by M.K. Eelaventhan, April 6, 2014 Eelam Tamils are in a crisis unprecedented in the history. We need a leader in crisis. In the present critical context, Vaiko alone is equal to the task of raising his voice on behalf of the Eelam Tamils. His voice is the voice of voiceless Tamils at home. Vaiko… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2014
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia
Part IV. Sri Lanka
From Postindependence Ethnic Tensions to Insurgency: Sri Lanka’s Many Missed Opportunities – Chalinda D. Weerasinghe
Sri Lanka: Tackling the LTTE – Kumar Rupesinghe
India Abandons the Tamils
India which voted for the earlier resolutions of the USA against Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council this time kept mum until March 27th, while enacting dramas of hopes for Tamils. To the shock and dismay of all Tamils internationally, the TNA, Human Rights groups including the USA, India somersaulted and abstained from… Read more »
The Pact
what in US campaigns
we know as the Swift Boat
strategy
Inducing Fear
That this escalation in militarisation occurred at a time when the international community was scrutinising Sri Lanka is unsurprising. Intended to prevent a repeat of the protests even during the British Prime Minister’s visit to Jaffna, the arrests of prominent campaigners took place as the UN Human Rights Council began, effectively silenced any popular expressions… Read more »
Women Under Siege
CONFLICT PROFILES SRI LANKADespite Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war being declared over in May 2009, scholars continue to describe the post-conflict state of the country as “fragmented.” With an estimated80,000 to 100,000 citizens killed, according to the United Nations, and an unknown number raped and sexually tortured during the ethnic clashes, whole sectors of Sri Lankan society were left in… Read more »
UN Inquiry Just the Start of a Long Road to Justice
Sri Lankan human rights activists campaigned hard for an independent international commission of inquiry into war crimes during the end of the conflict in 2009. Last month members of the UN Human Rights Council did finally vote to set up an inquiry. To many governments it looks as if the issue of accountability is now… Read more »
SL Campaign: Release of the Detained
Death of “Gobi” should mean release of the detained We are today calling for the release of Jeyakumari Balendran and at least 60 others detained under the prevention of terrorism act in the last month, following the Sri Lankan Army’s announcement that they had killed suspected LTTE revivalist Selvanayagam Kajeepan AKA Gobi. We are suggesting a travel ban… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Displaced
by Sarah Stodder, ‘The Diplomat,’ April 9, 2014 Sanjeev sits nervously in a scuffed plastic chair, half-listening to the sounds of the road outside the displacement camp where he lives. Seven years have passed since his involvement in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the militant separatist organization that claimed a homeland for Sri… Read more »
Why India Abstained in the Recent Vital Vote in Geneva?
by Sachi Sri Kantha, April 1, 2014 While on her early morning routine jaunt of street cleaning, my vital source (a Colombo crow) picked up a smudged, print-out copy of a diplomatic cable, casually dumped into a garbage can near the office of the Presidential palace in Colombo. It appears that the cable had been… Read more »
HRW: Asset Freeze Threatens Peaceful Dissent
“Putting organizations engaged in peaceful political activity on a terrorist list is a modern version of McCarthyism.”
Diaspora Response to GoSL List
Suren Surendiran – Global Tamil Forum This action now proves that the government is bankrupt of political will to even attempt to resolve the root causes of the Tamil National Question. As the UN Human Rights Commissioner acknowledged after her visit to Colombo in August 2013 and in her recent report, the government’s authoritarian tendency… Read more »
Critics Question Sri Lanka’s Ban on Tamil Exile Groups
by Union of Catholic Asian News, Hong Kong, April 3, 2014 Rights monitors are questioning the motives behind Sri Lanka’s decision to ban 16 Tamil diaspora organizations, which the government has accused of links to “terrorism” and the alleged revival of a separatist movement. On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister GL Peiris signed the proscription order… Read more »
Land Grabs Jeopardize Peace in Sri Lanka
Christina Williams is an attorney and founder of Reinventing the Rules, a website dedicated to covering the latest trends and lessons learned in the rule of law sector. She has worked on human rights campaigns related to Sri Lanka for several years and is currently focusing on women and land rights in the region. The end… Read more »
Transcending Terror
It is the mass banning of Tamil civil society…It is, however, also a deliberate attempt to stop the outflow of information regarding on-going atrocities in the Tamil areas, to the international community via diaspora networks, precisely at a time when it is critical. Indeed in 2009, as the mass civilian slaughter ensued, it was the diaspora, not international bodies such as the UN, that provided the most accurate portrayal of events on the ground.
The Case for Nationalism
Another factor in this resurgence is a change of intellectual fashion toward bigness. Fewer people in all classes are still confident that the future belongs to the big battalions. They have noticed that smaller states are likely to be richer, easier to manage and closer to the people than larger states. As the Economist magazine pointed out a few years ago: “Of the 10 countries with populations of over 100 [million], only the U.S. and Japan are prosperous.”
These economic facts remove an important obstacle to secession. And if there ever was a link between prosperity and bigness, it has been dissolved by free trade and globalization, which ensure that the size of a nation need no longer coincide with the size of the market open to it. At the same time, a government can shrink to the size that its citizens find most convenient to control.
The U.S. is the exception to these rules—it is both large and prosperous—because its federalism distributes power to states and localities, where it can be better controlled. Switzerland is another example. Europe might imitate America’s success if it were to model itself on Switzerland and distribute power downward. But the opposite is happening—in both Europe and America.
Years After Obama Hailed Warming Ties With India
by Gardiner Harris, ‘The New York Times,’ March 31, 2014 NEW DELHI — When President Obama visited India in 2010, he called the warming relationship between it and the United States the “defining partnership of the 21st century.” Decades of disagreements, from Cold War ideological battles to squabbles over the United States’ close relationship with India’s archrival,… Read more »
The National Question
Pictures courtesy ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ March 31, 2014 BERNARD SOYSA CENTENARY COMMEMORATION MEETING at Tamil Sangam Hall, 57th Lane, Colombo – 06 at 5 p.m. Bernard Soysa Centenary Memorial Oration Gururbrahma .. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Guests, my dear Brothers & Sisters. It is indeed ironic that we are remembering a stalwart among our Majority Community Parliamentarians of… Read more »
ICJ: UN Investigation Offers Hope to Victims in Sri Lanka
The UN Human Rights Council resolution to establish an international investigation into allegations of human rights violations and abuses committed by both sides in Sri Lanka’s civil war gives hope to tens of thousands of victims who continue to be denied truth and justice. “The resolution sends a strong message to the Government of Sri… Read more »
US Official Comments on UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka
Secretary of State John Kerry 03/27/2014 10:09 AM EDT UN Human Rights Council Vote on Sri Lanka Reconciliation Press Statement John KerrySecretary of State Washington, DC March 27, 2014 Today’s vote in the UN Human Rights Council sends a clear message: The time to pursue lasting peace and prosperity is now; justice and accountability cannot… Read more »