POLICY PAPER

Last May, Sri Lankan soldiers captured the final piece of land held by the separatist Tamil Tigers, killing hundreds of rebel fighters, including the group's leader, and definitively ending a 26-year civil war that claimed as many as 100,000 lives.

On May 19, the first anniversary of the war's end, however, there is little to celebrate. As many as 93,000 Tamils remain in detention camps and transit centers, while 11,700 more (of which 550 are children) are being held as ex-combatants without charges, denied access to an attorney or their families. Conditions in the camps and prisons are appalling, with human rights groups documenting cases of torture and rape, in addition to poor housing, health, sanitation, and education facilities.

The end of the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka in May 2009 has provided a vital opportunity for the United States to re-evaluate its policy toward Sri Lanka to better reflect both the policies of the Obama Administration and evolving US policy in the region. Sri Lanka begins this period of post-war reconstruction facing stark choices about the future. The Rajapaksa government can either take difficult but essential steps forward to become a stable, prosperous, inclusive democracy that can be a reliable strategic ally in an important area of the world, or they can make the choice to consolidate executive power, continue to disenfranchise Sri Lankan citizens, and leave themseleves with an increasingly thin list of allies in the world.