Ahead of those, the new government must judge how much to concede to Tamil allies without alienating Sinhalese.
Without greater recognition of Tamil minority rights, Mr. Keenan said, the "odds are that there will be significant political resistance and some degree of armed resistance".
Raghavan, a founder of the Tigers in 1974, who left them a decade later and now lives in London, says their defeat is allowing more moderate views an airing on diaspora radio stations and websites.His greater hope is that a moderate Tamil voice, without the Tigers to silence it, will now be heard in Sri Lanka itself.
The Asian characters occasionally speak in their native tongues, their words rendered in Chinese or Tamil glyphs without translations.
Sirisena has not said whether he will repeal a controversial anti-terrorism law that activists say is being used to detain hundreds of Tamil prisoners without charges.
V. C. Gopalaratnam, the president of the association, said "Meiyappa Chettiar [Meiyappan] had displayed his pioneering spirit and zeal in producing a novel type of Tamil picture, without either songs or dances, relying for its success purely on the story and the portrayal of characters".
How will I communicate without knowing a word of Tamil?
The military prohibited access to the north to all foreigners without special permits, but a Tamil social worker, whom I will call Siva, agreed to take me through the less guarded back roads of the Vanni.
Seven years after the conclusion of the war, the Sri Lankan government continues to detain (without charge or trial) approximately 250 Tamil prisoners of war.
She reports freely, gesticulating heavily, so that I can understand a lot without knowing a single word of Tamil.
