By Ankit Panda
Sri Lanka has replaced the ex-military governor of the country’s Tamil-majority north with a civilian.
In a sign that Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Maithripala Sirisena could improve inter-ethnic relations between the island country’s minority Tamils and majority Sinhalese, the former military governor of the Tamil-dominated north was removed. His successor will be a civilian appointed by the Sirisena government — a “nonmilitary civil servant” as described by the Sri Lankan government website. Following the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s nearly three-decade-long civil war, the country’s Tamil north remained heavily militarized. The Northern Province, as the administrative area is known, was under the governorship of Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri.
According to the Associated Press, Chandrasiri has been accused of restraining the Tamil-controlled provincial administration in the Northern Province from “functioning freely and running a parallel local government.” The previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, prided himself on having played a major role in ending the Sri Lankan civil war. He supported Chandrasiri by all necessary means in order to prevent any signs of resurgent Tamil separatism. Sirisena’s move suggests that he will likely grant the Northern Province a good bit of additional autonomy going forward. The extent to which Tamils will be able to self-govern remains ambiguous.
Read the full story at The Diplomat