by Times of India, March 6, 2018 HIGHLIGHTS Sri Lanka on Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency to quell anti-Muslim riots that have killed at least two people and damaged dozens of mosques and homes in the central district of Kandy. Here’s what led the Maithripala Sirisena government to take the extreme measure: *… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Government
US Embassy Statement
by US Embassy, Colombo, March 6, 2018 March 6, 2018 – COLOMBO: Rule of law, human rights, and equality are essential for peaceful coexistence. It is important that the Government of Sri Lanka act quickly against perpetrators of sectarian violence, protect religious minorities and their places of worship, and conclude the State of Emergency swiftly, while… Read more »
Statement by Tamil Civil Society Condemning Violence against Muslim Community
Courtesy Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, Jaffna, March 6, 2018 We strongly condemn the violence being unleashed against the Muslim people in Kandy this week and in Amparai earlier last week. Initial reports from Amparai and Kandy make clear that the police by inaction were complicit in the violence. We, as Tamil civil society organizations who work in… Read more »
PEARL: Remembering the Kumarapuram Massacre
by People for Relief and Equality in Lanka, Washington, DC, February 11, 2018 22 years ago today, in a small Tamil village in the North-East of Sri Lanka, a group of soldiers murdered 26 people, left 24 others injured, and gang-raped a 15-year-old girl. Twenty years after the Kumarapuram massacre, on July 27, 2016, an… Read more »
War, Denial and Nation-Building in Sri Lanka
After the End by Rachel Seoighe, Palgrave Studies in Compromise After Conflict, Palgrave MacMillan, Dec. 5, 2017 Abstract This book begins from a critical account of the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war, tracing themes of nationalism, discourse and conflict memory through this period of immense violence and into its aftermath. Using these… Read more »
Inscribing the Victor’s Land
Nationalistic authorship in Sri Lanka’s post-war Northeast by Rachel Seoighe, ‘Conflict, Security & Development,’ Vol. 16, 2016, Issue 5 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14678802.2016.1219507?scroll=top&needAccess=true Abstract This article examines the nationalistic authorship of space in Sri Lanka’s post-conflict Northeast as part of the state’s nation-building strategy and as a continuation of a post-colonial process of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalistic revival. Exploring issues… Read more »
Discrimination in 2018
by Sanjana Hattotuwa on his blog, January 14, 2018 It’s the little things that matter the most. Google in Sri Lanka now defaults to Sinhala. Whenever you access a Google Form, the interface by default is in Sinhala. Whenever you use Google Maps, road, place and now even names of famous buildings, are rendered in… Read more »
Monks with Guns
Westerners think that Buddhism is about peace and non-violence. So how come Buddhist monks are in arms against Islam? by Michael Jerryson, ‘Aeon,’ London, Melbourne, New York, January 15, 2018 The recent violence in southern Thailand began on 4 January 2004, when Malay Muslim insurgents invaded a Thai Army depot in the southernmost province of… Read more »
Future of the displaced in Musali South
Territorializing the environment: The political question of land and the future of the displaced in Musali South by Sivamohan Sumathy, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, July 2, 2015 I have in the past few weeks attended two of Shahul Hasbullah’s excellently laid out map of the displaced in the Musali South area and the entanglement of that… Read more »
Wiggie Blasts Dilan over NPC Expenditure
by ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ December 23, 2017 Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) C.V. Wigneswaran has taken issue with a statement made by the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Highways Dilan Perera with respect to NPC Expenditure. Wigneswaran, writing directly to Perera, refers to a news item in the Virakesari (December 21, 2017) which quotes… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Sixth Amendment Challenged
Sri Lanka’s Sixth Amendment Challenged at the UN by 1,705 Lawyers from around the World: TGTE Complaint cited terminology of “one undivided and indivisible country” & safeguards against secession in Article 2.2. of the New Interim Constitutional Report by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), /EINPresswire.com/ GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, December 14, 2017 One thousand seven hundred and… Read more »
The Controversy of Wilpattu
Are administrative authorities in slumber while nature is at stake? Controversially, the deforestation accusations are aimed at State agencies and the issue is further ethno-politicized due to the accusations made at Muslim communities engaging in forest clearing and illegal land settlement, particularly aimed at the Minister of Trade and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen’s alleged patronage for… Read more »
Selective Memory
Erasure & memorialisation in Sri Lanka’s North by Centre for Policy Analysis, Colombo, November 23, 2017 Viewable on picture rich Sway at https://sway.com/tErHAnhIQWtGz43d Prehistory; the kings of old and all the tanks, temples and kingdoms to their name; Dutch, Portuguese, British colonization; the struggles for freedom; Independence; the achievements of the first Presidents and Prime Ministers… Read more »
Comments on Articles on New Constitution
by Veluppilai Thangavelu, October 23, 2017 from Thamilvaddam discussion group # 4708 COMMENT on ‘Battling for a New Constitution’ In the first place Jayampathy Wickremaratne is not a Minister. He is an appointed MP. So why quote Jayampathy Wickremaratne and why not quote Mahinda Rajapaksa, former President, has said about the current constitutional process? That… Read more »
On Sri Lanka’s National Question
by P. Sivakumar, October 20, 2017 One of the tragedies of Sri Lanka is that the Sinhalese have never understood the meaning of federalism or they pretend not to understand. Most of them think a federal state means a separate country where the Sinhalese will be sent out. Federalism is not separation and it is the… Read more »
Battling for a New Constitution
And dashing the hopes of the Tamils by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [Lond.], Former Lecturer in Law , University of Colombo, President, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization The Steering Committee consisting of twenty members of Parliament chaired by the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has finally submitted its report for consideration by the Constituent Assembly on… Read more »
The Militarisation of Mullaitivu District
Normalising the Abnormal by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research (ACPR) and People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), October 4, 2017 Clicking on each pin will open up more information about the structure in question. Locations of structures were determined based on six months of desk research and field research, and only pins that were… Read more »
Sri Lanka Among Asia’s Most Undernourished Countries
by ‘Sunday Times,’ Colombo, September 14, 2017 Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have the highest rates of undernourishment in Asia, according to the Asian Development Bank. In a statement by Data Leads which quoted the ADB report , almost 27 per cent of the population of Timor Leste remains undernourished, and more than… Read more »
CM: Army Holding about 85,000 Acres in North
Calls for probe into SF’s allegations against Gen. JJ By Cyril Wimalasurendre, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, September 10, 2017 KANDY – Alleging that the army continued to hold about 85,000 acres of land in the North, Northern Province Chief Minister and former Supreme Court judge C.W. Wigneswaran, on Saturday, sought the intervention of most Ven. Tibbatuwawe… Read more »
A Question of Command Responsibility
by No Fire Zone, August 19, 2017 An examination of the charges of command responsibility against general Jagath Jayasuriya https://vimeo.com/231070522