Sri Lanka is descending toward dictatorship, rights activists and opposition leaders say; U.S. is determined to remain engaged

But the disappearances of government opponents are perhaps the most obvious manifestation of a regime gone wrong, human rights groups say.

This year, 52 people have gone missing in the country’s south.

(The Washington Post) - Locating Sri Lanka.

Latest stories from Foreign

Karzai suspends talks with U.S.; Taliban rockets kill 4 Americans

Tim Craig and Ernesto Londoño

Afghan president apparently angered by U.S. overtures to Taliban, establishment of office in Qatar.

In Turkey, protesters try a new approach: Standing still

Michael Birnbaum

As Erdogan’s opponents shift their tactics, the prime minister says he wants to expand police powers.

World Digest: June 18, 2013

Haq Nawaz Khan

Suicide bombers strike Shiite mosque in Iraqi capital; blast at funeral in northwestern Pakistan kills 29.

In Israel, mixed signals on prospect for peace

William Booth and Ruth Eglash

As the United States seeks to restart peace talks, Israeli ministers disagree on whether the idea is dead or alive.

G-8 leaders call for Syria peace talks

Scott Wilson

In a concession to Russia, Obama and European leaders do not call for Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Most who have disappeared since the end of the war are Tamils, but also at risk are moderate Sinhalese who raise their voices. In 2009, a prominent newspaper editor was shot and killed; in January 2010, a cartoonist and political analyst, Prageeth Eknaligoda, left his office and was never seen again.

A few months before, Eknaligoda had been handcuffed and bundled into one of the white vans that have become the symbol of the disappearances here. He was released the next day but subsequently faced several death threats for his denunciation of rampant corruption within the government, said his wife, Sandhya.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says that 23 journalists have been forced into exile since 2007 and that only three have returned. Although self-censorship is widespread, the intimidation continues. The Sri Lankan police recently raided the offices of two Web sites and arrested nine journalists for “propagating false and unethical news on Sri Lanka.”

The U.S. Embassy in Colombo expressed its “deep concern over efforts to suppress independent news media” and called for the harassment to end. Reporters Without Borders ranks Sri Lanka 163 out of 179 nations on its global Press Freedom Index.

Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris said the accusations about disappearances and intimidation are vastly overblown, a “cloud” thrown up by people who want to claim political asylum abroad.

“Whatever happens, the finger is pointed at the government,” he said.

Firm grip on reins of power

There was a flicker of hope after the war when Rajapaksa set up the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, known as the LLRC, though human rights groups had low expectations of the handpicked tribunal.

After an 18-month inquiry, the commission cleared the army of systematic human rights abuses but called for a few individual incidents to be investigated. More forcefully, it recommended a series of measures to promote postwar reconciliation, including the demilitarization of the north and the investigation of disappearances.

But even those limited recommendations have proved beyond the capability of a Sri Lankan government with a tight grip on the reins of power.

After a thumping election victory in 2010, Rajapaksa changed the constitution to increase his authority over the police, judiciary and civil service, and to end the two-term limit for the presidency. He then arrested his election opponent, Sarath Fonseka, and jailed him for two years.

The president’s brother Gotabhaya runs the security apparatus and parts of the economy through the Ministry of Defense and Urban Development; another brother, Basil, heads the Ministry of Economic Development, and a third is speaker of Parliament. Other close family members serve as ambassadors or chief ministers, and a nephew runs the state airline. Corruption, business leaders and lawyers say, is at an all-time high.

International engagement

In March, the United States, with India’s backing, sponsored a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council urging Sri Lanka to act on the recommendations of its reconciliation commission.

Sri Lanka reacted with anger, organizing almost daily protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Colombo and using state-run media to denounce those Sri Lankans who had testified against the government in Geneva as “traitors.”

Indian attempts to prod Sri Lanka were also rebuffed. India’s foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, emerged from a meeting with Rajapaksa in January saying the president had promised to honor a 15-year-old amendment to the country’s constitution that would give limited autonomy to the Tamil-dominated north. No sooner had Krishna left the country than Rajapaksa denied having ever made such a commitment, to India’s fury.

Peiris, the Sri Lanka foreign minister, said the government was eager to implement the commission’s recommendations but not under “duress” from abroad.

But in Rajapaksa’s home constituency of Hambantota, a brand-new deep-sea port offers a clue to the government’s attitude. The port is just one of many infrastructure projects underway here that is being built and funded by the Chinese, and one that has deeply irked India’s government as an unwelcome Chinese intrusion into its Indian Ocean “back yard.”

Chinese weapons were instrumental in helping the Sri Lankan government end the war. Now, Chinese support is allowing the government to design its future.

But despite the challenges, diplomats and officials said the United States and India are determined to remain engaged with Sri Lanka. Neither country wants it to follow Burma’s path into increasing isolation from the West, these officials say, or to push it more deeply into China’s embrace.