by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, London, March 2021 The promise Following a landmark international investigation, in September 2015 the United Nations released a major report on serious human rights violations committed during the final stages of the civil war and the surrounding period (2002-2011). The document, known as the ‘OISL Report’ was clear in… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Upholding or Upending Accountability & Justice
byThambu Kanagasabai LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 4, 2021. The 46th Session of UNHRC now in progress has generated heated comments and discussions in Sri Lanka and elsewhere among Tamils as well as the Council is readying to pass a final Resolution against Sri Lanka after five tiring… Read more »
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 »
Weaver 1988: The Gods & the Stars
by Mary Anne Weaver, The New York, March 21, 1988 Weaver The New Yorker 1988
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 »
Sri Lanka: A Nation Disintegrates
by Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, December 13, 1987 IN AN ISLAND in a pristine lake near Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, gunmen guard the sleek new Parliament building, which a terrorist bomb ripped through last August, wounding the Prime Minister and barely missing the President. Downtown, the scattered vacant lots and… Read more »
MP Gajen Ponnambalam’s Speech in Parliament on Defence Budget
by MP Gajen Ponnambalam, Sri Lankan Parliament, December 3, 2020 2021 வரவு செலவு திட்டத்தில் பாதுகாப்பு… – கஜேந்திரகுமாரின் நண்பர்கள் (facebook.com) https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=580756212763661 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1316233665388400&id=100010053368465&sfnsn=mo
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 »
Rajapaksa Lied to ‘Powerful Ambassador’
Over evacuation of Tamils in 2009 – Sri Lankan MP by Tamil Guardian, London, November 24, 2020 File photograph: Mahinda Rajapaksa meets with former US Ambassador Robert O’Blake A Sri Lankan parliamentarian revealed how Mahinda Rajapaksa lied to “an ambassador of the most powerful country” about the evacuation of trapped Tamil civilians in 2009, in… 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 »
Betrayals After Betrayals by Sinhalese Leaders
by Kumarathasan Rasingam, November 10, 2020 Sinhalese leaders betrayed the Tamil leaders who fought shoulder to shoulder to gain independence from the British. On February 4th 1048 two million Tamils of Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] exchanged their white masters British for the brown master {Sinhalese] it was like jumping from a frying pan into fire…. Read more »
Discussion with Anton Balasingam and Thamilchelvam of the LTTE
April 17, 1997 at Puthukudierruppu, Mullaithivu (In the presence of Adele Balasingam and Lawrence Thilagar.) by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam. Ph.D. (Cornell), Consultant in Education and Sports, Olympian 1952 and 1956, October 22, 2020 In April 1996, Harvard University’s Program for International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR) convened a consultation process with the Sinhala and Tamil Diaspora living… 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 »
Justification for Self-Determination
Tamils in the North & East of Sri Lanka by Kumarathasan Rasingam, October 20, 2020 When the United Nations was created after the World War II, one of its purposes was spelt out in Article 1 [2] of the UN Charter as: “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principles of… Read more »
Crucial Time for Urgent Actions
By UNHRC, UN, international community & diaspora Tamils by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, October 19, 2020 It need not be detailed again to list the grievances of Tamils which commenced in 1948 and continue to pile up and accumulate with no redress in sight from the… 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 »