By calling on a military accused of egregious rights abuses to lead a public health operation, the Sri Lankan government risks “exacerbating existing ethnic divides, endangering human rights and civil liberties even further, and furthering the violent militarization of the island,” wrote Tamil Guardian's editor-in-chief Thusiyan Nandakumar in the Polis Project this week.
“As governments grapple with the outbreak, security forces have been deployed in some states to ensure the maintenance of essential services and carry out emergency operations,” he said.
"Yet in Sri Lanka the military is on the frontline of this health crisis from the offset, overseeing policy and acting as the state’s first responders.”
See the full text of his piece here.
