growing and continuing concerns about Sri Lanka’s human rights record after two decades of civil war. An estimated 40,000 civilians died in that brutal conflict and yet there has still been no investigation into allegations of war crimes because the Sri Lankan government has so far refused to carry one out. Instead of making progress, the situation in Sri Lanka seems to be getting worse. Last month, Britain's cross-party foreign affairs select committee criticised the scant evidence of progress in political and human rights.