Sri Lanka: Report on the militarisation of Vani under the aegis of ’Civil Security Department’

Report on continued intrusion of the military into civilian spaces and everyday lives of the Tamils in the Vanni can be seen in the work of the Civil Security Department (‘CSD’). The CSD was created in 2006 out of the existing National Home Guard Service. It originally employed primarily volunteer personnel in border villages and the Eastern province and was viewed largely as a surveillance network by Tamil communities. A few years after the war ended in 2009, the CSD began entering the Vanni region, but had recast itself as a livelihood provider and tried to convince local populations that joining the CSD was not the equivalent of joining the military