While claiming that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa should be taken to Hague for  alleged war crimes, Maya Arulpragasam, the Sri Lankan Tamil recording artist said that Sri Lanka's new government has the ‘same face’ as it includes politicians who have been involved in government for the last 30 years.

She said the Tamil community had embraced democracy and peace - the Tamil vote was largely responsible for Sirisena's election - and that now the government had to restore "basic needs" to the community.

She told Channel 4 News that reconciliation can only come if the Sri Lankan government undoes some of the Rajapaksa regime's actions, such as his militarisation of Tamil areas in the country's north.

On the UN inquiry, Arulpragasam said "we still want Rajapaksa to go to the Hague", but that peace in Sri Lanka's post-war period was a priority for Tamils. In the years since the war there have been continued allegations of ongoing abuses such as "enforced disappearances" of Tamils and government opponents.