by Veluppilai Thangavelu, October 23, 2017 from Thamilvaddam discussion group # 4708 COMMENT on ‘Battling for a New Constitution’ In the first place Jayampathy Wickremaratne is not a Minister. He is an appointed MP. So why quote Jayampathy Wickremaratne and why not quote Mahinda Rajapaksa, former President, has said about the current constitutional process? That… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2017
On Sri Lanka’s National Question
by P. Sivakumar, October 20, 2017 One of the tragedies of Sri Lanka is that the Sinhalese have never understood the meaning of federalism or they pretend not to understand. Most of them think a federal state means a separate country where the Sinhalese will be sent out. Federalism is not separation and it is the… Read more »
Battling for a New Constitution
And dashing the hopes of the Tamils by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [Lond.], Former Lecturer in Law , University of Colombo, President, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization The Steering Committee consisting of twenty members of Parliament chaired by the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has finally submitted its report for consideration by the Constituent Assembly on… Read more »
Economic Map of South Asia
by Economist Intelligence Unit, October 2017 GDP/capita
The Myth of Lazy Jaffna Youth
‘The Daily Mirror,’ Colombo, October 16, 2017 Not long ago, soon after the war, a common refrain about the Jaffna society was how hard working, thrifty and prudent its people were. But today, one often hears people decrying Jaffna society as having become lazy and spendthrift, landing itself in debt. It is true that Jaffna… Read more »
Joint Civil Society Submission to the UN UPR
by Joint Civil Society, posted on Centre for Policy Analysis, March 2017 Final-Sri-Lanka-JCS-UPR-submission-March-2017 Introduction …The years 2012-2014 witnessed continued authoritarianism, weakening of the rule of law, shrinking of space for human rights and dissent and the exacerbation of the culture of impunity. With the regime change of January 2015 and the formation of a government… Read more »
Is Sri Lanka’s Tamil party Selling Out the Tamil People?
By JS Tissainayagam, ‘Asian Correspondent,’ UK, Malaysia, Australia, October 4, 2017 SRI LANKA’s government since 2015 was elected on a promise of a new constitution that would find a solution to the country’s national problems. On Sept 21, 2017, the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly presented its reporton the new constitution to Parliament proposing the devolution… Read more »
On Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Reform
Hopes and fears ‘The Hindu’ editorial, September 23, 2017 The interim report on a new constitution should set off an informed debate in Sri Lanka It is only with a great degree of caution and circumspection that the interim report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly of Sri Lanka can be welcomed. The… Read more »
The Militarisation of Mullaitivu District
Normalising the Abnormal by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research (ACPR) and People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), October 4, 2017 Clicking on each pin will open up more information about the structure in question. Locations of structures were determined based on six months of desk research and field research, and only pins that were… Read more »
S.P. Amarasingam on the 1977 Anti-Tamil Pogrom
by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 23, 2017 Front Note by Sachi Available literature on the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka is vast, compared to the 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom. Thus, I present below two observations made by Mr. S.P. Amarasingam, one of the respected journalists and attorney, of those days. Both appeared in the September… Read more »
The Legacy of Indian Migration to European Colonies
[Note that Indian Tamils brought by the British to work in the coffee, rubber & tea estates of Sri Lanka are not included in the discussion below. This community joined the indigenous Tamils already on the island for milennia. /Ed.] http://indianexpress.com/article/research/indian-tamils-and-sri-lankan-tamils-here-is-the-difference-4654435/ One hundred years since servitude by ‘The Economist,’ London, September 2, 2017 A century after India… Read more »
War Crimes & Command Responsibility
by Thambu Kanagasabai,, LLM [Lond.] Former Lecturer in Law – University of Colombo Sri Lanka President, The Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization, Toronto, Canada, September 26, 2017 The current hot topic which has generated fire and heat among the military’s high ups and dragging the Sri Lankan government also to answerability is the war… Read more »
Catalans Are Not Alone. Across the World, People Yearn to Govern Themselves
by Neal Ascherson, ‘The Guardian,’ UK, September 23, 2017 Globalisation was supposed to bring widespread uniformity and benefit. But it hasn’t addressed old grievances Comments 831 It could end really badly in Catalonia. Running out of their own ideas, the Spanish government in Madrid seems to be begging advice from ancestral Castilian spirits. And the ancestors… Read more »
Catalans and Kurds Discover the Hard Truth About Secession
by Max Fisher & Amanda Taub, ‘The New York Times,’ September 29, 2017 When does an independence movement get to form its own nation? For decades, a set of unstated but well-known rules has supposedly decided that. But those rules include a number of contradictions. And as the Catalans in Spain and the Kurds in… Read more »
Ongoing UNHRC session: What’s in store for Sri Lanka?
by SUNANDA DESHAPRIYA GroundViews 09/25/2017 The term ‘painfully slow progress’ has become a standard descriptor for Sri Lanka’s overall pace of implementation of UNHRC resolution A/HRC/30/1 in Geneva. It has been two years since Sri Lanka cosponsored the resolution “Promoting democracy, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka” pledging in the meantime to implement a comprehensive… Read more »
[US] Learning to Live With a Changing World Map
By JOSHUA KEATING The NY Times SEPT. 22, 2017 (Print Edition on Sept. 25, 2017 has the title: The U.S. Likes the World Map the Way It Is.) (Sangam’s Observation: Any reference to Tamil Freedom struggle for Eelam in Sri Lanka is missing. Internationally assisted genocide of more than 140,000 Tamil civilians to suppress independence… Read more »
HRW: 2 Years On, Scant Progress on UN Resolution
Human Rights Council Should Seek Timeline for Action by Human Rights Watch, New York, September 13, 2017 (Geneva, September 14, 2017) – United Nations member countries at the Human Rights Council in Geneva should press Sri Lanka to promptly meet the targets of the council’s October 2015 resolution for transitional justice, Human Rights Watch said today…. Read more »
IMADR: Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka
Statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by International Movement against all Forms of Racism & Discrimination, September 12, 2017 Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka has endured consecutive periods of violent insurgency and a 26-year-long armed conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.[1] This conflict ended… Read more »
Sri Lanka Has Not Kept Pomises to UN – Franciscans International
by ‘Tamil Guardian,’ London, September 12, 2017 Franciscans International said Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has not kept promises made to Tamil families of the disappeared or to the UN Human Rights Council and called on the global body to continue monitoring the situation on the island. Speaking at the 36th UN Human Rights Council… Read more »
India’s “Like-Minded” Partnerships to Counter China in South Asia
by Constantino Xavier, Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, September 11, 2017 China’s inroads into South Asia since the mid-2000s have eroded India’s traditional primacy in the region, from Afghanistan to Myanmar and also in the Indian Ocean. As Beijing deploys its formidable financial resources and develops its strategic clout across the… Read more »