The end of civil war in Sri Lanka last year made headlines, but a forgotten story was the suffering endured over several decades, dpa quoted the country's president as saying Thursday. Mahinda Rajapaksa told the UN General Assembly that "the rapidly forgotten truth is that we had to face one of the most brutal, highly organized, well-funded and effective terrorist organizations." Sri Lanka is now at peace, he proclaimed, after the defeat of Tamil rebels last year that ended the 26-year civil war, in which more than 80,000 people were killed. He emphasized that much of the terrorism now faced in the Western world has been experienced by his people for nearly 30 years. Rajapaksa claimed that nearly 90 per cent of Sri Lankans displaced by the conflict had returned to their homes after villages were cleared of landmines. But he said that for the "rebuilding and healing of our nation to succeed, the process must evolve from within. "If history has taught us one thing, it is that imposed external solutions breed resentment and ultimately fail." Rajapaksa appointed a commission to probe the final eight years of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict, amid scepticism over whether it would investigate allegations of war crimes. The United Nations has been calling for a probe into allegations of human rights abuses that mainly took place during the final stages of the conflict, before it was brought to an end in May 2009.
