evidence: The U.S. State Department’s announcement of a travel ban on Sri Lankan Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, current commander of the Sri Lankan Army and acting chief of the Defense Staff, along with his immediate family, may hold implications for other Sri Lankan leaders who were directly involved in war crimes allegedly ordered by Silva. That includes the country’s current president, Gotabaya "Gota" Rajapaska, who was a U.S. citizen at the time the alleged war crimes took place during the country’s civil war that ended in 2009. [...] Despite these continuing allegations and Sri Lanka’s 2015 pledges to the U.N. to pursue accountability for the commission of international crimes and human rights abuses, scant progress toward any form of meaningful accountability has been made. To the contrary, according to Van Schaack, "the government of Sri Lanka has responded to [Silva’s] depredations with promotions rather than prosecutions." [...] The State Department designation was somewhat unusual, given the lack of earlier signaling that such a decision was pending. That might mean there is more to come. The designation may have implications for politics and post-conflict justice in Sri Lanka, as Silva’s actions likely also incriminate recently elected Sri Lankan President Gota Rajapaksa in various international crimes.