There a good article The New Yorker this week (print only) about Sri Lanka after the tsunami, how the promise of a better life after the shock of the tsunami may be evaporating in the face of renewed violence. It's a tragic situation:

The President, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, articulated this unlikely optimism when she addressed the nation two days after the tsunami. Sri Lanka, she declared, had been "incredibly humbled" by the waves, which had dealth death and destruction to all ethnic groups indiscriminately. Never mind that Sinhalese, who count for nearly seventy-give per cent of the island's twenty million inhabitants, outnumber Tamils by roughly four to one, and that Tamils, in turn, outnumber the largest minority group, Muslims, by three to one. "Nature does not differentiate in the treatment of peoples," the President said, and she urged Sri Lankans to follow nature's example. In fact, many had responded to the disaster by rushing to the aid of the afflicted without regard for their identity. There were stories of Sinhalese soldiers risking -- and losing -- their lives in efforts to rescue Tamil civilians; of Tamil businessmen carting meals to displaced Sinhalese survivors; and of Muslims buying up clothes and medicines to hand out to Hindus and Buddhists. It was only later that Sri Lankans had time to register their surprise at their own unthinking decency, and their relief at this discovery was compounded by a sense that the tsunami had saved the country from an imminent return to war.

But sadly things didn't stay that way.

Pretty much the only thing wrong with the article is that it wasn't written by our friend and Sri Lankan Fulbright scholar Lori Reese.