Posts Categorized: Politics

Statement of Sen. Leahy On A Return to Democracy

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) On A Return to Democracy in Sri Lanka February 5, 2015 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, for hundreds of millions of people around the globe, including in countries whose governments are allies of the United States, democracy and human rights are aspirations that seem beyond reach.  According to a recent… Read more »

Sri Lankan Leader Calls for Unity Amid Ethnic Divide

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka has failed to heal its deep ethnic divide since the end of the nation’s civil war five years ago, the president acknowledged Wednesday in a major speech calling for national reconciliation. President Maithripala Sirisena’s Independence Day speech was a sharp departure from those of his predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who… Read more »

An Institutional History of the LTTE

LKA-geschichte-ltte-e [PDF in English] or https://www.bfm.admin.ch/dam/data/bfm/internationales/herkunftslaender/asien-nahost/lka/LKA-geschichte-ltte-e.pdf Preface Episodes of armed violence are often followed by countering claims and divergent accounts of past experiences. The Sri Lankan civil war is no exception. After 26 years of military operations and the official defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, controversies over the conflict and… Read more »

Is Terrorism an Existential Threat?

by Scott Stewart, ‘MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal,’ February 5, 2015 President Barack Obama has said terrorism can’t upset the world order, and he is mostly correct. In an interview aired on CNN on Feb. 1, Fareed Zakaria asked U.S. President Barack Obama to respond to charges that he is downplaying the threat of terrorism to… Read more »

US Asst Sec Biswal’s Statements in Sri Lanka

Statement by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal Colombo – Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka February 4, 2015 http://srilanka.usembassy.gov/pr-4feb15.html It was a privilege to visit Colombo to witness for myself the sense of excitement and optimism that the Sri Lankan people have ushered in through the historic… Read more »

Parliament Briefed over Judiciary

The Government today informed Parliament that it needs to convince the world that it has a judiciary that is competent, independent and impartial which can rank among the best anywhere in the world Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said that it needs a good judiciary in order to convince the international community that Sri Lanka is quite capable of dealing with… Read more »

Learning Lessons from Political Discourses of the Past

The last advice of the late Professor A.J. Wilson, a highly respected academic who had the closest connections with the hierarchy of the government echelons from time to time, and who was an optimist genuinely believing the possibility of Tamils and Sinhalese co-existing, was that the Tamil academics and professionals should not let themselves to… Read more »

TNA Reiterates its Call for an International Investigation for Tamil Killings

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, January 28, 2015 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Main Tamil political party in Sri Lanka, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) reiterated its call for an international investigation for the mass killings of Tamils during the last phase of the war that ended in mid-2009. Mr. Suresh Premachandran, Member of Parliament and spokesperson for TNA made… Read more »

Sri Lanka Is Ready to Take Center Stage

by Richard Armitage, Kara Bue, & Lisa Curtis, ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ January. 28, 2015 12:29 p.m. ET 3 COMMENTS Editor’s note: The following op-ed was contributed by Richard Armitage, Kara Bue and Lisa Curtis. Mr. Armitage was deputy secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. Ms. Bue was deputy assistant secretary of State for… Read more »

Is Sri Lanka Ready Yet For Postwar Reconciliation?

Sri Lanka’s January 8 presidential election shocked the world. The removal of strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa from office and peaceful transfer of power have triggered an outpouring of optimism about Sri Lanka’s democratic future. But on one key set of issues it’s not clear that regime change heralds progress: post-war reconciliation and accountability for international crimes… Read more »

Mangala Promises Demilitarisation of North, Domestic War Crimes Probe

by S. Venkat Narayan, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, January 20, 2015 NEW DELHI, January 20: Sri Lankan Minister of External Affairs Mangala Samaraweera has outlined a series of steps President Maithripala Sirisena’s Government will undertake to achieve national reconciliation in the civil war-ravaged island-nation. Talking to a select group of journalists here on Monday, he said… Read more »

Thirteenth Amendment to Sri Lanka Constitution

Posted on TamilNation.org [also in PDF] Nadesan Satyendra, March 1988 [see also Text of 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka Constitution, 1987] The writer acknowledges with gratitude his indebtedness to the reflections of Sri Aurobindo in an article entitled ‘Comic Opera Reforms’ in the Bande Mataram – written in 1907, some eighty years ago. In August… Read more »

Helping Sri Lanka’s New Democracy

Sri Lanka’s voters shocked themselves and the world this month by tossing out their president, who crushed the Tamil insurgency in 2009 and then led the country, along with his brother as defense secretary, to the brink of authoritarianism. The new president has promised to restore freedom of the press, independence of judges, and the… Read more »

US Foreign Assistance

http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/OU.aspx?FromRGA=true&OUID=229&FY=2015&AgencyID=0&budTab=tab_Bud_Overview State and USAID: It has been nearly five years since the end of Sri Lankas 26 year civil war, and circumstances are more challenging than they were a year ago. Although Northern Provincial Council elections were held in September 2013, there has been little movement on reconciliation or accountability by the Government of Sri… Read more »

Hopes Rise as Rajapakse Bites the Dust

PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS GONE ASTRAY Rajapakse triggered the presidential election, believing he would be easily returned to power for a third term, even though he had two more years left in his 2nd term. A great believer in soothsayers, he probably relied on their advice, and the war-victory over the LTTE in 2009, to carry him… Read more »

Artful Democracy

by Nimmi Gowrinathan, ‘Outlook India,’ January 26, 2015 As the old guard in Sri Lanka was dramatically toppled in the recent presidential elections, best wishes were offered not only to the opponent, Maithripala Sirisena, but to a hopefully imminent resuscitation of a suffocated democracy. For nearly a decade, former president Rajapaksa had steadily strengthened his… Read more »

Presidential Election in Maps

Full article at http://indi.ca/2015/01/the-sri-lanka-presidential-election-2015-in-maps/ http://www.indi.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/sri-lanka-electoral-maps.pdf   District Area #My3 #MR Other Total #My3 % MR% MS Margin MR Margin MS Kalutara District Non N&E 349,404 395,890 6,690 751,984 46% 53% -4% 3% Galle District Non N&E 293,994 377,126 6,691 677,811 43% 56% -7% 6% Matara District Non N&E 212,435 297,823 4,892 515,150 41% 58% -9% 8%… Read more »

A Step Forward for Sri Lanka

It’s being called the most significant election in Sri Lanka in decades. On Jan. 8, voters gave a surprise victory to the opposition candidate for president, Maithripala Sirisena, and rejected the authoritarianism, corruption and dynastic ambitions of the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa. It is to Mr. Rajapaksa’s great credit that, as soon as the people’s verdict… Read more »

An Unexpected Change of Power in Sri Lanka

‘Washington Post’ editorial, January 14, 2014 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-unexpected-change-of-power-in-sri-lanka-is-good-news-for-democracy/2015/01/14/d3b698f2-9b4a-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html SRI LANKAN President Mahinda Rajapaksa considered himself a shoo-in to win an unprecedented third term when he called an early election in November, and with some reason: He had presided over both victory in a 26-year-long civil war with Tamil insurgents and surging economic growth of 7 percent a… Read more »

Can the ‘Unknown Angel’ Deliver?

by Eric Solheim, ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, January 15, 2015 http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/can-the-unknown-angel-deliver/article6789564.ece Anyone who two months back bet on Maithripala Sirisena winning the presidential election in Sri Lanka would be a millionaire. Most international experts expected former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to win and strengthen his family rule. He controlled the resources of the state to fund his… Read more »