Live tonight – Sri Lanka discussion

We’ll be discussing the future for Sri Lanka at the club tonight, 24 February at 7 pm GMT/11 am PST. As usual, if you can’t make it to the club in person, we’ll be broadcasting the event live on the Frontline Club live channel or you can watch it on this very blog,

The Tamil Tigers are looking closer than ever to military defeat as government forces continue to overrun the last remaining rebel strongholds in the north of the country. With an end to the military stalemate and the 25 year civil war potentially in sight, what is the future for the LTTE and what are the consequences more generally for Sri Lanka? link

Taking part will be Frances Harrison, freelance journalist and former BBC Colombo correspondent, Charu Lata Hogg, from Human Rights Watch, Pearl Thevanayagam a Tamil journalist living in exile, Raj Jayadevan, from the newly launched Alliance for Peace and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka and Lal Wickrematunge will be joining us by phone from Sri Lanka. He is the managing editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper which was set up by his brother and the Leader’s former editor Lasantha who was assasinated in January, 2009. The discussion will be chaired by Priyath Liyanage is head of the BBC Sinhala Service .