by TNAPolitics.org, January 30, 2014 The Central Committee meeting of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi was held on January 26, 2014 at the Town Hall, Trincomalee. The meeting was attended by representatives from all districts in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The meeting which commenced at 10.30 a.m. under the chairmanship of R. Sampanthan M.P…. Read more »
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Is Assad’s Use of Torture Paying Off?
This is a guest post by Lionel Beehner, who is a PhD Candidate at Yale University and was formerly a senior writer at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also regularly blogs at the excellent Political Violence at a Glance. A new trove of photographs provides evidence of alleged torture of some 11,000 people in Syrian prison cells. Other… Read more »
U.S. Envoy to Visit Sri Lanka as Pressure Builds for War Crimes Inquiry
“There is no way he can allow an investigation because an international probe that asks chain-of-command type of questions will lead directly to the Rajapaksas themselves,” Mr. Saravanamuttu said in an interview. “Literally and figuratively, President Rajapaksa must live and die in power.”
Whether the country’s restive north will remain peaceful without further reconciliation efforts is a crucial question. The army continues to occupy thousands of homes and administer its own farms, factories and resorts on appropriated land, for which the government has paid little or no compensation.
Serendipity: A Happy 260th Birthday to You
Introduction ‘Serendipity’ word was coined by Horatio (better known as Horace) Walpole (1717-1797), in a January 28th 1754 letter to Horace Mann, then residing in Florence, Italy. Eighty years ago, in his presidential address delivered before the 36th annual meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists on December 28, 1934, Milton Rosenau (1871-1940; then affiliated… Read more »
Text of NPC Resolution
Deliberation of the Northern Provincial Council – https://soundcloud.com/tamilnet/tamil-deliberations-in-npc-on *** The following resolution was proposed by the Council Member Hon Mahalingam Kanagalingam Shivajilingam and adopted by the Northern Provincial Council on January 27, 2014: 1. We bring to the notice of the International Community that the Tamil Nation has been, and continued to be subjected to ethnic cleansing… Read more »
Tamil Leaders Vow to Prove ‘Genocide’ in Civil War
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil-run provincial administration said Monday it wants to prove that the central government carried out an operation “akin to genocide” to win a long civil war against Tamil rebels. The Northern Provincial Council wants to conduct its own internationally supervised count of the dead and missing civilians to… Read more »
Verdict of Permanent People’s Tribunal
PPT judgement upholds Eelam Tamil identity and nomenclature The full report of the judgement of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka (Bremen Session), released on Wednesday, came out with a discussion on the choice of nomenclature to identify the victims of genocide and has decided on the use of the term “Eelam Tamils as… Read more »
Stanley Jeyaraj Tambiah (1929-2014)
TAMBIAH, Stanley Jeyaraj who was born and raised in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, fifth son of Charles Rajakon and Eliza Chellana Tambiah, died after a long illness in hospice in Cambridge, MA on January 19, 2014. Raab Professor of Social Anthropology at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus, he is survived by his son, Jonathan, daughter-in-law Tina, grandson, Logan,… Read more »
Why International Pressure Has Become Necessary
There is a belief that a presidential or general election will be held later this year or early next year, following on the provincial elections. The government’s reluctance to accommodate a political solution to minority ethnic grievances at this time would seem to come from its calculation that it cannot afford to lose its hold over the Sinhalese majority electorate in the context of impending elections. This is an electorate that can give the government a permanent majority and the prospect of long term rule so long as it does not fracture. The issue on which the Sinhalese electorate is most likely to get divided on is that of a political solution to the ethnic conflict. Therefore the government is unwilling to change its policy with regard to the ethnic minorities or implement the devolution of powers to the North.
HRW Annual Report: Sri Lanka
“The Sri Lankan government makes a lot of claims about pursuing accountability for wartime abuses, but the world is still waiting to see some results,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s clearer than ever that an independent international investigation is needed to make genuine progress in providing justice for victims.”
Does Diplomacy Stand a Chance in Sri Lanka?
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in 2009, but the cessation of war has not resulted in the peace that many had hoped for. Notwithstanding some notable progress when it comes to reconstruction and development, authoritarianism, ethnic tension, and majoritarian triumphalism are on the rise. These trends will come under increased scrutiny at the 25th session… Read more »
NPC Chief Minister Wigneswaran on Good Governance
by ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ January 20, 2014 New Year 2014 is starting well for us. The War had got us into a cocoon in which we managed howsoever we could, not really appreciating the changes taking place locally and globally all around us. We failed to appreciate the nuances of political or administrative terminology too. We… Read more »
The Irrelevancy of the 13th Amendment
by Kumaravadivel Guruparan, ‘Junior Bar Law Review,’ October, 2013 Article_on_13A_for_Junior_Bar_Law_Review_(Oct_2013) 4. Conclusion I have tried to demonstrate in this article that given the structural deficiencies of the 13th!Amendment that it fails to even perform the role of a reference point to a discourse on a political solution. This article calls for and tries to provide the… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 14
by Sachi Sri Kantha, January 21, 2014 Part 13 concluded with one of MGR’s logic in movie making; which is,“One can work with those who know everything. One can also work with those who don’t know anything. But, one shouldn’t work with those who know nothing, but pretends to know everything.” In retrospect, none can… Read more »
‘In a Time of Burning’
Words imply literacy, knowledge and awareness; words preserve and pass on history; words communicate experience and so create understanding… In this tragic and terrible situation, the creative energy of Tamils also finds expression – testimony or resistance – in Art; more precisely, in fiction, autobiography, poetry, song, painting and film.
Sri Lanka Countries with High Religious Hostility
In some countries, violence toward religious minorities intensified from the levels reported in previous years. In Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, for example, monks attacked Muslim and Christian places of worship, including reportedly attacking a mosque in the town of Dambulla in April 2012 and forcibly occupying a Seventh-day Adventist church in the town of Deniyaya and converting it into a Buddhist temple in August 2012
The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention’s Report
Almost five years later, the risk of mass atrocities in Sri Lanka remains high. This report addresses some of the underlying sources of the risk of mass atrocities that represent a threat to human security in Sri Lanka.
Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka: 2006-2013
2 Comments This is a summary of a longer report. Please download it as a PDF here or read it online here. All photos taken and provided by the author.Introduction According to Article 7, paragraph 2(i) of the Rome Statute[1], an Enforced disappearance is defined as “…the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support… Read more »
Fury in Sri Lanka at U.S. Embassy Tweet on Killing of Tamils
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense expressed shock and anger on Friday atwhat it called a “baseless allegation” against the nation’s military in a photo caption posted on the official Twitter feed of the United States Embassy the day before. The photograph showed the American ambassador to Sri Lanka, Michele J. Sison, and Stephen J. Rapp, the United… Read more »
Colonization Schemes
by Hon.R.Sampanthan-MP, TNAPolitics.org, December 15, 2013 I am happy to follow the Minister, the Hon. Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, who, I think, in the course of his statement referred to the multifarious problems that exist in the North and the East pertaining to State land. I will be dealing with some of these issues in the course… Read more »