<p>After days of cowering in a narrow, open trench on a strip of beach in the northeastern corner of Sri Lanka, he was cheered by the sight of Sri Lankan Army soldiers helping wounded and terrified survivors of the last stand of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who had held nearly 3,00,000 Tamil civilians hostage. More than two months later, Theventhran, a 56-year-old Tamil civil servant, finds himself once again a captive, this time of the people who freed him from the Tigers’ grip.<br /><br />“We were liberated,” he said in an interview at one of the sprawling, closed camps set up here to house those displaced in the war against the LTTE. “Now we are prisoners again. I lost everything in this war. The Tigers killed my son. I lost my property. Now I have lost my freedom, too.”<br /><br />Hundreds of thousands of Tamils remain locked in camps almost entirely off limits to journalists, human rights investigators and political leaders. The Sri Lankan government says that the people in the camps are a security risk because Tigers are hiding among them.<br /><br />But diplomats, analysts, aid workers and many Lankans worry that the historic chance to finally bring to a close one of the world’s most enduring ethnic conflicts is slipping away, as the government curtails the rights of Tamil civilians in its efforts to stamp out the last remnants of the Tigers.<br /><br />“The government told these people it would look after them,” said Veerasingham Anandasangaree, a prominent Tamil politician who has been a staunch supporter of the government’s fight against the Tamil Tigers. “But instead they have locked them up like animals with no date certain of when they will be released. This is simply asking for another conflict later on down the road.”<br /><br />‘Rescue mission’<br /><br />The Lankan government has portrayed its final battle against the 26-year insurgency by the Tamil Tigers, which ended in late May with the killing of the group’s leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, as a rescue mission to liberate civilians held hostage by one of the world’s richest and most ruthless armed groups, branded terrorists by governments across the globe.<br /><br />Although many in the camps are grateful to the government for freeing them from rebels, frustration and anger are building as it becomes clear that reconciliation and finding a political solution to the grievances of the Tamils will have to wait.</p>
<p>After days of cowering in a narrow, open trench on a strip of beach in the northeastern corner of Sri Lanka, he was cheered by the sight of Sri Lankan Army soldiers helping wounded and terrified survivors of the last stand of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who had held nearly 3,00,000 Tamil civilians hostage. More than two months later, Theventhran, a 56-year-old Tamil civil servant, finds himself once again a captive, this time of the people who freed him from the Tigers’ grip.<br /><br />“We were liberated,” he said in an interview at one of the sprawling, closed camps set up here to house those displaced in the war against the LTTE. “Now we are prisoners again. I lost everything in this war. The Tigers killed my son. I lost my property. Now I have lost my freedom, too.”<br /><br />Hundreds of thousands of Tamils remain locked in camps almost entirely off limits to journalists, human rights investigators and political leaders. The Sri Lankan government says that the people in the camps are a security risk because Tigers are hiding among them.<br /><br />But diplomats, analysts, aid workers and many Lankans worry that the historic chance to finally bring to a close one of the world’s most enduring ethnic conflicts is slipping away, as the government curtails the rights of Tamil civilians in its efforts to stamp out the last remnants of the Tigers.<br /><br />“The government told these people it would look after them,” said Veerasingham Anandasangaree, a prominent Tamil politician who has been a staunch supporter of the government’s fight against the Tamil Tigers. “But instead they have locked them up like animals with no date certain of when they will be released. This is simply asking for another conflict later on down the road.”<br /><br />‘Rescue mission’<br /><br />The Lankan government has portrayed its final battle against the 26-year insurgency by the Tamil Tigers, which ended in late May with the killing of the group’s leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, as a rescue mission to liberate civilians held hostage by one of the world’s richest and most ruthless armed groups, branded terrorists by governments across the globe.<br /><br />Although many in the camps are grateful to the government for freeing them from rebels, frustration and anger are building as it becomes clear that reconciliation and finding a political solution to the grievances of the Tamils will have to wait.</p>