After an economic collapse and political upheaval, Sri Lankans have become resigned to leaner meals and reduced horizons. by Mujib Mashal & Skandha Gunasekara, New York Times, January 31, 2023 Reporting from Ibbagamuwa, in Sri Lanka’s North Western Province, and Colombo, the capital. On the surface, calm has returned to Sri Lanka since the South… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Spotlight on Puttalam
Aussie company buys Lankan ilmenite deposit for a pittance by Daily Mirror, Colombo, December 20,2022 The Sri Lanka Cement Corporation owned factories in Kankesanthurai, Puttalam and Galle. The factories in Puttalam and Galle were sold in 1993. The factory in Kankesanthurai didn’t operate due to the war. Although the Puttalam Cement Factory was sold the… Read more »
Is the Fish Thawed But Not in Yet the Pan?
by A. Nillanthan, January 15, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate, with some improvement by the Editor.] A nation is a great mass of people. Nationalism is the gathering of a mass of people. National politics is the method of a government to gather a mass of people. If we think on… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Failed Peace Process and the Continuing Challenge of Ethno-territorial Cleavages
by Asanga Welikala, p.255-274 in’Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions,’ Oxford University Press, March 12 2019 Sri Lanka’s failed peace process and the continuing challenge of ethno-territorial cleavages Welikala 2019 Abstract This chapter examines why the peace process in Sri Lanka failed to find a constitutional settlement for the country’s ethno-territorial cleavage, and even enthroned… Read more »
The Sri Lankan Conception of the Unitary State
Theory, practice and history by Asanga Welikala, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, June 2016 CPA-Working-Paper-1 Concluding Remarks In the years after the brutal denouement of the civil war, there was no progress with regard to reforms towards a reconciliatory and inclusive constitutional settlement for Sri Lanka. If anything, the post-war realignment of politics was in the… Read more »
India: The Last Battle of the American Revolutionary War
by John L. Smith, Jr. ‘Journal of the American Revolution,’ July 8, 2015 The next time you’re in a trivia contest and the question comes up, “What was the last battle of the American Revolutionary War?” the judges will probably be looking for the predictable answer of “Yorktown.”[1] That’s the neat and tidy answer, but… Read more »
Conflict Forced Them From Their Homes
Now the Military Is Occupying Their Land “Future looks bleak. Unless the Tamils get their lost land back, the Tamil areas would soon be colonised by Sinhalese.” by Jeevan Ravindran & Kumanan Kanapathippillai, VICE, January 16, 2023 JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Using a bat made of coconut tree bark, 15-year-old Gunasekaram Shatheeskumar was playing with his… Read more »
TNA: an Alliance Fraught with Challenges
Despite electoral losses and brickbats from rival parties and critics, the TNA keeps pushing for a political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question within the framework of a ‘united, undivided, indivisible’ country by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, Chennai, January 8, 2023 For most of its two decade-existence, Sri Lanka’s Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has been… Read more »
Lanka’s Ethnic ‘Mountain’ and the Wee Mouse of ‘PTA Pardons’
by Sunday Times, Dec. 25, 2022 Carrots tossed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the form of release of a few Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) political prisoners and return of lands to displaced owners in the North and East have given rise to unseemly jubilation on the part of Sri Lanka’s Tamil political leadership or what… Read more »
The TGTE: Past Present and Future
by Usha Sriskandarajah, December 20, 2022 For the TGTE, Tamil Eelam is not a mere dream or aspiration or yearning or passion alone, it’s a commitment, an explicit, unequivocal and results-oriented goal that’s to be pursued and achieved using every peaceful means possible Text of the Keynote Address delivered by Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah, Member of… Read more »
All Party Conference, Division among Tamil Politicians & the Ethnic Question
by C.V. Wigneswaran, Colombo Telegraph, December 20, 2022 A Journalist from Colombo asked me: There seems to be a polarisation among you Tamil Politicians after the President invited you for discussions on the ethnic question. Some have condemned you “Et tu Brute” for attending the Conference. Do you think apart from dividing the Tamil politicians anything… Read more »
Policy in Tamil National Politics – A Public Challenge?
by J. Jathindra, Facebook post, July 19, 2022 [translated from the Tamil original by Google Translate with corrections by the editor.] It has been 16 years since the death of LTTE leader Anton Balasingham. December 14th was his sixteenth death anniversary. On that day, an all-party meeting led by Ranil Wickresinghe was held on the… Read more »
Everyone Hitched to a Slipping Horse?
by Nillanthan Maha on his blog, December 17, 2022 [translated from the Tamil original by Google Translate with corrections by the editor.] From the Ramanathan brothers to the Sambandars, they have been deceived by the Sinhala leaders. It is [the Tamil] political experience of almost a century. During the past one century, the talks, meetings… Read more »
Views Expressed at All-Party Conference on Ethnic Issue
by Morning.lk, Colombo, December 15, 2022 President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently emphasised that all political parties should come to a common agreement to provide a solution to the ethnic problem by the upcoming 75th Independence Celebration. President Wickremesinghe reiterated this at the All-Party Conference held at the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday (13). The President convened this… Read more »
SL Parties Agree to Find Solution to Ethnic Question by Feb 4, 2023
Analysis by P.K. Balachandran, Eurasia Review, December 14, 2022 There was agreement on the full implementation of the 13th Amendment first, and on the finalization of the contours of a new constitution with maximum devolution, by the 75th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence On the strong urging of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the All-Party Conference (APC)… Read more »
US Sanctions Another Sri Lankan War Criminal
Sri Lanka Prabath Bulathwatte (Bulathwatte), former head of a clandestine Sri Lankan Army platoon, known as the “Tripoli Platoon,” Pursuant to Section 7031(c), the Department of State is designating Bulathwatte for his involvement in a gross violation of human rights, namely torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of Sri Lankan journalist, Keith… Read more »
Will the Tamil Parties’ Talks with the Lankan President Bear Fruit?
by P.K.Balachandran, Daily Mirror, Colombo, December 7, 2022 Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe will be meeting the Tamil parties of the Northern and Eastern Provinces on December 11 to find a solution to the longstanding Tamil issue. But the chances of a solution emerging look extremely dim given the fact that the gulf between 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 »
Thaainilam – Land Grabbing
The Real Pandemic for the Tamils in Sri Lanka – Documentary Film Youth Panel Discussion Sept.25, 2021 on ThaaiNilam: Land Grabbing Documentary at Film Premiere
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 »