Posts Categorized: International

Sowing the Seeds of Conflict

Letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 18, 2021 Letter to HCHR Sowing-the-Seeds-of-Conflict Feb 18 2021 Signed by Chair of the ‘Elders’ Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland Juan Manuel Santos, the Nobel Peace Prize winning former president of Colombia All the former UN Human Rights High Commissioners since the Human… Read more »

Experts Dismayed by Regressive Steps

Call for renewed UN scrutiny and efforts to ensure accountability by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, February 5, 2021 UN human rights experts have expressed their deep concern on 5 February 2021 about the reversal of important democratic gains achieved since 2015 and roll back on limited progress made on accountability,… Read more »

OHCHR: Sri Lanka on Alarming Path

Towards recurrence of grave human rights violations – UN report by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, January 21, 2021 OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka 27 January 2021 GENEVA (27 January 2021) – A new UN report published on Wednesday warns that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations… Read more »

When Big Powers Clash, the UN’s Most Powerful Body Disappears

by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, New York, December 4, 2020 UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2020 (IPS) – At the height of the Cold War back in the 1960s, a Peruvian diplomat, Dr. Victor Andres Belaunde, characterized the United Nations as a politically wobbly institution that survives only at the will– and pleasure– of the five… Read more »

Rajapaksas Seek Sinhalese Supremacy in Sri Lanka

by Salman Rafi Sheikh, Asia Times, Hong Kong, December 3, 2020 Ruling clan is pushing new form of ethnic majoritarianism to marginalize and dominate historically restive Tamil minority With Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa clan back in power, the island nation is by any measure firmly back on a path to elected authoritarianism. But the Rajapaksas aspire… Read more »

ITJP & JDS: Dossier on Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara

by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka & International Truth & Justice Project, Europe & South Africa, November 2020 rear-admiral-sarath-weerasekera August 2020: State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Affairs November 2020: Appointed as Minister of Public Security1 (with control over the Police department, Civil Security department, Police Training College and the Multi-Purpose Development… Read more »

TG: Righting Wrongs

Tamil Guardian editorial, London, November 13, 2020  13 November 2020 The prospect of a Biden-Harris administration at the White House has brought both hope and trepidation around the world. In Sri Lanka, some in Colombo’s polity are nervous. Amongst the Tamils, there is both wariness and tempered optimism about what the new administration may bring…. Read more »

Padma Lakshmi: VP-Elect Kamala Harris Moved Me to Tears

Imagine how wide the ripples of impact can be when a woman of color is vice president. By Padma Lakshmi, The New York Times, Nov.13, 2020 Ms. Lakshmi is the host and executive producer of “Taste the Nation” and “Top Chef.” I was on a hike in Garrison, N.Y., when I heard the news of Kamala… Read more »

Sri Lanka Turns to China Rather than IMF

To avoid default Relations with US-led multilateral lender strained by past misadventures by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Nikkei Asia, October 12, 2020  Sri Lanka’s government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa desperately needs cash to service over $15 billion in foreign debt. (Source photos by Reuters)  COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s ultranationalist government looks set to receive a financial lifeline from China… Read more »

Assessment of FaceBook’s HR Impact in Sri Lanka

by Chloe Poynton, Article One, San Francisco, May 12, 2020 In 2018, Article One partnered with Facebook to conduct two country-level human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Today, Facebook published the executive summaries of both reports, a step we applaud and hope to see more of. Understanding how online engagements can… Read more »

Human Rights Half Measures: Avoiding Accountability in Postwar Sri Lanka

by Kate Cronin-Furman, Cambridge University Press’ World Politics journal, Vol. 72, Issue 1, November 11, 2019 Abstract Why do repressive states create human rights institutions that cost them money and political capital but fail to silence international criticism? The academic literature assumes that states engaging in disingenuous human rights behavior are hoping to persuade (or… Read more »

Kamala Harris and the ‘Other 1 Percent’

Long before the Democratic vice-presidential candidate became a national figure, India played a role in American politics by Dinyar Patel, The Atlantic, New York, October 2020 In a few weeks, the United States might elect its first vice president of Indian heritage. Kamala Harris’s rise mirrors the fortunes of Indian Americans, a wildly successful community whose… Read more »

Nonviolent Action in Myanmar

Challenges and Lessons for Civil Society and Donors by La Ring; Khin Sandar Nyunt; Nist Pianchupat; Shaazka Beyerle, US Institute for Peace, Washington, September 18, 2020 Full report at https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/09/nonviolent-action-myanmar-challenges-and-lessons-civil-society-and-donors The National League for Democracy’s decisive victory in Myanmar’s 2015 elections inspired hopes of a full transition from military rule and an opening of civil… Read more »

Amnesty on Enforced Disappearances

by Amnesty International statement to US Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on Latin America, October 1, 2020 https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/government-relations/advocacy/amnesty-lantos-statement-enforced-disappearances/ … Sri Lanka:  Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest number of enforced disappearances, with estimates ranging from 60,000 to 100,000 arising in connection with internal armed conflicts since the late 1980s. One emblematic… Read more »

India-Sri Lanka Joint Statement on Virtual Bilateral Summit

by NarendraModi.in, September 26, 2020 1. Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka H.E. Mahinda Rajapaksa held a Virtual Summit today in which they discussed bilateral relations and regional & international issues of mutual concern. 2. Prime Minister Modi congratulated Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on his assumption of office… Read more »

How ‘Jakarta’ Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing

by, Vincent Bevins, The New York Review of Books, May 18, 2020 Suspected communists under armed guard, Jakarta, Indonesia, December 1, 1965 In May 1962, a girl named Ing Giok Tan got on a rusty old boat in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her country, one of the largest in the world, had been pulled into the global… Read more »

Transitional Justice at the UN Security Council

International Community Commits to Nuanced, Comprehensive Transitional Justice at UN Security Council Open Debate by International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, September 21, 2020 As the world continues to grapple with the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a global economic downturn, United Nations (UN) member states will convene this week for the annual General Assembly,… Read more »

A New Domestic Process in Sri Lanka

Will not bring reconciliation and justice Sri Lanka Campaign, London, Sep 25, 2020 At the 45th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) last week, the Government of Sri Lanka tried dismiss calls for greater international action on Sri Lanka, saying that it is committed to a domestic process to deliver reconciliation and justice. But how could… Read more »

UNHRC Session 45

High Commissioner for Human Rights opening statement, September 14, 2020 In Sri Lanka, I am troubled that the new Government is swiftly reneging on its commitments to the Human Rights Council since it withdrew its support for resolution 30/1. Among other developments, the proposed 20th amendment to the Constitution may negatively impact on the independence… Read more »