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Marie Colvin, a Sunday Times journalist, and French photographer Remi Ochlik have been killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs after the house where they were staying was shelled, today, Feb 22, 2012. Marie Colvin, recognized as Best Foreign Correspondent in many Press Awards, was wounded in the eye when she was fired upon [...]

Sri Lankan situation places a huge dilemma on Indian foreign policy. India has traditionally opposed single country resolutions, more so in the case of close allies such as Sri Lanka. But the choice of “no” against Sri Lanka will not be automatic. by R. K. Radhakrishnan An unusually strong contingent of Sri Lankan diplomats and [...]

By S. L. Gunasekara The country was agog with the news that after the visit of two American bureaucrats named Otero and Blake, [both from the State Department], they had announced that the United States would support the anti-Sri Lanka resolution bought by some western countries in the Human Rights Council.

by Jehan Perera President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s speech to the nation on Independence Day provided an indication of his two major concerns for the future. One concern was the persistent international pressure on his government on human rights issues during and after the end of the war.

by Chanakyan For successive inept governments of Sri Lanka, no opportunity was more welcome than the two insurgencies and the ethnic war. President Rajapaksa on 64th Independence Day Celebrations, 2012-pic: Northern Provincial Council They produced the occasion, the justification and the means of engagement when avenues of productive employment could not be adequately created.

By Hamish McDonald In May 2009, hell was a strip of sand on the north-east coast of Sri Lanka where a surrounding government army was raining shells, bullets and bombs on a cut-off rebel army, the Tamil Tigers, and thousands of trapped civilians. As the end came near, three Tiger leaders tried to save themselves [...]

By Imaad Majeed Since the end of the conflict in 2009, a new phenomena has emerged. That of Buddha statues being erected along the A9 route that leads to Jaffna. Keerimalai, a few kilometres to Dambakola Patuna, Kanagarayan kulam Buddhist stupa, Buddhist Statue built on a site, supposedly, visited by the Buddha, Buddha Statue IN [...]

Response by Prof. John Clifford Holt to the review of The Sri Lanka Reader by Prof. Gananath Obeyesekere In responding to Gananath Obeyesekere’s review of the Sri Lanka Reader, let me state out front that I have great respect for his studies of Sri Lankan culture and society. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from reading [...]

By M. S. Shah Jahan The crude oil has reigned supreme for most of the last century. But the grim reality is that peak oil is already here. The term “peak oil” doesn’t mean that there isn’t any more oil in the world It simply means that we have reached the point at which global [...]

By Ranee Mohamed Ramasamy Prabaharan was abducted by a Tamil-speaking group on Saturday, February 11, as he got off the vehicle to open the gate of his Canal Road residence in Wellawatte. Ramasamy Prabaharan (43), owner of three electronic shops at Majestic City spent that Saturday morning in Battaramulla where he was trying to get [...]

By Namini Wijedasa President Mahinda Rajapaksa urged people to tighten their belts during the war and they did. When three years after the Tigers were defeated Sri Lankans are still expected to scrimp, they want to know why. Since fighting ended in 2009, the Central Bank and other government agencies have used thrilling statistics and [...]

by Austin Fernado The Times of India (TOI) reported that the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu Government (TNG) had reiterated the state’s stand on the retrieval of Kachchativu from Sri Lanka, and restoring traditional fishing rights of Indian fishermen, arguing that if not retrieved Tamil Nadu fishermen will have to stop fishing and starve.

by Shamindra Ferdinando Those responsible for ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ will telecast another documentary in the first week of March to coincide with United Nations Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva. UK based Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow, who had presented ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ is also involved in the second project.

by Chandani Kirinde With just a week to go for the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions in Geneva, the Government will review charges of wrongdoing levelled by witnesses before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Attorney General Eva Wanasundera told the Sunday Times that Police had begun recording statements from persons who [...]

Sarana Gunawardena interviewed by Arthur Wamanan Deputy Minister of Petroleum Resources Sarana Gunawardena says a 20% bus fare increase is too much on general public and adds that an increase of around 10% is reasonable. In an interview with The Nation, Deputy Minister Gunawardena said the government had been studying the price of oil in [...]

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene Does the Government of Sri Lanka need a ‘roadmap’ to implement the existing law in Sri Lanka? From where does this curious logic arise? These are two fundamental questions that should be directed towards the Presidency downwards.

by Sriyan Obeyesekere A pall of gloom hung over Chilaw since last Wednesday with the shooting of a 27-year-old fisherman as the protest of some 30,000 fisher folk over the price hike of petrol exacerbated in the loss of human life. The death of the fisherman from alleged Police STF gunfire around 11 a.m. last [...]

by Frederica Jansz What happened to dozens of LTTE members who surrendered to the army together with Rev. Francis Joseph, a Catholic priest, south of the Vadduvaakal bridge on May 18 2009? “Aananthi” (not her real name), the wife of one of the disappeared, told Human Rights Watch that she saw the army load the [...]

