In the third of his big set-piece victory speeches early this month, Mr Rajapaksa asserted that the war had been fought to liberate the Tamil people. Unaccountably, he made no reference to the sufferings of Sri Lankan Tamils even though nearly 300,000 of them have been displaced from their homes and are now miserably interned in camps. The president also harked back to ancient Sinhalese martial heroes. Marking victory with plans to build stupas all over the mainly Buddhist country, and relishing songs, posters and newspaper articles hailing him as a “king”, Mr Rajapaksa seems to be cultivating the image of an elected monarch. In particular, he likes to recall Dutugemunu, a famous warrior-king of the second century BC, who defeated Elara, a Tamil usurper from India.

This foolish oratorical provocation has been matched by increasing intolerance of dissent, suspicion of many Tamils and threats against those seen as Tiger “collaborators”. The government refuses to bow to calls for an independent investigation into the final weeks of the war, in which thousands are believed to have been killed by government shelling. It blames nearly all the civilian deaths on the Tigers. But in the absence of any inquiry a decades-old culture of impunity will persist, as will Tamil grievances and a sense of injustice.

This week a shipload of relief supplies for the displaced, sent by Tamil exiles suspected of Tiger sympathies, was turned back, even though the defence ministry conceded they had no “dangerous” intentions. The process of sending the displaced people home from the camps is painfully slow, partly because of the need to de-mine and rebuild their home villages, but also because of the fixation on weeding out Tigers hiding among the civilians. One-eighth of those interned are believed to be children. In light of the Tigers’ record of deploying women and children as fighters and suicide-bombers, some caution is understandable. But little is being done to reassure moderate Tamils that the government cares for their plight. Conditions in the camps are no longer so critical, but there are too few toilets, and some have to queue five or six hours for their daily ration of water.

Meanwhile government ministers in Colombo mutter darkly about journalists and NGOs allegedly once in the Tigers’ pay. This encourages a freelance witch-hunt. On June 1st thugs abducted and beat up Poddala Jayantha, a journalist and activist. They have not been caught, but a fellow writer who alerted the police to the abduction was interrogated for hours. Scared, journalists have started to censor themselves.

No farewell to arms

Far from cashing a peace dividend by demobilising soldiers, the chief of the army has said he means to swell its ranks by 100,000, to 300,000 — out of a population of just 21m. An already highly militarised country is to become even more so, with soldiers deployed everywhere to nip any reborn Tamil nationalist insurgency in the bud. In the “liberated” north local elections are to be held as early as August. Many will have to vote from the camps. Few will believe the process free or fair, seeing it, like elections in 2008 in the east, as a way of installing candidates in favour in Colombo.

Having made a strong case that it was liberating millions of its own people from the terrorist yoke, Sri Lanka’s government seems to be doing its best to make those people feel newly oppressed. That is not the way to win reconciliation. It is a prescription for renewed rebellion.

© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009