PRESIDENT Mahinda Rajapakse's government is coming under increasing international pressure over its continuing human rights abuses and hardline approach to the island's ethnic question.
A chorus of international condemnations following the government's deportation of hundreds of Tamils back to their 'places of origin' in the Northeast has been following by a fresh burst of criticism from human rights and media watchdogs and a slew of negative articles in the international
press.
A visit to the United Nations in Geneva by President Rajapakse was a public relations setback with the government coming under fire just before from an
international panel of experts tasked with overseeing his government's probes into a select group of killings and abuses.
The pressure comes as Tamils are deported, abductions and killings are blamed on state security forces, and aid groups and truce monitors say they are obstructed from doing their jobs.
Earlier this week Sri Lankan governmebnt told the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission not to issue any statements on violation of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement that are reported to them.
"They have been told to entertain complaints but no statements will be issued on their rulings," government spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.
Press reports said the SLMM chief, Lars Solvberg, was told of government unhappiness over a recent report in which the SLMM said government troops had been involved in abductions. Both Britain and the United
States have suspended some aid to Sri Lanka this year citing rights abuse concerns - though both are selling large quantities of arms this year.
"The abductions have got to cease, the human rights abuses have got to cease... The kind of tactics that were used to clear Tamil people out of Colombo suburbs must never happen again." British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said earlier this month.
But President Rajapaksa says many of the reports of abductions and abuses are fake and designed to discredit his government, and denies the security forces are involved.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother, says Western powers apply double standards when it comes to rights violations.
The UN food agency, the World Food Programme, has slapped conditions on food aid to avoid war refugees being resettled against their will.
Diplomats say Sri Lanka is also hurt by often contradictory statements ministers and senior officials make to local and international audiences, in a complex political arena that includes hardline Marxists and activist
Buddhist monks.
"At a certain point in time, you give up on Sri Lanka," one foreign ambassador based in Colombo, declining to be named, told Reuters.
"There are so many mixed messages that you get a totally blurred vision of their foreign policy."
"Officials constantly contradict one another to score domestic points. This is the danger of having one message for your domestic audience and one for the international community. That's exactly what isolates them."
Meanwhile the fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Tamil Tigers is continuing.
Recent clashes have raised the prospect of widening conflict in the island nation of 19.5 million that could severely damage the economy and isolate the government, former Sri Lankan diplomat Nanda Godage said.
"We could be heading in the direction of sanctions," he said.
Top Sri Lankan defence officials have said in the past they will need about two to three years to subdue the LTTE and force them to talks, an outcome the Tigers say is impossible.
"The LTTE and the Tamil people under no circumstances will come to the table in a position of political and military weakness," LTTE Political Wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said recently.
Last week a resolution was tabled before the US Congress calling on all parties to the Sri Lankan conflict to negotiate a political solution that will be fair to all ethnic communities whilst ruling out a military solution to the conflict.
The sponsoring Congressmen said the US has a strategic interest in promoting peace in Sri Lanka and throughout South-East Asia. Also this week, India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee urged Sri Lanka to negotiate a solution to the conflict.
"The recent developments in Sri Lanka, the violence, have been a cause of concern to all," he said.
Tigers say is impossible. "The LTTE and the Tamil people under no circumstances will come to the table in a position of political and military weakness," LTTE Political Wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said recently.
Last week a resolution was tabled before the US Congress calling on all parties to the Sri Lankan conflict to negotiate a political solution that will be fair to all ethnic communities whilst ruling out a military solution to the conflict.
