Monthly Archives: August 2016

Justice and Accountability for War Related Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka

by Chulani Kodikara, ‘OpenDemocracy.net,’ USA, August 15, 2016 As the testimonies of survivors of sexual violence in Sri Lanka’s long war enter the public domain and the government designs transitional justice mechanisms, is an end to impunity in sight? The Sri Lankan government is currently designing transitional justice mechanisms to address human rights abuses connected to… Read more »

Report Sought On Ex-Tiger Injection Scandal

by ‘The Sunday Leader,’ August 14, 2016 A report has been sought from the Prisons Department on claims that rehabilitated LTTE cadres were injected with a cancerous poison. The issue had been raised in Parliament as well last week with the Tamil National Alliance calling for an investigation. It was alleged that the injection had… Read more »

Stop Mutual Recrimination, Address Root Causes of the Ethnic Conflict

By PK Balachandran, ‘The Indian Express,’ August 13, 2016 COLOMBO: Rathika Pathmanathan, a former combatant of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), urges fellow Sri Lankans divided by a 30 year ethnic conflict, to stop “accusing and punishing each other, and begin addressing the root causes of the conflict” so that Sinhalese and Tamils… Read more »

The Never-Dying Political Ills of Sri Lanka

By: Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London], Former Lecturer in Law, August 8, 2016 [ 1 ] COMMUNALISM AND MAJORITY HEGEMONY One can hardly deny the fact of various political ills plaguing and denting Sri Lanka’s image since 1956. A nation labelled as peaceful and prosperous until 1956 shed this image from then on to become as a… Read more »

Father Thaninayagam

by M.K. Elaventhan, August 8, 2016 This is Father Thaninayagam’s 103rd birth anniversary and 36th death anniversary. Thaninayagam Thamil Thaninayagam Eng1  

Human Rights Up Front & Sri Lanka

http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/general-assembly/agenda-items/promotion-of-human-rights/watch/human-rights-up-front/5077276050001 Overview [PDF] Detailed discussion, including origin in the Petrie Report on UN failures in Sri Lanka [PDF] by Gerritt Kurtz, ‘With Courage and Coherence: The Human Rights up Front Initiative by the United Nations,’ Policy Paper, Global Public Policy Institute, July 2015 Introduction During its final offensive, in 2009, the Sri Lankan army closed in on… Read more »

Consultation Task Force Releases Interim Report

Read the full report here: CTF Interim Report on Missing Persons or on their website The Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms Releases its Interim Report by Consultation Task Force, Colombo, August 2016 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of INTERIM REPORT The Office on Missing Persons Bill and Issues Concerning the Missing, the Disappeared and the Surrendered. This interim report… Read more »

GTF Welcomes the Passing of the Office of Missing Persons Bill

by Global Tamil Forum, August 13, 2016 The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) welcomes the passing of the Office of the Missing Persons Bill (OMP) in the Parliament on August 11 as this is an important first step towards achieving accountability, justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. We commend the leadership shown by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government… Read more »

Crucial OMP Bill Rushed through Parliament

OMP Act Aug 2016 [PDF] CPA: Summary of OMP Video of FM Mangala Samaraweera’s speech during debate on OMP bill [youtube] OMP-Bill-Statement-TabledinParliament-11August2016-s [PDF] Entire process takes less than two hours By Saman Indrajith, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, August 11, 2016 The Joint Opposition’s protest enabled the government to rush the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Bill through parliament… Read more »

Devolution the Only Solution

by Taylor Dibbert, ‘The Wire,’ New Delhi, August 11, 2016 C.V. Wigneswaran, chief minister of the Northern Province and member of the Tamil National Alliance, says adopting federalism is the only way to assure transitional justice and provide a long-lasting solution to ethnic conflict. C.V. Wigneswaran thinks India should get involved in educating the Sinhalese polity…. Read more »

UN Committee on Racial Discrimination Assessment of Sri Lanka Report

The UN Committee on Racial Discrimination (CERD) will assess Sri Lanka’s report submitted in October 2015 on August 15-16 2016 in Geneva.  CERD is a committee of 8 independent experts who assess progress of states parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.  The membership of the Committee can be seen… Read more »

Sangha and State

by Hannah Clare Durham, Bard College, USA, May 2015 Sangha and State An Examination of Sinhalese-Buddhist Nationalism Introduction While spending a semester studying in Sri Lanka, I became acutely aware of the post civil war issues that were being sorted out by the state. Daily newspapers displayed updates on new infrastructural developments and efforts to rebuild… Read more »

Amnesty: Summary of Human Rights Concerns during 1990

Amnesty Concerns 1990 Page 1 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SRI LANKA SUMMARY OF HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS DURING 1990 February 1991 SUMMARY AI INDEX: ASA 37/02/91 DISTR: SC/CO/PO This document summarizes Amnesty International’s concerns about continuing human rights violations in Sri Lanka during 1990. It describes reports of thousands of “disappearances” and extrajudicial executions by government forces in… Read more »

15th Anniversary and Future Hopes

by Sachi Sri Kantha, August 11, 2016 The fifteenth Anniversary passed by silently last month. Only three living individuals know about it. One is me. Other two are, Nadesan Satyendra (the founder editor of now defunct Tamil Nation website) and Dr. Rajan Sriskandarajah (the founder editor of sangam website). As 15 years had passed, I… Read more »

Documents re the Tamil National Struggle in Sri Lanka

Compiled by our founding editor and published in Sangam.org’s original version at http://www.sangam.org/FB_HIST_DOCS/HistoricDocs_index.htm Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 The Act designed to deprive over a million Tamils of recent Indian origin… “2.(1) With effect from the appointed date, there shall be a status to be known as ‘the status of a citizen of Ceylon’… Read more »

The Muttur Massacre

by Action Against Hunger, France, August 4, 2016 A decade after the killing of 17 Action Against Hunger staff in Sri Lanka, amid an increase in violence against aid workers, we demand greater protection for humanitarians On 4 August 2006 17 Action Against Hunger staff were murdered on our premises in Muttur, Sri Lanka. They were… Read more »

Some Options For Jaffna’s Economic Revival

by Kumar David, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ July 31, 2016 My essay two weeks ago (“What Options for Jaffna Economic Revival?” on 17 July) was on the whole grim and pessimistic and it followed discussions outside the Northern Province with a NGO types, small investors and a potential venture capitalist. I had the good fortune a week… Read more »

In Memoriam: Kurumbasiddy R. Kanagaratnam

by Sachi Sri Kantha, July 23, 2016 The news that I read from the TamilNet about the death of Mr. Kurumbasiddy R. Kanagaratnam [https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=38301] on June 22nd, saddened me. During my Peradeniya sojourn period (1977-1981), I had met this gentleman and was strongly influenced by his dedication to preserving the print documents which had been… Read more »