by J S Tissainayagam, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, January 13, 2015 Sri Lanka held a relatively peaceful presidential election on Jan. 8, followed by a stunningly smooth transfer of power. While some reports allege that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa attempted to cling to power by staging a coup, the police and Army refused to back… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2015
Not A Victory For Sri Lanka’s Tamils
The defeat of former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa in the recently concluded Sri Lankan presidential election was clearly unexpected. But it is unlikely to usher in the kind of changes desired by those who did the most to ensure his victory—the island’s indigenous Tamil and Muslim communities that constitute 11.2 percent and 9.7 percent of the… Read more »
An Unknown Angel
Certainly he is not an obvious representative of minority rights. He defected from Mr Rajapaksa’s government only in November… He was acting as defence minister in the final weeks of the war in 2009, and has said that, as president, he would ensure that Mr Rajapaksa and the army do not face war-crimes charges…
So he offers a different brand of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, not its repudiation.
New Crossroad?
If Sirisena’s promise of a new dawn is to have any meaning, this must end. The point was made yet again last week, by over a hundred war affected women and a number of women’s groups who called on the new president to prioritise demilitarisation. However, Sirisena’s assurances to the Buddhist clergy – also echoed by newly appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe – that the Tamil areas will remain under tight security, do not augur well.
Sri Lanka’s Surprise Political Transition
Sri Lanka went to the polls on Thursday in a historic election. For the first time since the island became independent in 1948, an incumbent president was voted out of office. Early Friday, bleary-eyed from a night spent flipping between news networks or frantically refreshing Twitter, Sri Lankans struggled to assimilate the news that President… Read more »
President Mahinda Rajapaksa – a Victim of King Kavan Tissa’s Curse
Sri Lankan pundits, Indian pundits and international pundits will pull their hairs and come out with some arrant nonsense on why a confident President Mahinda Rajapaksa lost the January 8th presidential election to his former pal and deserter Maithiripala Sirisena. I have no doubt that all will ignore the black curse of King Kavan Tissa… Read more »
Democracy Wins in Sri Lanka
Most importantly, the new dispensation must waste no time in addressing the Tamil demand for a just peace, because on this hinges the future of the country itself.
A New Sri Lanka
An urgent challenge for Sirisena is to address the concerns and anxieties of the minorities who have been at the receiving end of the rising tide of Sinhala and Buddhist nationalism… Now he needs to step in and lay out an agenda of administrative and political action. It is necessary for Sirisena to re-imagine Sri Lanka as a multi- ethnic and religious nation and bury the Rajapaksa legacy, which saw the state as a custodian of majoritarian interests. That, and a critical assessment of the Chinese involvement in Sri Lankan affairs as offered by the UNP, would also help Sirisena take Colombo’s ties with New Delhi to a higher level…
—
Although Sirisena has won strong backing from the Tamil minority in the election, he may not necessarily find it easy to address India’s concerns, given his need to maintain support from the majority Sinhala community.
Challenger Sirisena Elected Sri Lanka’s New President
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — New Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was sworn into office Friday and vowed to curtail the powers amassed by his predecessor, who was swept aside in a stunning election upset. Sirisena, a longtime political insider — and an ally of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa until just a few weeks ago —… Read more »
TNA Congratulates Maithri
Extending its ‘warmest congratulations’ to President-Elect Maithripala Sirisena, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said it was essential to resolve the national question urgently while tackling the grave matters that face the country. TNA leader R. Samanthan said in a statement that his party extended its sincere thanks to all Sri Lankans especially those in the… Read more »
US Secretary of State Statement on Election
Conclusion of Sri Lankan Elections and Election of Maithripala Sirisena Press Statement John KerrySecretary of State Washington, DC January 8, 2015 Share on twitter The Sri Lankan people deserve great credit on the successful conclusion of their elections. They turned out in great numbers to exercise their democratic rights and every vote was a victory… Read more »
UNSG Statement on Election
Statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on Sri Lanka’s presidential elections The Secretary-General congratulates the people of Sri Lanka on the successful conclusion of the presidential election, and welcomes the constitutional transfer of power. The Secretary-General applauds the Sri Lankan Elections Commission for its professionalism in ensuring a peaceful and credible election. He… Read more »
Amnesty USA’s HR Concerns
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/sri-lanka Sri Lanka Human Rights Human Rights Concerns Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war between the government forces and separatists from the Tamil minority ended with a government victory in May 2009. During the war, both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including war crimes, for which no one has been held accountable. Enforced disappearances… Read more »
No Justice for Kumar Ponnambalam
No justice for assassinated human rights lawyer Kumar Ponnambalam, 15 years on Fifteen years after Kumar Ponnambalam, a prominent human rights lawyer and leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) was assassinated in a busy Colombo suburb during Chandrika Kumaratunge’s government, his killers have not been brought to justice. Mr Ponnambalam, who was renowned… Read more »
A Century of Silence
by Raffi Khatchadourian, ‘The New Yorker,’ January 5, 2015 …The news of the city’s changed atmosphere came quietly, five or six years ago, with the unlikely talk that Sourp Giragos was going to be rehabilitated as a functioning church—even though there was no congregation for it anymore. Then, in 2011, an item in the Armenian… Read more »
Review: Noontide Toll
Sri Lanka is a land of arguments. Arguments that cause punch-ups on live TV, shoot-outs during elections, riots over religion, and wars that go on for decades. Our civil war may have ended five years ago, but the arguments never stopped – over why we harass minorities, why we silence journalists and why even countries with dodgy human rights records find us offensive. Then there are the arguments over whom the island belongs to, who deserves justice and how the war was won and lost… Vasantha’s thoughts are the soul of the book, rambling and poetic, wrapped in folksy wit and shrewd observation. Through him, Romesh Gunesekera examines the central argument that continues to rage across the island and its many roads. How should Sri Lanka address its past? Do we dig it up or do we bury it?
Statement by CM Wigneswaran on Presidential Election
My dear brothers and sisters, We live in confusing times. Oppressed, threatened, intimidated and discriminated against. We are at crossroads where there is no clear sign of resolution of our travails. Which path do we charter? To vote for MR or MS or any other contestant or to boycott the Election. I have grappled with… Read more »
The Logic of Helping the Lesser Evil
One thing is clear. For the Tamils, the upcoming elections are not about a boycott. It is about if Tamil leadership should actively endorse either of the two Sinhala nationalist candidates and campaign. The lack of strategic thinking and inability to think outside the mainstream have been the TNA leadership failures. It was evident in… Read more »
On the ‘Known Devil’ and Sri Lanka’s Choices
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s call to Tamil voters during a rally in the North this week to vote for the ‘known devil’ is typical of the unabashedly unapologetic tone of his election campaign. After four years of relentlessly rolling back Sri Lanka’s constitutional freedoms and the Rule of Law, much needed humility would have been well… Read more »
Autobiography of Actor-politician S.S. Rajendran
by Sachi Sri Kantha, January 3, 2015 Book: Nan Vantha Pathai [The Path I Trod], by S.S. Rajendran, Akani Veliyeedu, Vandavasi, Sept 2014, 392 pp, Indian rupees 500. Sedapatti Suryanarayana Thevar Rajendran (affectionately known as SSR by Tamilians) was a founder member of DMK party and contributed to its growth for the first 20 years,… Read more »