Charles Haviland Sri Lanka Correspondent

In a new report the ICG says Colombo has failed to acknowledge or address ethnic minority Tamil grievances since defeating the Tamil Tigers two years ago.

But a Sri Lankan presidential adviser has rejected the report and accused its authors of arrogance.

The ICG report acknowledges that much has improved with the end of the war.

Wide ranging criticism

But it makes wide-ranging criticisms of Colombo, saying that far from promoting healing, its policies have placed Sri Lanka further than ever from reconciliation.

Accusing President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government of triumphalism, the ICG says minorities are excluded from decisions on their future; elections are being manipulated; and civil society silenced.

It says political activities in the former war areas have been suppressed through what it calls violent and corrupt Tamil proxies.

The Crisis Group says the government should acknowledge that the long war was not only a war against ruthless terrorists but also part of a larger ethnic conflict driven by grievances.

Nonsensical

But a government MP and adviser to the President, Rajiva Wijesinha, described the report as “nonsensical”, saying it was the Tiger rebels that behaved with “exceptional brutality”, deliberately breaking peace agreements.

He said recent elections had been largely seen as fair and that Sri Lankan civil society was far from silent.

Mr Wijesinha accused the International Crisis Group of being preoccupied with what he called “Old Testament retribution” in pursuing accountability for alleged atrocities during the war.