by Thambu Kanagasabai LLM [Lond.], November 14, 2016 Former Lecturer in Law University of Colombo With the support of 6.2 millions, the present Sri Lankan Government swept into victories at the both Presidential and general elections on the slogan of ‘Good Governance’ to remove the ‘Bad Governance’ of former President Mahinda Rajapaksha who was hailed… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2016
An English Biography on Jayalalitha by Vaasanthi
by Sachi Sri Kantha Book Review: Amma – Jayalalithaa’s Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen, by Vaasanthi, Juggernaut Books, New Delhi, 2016, 175 pages. At last, a short English biography on actress-politician Jayalalitha, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, India, had appeared. The author Vaasanthi, is a noted Tamil woman novelist. Despite the… Read more »
200th Anniversary of the Establishment of the American Ceylon Mission
by US Mission to Sri Lanka & Maldives, Colombo, October 31, 2016 [As prepared] Rev. Dr. James Moos, Executive Minister, Co-Executive Global Ministries Rev. Dr. Deenabandhu Manchala, Area Executive for Southern Asia, Global Ministries Rev Devasagayam Devanesan, Chairperson Rt. Rev Bishop Duleep De Chickera, Former Anglican Bishop of Colombo Rev Asiri P. Perera, President of the Methodist Conference in Sri… Read more »
No Justice without Foreign Input – Wigneswaran
by Ceylon News, Colombo, November 7, 2016 Pointing out that the Sri Lankan government has not taken any step to include foreign judges, prosecutors and investigators in the war crimes accountability mechanism as agreed in the UN, the Northern Chief Minister C.V Wigneswaran has told a visiting UK Minister on Monday that there would no… Read more »
Call for Autonomous Unit in North-East Renewed
By Shamindra Ferdinando, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, November 6, 2016 The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) on behalf of the Sri Lankan Tamils resident overseas has called for the creation of an ‘Autonomous Tamil Region’ (ATR) in a re-merged Northern and Eastern Province to address their grievances. The two provinces comprise eight administrative districts. The GTF has… Read more »
Atrocities Prevention Experts Report Released
A major task was to identify ways to improve the ability of U.S., foreign, and international courts to prosecute atrocity crimes. To this end, the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and State were tasked with developing proposals that would strengthen the U.S. Government’s ability to prosecute perpetrators of atrocities found in the United States, and permit… Read more »
HRW: Police Shooting of Two Students More of the Same
by Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch, New York, November 6, 2016 Two students from northern Sri Lanka’s Jaffna University were shot by police near a checkpoint in the early hours of October 20, 2016. Both died from their wounds. Initially, police denied the shooting, saying that Sundiraja Sulakshan and Nadarasa Gajan died in an accident…. Read more »
Comparing Contentious Post-war Politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka
By Jonathan Goodhand and Oliver Walton, ‘East Asia Forum,’ Australia, October 27, 2016 Sri Lanka and Nepal may have turned their backs on protracted and bloody conflicts but the fault lines that fuelled these wars have not gone away. One key challenge now facing political elites is that of constitutional reform. But long-standing central-peripheral tensions threaten… Read more »
The ICC, Out of Africa
by Thierry Cruvellier, ‘The New York Times,’ November 6, 2016 In just a few weeks, Burundi, South Africa and Gambia have announced that they would withdraw from the International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal investigating war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Since its creation in 1998, the I.C.C. has been hobbled by the refusal… Read more »
Why Facebook Won’t Help Heal War Torn Sri Lanka’s Wounds
by Senel Wanniarachchi, ‘The Sunday Leader,’ Colombo, November 6, 2016 Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, one of the world’s most protracted and destructive conflicts of our time was brought to a bloody, military end in May of 2009. Seven years have passed since, but the communities in the country remain divided along narrow ethno-religious lines. In… Read more »
Devolution of Land Powers
by Verite Research, Colombo, October 2016 Devolution of Land Powers_A guide for decision-makers Executive Summary This is a practical guide for decision-makers on devolving land powers in Sri Lanka. It is meant to help comprehend the complex and sometimes contradictory provisions in relation to the devolution of powers over land. The guide is presented in… Read more »
Dynamics of Sinhala Buddhist Ethno-Nationalism in Post-War Sri Lanka
by Ayesha Zuhair, Centre for Policy Analysis, Colombo, April 20, 2016 Almost seven years have lapsed since the end of the war, yet Sri Lanka continues to remain a deeply divided society. Empirical evidence from the four waves of the ‘Democracy in post-war Sri Lanka’ public opinion survey conducted by Social Indicator (SI), the survey… Read more »
Counter Terror Smarter
By Michael German, US News & World Report, October 26, 2016 The counterterrorism debate is again playing out like so many times before. As soon as police identified a Muslim-American, Ahmad Khan Rahami, as a person of interest in a bombing attack in New York City, policymakers automatically inferred links to international terrorist groups and… Read more »
Erasing the Past: Memorialization
by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, November 2, 2016 Erasing the Past: New Report Documents Repression of Memorialization in North-East Sri Lanka PEARL’s latest report examines government obstruction of memorialization among Tamils in the North-East (Washington, DC; November 1, 2016) PEARL’s new report, “Erasing the Past: Repression of Memorialization in North-East Sri Lanka,” documents… Read more »
My Rights are an Entitlement, not a Favour
by Namini Wijedasa on her blog, October 29, 2016 You know what, I’m not comfortable with the yardstick used by some to measure the performance of this government. I’m not happy with being asked to appreciate and be grateful for regaining some of my most basic rights, such as the freedom to express myself freely…. Read more »
Northern Muslim Expulsion & Tamil Leadership
By Shahul Hasbullah, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ November 2, 2016 Prof. Shahul Hasbullah Last Sunday, October 30, 2016, a commemoration event was organised in Colombo by the newly formed group “North Muslim Civil Society” on the theme of “A necessary Solution for Northern Muslims”. I was struck by the fact that the chief guest and guest of… Read more »
Fighting For Fish
by Meera Srinivasan, ‘Caravan,’ India, November 2, 2016 EARLY IN DECEMBER LAST YEAR, Kadiramalai Loganathan’s father succumbed to a long illness. The funeral exacted a heavy price, and to recoup it the fisherman had little choice but to quickly return to sea. On the night of 16 December, barely a week after his loss, Loganathan… Read more »
Sri Lanka Confirms Existence of Illegal Torture Cells
by Kasun Yapa Karunaratne, Journalists for a Democratic Society, Europe, November 1, 2016 In a damning report to the UN, Sri Lanka’s top human rights body has confirmed that the country’s police force maintain secret detention centers as exposed by local and international rights activists. The much feared Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) runs these illegal… Read more »
Old Wine
by Sanjana Hattotuwa on his blog, October 23, 2016 President Sirisena is clearly unhappy. When UPFA MP Kumara Welgama’s house was raided last week in search of two state-owned vehicles, President Sirisena said it was an “immature” act. Especially since of late, the President has taken some effort to demonstrate by example what political immaturity… Read more »
Wickramasinghe Deploys ‘Shadow War’ Intelligence Squads in Jaffna
by TamilNet, October 26, 2016 Ranil Wickramasinghe, the prime minister of genocidal Sri Lanka has deployed more than one hundred high-level intelligence operatives in Jaffna district to step up and coordinate a shadow war on Eezham Tamils as in the mid 1990s under the rule of Chandrika Kumaratunga when the SL military seized the entire… Read more »