Human Rights Watch’s anti-Sinhalese agenda once again on display:

A US State Department report on possible violations of the laws of war in Sri Lanka made public on October 22, 2009 shows the need for an independent international investigation, Human Rights Watch said today. The report details violations of the laws of war committed by both government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from January through May 2009.

“The US State Department report should dispel any doubts that serious abuses were committed during the conflict’s final months,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Given Sri Lanka’s complete failure to investigate possible war crimes, the only hope for justice is an independent, international investigation.”

Note how they cleverly mask their partisan, one-sided agenda behind a pretense of criticizing both sides in a fair-minded way. Very insidious.

Kevin Drum makes a key point about the apparent defeat of the Tamil Tigers:

And now the hardest part: can the Sinhalese majority bring itself to treat the defeated Tamil minority charitably after a quarter century of brutal war and nearly 100,000 deaths? Stay tuned.

Insurgencies, even when defeated, oftentimes have a way of coming back. Anti-Russian insurgents in Chechnya, for example, have been active on-and-off for about 200 years. Lasting resolution of the situation will require a measure of real reconciliation and wise magnanimity. “With malice toward none, with charity toward all,” and that sort of thing.