20,000 Identities/Cases confirmed by War Without Witness, Australia, June 13, 2009 http://www.warwithoutwitness.com/SLCasualityReport/VictimsofSriLankanGovernmentsGenocidalWar20,000IdentitiesorCases_WWWReport_13thJun2009_FullReport.pdf Also available at https://sangam.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/VictimsofSriLankanGovernmentsGenocidalWar20000IdentitiesorCases_WWWReport_13thJun2009_FullReport.pdf Reporting as of March 23, 2009: https://sangam.org/2009/03/Civilians_Killed.pdf?uid=3380 This “War Without Witness” report is based on firsthand information obtained from Government Hospital authorities, Government Officials, Police and Judiciary sources in Vanni and Sri Lanka, The North East Secretariat of Human Rights, Aid… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2018
Colombo Released Only 50% of Allocated 2018 Funds to NPC
by TamilNet, October 25, 2018 The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka, both under Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithiripala Sirisena, have been waging propaganda that the Northern Provincial Council was ineffective and that it has even returned allocated sums without deploying them for projects. In reality, Colombo was not even allocating the required funds to the… Read more »
Use of Cluster Munitions in Sri Lanka
by Kumarathasan Rasingam, November 19, 2018 Sri Lanka is the 103rd country to join the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Sri Lanka acceded to the Convention on March 01, 2018. Under the Convention, Sri Lanka is required to show transparency and report annually in a public document on use, stockpiling, clearance and destruction. These obligations… Read more »
Khmer Rouge Leaders Found Guilty of Genocide
in Cambodia’s ‘Nuremberg’ moment Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are the two most senior living leaders of regime that presided over deaths of at least 1.7 million in Cambodia by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, South-east Asia correspondent, ‘The Guardian,’ London, November 16, 2018 About two million people died during Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime. Two of its senior leaders… Read more »
Amnesty: Don’t Impede Ongoing Investigations
by Amnesty International, November 19, 2018 Responding to the transfer of Nishantha Silva, Officer-in-Charge at the Criminal Investigations Department and key investigator in high-profile human rights cases, Amnesty International’s South Asia Researcher, Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, said: “We are concerned about the seeming interference by the authorities with investigations into key allegations of human rights violations including… Read more »
Peer Review on Two Recently Published Papers about the LTTE
by Sachi Sri Kantha, November 18, 2018 Note: Whole of last month, I was busy with my move from Gifu City to Tokyo. Uprooting myself and my library collections, from a place where I had lived for nearly 19 years, was a heavy burden to this bibliophile. I had to voluntarily dispose of almost half… Read more »
SL Crisis Deepens Uncertainty for Tamil Refugees in TN
by Mayilvaganan ‘Times of India,’ Delhi, November 15, 2018 CHENNAI: It is a political paradox. In the power struggle among three Sinhala leaders, the Sri Lankan Tamils — not just those in the island nation but also on other side of Gulf of Mannar — appear to be victims. Confined to the 100-odd refugee camps,… Read more »
MAP: A Threat to Reconciliation & Accountability
by Andrew Ianuzzi, Richard J. Rogers & Heather Ryan, Justiceinfo.net, November 7, 2018 On October 26, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. For the Monitoring and Accountability Panel, this political come-back risks undermining the limited progress made in transitional justice in the aftermath of a civil war that ended… Read more »
The Sri Lanka Crisis Deepens
Editorial by ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, November 12, 2018 Dissolution of Sri Lanka’s Parliament negates the letter and spirit of constitutional reforms Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has dissolved Parliament after it became evident that Mahinda Rajapaksa, who he had appointed Prime Minister two weeks ago, did not enjoy a legislative majority. It is an act of desperation to… Read more »
What, to the Minority, is Democracy?
