UN Peacekeepers: Keeping the Peace or Preventing it?

The UN peacekeepers’ capacity to commit rape with impunity undermines prospects for sustainable peace around the world. by Nimmi Gowrinathan & Kate Cronin-Furman, Al Jazeera, May 2, 2017 In 2007, more than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeeping troops were sent back to their home country from Haiti in disgrace as a result of sexual abuse allegations,… Read more »

European Union, GSP+ and Sri Lanka

Promoting or Demoting Human Rights? by Kumarathasan Rasingam, May 7, 2017 The European Parliament in its session on 26th April, 2017 has voted in favour of Sri Lanka rejecting a motion tabled by 52 European Union members to deny the additional tariff concessions approximately 66% on several products including textiles and fisheries imported by European… Read more »

MGR Remembered – Part 38

Testimony of producer K.N. Vasu by Sachi Sri Kantha, April 25, 2017 Part 37 Front Note: I apologize to the readers, for the six month interruption, in continuing this series. Main reason was semi-retirement related loss of my own office room, and its after-effects.  Second reason was the assumption of an editor-in-chief position of a… Read more »

‘Tamils & the Nation:’ India & Sri Lanka Compared

by Madurika Rasaratnam, Oxford University Press, 352 pages, published August 15, 2016 ISBN 9780190498320 ABSTRACT Why are relations between politically mobilized ethnic identities and the nation-state sometimes peaceful and at other times fraught and violent? This book sets out a novel answer to this key puzzle in world politics through a detailed comparative study of… Read more »

Civil Society Joint Statement on CTA

Joint Civil Society Statement: Sri Lanka’s draft Counter Terrorism Act: a license for continued state oppression, intimidation and torture May 4, 2017 The Sri Lankan cabinet’s approval of the new Counter Terrorism Act (CTA) is further confirmation of the state’s unwillingness to meet its obligations on human rights, to its citizens and the international community…. Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Crumbling Credibility

By: Kumarathasan Rasingam, April 29, 2017 — The credibility of Sri Lanka in relation to the settlement of the 60 year old ethnic problem of Tamils can be judged from the fate of several pacts, agreements and undertakings which were made from 1956 to 2009 and the Sri Lankan Governments unwillingness to comply with the… Read more »

International Criminal Court & Sri Lanka

by Thanbu Kanagasabai, LLM, London, April 25, 2017 — There appears to be some confusion as to the scope of functions and jurisdiction of this court. ICC, and more particularly its jurisdiction over Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes etc. ICC is an Inter Governmental Organization and an International Tribunal which sits in the city of… Read more »

Competitiveness in Sri Lanka

by World Bank, Washington, DC, June 2016 World Bank Sri-Lanka-Competitiveness-20-FINAL INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION      PROGRAM DOCUMENT FOR     A PROPOSED CREDIT      IN THE AMOUNT OF US$ 100 MILLION     TO    DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF SRI LANKA    FOR THE    COMPETITIVENESS, TRANSPARENCY AND FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY   DEVELOPMENT POLICY FINANCING  Introduction    1. This  program  document  describes  the  Development  Policy  Financing  (DPF)  operation  to  the  Democratic  Socialist  Republic  of  Sri  Lanka  as  a  stand‐alone  single  tranche  operation … Read more »

Workers in Post-Civil War Jaffna

A Snapshot of Working Conditions, Opportunities and Inequalities in Northern Sri Lanka by Solidarity Center, Washington, DC, June 2016 AFL CIO SRI-LANKA.Workers-in-Postwar-Jaffna.8.16 …The bulk of the workers in Jaffna are in low-paid jobs with minimal labor standards, social protection and security of tenure, which are not conducive to decent work, per the ILO1 or to… Read more »

Trade in South Asia: A Disconnected Region

CSIS interactive map of transportation projects, “Reconnecting Asia” – https://reconnectingasia.csis.org/map/ including rehabilitation of the Talaimannar Railroad spur, etc. 2012 UNCTAD paper on the “Political Economy of Regional Integration in South Asia” – http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ecidc2013misc1_bp5.pdf Graphic by World Bank, accessed April 24, 2017 at http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2016/05/24/the-potential-of-intra-regional-trade-for-south-asia

New Silk Road or New Great Game?

India Developing New Sri Lanka Port to Combat China by Forbes, April 22, 2017 As regional powers like China, Russia, Japan, and India vie for political and economic position throughout the eastern realms of Eurasia, many of the less powerful countries caught in the middle are employing what could be called a ‘multi-vector strategy’ as… Read more »

Tunisia’s Truth-Telling

Tunisia’s Truth-Telling Renews a Revolution’s Promise, Painfully by Carlotta Gall, ‘The New York Times,’ April 23, 2017 TUNIS — Like many of his fellow torture victims, Sami Brahim, a former political prisoner, did not expect much when he testified at the opening of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission in November. But to his surprise, he… Read more »

The Damage Done by Former UNSG Ban Ki-moon

The damage done by the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the Tamils in North-East Sri Lanka by Brian Senewiratne, MD, Brisbane, Australia, April 22, 2017 In the 70 year history of the United Nations, there has not been a Secretary General worse than Ban Ki-moon.  The former head of the UN Office of Internal… Read more »

FHR: Provisional Comments on Sri Lanka’s Draft CTA

by Prof. Christof Heyns & Toby Fisher, Foundation for Human Rights, Institute for Internationa and Comparative Law in Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa, April 18, 2017 SRI_LANKAS_DRAFT_COUNTER_TERRORISM_ACT_-_PUBLICATION_DRAFT_-_18_APRIL_2017 CONCLUSION 35. Whilst the amendments made to the 2016 Draft are to be welcomed, the current PLFCTA contains a number of features that are inconsistent with the international human… Read more »

SACLS: CEDAW Report & Transitional Justice

by South Asian Centre for Legal Studies blog, Colombo, March 10, 2017 With the commemoration of international women’s day this week, we must remember that the transitional justice agenda, which was in many countries advanced by courageous and resilient women activists, must be situated within a broader human rights framework. The CEDAW report, also published… Read more »

CEDAW Report on Sri Lanka

by UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Geneva, March 3, 2017 CEDAW/C/LKA/CO/8 Concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of Sri Lanka http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CEDAW%2FC%2FLKA%2FCO%2F8&Lang=en The Committee considered the eighth report of Sri Lanka (CEDAW/C/LKA/8) at its 1484th and 1485th meetings, on 22 February 2017 (see CEDAW/C/SR.1484 and CEDAW/C/SR.1485). The Committee’s list of issues and… Read more »

GoSL Complicity in Paramilitary Factions’ HR Abuses

from Wikileaks, accessed April 20, 2017 https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07COLOMBO728_a.html Date: 2007 May 18, 09:22 Classified By: Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Jr., for reasons 1.4(b, d) 1. (S) SUMMARY: Allegations of government complicity in crimes committed by organized paramilitary groups have mounted in the last year. Paramilitaries such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)-breakaway Karuna group and… Read more »

‘The Tamil Nadu factor’

Demanding justice for genocide in Sri Lanka by Ana Pararajasingham, ‘Open Democracy,’ April 13, 2017 From politicians to protestors, the people of Tamil Nadu are making waves in Indian politics, rallying around the need for justice for the war crimes committed against Sri Lanka’s Tamils. Protests began in Tamil Nadu in January 2017 against the… Read more »