Posts Categorized: Government

2024 Budget

Prime focus on SOE reform and corruption [discusses budget going to the military – Ed/] by Daily FT, Colombo, November 14, 2023 President Ranil Wickremesinghe, as Finance Minister, yesterday presented the Budget for 2024, a year which will start the election cycle. The welfare allocation for 2024 is close to Rs.  200 billion compared to… Read more »

ICJ: Parliamentary Privilege Used to Undermine Independence of the Judiciary

Sri Lanka by International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, August 30, 2023 The ICJ today expressed concern about attacks on the independence of the judiciary in Sri Lanka under cover of parliamentary privilege. On 22 August 2023, Sarath Weeresekera, a former Minister and a Member of Parliament belonging to the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the country’s ruling political… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Flawed Plans for a ‘Truth Commission’

We, nine international human rights organizations, have grave reservations about the Sri Lankan government’s proposed National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. Our concerns echo many of those already raised by victims of conflict-related abuses and their families. by Amnesty International, London, September 4, 2023 Index Number: ASA 37/7165/2023 Statement signed by • Amnesty International • Asian… Read more »

Mass Graves & Failed Exhumations in Sri Lanka

by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, Families of the Disappeared, Centre for Human Rights & Development and International Truth & Justice Project, June 13, 2023 ITJP Mass Graves and Failed Exhumations June 2023 This joint report examines Sri Lanka’s record of dealing with mass graves from multiple periods of conflict. All over the island,… Read more »

Mass Graves & Failed Exhumations in Sri Lanka

by Center for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), Families of the Disappeared (FoD), Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), Colombo, International Truth & Justice Project – Sri Lanka (ITJP), South Africa, June 13, 2023 This joint report examines Sri Lanka’s record of dealing with mass graves from multiple periods of conflict. All over the… Read more »

Defence Sector Claims Nearly Half of State Salaries

by PublicFinance.lk, June 2, 2023 According to the 2023 Budget Estimates, 15% of total recurrent expenditure of the government will be spent on salaries for government employees for the year 2023. As of 2023, the defence sector  is estimated to claim nearly half (48%) of state salaries.  Here is a breakdown of the estimated sector-wise… Read more »

Prez gives N-E Land Release Orders to Forest Dept.

Prez-Tamil MPs talks Forest Dept. to release N-E lands taken beyond limits demarcated in 1985 maps, Archaeology Dept. to rectify land acquisition errors  by Buddhika Samaraweera, The Morning.lk, Colombo, May 24, 2023 President and National Policies Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has issued an order to release the lands in the Northern and Eastern Provinces that have… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s New Anti-terrorism Law is Old Wine in New Bottle

If torture is to be eradicated in Sri Lanka the institutions of the magistrate and police need to be reformed. by J.S. Tissaiyanagam, The Diplomat, Washington, DC, May 5, 2023 Sri Lanka’s government is desperate to quash dissent. It faces opposition on multiple fronts – people protesting onerous austerity measures to combat an economic crisis,… Read more »

The Smell of Terror

by Tissaranee Gunasekera, Groundviews, Colombo, April 23, 2023 “On land a tiger, in the water a crocodile.” A Bengali proverb In Sri Lanka terror means Tamil or Muslim. When the J.R. Jayewardene government responded to the ethnic problem not with the promised political reforms but with repression and the PTA was born, the concept of… Read more »

Army Bigwigs Have Made Shameful Attempts to Bury the Truth

by Vellupillai Thangavelu, Colombo Telegraph, March 1, 2023 The quote “Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine” is credited to Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy, But in Sri Lanka this quote should be taken with a pinch of salt. Cases filed in courts gets… Read more »

Why Is South Asia’s Finest Natural Harbor Still Undeveloped?

by P.K. Balachandran, Eurasia Review, Oregon, USA, February 27, 2023 While the Trincomalee port’s intrinsic value is well-known, its exploitation has been stymied by a variety of factors   The natural endowments and the strategic value of Trincomalee port have been well-known for long time. Yet, to date, very little concrete has been done to… Read more »

Thirteen Again?

by A. Nillanthan, Uthayan, Jaffna, January 29, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] “This will not divide the country. According to the decision of the five-judge panel, especially regarding the 13th amendment, we are in a unitary state. I agree with power sharing. The provincial councils… Read more »

RTI Produces Varying Accounts of the Final Stages of War

by Buddhika Samaraweera, The Morning.lk, Colombo, January 30, 2023 Military previously noted in writing that those who surrendered during the last period of war surrendered not to the Army but to the Government While the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has stated that no members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) surrendered to the… Read more »

Tamil Nationalist Parties and a Power Sharing Arrangement

Based on the Federal Idea by DBS Jeyaraj, Daily FT, Colombo, November 23, 2022 Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism has been primarily reactive in nature. The Tamils thought of themselves as being on par with the Sinhala people as co-founders of the modern nation of Ceylon. Universal franchise and territorial representation reduced them to a principal… Read more »

No Space for Memory?

Monuments, Memorials and the Residues of the War in Sri Lanka’s North by Lia Kent, Arena Quarterly, Australia, May 29, 2020 The monuments are impossible to miss. Rising from the flat and otherwise featureless Vanni—the broad, scrubby northern region so different from the dense, fertile vegetation of the island’s south—these official markers to the end… Read more »

CPA 2008: Essays on Federalism

by Rohan Edirisinha & Asanga Welikala, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, 2008 Essays on Federalism in Sri Lanka is a new collection of essays and articles on the Federal idea in Sri Lanka, edited by Rohan Edrisinha and Asanga Welikala. CPA has since its inception been at the forefront of the advocacy of federalism as a… Read more »

Does Sri Lanka Need a Truth and Reconciliation Mechanism?

by Mirak Raheem, Groundviews, Colombo, November 26, 2022 Groundviews on Instagram: “In 2018, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government laid the groundwork for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its…” In the lead up to the September session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) the Government of Sri Lanka floated the proposal of establishing… Read more »