Posts Categorized: International

Amnesty: UPR Pledges Must Be Fully Implemented

SRI LANKA: UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW PLEDGES MUST BE FULLY IMPLEMENTED by Amnesty International, 20 December 2017, Index number: ASA 37/7630/2017 Eight years after the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, the island nation’s human rights record was scrutinized again at the recently held Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, Switzerland on 15th November… Read more »

Sri Lanka Must Urgently End Arbitrary Detention

Sri Lanka must urgently implement reforms to end arbitrary detention, UN rights experts sayCOLOMBO / GENEVA (15 December 2017) – The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has identified significant challenges to the enjoyment of the right to personal liberty in Sri Lanka, resulting in arbitrary detention across the country. The experts recognize positive initiatives, including… Read more »

British Police Are Training Riot-Cops Linked to War Crimes

Undercover Footage Shows British Police Are Training Riot-Cops Linked to War Crimes in Sri Lanka Foreign aid money is being spent on a paramilitary style unit notorious for its brutality and linked to extra-judicial killings. by Phil Miller, ‘Vice UK,’  December 7, 2017 A still from the footage provided by Yardstick films shows the STF… Read more »

Shadow Prison(s) in Tamil Nadu

by N. Malathy, ‘Economic & Political Weekly,’ Mumbai, April 1, 2017 EPW-Shadow Prisons by N. Malathy April 2017 These Tamil Eelam refugees are categorised into three types—non-camp refugees, open camp refugees, and “special camp” refugees. Non-camp refugees are people with sufficient resources to live on their own in rented places. They have received little attention… Read more »

Sri Lanka Hands a Major Port to China

Sri Lanka, Struggling With Debt, Hands a Major Port to China by Kai Schultz, ‘The New York Times,’ December 12, 2017 NEW DELHI — Struggling to pay its debt to Chinese firms, the nation of Sri Lanka formally handed over the strategic port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year lease last week, in a… Read more »

Sri Lanka Doesn’t Need More American Bear Hugs

Washington’s current approach actually discourages reform. by Taylor Dibbert, ‘The Diplomat,’ Washington, DC, December 6, 2017 The U.S. and Sri Lanka recently held their second Partnership Dialogue. The first took place in Washington, D.C. last year. This one was held in Colombo. The meeting didn’t seem to feature any big surprises – which means that… Read more »

Sri Lanka Keeps Accountability & Justice at Bay

In the UPR sessions in Geneva By Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [Lond.], December 3, 2017 Sri Lanka has scored yet another diplomatic success at the UN Human Rights Council UPR Sessions in Geneva which conducted the Universal Periodic Review for Sri Lanka on November 15, 2017. “Universal Periodic Review [UPR] is a unique process which involves a… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Proposed Constitution Comes Under Attack

International interest, not international laws, will deliver autonomy to Sri Lanka’s Tamils. by Ana Pararajasingham, ‘The Diplomat,’ Washington, DC, November 7, 2017 The interim report on Sri Lanka’s proposed constitution released on September 21 has come under a spate of attacks. On October 24, a retired Sri Lankan army officer, Major General Kamal Gunaratne, insisted that those seeking to… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Military Aren’t Ready to be Peacekeepers

Given Sri Lanka’s history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, writes Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree. By Gary Anandasangaree, ‘The Star,’ Toronto, Nov. 3, 2017   The recent appointment of Robert Mugabe as the World Health Organization (WHO)… Read more »

Second U.S.-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue

Joint Statement From the U.S. Department of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka on the Second U.S.-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue 11/06/2017 10:56 AM EST Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC November 6, 2017 The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of… Read more »

Brazil Cannot be a Safe Haven for War Crimes Suspects

by Juana Kweitel and Sylvia Helena Steiner, Nexo Journal, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 24, 2017 (translated from the original Portugese by Google Translate) Sri Lanka’s ambassador is suspected of having participated in the deaths of more than 70,000 people in his country. Itamaraty, however, gave him diplomatic immunity and did not publicly pronounce on denunciations… Read more »

Joint Civil Society Submission to the UN UPR

by Joint Civil Society, posted on Centre for Policy Analysis, March 2017 Final-Sri-Lanka-JCS-UPR-submission-March-2017 Introduction …The years 2012-2014 witnessed continued authoritarianism, weakening of the rule of law, shrinking of space for human rights and dissent and the exacerbation of the culture of impunity. With the regime change of January 2015 and the formation of a government… Read more »

On Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Reform

Hopes and fears ‘The Hindu’ editorial, September 23, 2017 The interim report on a new constitution should set off an informed debate in Sri Lanka It is only with a great degree of caution and circumspection that the interim report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly of Sri Lanka can be welcomed. The… Read more »

Catalans Are Not Alone. Across the World, People Yearn to Govern Themselves

by Neal Ascherson, ‘The Guardian,’ UK, September 23, 2017 Globalisation was supposed to bring widespread uniformity and benefit. But it hasn’t addressed old grievances Comments 831 It could end really badly in Catalonia. Running out of their own ideas, the Spanish government in Madrid seems to be begging advice from ancestral Castilian spirits. And the ancestors… Read more »

Catalans and Kurds Discover the Hard Truth About Secession

by Max Fisher & Amanda Taub, ‘The New York Times,’ September 29, 2017 When does an independence movement get to form its own nation? For decades, a set of unstated but well-known rules has supposedly decided that. But those rules include a number of contradictions. And as the Catalans in Spain and the Kurds in… Read more »

Ongoing UNHRC session: What’s in store for Sri Lanka?

by  SUNANDA DESHAPRIYA GroundViews 09/25/2017   The term ‘painfully slow progress’ has become a standard descriptor for Sri Lanka’s overall pace of implementation of UNHRC resolution A/HRC/30/1  in Geneva. It has been two years since Sri Lanka cosponsored the resolution “Promoting democracy, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka” pledging in the meantime to implement a comprehensive… Read more »

[US] Learning to Live With a Changing World Map

By JOSHUA KEATING The NY Times SEPT. 22, 2017 (Print Edition on Sept. 25, 2017 has the title: The U.S. Likes the World Map the Way It Is.)   (Sangam’s Observation: Any reference to Tamil Freedom struggle for Eelam in Sri Lanka is missing. Internationally assisted genocide of more than 140,000 Tamil civilians to suppress independence… Read more »

HRW: 2 Years On, Scant Progress on UN Resolution

Human Rights Council Should Seek Timeline for Action by Human Rights Watch, New York, September 13, 2017 (Geneva, September 14, 2017) – United Nations member countries at the Human Rights Council in Geneva should press Sri Lanka to promptly meet the targets of the council’s October 2015 resolution for transitional justice, Human Rights Watch said today…. Read more »

IMADR: Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka

Statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by International Movement against all Forms of Racism & Discrimination, September 12, 2017 Enforced Disappearances in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka has endured consecutive periods of violent insurgency and a 26-year-long armed conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.[1] This conflict ended… Read more »