COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Sri Lankan deputy minister has accused former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other senior figures associated with the United National Party of bearing responsibility for the political climate surrounding the 1981 burning of the Jaffna Public Library. Eranga Gunasekara, the deputy minister of urban development, said the destruction of the library, one of the most searing symbols of Tamil cultural loss in Sri Lanka, had “set fire to the hearts of the people” and contrib

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The leader of Sri Lanka’s Parliament told the chamber on Thursday that a controversial independent lawmaker from Jaffna was “psychologically affected” and that lawmakers were patiently waiting for him to seek treatment and recover, an unusually personal attack that came during a chaotic exchange over parliamentary decorum. Bimal Rathnayake, the transport minister and leader of the House, also said the conduct of the lawmaker, Ramanathan Archchuna, was insulting to “the enti

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s justice minister told Parliament this week that the country holds no prisoners officially classified as “political prisoners,” a legalistic distinction that has reopened one of the most sensitive disputes of the postwar era and raised questions about the government’s commitment to a promise made to Tamil voters by both President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his party’s election manifesto. Harshana Nanayakkara, the minister of justice and national integration, sa

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political party has accused government authorities of beginning religious construction at the disputed Kanniya site in the eastern district of Trincomalee despite a court order that it says prohibits such work. Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, the parliamentary group leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi, or ITAK, said the Department of Archaeology, together with the Trincomalee district secretary and other government officials, had commenced construct