What Sri Lanka Did May Qualify As War Crimes

Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war ended in 2009, with the killing of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. More than decade later, the Sri Lankan government led by the Rajapaksa family is still battling allegations that the final days of the war witnessed mass murders.

- Lakshmi Subramanian

INTERVIEW

Erik Solheim, Norwegian diplomat and former minister

Prabhakaran was allegedly shot dead by the Sri Lankan army, but not much is known about his final days. There are unconfirmed claims that he had offered to surrender.

THE WEEK interviewed Erik Solheim, former Norwegian diplomat and minister who had tried to negotiate a peace deal between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE in the early 2000s. Solheim was a confidant of Prabhakaran, and the only outsider who met him several times before the ceasefire was broken and the final battle played out.

Solheim is now the convenor of the advisory committee of The Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC) at the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington, DC. BRIGC is a non-profit organisation that works with leaders in government, business and civil society to promote green initiatives. It is supervised by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment and has its own secretariat.

Solheim was in Chennai recently on WRI business. He spoke to THE WEEK about how the LTTE reached out to the world during the final days of the war, and how Prabhakaran rejected an offer from Norway and the international community.

Excerpts from the interview.

Q/ What actually happened in the last leg of the war?