Posts Categorized: Politics

Why Not A Referendum On Kashmir-Eelam?

In conclusion, I will say, by talking and writing in the same manner as Rajakarunanayake, all Sinhala Buddhist governments have managed for 65 years to achieve their goal with maximum success. If they can manage in the same manner for another 10 years, there won’t be any more ethnic issue in Sri Lanka.

This is the reason the people, leaders in Tamil Nadu and India who have strong linguistic, cultural, religious, social and economic connections in Sri Lanka are looking in a pragmatic way to sort out the ethnic problem meaningfully and at the earliest.

The people and the government of India co-operated well with Sri Lanka in bringing the war to an end. Now there is nothing wrong in them finding all available mechanisms to find a peaceful solution where all can live in peace and harmony in Sri Lanka.

The TNA Position on the PSC

If the Government is not willing to keep the several promises it made to the TNA in the last two years, what hope is there that it will act honourably in the PSC?

Demo-crazy in Sri Lanka

After the War President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a recent bombast, declared that his government would not allow anyone to interfere with the country’s judiciary. But knowing the crazy things happening there, he probably meant no one would be allowed to interfere with his ‘right’ to interfere! With the AG Department under him, and the power… Read more »

Wikileaks: US, Norway Planned To Arm-Twist SL

Hattrem summarized the Norwegian view of the challenges to finding out about war crimes: that in all likelihood only 2-3 army officers knew about any given illegal action, that orders were given verbally, that government officials will not give evidence, and that the Tamils are afraid to give evidence. Strommen suggested that although Williamson cannot use information given by the ICRC directly, that information may be used as a cross-check against information gathered from other sources. Stangeland said that the Norwegian government was shocked by the extent to which, in the last stages of the conflict, the Sri Lankan army and government (a) said that its actions were proportionate, which turned out to be false, and (b) violated every guaranteed civilian “safe zone” that was supposedly put into place.

Philippines Peace Agreement

Over half of the world’s peace agreements are broken within a few years anyway, that’s the official record. Remember that historic peace pact between the Israelis and the Palestinians – see how long that one lasted! And you may not even have noticed that just a few years before the Sri Lankan military destroyed the last remains of the Tamil Tigers on the battlefield, the two parties had also signed a comprehensive peace agreement, brokered by the Norwegians. …

And the reason it is so critical to the peace agreement which has just been signed is that peace at the negotiating table is only ever possible when there is real peace on the ground. Most ceasefires are broken the day they are agreed, and they continue to be broken every day because both sides are continually testing the other, reigning in their forces only enough to get the best deal they can at the negotiating table and if they don’t get it, are ready to go back to fighting until they do.

Colombia Peace Talks Off to Touchy Start

“We want peace,” Márquez said. “But peace doesn’t mean the silencing of guns — it means transforming the structures of the state and changing our political, economic and military models.”

‘Death toll in LTTE war HIGHER than Srebrenica, Syria’

The war against the LTTE, waged by the Mahinda Rajapakse government, may have restored peace in Sri Lanka. But thousands of Tamils paid the price for the so-called victory with their lives, journalist Frances Harrison tells Vicky Nanjappa.

Creating Historical Fiction on Mu’l’livaaykkaal

Julian Vigo: I got involved because I was working on child trafficking projects in Haiti and was approached by two different members of the UN who asked me to make a report about what they witnessed in Sri Lanka that resembled much of what they were seeing in Haiti.

UNHRC Session in Geneva

Racism in areas of language, education and employment is pervasive and deeply ingrained in Sri Lanka’s social, economic and political structures.

For these reasons and more we request the Special Rapporteur on Racism to make an official visit to Sri Lanka to make an assessment of the underlying structural inequalities and escalating intolerance there…

Diaspora Muslim Academic Reasons Out SLMC Politics

Power is the aim of any political party and Muslim politics think that the strategy of the past still holds good. But sadly the cooperation this time is not winning any substantial concessions for Moors with respect to security, land and autonomy. It is based only on political portfolios, the academic commented adding that he would be happy “if the SLMC would demand for the devolution of Land and Police powers to the Provincial Councils.”

ICG: Action Plan, But No Action

In the six months since the Human Rights Council’s March 2012 resolution on “Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka”, the government of Sri Lanka has taken no meaningful steps to implement the resolution’s core requirements or otherwise address the country’s culture of impunity and deepening crisis of the rule of law. The publication of a “national action plan” to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) does nothing the change this…

The New World

Now, though, we appear on the brink of yet another nation-state baby boom… If anything, they are linked by a single, undeniable fact: history chews up borders with the same purposeless determination that geology does…

Speech during Senate debate on the State of Emergency 1958

“..The Tamils are the pawns in a political game. It does not matter to anybody how we suffer, how we feel, so long as in this game one Sinhala party is the victor and the other Sinhala party is the vanquished. That is all. That is why I ask you not to make us pawns in your game. … We are willing to go. Every Tamil man, woman and child is willing to go…We do not want language rights from you. Please have Sinhalese only. We only want the right to live in our areas. We want the right to be able to walk the streets without being molested. Those are the rights we want. We will look after our language… The elementary duty of a Government is to afford protection to its subjects, and the duty of the citizens is to be loyal to that Government. The moment that Government fails to afford that protection, it forfeits its right to that loyalty and affection. This Government has forfeited that right. “

Regional Autonomy in a Multi National State 1957

“…While no doubt in a democratic state the will of the majority should prevail, the principle of majority rule can operate fully only in those states which have a homogenous population. In multinational states, this principle cannot apply in determining matters relating to the rights of national minorities. If this principle is applied to such questions then it would amount to the rule of the national minorities by the national majority. The minorities will thus be denied their ordinary human rights of self-expression and self-determination and will he subject to the tyranny of an impersonal majority….if the Tamils as a result of a plebiscite in the Tamil areas opt for a federal constitution, they will be exercising their right of self-determination and it is not for somebody else to say “nay”…”

TNA Leader MP P. Sampanthan’s Speech

22nd August, 2012 [2.17 p.m.] ගරු ආර්. සම්පන්දන් මහතා (மாண்புமிகு ஆர். சம்பந்தன்) (The Hon.  R.  Sampanthan)   Thank you Mr. Deputy Chairman of Committees. I move, “Whereas more than three years have lapsed since the conclusion of the war on 19th May 2009 during the course of which grave violations of international human rights laws… Read more »

Statement by TNA Leader Sampanthan

Statement made by Mr. Sampanthan, MP leader of the Tamil National Alliance following his meeting with Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa on September 18 2012

TULF Leader A. Amirthalingam’s 1978 Speech

In this connection there was a lot of agitation and Mr.Bandaranaike thereafter clarified his position and issued a statement on 16th August 1957. This is the policy which he laid down, and I am sure that it is a policy which all fair-minded people will accept as just:

‘The instrument of colonization should not be used to convert the Northern and Eastern Provinces into Sinhalese majority areas or in any other manner to the detriment of the Tamil-speaking people of those areas.’

That is the policy which he adopted and accepted, and I should say in fairness to him that thereafter, during his tenure of office between 1957 and 1959 this planned colonization ceased for a time.