jacobo arbenz with his memories of the first latin american coup organised by the cia. final days of the civil war in sri lanka. for more than two decades, the army had fought the tamil tiger rebels. in 2009, the government forces began to close in on them. thousands of civilians were trapped alongside rebel fighters, beyond the reach ofjournalists, aid workers and independent witnesses. former united nations official gordon vice remembers it as one of the worst situations he'd ever encountered. sri lankan's government says it is close to winning the island's civil war after 25 years. the fighting has been intense and bloody. in a 25—year civil war, there had been many terrible episodes. this final few months of the war was by far the most bitter and the most vicious. 250,000 people caught in the middle, hungry, frightened, tired. many of them on the run from fighting for up to a year. some of them had been displaced 10 or 15 times. i had worked in a number of conflict zones before and since the war in sri lanka but the sri lankan experience was unique. the conflict on