Posts Categorized: Politics

ICG: Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election

by International Crisis Group, Brussels, December 9, 2014 ICG Presidential Election 2015 Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential election promises more competition than was initially anticipated. But with that comes a great risk of violence. Long-term stability and post-war reconciliation can only be achieved through a peaceful election resulting in a government committed to serving the interests… Read more »

CM Wigneswaran Speech at World Hindu Congress

Wigneswaran_Address_Hindu_Congress_N_Amended In Post war Sri Lanka there has been a virulent rise of religious intolerance particularly towards minority religions by groups that enjoy the protection of the Government. Such has been their activities that His Holiness the Dalai Lama issued a public plea to stop religious persecution in the name of Buddhism. The power of… Read more »

Tamil Civil Society Forum

TCSF Press release AGM Tamil Civil Society Forum formally constituted A loosely organised network of Tamil Civil Society Activists from the North-East of Sri Lanka who had been functioning for the past five years under the leadership of the Mannar Bishop have now formally constituted themselves as an organization – the Tamil Civil Society Forum… Read more »

The Tamil Elephant in the Green (Blue?) Room

Kalana Senaratne’s characteristically perceptive article on the implications of Maithripala Sirisena’s common candidacy for the upcoming Presidential election flags the Tamil question: what role do Tamils and issues of concern to them play in the politics of the election? Kalana deems the Tamils the ‘forgotten other’ of the upcoming campaign, noting that the contest is… Read more »

A Legacy for Generations

Twenty-five years ago today, the Tamil nation’s day of remembrance – Maaveerar Naal, was first commemorated at an event in the Vanni. Today, the commemoration of the nation’s fallen heroes has spread across the world, taken by those who were forced to flee their homeland in the North-East. This year also marks a significant anniversary… Read more »

Pirapaharan at Sixty

by Karthik RM, November 21, 2014 Is Pirapaharan dead? Ten years back, TamilNet senior editor and military analyst Taraki Sivaram wrote a brilliant piece on the political legacy of Pirapaharan at fifty.  Come 26 November this year, the founder-leader of the LTTE and one of the most brilliant military minds of South Asia will turn… Read more »

CM Wigneswaran Speech in India

Wigneswaran Kannabiran Memorial Lecture Nov 2014 After brief intro in Tamil, CM – Justice CW Wigneswaran’s speech is in English.    

These Are My Humble Requests To Gotabaya

*Speech made by R. Sampanthan on the 4th of November 2014 in parliament We are discussing today the Votes of the Ministry of Defence, the Minister of Defence being His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Secretary to the Ministry being his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who rumour has it will probably be a Member of… Read more »

Cosmetic Fixes

by Taylor Dibbert, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, October 31, 2014 SOUTH ASIA Sri Lanka’s twenty-six-year civil war was a brutal conflict that pitted the Sri Lankan government forces against the Tamil Tigers, a group that fought for a separate state in the country’s northern and eastern provinces. Though the government defeated the Tamil Tigers in… Read more »

CBK Waged ‘Mother of All Wars’ – Rev. Dr. Emmanuel

Last week, The Island partly dealt with Rev. Dr. S. J Emmanuel’s thoughts on the collapse of talks between the government of the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in April 1995. The priest blamed Mrs. Kumaratunga for the breakdown of talks. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel’s views, on the conflict, are relevant,… Read more »

Rev. Dr Emmanuel on Collapse of CBK-Prabhakaran talks

Rev. Dr. Emmanuel, who had occasionally provided to the writer valuable perception, as regards significant conflict-related events, made available to The Island his presentation at a conference organized by the International Alert, way back in July, 1997. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel dealt extensively with the Kumaratunga-Prabhakaran talks during 1994-1995 period…

“The government did not understand the LTTE as representatives of an aggrieved and oppressed people. Nor did they recognize the LTTE’s demands as the demands of the people.”

On The Rajapaksa Budget

By R. Sampanthan – ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ November 1, 2014 We tabled a Position Paper in January 2011 setting out our position. I table that Position Paper and kindly request that it be included at the end of my speech. The Position Paper defined the position of the TNA in regard to a political solution at the… Read more »

Tamils Were Not Fooled

By M. A. Sumanthiran – ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ November 3, 2014 You stop people of this country going to meet their very near relatives by placing travel restrictions. Is that not treating the North differently? This is also an attempt to pull wool over the eyes of people, not of the people of the North. If the… Read more »

Media Freedom in Sri Lanka

Watch this powerful talk by Lukshmee Saravanapavan on media freedom in Sri Lanka at  the Amnesty International USA conference in St. Louis, Missouri on Oct. 25. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152822022459948&set=vb.682819947&type=2&theater or  http://youtu.be/a72EU396Z_I —————- For more information on Amnesty’s concerns in Sri Lanka, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/srilanka

Tamil National Resistance and the Limits of Sinhala Liberal Intelligentsia

Since the conclusion of genocidal massacres in Mullivaaykkaal and the annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sinhala chauvinist Sri Lankan state has taken unparalleled measures to criminalize the commemoration of national resistance and to destroy its symbols in a bid to eradicate the spirit of national resistance among the beleaguered Eelam… Read more »

Deadly Alliances Against Muslims

On his 79th birthday in July, the Dalai Lama appealed to Buddhist extremist groups in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to stop instigating attacks against Muslim minorities that have killed scores. Instead, in an affront to Buddhism’s core message of compassion, leaders of those groups announced an alliance to make common cause against Muslims. “The time… Read more »