Posts Categorized: Politics

Peace in Sri Lanka: Fear of Secession

Peace in Sri Lanka – Some Thoughts Part II – Fear of Secession by R. Cholan, September 21, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/557.html The Sinhala opposition to the ISGA proposal is not a new phenomenon. The views being expressed currently about the ISGA are exactly the same as what has been said about ‘federalism’ for the last fifty… Read more »

Peace in Sri Lanka: Equality

Peace in Sri Lanka – Some Thoughts Part I – Equality. by R. Cholan, September 20, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/556.html No one expected the peace talks in Sri Lanka to progress without a hitch. But, the manner in which the process has stalled, without a single concrete step beyond the December 2002 Oslo accord, and with a… Read more »

Endless Struggle against Terrorism

Hallmark of new world disorder by Tom Plate / Syndicated columnist, Seattle Times, September 17, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/555.html The dialectic — who’s a terrorist? who’s a freedom-fighter? — is not merely academic. Some of the world’s hot spots may be susceptible to cooling down if we break away from straitjacketed thinking. A perfect example, in fact,… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Economy in Shambles

by K. Mylvaganam, September 20, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/554.html There is no doubt that the economic situation of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has never been as low as it is now. To add fuel to the fire, the soaring of petroleum prices is affecting the Sri Lankan economy very hard. The price of crude oil… Read more »

US Blasts Sri Lanka on Religious Freedom

Just like the US State Dept.’s annual Human Rights Report, the Report on International Religious Freedom is a summary of events this government department has heard about from its embassy in Sri Lanka and other sources.  Sri Lanka has been put on the list because of concern by Christians in the US for the well-being… Read more »

Sri Lanka Scene: Stabilizing the Ceasefire Agreement

Weekly Review by T. Sabaratnam, September 15, 2004 Norwegian special peace envoy Erik Solheim is back in Colombo.  “I’m here mainly to stabilize the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA),” he told media in Colombo. Stabilizing the CFA was the main subject Solheim discussed in Colombo and Jaffna since his arrival on Monday night.  That will be the… Read more »

Mishandling Suicide ‘Terrorism’

Aside from an amusing ignorance about Sri Lanka, Scott Atran gives a level headed look at ‘suicide terrorism’ in an article in the Summer 2004 issue of The Washington Quarterly put out by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  The gist of his argument is that, in order for community support for suicide attacks… Read more »

US Assistance to Lanka Against ‘Terrorism’

A Second Look  by Taraki [aka D. Sivaram], The Daily Mirror, Colombo, September 15, 2004 Sinhala Buddhist nationalists do not count their blessings. They keep complaining that the world is not helping them in any concrete way to crush the LTTE. One of them recently asked the US, “Where’s the beef?” (Though it is unbecoming… Read more »

ISGA : Dead-end or Historic Opportunity?

No author given, The Sunday Observer, Colombo, September 12, 2004 The Interim Self-Governing Authority – ISGA – proposals of the LTTE present a challenge as well as a historic opportunity to advance towards a genuine democratic settlement to the national crisis. They represent the first and only proposals the LTTE has officially presented as a… Read more »

Build a State First, a Nation comes Later

This review of Fukuyama’s book shows the distinction between the concepts of state and nation.  What Fukuyama does not deal with are the problems of imposing a state on top of two existing nations as in the case of Sri Lanka. — Editor by Janadas Devan, The Straits Times, Singapore, September 8, 2004 A nation… Read more »

Arumugam Thondaman Supports the Government

Ever since parliament was suspended this summer ordinary people on the island had no doubt that Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress would throw their support behind the UPFA to give them a working majority.  The questions seemed to be only when and what the price would be.  Now we know one version of the story. Thondaman… Read more »

The Sinhala Nation and Foreign Military Involvement

by Taraki [aka D. Sivaram], Virakesari and TamilNatham, Sri Lanka, September 5, 2004 An important question arises when we look at the military balance in SriLanka. Though the LTTE maintains its military strength on par with Sri Lankan Army (SLA), any military intervention by a foreign country which does not sympathise with the Tamils, can… Read more »

The International Community Sharpens its Knives Against Tamils

by Sachithanandam Sathananthan*, New Delhi, September 3, 2004 Sri Lankan Tamils took note of a newspaper article titled “Ending the regional drift,” published in India recently.  Its author, Dr Raja Mohan, is a foreign policy analyst who is close to the Indian establishment, and he accurately reflects its thinking.  He lauded “the muscular message” New… Read more »

Give the Chechens a Land of Their Own

by Richard Pipes, The New  York Times op-ed, September 9, 2004 Does this call to give Chechens independence and America’s appeal to consider what is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan genocide – which legally obligates the international community to intervene – have anything to do with the actual situation in these countries or… Read more »

LTTE Critics Argue Against Continuing with Ceasefire

by Taraki, [aka D. Sivaram], Daily Mirror, Colombo, September 9, 2004 Heckles and jeers are sure to greet one if one were to say that the Tigers too face criticism and political pressure from a cross section of their supporters here and abroad for “futilely sticking to the peace process”. The hecklers and jeerers on… Read more »

Top-aide Says LTTE May Not Have Killed President Premadasa

by P K Balachandran, Hindustan Times, September 8, 2004 Bradman Weerakoon, International Affairs Advisor to former Sri Lankan President, R Premadasa, has cast doubts on the popular notion that it was the LTTE which assassinated the President In his racy book entitled “Rendering Unto Caesar” (Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 2004) Weerakoon says that there are… Read more »

A Global War: Many Fronts, Little Unity

Terror is not an enemy, but a method, used in different ways by different movements…But it is also a label that has been seized on by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and, in various shades, by leaders from Italy to Pakistan to set their own agendas. It… Read more »

Countering Terror

by Rajeev Dhavan, The Hindu, Chennai, September 3, 2004 Where counter-terrorism violates human rights, it produces state terrorism directed against a nation’s own people. Both collectively and individually, nations across the world are obsessed with policies of counter-terrorism. This obsession is subversive of peace and good governance in ways that are beginning to dwarf the… Read more »

Self-Righteous Democracies

by Phar Kim Beng, Straits Times, September 2, 2004 Mr. Bill Clinton made the promotion of democracy the centrepiece of his foreign policy when he was president of the United States. President George W. Bush, especially after Sept 11, did the same, looking to democracy as a means of reforming Arab/Muslim societies and awakening them… Read more »