ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the relationship between the Government of Sri Lanka and the humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres in the 2006/7 period, and the next chapter continues the story in the 2008/9 period. It outlines some of the key themes of Sri Lankan history useful to the securitisation analysis. The relationship between the Sri Lankan polity and the international community was a balancing act; a balance between rights and responsibilities; between sovereignty and international obligations. In the search for friends and enemies one can see that the friends were the Sinhalese political elites, specifically the political actors guided by security and political concerns. The involvement of international actors amid a conflict - the external attempting to work in the internal - makes for a politically complex situation. The killing of the Action Contre la Faim staff again changed the situation for international non-governmental organisations attempting to work in the conflict zones and another set of restrictions were put into place.
