NEW DELHI — Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, tried to pre-empt criticism of his government’s human rights record on Friday as he welcomed leaders of Commonwealth countries to asummit meeting in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, that was overshadowed by persistent allegations of state-sponsored abuse during a long civil war by the Sinhalese-dominated government against ethnic Tamils…. Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2013
Sri Lanka’s Climate of Fear
Since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had a record of serious human rights violations and failed to provide accountability for wartime abuses. In August, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, issued scathing observations on the state of human rights in Sri Lanka after her… Read more »
What Cameron Must Salvage from CHOGM
First and foremost, he must seek accountability for egregious rights abuses Cameron’s sense of outrage is too little and far too late. But it perhaps create an opportunity to salvage something from an otherwise thoroughly discredited Commonwealth meeting, that he is clearly so determined to attend. Just this week, David Cameron described as “truly shocking”… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Potemkin Peace
by International Crisis Group, Belgium, November 13, 2013 Full report at http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/253-sri-lankas-potemkin-peace-democracy-under-fire.pdf EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Sri Lanka’s ethnically-exclusive regime continues to close political space and consolidate its power. Recent moves that create a perception of progress have not weakened the power of the president, his family or the military or brought reconciliation, ended human rights… Read more »
Channel 4’s ‘No Fire Zone’
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/no-fire-zone/4od ABOUT THE PROGRAMME The team behind the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields tell the story of the 138-day-long final offensive in Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war Available for a limited time only at Channel 4 site. —————— Channel 4 Nov. 9 blog on interview with Isaipriya’s mother and sisters http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/sri-lanka-tamil-familys-distress-footage-daughter/430
Sri Lanka’s Unfinished War
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Interview with TGTE PM
Published on Nov 9, 2013 This is the full interview with Viswanathan Rudrakumaran for the documentary ‘That Tamil Issue’. Interviewers : Tejinder Singh and Rajesh Sundaram. Shot in New York, USA. Co-Producer : Prakash Ezumalai —————————- CHOGM 2013 Walking into Genocidal Sri Lanka http://naathamnews.com/?p=32 A Booklet by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) 1) … Read more »
India’s PM Under Fire For Boycotting Commonwealth Conflab Under Tamil Pressure
He had a summit with President Obama in the White House, and he saw China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow all in a period of a few weeks. Yet Manmohan Singh, approaching the end of a decade as India’s prime minister, won’t be hobnobbing this week with the leaders of the… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 12
by Sachi Sri Kantha, November 1, 2013 Part 11 One Dilemma of Biographers Few biographers begin the biography of their subjects, immediately from the date of birth. Here are some examples: Ernest Jones began his ‘Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (vol.1, 1953) with, “Sigmund Freud was born at 6:30 pm on the six of May,… Read more »
New Delhi Experiments Eezham Model ‘Counterinsurgency’ on Its Own People
Indian State now consolidates a policy that extraordinary political movements of mass basis, coming from peoples long exposed to social oppression, material deprivation, un-freedom and stark poverty in India, have to be eliminated with the deployment of an increasing number of armed forces. The more the forces are special and armed-to-the-teeth with impunity, the more… Read more »
LTTE: A Revolution in Military Affairs
LTTE: A Revolution in Military Affairs
Transnational Security and Postinsurgency Issues
From from “Issues for Engagement: Asian Perspectives in Transnational Security Challenges,” published by Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2010 Posted on Academia.org & only available for online reading at http://www.academia.edu/4740547/Sri_Lanka_Transnational_Security_and_Postinsurgency_Issues Key Findings • sri lanka’s quarter-century civil war may be over, but many of the underlying causes of the war continue to linger. • the international network of… Read more »
Women and Children in the North
by Watchdog, ‘Groundviews.org,’ Colombo, October 31, 2013 In September 2013, Watchdog travelled to the Vanni[1] and met with survivors of sexual violence, women’s rights activists and representatives of women’s groups. This report is based on information provided during interviews conducted with them, Human Rights organisations based in the North and Colombo and Government sources. During our… Read more »
‘Cover-up’ over Phosphorus Attack Haunts Sri Lanka Talks
A Sri Lankan army photograph taken after the last battle of the civil war in 2009 Sri Lankan Government/Reuters When Kannaki was hit by a phosphorus shell, she was six months pregnant, lying huddled in a bunker with 15 other Tamils while an artillery bombardment raged around them for hour after hour. As… Read more »
Sri Lanka: COIN or Civil War?
Ambassador (Ret.) Edward Marks, a veteran of 40 years in the Foreign Service and currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at George Mason University, contacted Joint Force Quarterly with comments about “Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers” by Niel A. Smith, which appeared in issue 59 (4th Quarter, 2010). Ambassador Marks believes that MAJ Smith misreads the context… Read more »
A Violent Non-State Actors Reading List
About Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Visiting research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)–The Hague; senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Ph.D. candidate in world politics at the Catholic University of America; etc. In the introduction to her edited volume Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics, Klejda Mulaj notes that, while political science scholarship has… Read more »
When Counterinsurgency Wins
by Ahmed S. Hashim, University of Pennsylvania Press, May, 2013 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4452-6 | $59.95s | £39.00 | Add to cart Ebook Jul 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0648-7 | $59.95s | £39.00 | About | Add to cart View table of contents “An in-depth, timely, and nuanced study of the… Read more »
Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers
After three decades of conflict, Sri Lanka’s government defeated the ethnic separatist insurgent group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), popularly known as the Tamil Tigers, in May 2009. The violence and brutality employed by both sides in the final years of the conflict drew significant interest from the global civilian and military communities, especially… Read more »
An Uncommon Disrespect for Human Rights
by Jack Healey, ‘The Huffington Post,’ October 31, 2013 Founder, Human Rights Actions Center The Commonwealth of Nations was established in 1949 during the decolonization process of the British Empire. Meeting biennially in various of the fifty four member states, the Commonwealth is a voluntary and equal association of nations that is theoretically bound by… Read more »
Credible Sri Lankan War Crimes Investigation on the Horizon
At the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) 68th session in late September, a major stipulation was laid out by UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in reference to the shocking slaughtering of tens of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamil civilians in the spring of 2009. Given strong evidence that Tamil civilians were killed primarily by… Read more »