AP Photo

Recent demonstrations in London, Paris and elsewhere have brought the situation in Sri Lanka to wide public attention. But the island's civil war has been running for 28 years. The Tamil minority in the north has long argued that it is marginalised politically and economically.

In the early 1980s the LTTE (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers) started fighting for an independent Tamil state. By 1986 it had full control of the northern Jaffna peninsula. What began with violent protest soon led to civil war - to the majority the assertion of military power by a sovereign government against a murderous terrorist organisation, to the minority the abuse of violent power by the State. Repeated attempts to find a political solution ran aground.

The Government of...