Harshula
Introduction: The war on the battle field may be over, but the propaganda war is alive and well. The Australian news media, particularly the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, were in an uncontrollable frenzy two weeks before CHOGM by the predictable lobbying against Sri Lanka. There are legitimate issues that Australia will raise with Sri Lanka during CHOGM 2011. Unfortunately, these publicity stunts may derail or overshadow those conversations and harden the stance of some of the non-Western members of the Commonwealth. The first was John Dowd’s submission of a brief of evidence to the Australian Federal Police. It was timed conveniently just prior to the questioning by the Greens Senator, Lee Rhiannon, at the Senate Estimates hearings. The other was the war crimes charges by Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, also known as Jegan Waran, against Mahinda Rajapaksa. The latter is frivolous and vexatious, but the former may be of interest to researchers, if made public.
For the rest see http://jayasolutions.com/slreport/sl-Australia-Tamil-Eelam-lobby.html
Looking from mid point view the action of the army or for that matter the government could be seen as the sinhala proverb “Ginipenellan bata ka miniha kalamadiriyatath bayay” (the person who struck by a fire-brand is scared of even a fire-fly.) Considering the immeasurable young human lives (both side) lost and the amount of resources wasted in 30 years which no body wants to experience again, one could expect this over reaction on their part.
But as you said it is the short term, mid term and long term measures to avoid them again from both side is the need of the time. If we could create s society which everyone can say we are “Sri Lankans” and not Sinhaleas, Tamils, Muslims or Eurasians that would be the day this problem will solve. That should be the long term goal of the government, NGOO and other interested parties.