by Qadri Ismail, ‘Groundviews, Colombo, November 3, 2018 Maithripala Sirisena violates the constitution, stands to destroy democracy itself. Liberals, overwhelmingly Sinhalese, are aggrieved, appalled, aghast. As a minority, I laugh. Not the happy laughter of someone enjoying a good joke. But the bitter, mirthless cackle of someone forced to read this script many times before… Read more »
Sri Lanka President Dissolves Parliament Amid Power Struggle
By Dharisha Bastians and Vindu Goel, ‘The New York Times,’ November 9, 2018 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The president of Sri Lanka dissolved the country’s Parliament on Friday night and called for elections in January to choose new lawmakers, a move that critics said was illegal, and that deepened a two-week-old constitutional crisis over who is the… Read more »
Why the US’s Policy on Sri Lanka Needs a Reset
by JS Tissainayagam, ‘Asia Correspondent,’ November 5, 2018 WHEN Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena unexpectedly replaced Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with strongman and former-President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Oct 26, the move was seen as the fallout from internal rivalry caused by domestic issues such as corruption, poor economic performance and political power play. While this… Read more »
What it Means for the Island Nation’s Tamil Community
Sri Lanka’s political crisis explained, and what it means for the island nation’s Tamil community by Kumaravadivel Guruparan, ‘Scroll.in,’ November 5, 2018 Many Tamil activists see the ousted Ranil Wickremesinghe as less brutal than Mahinda Rajapaksa. In November 2014, Maithripala Sirisena, who was then a cabinet minister and member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party,… Read more »
Halfway Isn’t Good Enough on Human Rights
Myanmar and Sri Lanka were praised for minimal progress. Now it’s all falling apart. by Kate Cronin-Furman, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, November 5, 2018 Thousands of Sri Lankans poured into the streets on Oct. 30 to demand that President Maithripala Sirisena obey the country’s constitution. The protests came after Sirisena shockingly announced that he was… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Homegrown Crisis
The constitutional chaos is rooted in domestic politics, not geopolitical machinations. by Taylor Dibbert, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, November 5, 2018 Sri Lanka is a country in crisis. The coalition government has fallen apart. President Maithripala Sirisena has dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sirisena also suspended Parliament until Nov. 16…. Read more »
Indo Sri Lankan Fishery Dispute
Solving the problem in a win win situation by Punsara Amarasinghe, ‘Countercurrents.org,’ May 12, 2018 Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Jayawardena Also posted in Indian Defense Review on May 21, 2018 entitled ‘India, Sri Lanka must solve fishery dispute bilaterally.’ The Palk Bay, a narrow strip of water separating the state of Tamil Nadu… Read more »
90,000 Northern Families in Shanties or Homeless
What happened to Govt. promised housing? Opinion by Jekhan Arulian, ‘LankaBusinessOnline,’ September 26, 2018 In October last year I had the privilege of participating in the blessing of a new water well in the Killinochchi District of the Northern Province. Its construction had been funded by the UK based charity Child Aid Lanka. The family on… Read more »
Cushioning Approach to Sri Lanka
For its genocidal human rights violations by Thambu Kanagasabai , LLM [Lond.] Former Lecturer in Law – University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, October 22, 2018 Sri Lanka’s dismal record of human rights violations, abuses, encouraged by an institutionalized culture of impunity, commenced its journey in 1956 and is continuing undeterred and unpunished through local and/or international… Read more »
Stepping Back from a Constitutional Crisis
by International Crisis Group, Brussels, October 31, 2018 The return to power of controversial former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka’s prime minister is unconstitutional and destabilising. International actors should make future security and economic cooperation contingent on parliament reconvening immediately to select a prime minister through legal channels What’s new? On 26 October, Sri Lanka’s President… Read more »
The Geopolitical Dimension
Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Crisis by Ana Pararajasingham, ‘The Diplomat,’ Tokyo, October 30, 2018 The sacking of Sri Lanka’s prime minister bodes poorly for India and the US, but is a welcome sign for China. The entire country, not to mention the international community, was taken unawares on October 25 when Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena… Read more »