Posts Categorized: International

Sri Lanka’s Military Aren’t Ready to be Peacekeepers

Given Sri Lanka’s history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, writes Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree. By Gary Anandasangaree, ‘The Star,’ Toronto, Nov. 3, 2017   The recent appointment of Robert Mugabe as the World Health Organization (WHO)… Read more »

Second U.S.-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue

Joint Statement From the U.S. Department of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka on the Second U.S.-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue 11/06/2017 10:56 AM EST Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC November 6, 2017 The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of… Read more »

Brazil Cannot be a Safe Haven for War Crimes Suspects

by Juana Kweitel and Sylvia Helena Steiner, Nexo Journal, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 24, 2017 (translated from the original Portugese by Google Translate) Sri Lanka’s ambassador is suspected of having participated in the deaths of more than 70,000 people in his country. Itamaraty, however, gave him diplomatic immunity and did not publicly pronounce on denunciations… 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 »

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 »

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 »

The Hateful Monk

by Gavin Jacobson, ‘The New York Review of Books,’ August 31, 2017 Les Films du Losange Ashin Wirathu and his followers in Barbet Schroeder’s The Venerable W., 2017 Ma Soe Yein is the largest Buddhist monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar. A dreary sprawl of dormitories and classrooms, it is located in the western half of the city,… Read more »

A Question of Command Responsibility

by No Fire Zone,  August 19, 2017 An examination of the charges of command responsibility against general Jagath Jayasuriya https://vimeo.com/231070522

Interview with Gen. Jayasuriya

I didn’t know what was happening on the war front – Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya by  Sulochana Ramiah Mohan, ‘Ceylon Today,’ September 3, 2017 Tall and well-built, retired Army General, Jagath Jayasuriya, who was posted in Brazil as the Sri Lankan Ambassador, is back in town with mounted allegations against him related to his posts as… Read more »

Why a Sri Lankan Leader Might Be Tried for War Crimes in Brazil

By Kate Cronin-Furman, ‘The Washington Post,’ August 30, 2017 One of the mothers of the disappeared stands beside photographs of the missing in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, in July. (Kate Cronin-Furman) Early Tuesday morning, news broke that Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Brazil had fled the country. Sri Lanka’s government later announced that his departure was planned, and it… Read more »

Sri Lankan Ambassador, Accused of War Crimes, Leaves Brazil

by The Associated Press in ”The New York Times,’ August 29, 207 RIO DE JANEIRO — A former Sri Lankan general accused of war crimes by human rights groups has left Brazil, where until recently he was his country’s ambassador to six nations in South America, an embassy official said Tuesday. Jagath Jayasuriya left Brazil… Read more »

For the Rohingyas and Us

by Cheran Rudhramoorthy, on Facebook, August 31, 2017 (Also in Tamil) I abandoned my child, My God I cannot ask you anymore For forgiveness. Just three minutes Before killing the child you chopped off my hands. Amid pain, grief and wailing you will not have grace. When the spear was inserted softly into my child’s stomach, thinking… Read more »