KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A district coordinating committee meeting in Kilinochchi ended abruptly on Thursday after a series of heated confrontations involving lawmaker Ramanathan Archchuna, prompting elected officials and senior government administrators to walk out before police intervened. The meeting, held at the Kilinochchi District Secretariat, began at 9 a.m. under the chairmanship of Ramalingam Chandrasekar, fisheries minister and chairman of the district coordinating committee. Mr. Arc

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A senior government minister has welcomed a new political platform uniting six parties that represent Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking communities, casting it not as a minority initiative but as a judgment on the opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa. The parties — representing Sri Lankan Tamils, Muslims, and Indian Tamils — announced last week that they would work together on constitutional reform, the long-delayed provincial council elections, and land disputes affecting their co

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — In July 1979, as the government armed itself with sweeping new powers to confront a growing Tamil militancy in the north, two men disappeared into the custody of the security forces. Their bodies were later found near the Pannai causeway, the narrow stretch that links the islands west of Jaffna to the city. They were K. Viswaratnam and S. Selvaratnam, better known as Inpam and Selvam. Nearly half a century later, their deaths remain lodged in the political memory of the nor