Che Ran

By Che Ran Every year, on May 18, Tamils remember Mullivaikkal. And every year, like clockwork, the circus arrives. From Sri Lanka, we get the professional denialists — men who look at bombed hospitals, mass graves, disappeared families, surrendered civilians who never came home, and say, with the confidence of a man selling fake Rolexes in Pettah, “No, no, no. Nothing happened.” From India, we get the bargain-bin patriots — politicians who hear “Tamil civilian massacre” and immediatel

By Che Ran Sri Lanka has a strange relationship with accountability. We adore the theatre of justice. The press conference. The dramatic raid. The minister standing behind a microphone, sleeves metaphorically rolled up, promising to finally hunt down the untouchables. Every election, another government arrives carrying a moral broom the size of Adam’s Peak, vowing to sweep corruption out of the republic. And every few years, we discover the same depressing truth. The truly powerful rarely g