More pictures KEEZHPUDHUPATTU, India – The election of a new president in Sri Lanka in January ushered in renewed hopes for the return of thousands of ethnic Tamils displaced by war – and uncertainty for their children born abroad during decades of bloody conflict. Many of the children are in their twenties now and have… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Sri Lanka Premier Starts With Fixing Civil War Ills
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Paintings at Temple Trees, this country’s White House, are still leaning against walls waiting to be hung, and the gated grounds are no longer teeming with guards and stewards who served the home’s previous occupant like supplicants at a royal court. But more than a month after taking over this iconic… Read more »
NPC CM Wigneswaran Chennai Speech
Wigneswaran Kannabiran Memorial Lecture Nov 2014 Start watching at 1 hour 14 minutes. In Sri Lanka too our courts have amply demonstrated their little practical wisdom. When nearly three hundred and fifty thousand Tamils were incarcerated in open prison camps immediately after the end of the War, a public interest petition was filed claiming that… Read more »
Modalities for Truth and Justice
Exploring International and Domestic Modalities for Truth and Justice in Sri LankaThe ‘Declaration of Peace’ by the Government of Sri Lanka at the 67thIndependence Day Celebrations held on 4th February 2015 is a notable shift in its recognition of the past and the need for healing and unity. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)… Read more »
NPC’s Resolution on Genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils
by Colombo Telegraph, February 11, 2015 Northern Provincial Council yesterday (February 10, 2015) unanimously passed a resolution saying that genocide of the Tamil in Sri Lanka has been continuous since 1948, and that the UN must investigate it and submit a report at the March session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and refer its findings… Read more »
NPC Resolution on Genocide
NPC Resolution on Tamil Genocide_v2 This resolution provides an overview of the evidence demonstrating successive Sri Lankan governments’ genocide against Tamils, and respectfully requests the ongoing United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) to investigate the claim of genocide and recommend appropriate investigations and prosecutions by the… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Duty on War Crimes
It was just one month ago that Sri Lanka surprised the world by electing opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena as president, rejecting the authoritarianism, corruption and dynastic politics of the administration of the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa. President Sirisena has moved swiftly to usher in a new chapter of hope for Sri Lanka. So as not to… Read more »
President Sirisena’s 67-year Question and the 100-Day Plan
“We have failed in the essential task of nation building,”…
President Sirisena’s 67-year question speaks most of all to the deterioration in the areas of governance and of political relationships between the different communities after independence. The two (bad governance and poor inter-ethnic relationship) are interconnected and have fed on each other.
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 »