Assistance must be “according to the wishes of the people of Sri Lanka,” Basil Rajapaksa, senior presidential adviser, said, according to the government’s Web site. “We don’t want ‘monitors,’ we need partners...”

“The international community must understand that it is we, the people of this country, who had to endure this problem” of terrorism, Basil Rajapaksa said in an interview. “There is nobody else who understands the repercussions and the sufferings.”