Smith: Switch gears, Mr. President. Fight to establish Syrian war crimes court &hold both Assad and the rebels who commit egregious crimes accountable There is a non-lethal way to help ensure that Bashar al-Assad and other perpetrators of atrocities in Syria are held to account not someday far in the future but beginning now. The… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Geopolitics
When Public Relations Meets Militarisation
The recent events in Weliweriya and Grandpass reveal more clearly than ever that what Sri Lanka needs is not more commissions, or even arrests. The country needs legal and institutional changes to the system of policing and justice designed to reverse the militarisation and concentration of power that has deepened so dangerously under the Rajapaksas.
The Resurgence of the Kurds
The fortunes of the Kurds started to look up as a result of events beyond their control…
One of the most surprising aspects of this success is the change it has brought about in Turkey’s attitude toward the Iraqi Kurds…
The Turks seem to be backing away from Iraq’s federal government, looking to the Kurds to provide a buffer between them and the Iran-dominated Shia zone. State-backed Turkish energy companies are competing for a stake in Iraqi Kurdistan’s big oil and gas fields and there are plans for a pipeline that would pump oil to Turkey without passing through Iraqi federal government territory. That would demonstrate Iraqi Kurdistan’s growing detachment from Baghdad—and the short distance between the Kurds and outright independence.
Getting Off the Sri Lankan Grid
The looming “great game” that will be played out in the in the Indian Ocean holds an important lesson for the Tamils of Eelam and TamilNadu. As I mentioned in the previous post, at the heart of the global and regional policy framework on the Indian Ocean is the stable, economic growth. It is essential that the Tamils… Read more »
Burma [not so random] Connection
The similarities of the Myanmar and the Sri Lankan states are obvious. Majority of the people in both countries practice Theravada Buddhism. And both countries are plagued by ethnic conflicts.
R2P and Sri Lanka
by Henrietta Briscoe, Tamils Against Genocide, April 2013 for Responsibility to Protect Conference, Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 11 – 12, 2013 http://www.r2pconference.com/ R2P Poster Slovenia Conference TAG April 2013 ————————- Henrietta Briscoe interview in Delhi, March 2013 ————————- Tamil Genocide Framework Highlighted in Slovenia Conference [TamilNet, Thursday, 11 April 2013, 11:14 GMT] The framework… Read more »
The China Card
Many among the Eelam Tamils continue to fall for the “China card” claims of Sri Lanka. These claims serve, however, as a smokescreen for the realpolitik of the region vis-a-vis Sri Lanka. A critical analysis of this is helpful for Eelam Tamils to develop a more nuanced approach. China is of no help to Sri… Read more »
For Sri Lanka, More Empty Words
The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa greeted last year’s vote with complaints that it was being persecuted by the international community — and used that as a pretext to obstruct even more thoroughly the work of journalists, lawyers and activists. As Mohan Peiris, a former attorney general who is now Sri Lanka’s chief justice,said last March: “It won’t change anything. We will just forge ahead as planned.”
In May 2009, the Tamil Tigers, a merciless guerrilla group, lost the fight to carve out a separate state for the island’s Tamil minority. The war ended in a blaze of blood, with roughly 40,000 Tamil civilians killed, according to a United Nations estimate.
Four years later, the government has not investigated numerous charges that the army committed atrocities during the waning years of the conflict. Straining the fragile peace yet more, Tamils in the country’s north and east continue to live under the close watch of the Sri Lankan military.
UN Resolution Threatens Stability of India’s Government
The DMK accused the government of diluting a draft Sri Lanka resolution sponsored by the United States and ignoring the Tamil party’s concerns.
DMK Pullout FAQ
The draft resolution can be technically amended right up to the moment of adoption which could be as late as Friday afternoon this week. However, amendments need to be politically acceptable to all co-sponsors and the challenge would be to get the necessary political acceptance, including instruction from the capital city for many or most delegations…
We have long insisted that what Sri Lanka needs is an independent international investigation into the war crimes, and crimes against humanity, that both sides participated in in the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war. This resolution falls short of delivering that.
Nevertheless, this resolution is a positive step: it builds on the resolution that was passed at last year’s Human Rights Council but uses stronger language and gives an enhanced mandate to UN experts (known as Special Rapporteurs and Special Procedure Mandate Holders) to hold the Government of Sri Lanka to account over human rights violations – and it’s an important step on the road towards the international investigation we need. It is very important that the resolution not be abandoned as a result of this controversy.
Observation of the Progress of National Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Sri Lanka
David L. Phillips, Director of ISHR’s Program on Peace-building and Rights, released a statement at a briefing organized by the Mission of Japan to the UN for Member States noting the Government of Sri Lanka’s failure to conduct a credible domestic investigation into violations of international humanitarian law and calling for independent investigation of alleged… Read more »
Britain Must Stand Up for Human Rights in Sri Lanka
Our government should back UN calls for justice by urging the Commonwealth to move its summit elsewhere The Queen shakes hands with Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting last year. Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images In early 2009, as foreign secretary, I travelled to Sri Lanka with Bernard… Read more »
Appeal from Tamil Civil Society
Appeal from Tamil Civil Society to the International Community regarding the upcoming resolution in the UNHRC on Sri Lanka This appeal, signed by civil society activists who live and work in the North and East of Sri Lanka, seeks to state our position with regard to the resolution on Sri Lanka to be tabled at… Read more »
Sri Lanka 2009 War Casualties
by Francis Harrison, posted by Sri Lanka Campaign, March 6, 2013
The Upcoming HRC Resolution on Sri Lanka
India has already come out and announced that it too will support the resolution –taking a bit of drama out of the whole affair. But it’s also quite revealing because it shows how much the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has overplayed its hand. Let us not forget that less than a year ago, Delhi… Read more »
Bloody Secrets
[A]ctivists and journalists have been providing disturbing new proof that forces under Mr Rajapaksa (and so also under the control of his brother, Mahinda, the president), committed violent crimes with impunity. Worse, convincing evidence is also appearing that state-security forces have continued to torture, rape and otherwise violently abuse Tamils, even after the war.
Revisiting the Horror in Sri Lanka
Letter from India NEW DELHI — In the series of photographs shot in 2009, the bare-chested boy is first shown seated on a bench watching something outside the frame. Then he is seen having a snack. In the third image he is lying on the ground with bullet holes in his chest. The photographs, which… Read more »
Christian Clergy Letter to UNHRC
Letter to UN Human Rights Council Call for a strong and action oriented resolution on Sri Lanka at the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council Letter to UNHRC by NorthEast clergy with annexes 18Feb2013 We had also witnessed continuing ignorance and violations of the key LLRC recommendations, related to political solution to the ethnic conflict, release… Read more »
The Truth Must Be Told
Quickly and confidently, before the situation deteriorates, India needs to chart a course that can convince its own people and the international community that it is on the side of what is right and just in this matter, while impressing on Colombo that the issue will not fade away just by stout denial, as it seems to hope.
Sri Lanka’s Squandered Opportunities
Mr. Rajapaksa had promised to expand that local autonomy as a way of addressing the legitimate interests of Tamils, who form a majority in parts of the north and east. But this month he celebrated Sri Lanka’s independence day by delivering a speech that reneged on the pledge. The government is now signaling that it may repeal the constitutional provision on local rights.