BRUSSELS, April 17 (UPI) -- The ongoing violence in eastern Sri Lanka needs to serve as a lesson for the country's plans in the north, a report from the International Crisis Group said.
The Belgium-based non-governmental organization released a report Thursday suggesting that despite some development following a military success in Sri Lanka's Eastern province, the continuing violence in the region should serve as a lesson of what not to do in a future post-conflict environment in the north of the country, the Crisis Group reported.
The Sri Lankan army's campaign targeting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the northern Vanni region of the country is diminishing the size of the rebel group's strongholds. With a possible military success in Vanni, Crisis Group officials are urging the Sri Lankan government to take the lessons from the Eastern province and ensure international reconstruction funds are not wasted in the north.
The report, "Development Assistance and Conflict in Sri Lanka: Lessons from the Eastern Province," calls on the international community to demand that additional monitoring is in place in a post-conflict Vanni region and that basic levels of human security are met.
"The provision of humanitarian aid and reconstruction by itself is not enough," Donald Steinberg, Crisis Group deputy president for policy, said in a statement.
"The problems the people of the north and the east have been enduring for decades are ultimately political in nature. They require a careful, democratic and inclusive political response."