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “It is not the politicians who are suffering, it’s the people”. A Greek demonstrator (The Guardian –13.2.2012) Braggarts end, with egg on their faces and blood on their hands. Lawyers protest against white van abductions-pic by VikalpaSL Last week, at a press conference in Colombo, US Under-Secretary of State Maria Otero announced [...]

by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne According to government media, President Mahinda said on the Independence Day “This is not a task confined to one individual or a party. Remember, the country would not benefit by trying to please selfish groups who receive foreign funds. Similarly, solutions cannot be obtained by implementing the proposals of extremist groups [...]

by Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka Doesn’t anyone read public opinion polls anymore? Don’t they make news anymore? I’m not referring to opinion polls run or commissioned by the government – any government- or its affiliates, but opinion polls in reputed non-state publications, especially those on vital topics. Surely no topic could be more topical than the international [...]

by Tisaranee Gunasekera “There is a cracking point where a society collapses…” Bruce Springsteen (The Guardian – 17.2.2012) In Chilaw-pic by: VikalpaSL The Rajapaksas are on the offensive, again. But this time their battleground is not the Tamil-majority North but the Sinhala-majority South. Armed Forces have been deployed to quell peaceful demonstrations, in Colombo and [...]

by Kalana Senaratne With the recent visit of India’s External Affairs Minister, Mr. SM Krishna, the debate concerning the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka has been revived. President Mahinda Rajapaksa meets Indian External Affairs Minister in Colombo, – 17-Jan, 2012-pic by: High Commission of India-Colombo A useful contribution made in recent times [...]

by Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda The report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation’ when taken as a whole is rather weak because of its inherent limitations, but some of the recommendations made in the report by the commission are quite positive and therefore can be used as a constructive tool to [...]

by Karu Jayasuriya MP The present government came into power promising to dawn a glorious future to the country and its people. Instead of fulfilling the promise, the government has started to repress using iron bars and bullets, those people who agitate for the right to live and rise as humans.

Sri Lanka today faces a range of challenges in ensuring a return to normality and a lasting peace, following the end of the twenty five year old war. from Kaathaankudy in Batticaloa District at dusk ~ pic by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai Significant progress has been made on a number of fronts, including the partial return of [...]

Chamitha Kuruppu Interviews the Deputy minister of Technology and Research Q: 13 Plus has become the most discussed topic in the political scene. What do you think about 13 Plus? A: Before looking at the 13th Amendment or the 13 Plus, first let us give a chance to the present mechanism. I strongly believe the [...]

Ayesha Zuhair Interviews Both Contenders Approximately 11,000 members of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), the country’s premier organisation of lawyers, will vote to elect its President and Secretary on Wednesday 22 February 2012. Ayesha Zuhair of the Daily Mirror spoke to the main contenders for the BASL Presidency to discuss their reasons for [...]

AI URGENT ACTION MAN ABDUCTED DAYS BEFORE COURT HEARING Ramasamy Prabaharan, a Tamil businessman who brought a case against Sri Lankan police for torture, unlawful arrest and detention was abducted on 11 February at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, by armed men. He was due to appear in court on 13 February. There are [...]

Sri Lanka appeals for more time By R. K. Radhakrishnan Even as the United Nations Human Rights Commission session nears, Sri Lanka has appealed that it needs more time for the process of reconciliation to showcase the progress that it has made towards lasting peace. At the end of a 30-year long bloody civil war, [...]

By R. K. Radhakrishnan As the Sri Lankan rupee breached the 120 mark against the dollar with most dealers, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) sought to reassure people that this was nothing but a “temporary overshooting of realistic level.” The country’s banks began selling dollars, in what appeared a roundabout way to stabilise [...]

By Lal Gunesekera One of the most accomplished women’s golfers Sri Lanka has ever produced, Thuhashini Selvaratnam, has achieved a feat that no other player in the Arizona Women’s Golf Association (AWGA) has ever attained in its history. For the 11th consecutive year, Tui, as she is popularly known, has earned the title ‘Player of [...]

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive ~ Inner City Press UNITED NATIONS, February 13 — The Sri Lankan government’s first response to the more than two weeks of questions by Inner City Press about the appointment as a UN “Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping Operations” of General Shavendra Silva, whose Division 58 is repeatedly named in connection [...]

By Louis Charbonneau Reuters – trust.org/alertnet UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 Sri Lanka’s U.N. mission on Tuesday dismissed as “unfair and unethical” concerns raised by U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay about the appointment of a Sri Lankan army general to an advisory panel on peacekeeping.

by Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters- via ~ trust.org/alertnet) – U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday that she has raised concerns in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about the appointment of a Sri Lankan army general to Ban’s senior advisory panel on peacekeeping. Pillay’s worries relate to General Shavendra Silva, currently [...]

by Jehan Perera There are indications that the US Government will support a resolution at the forthcoming March session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that, among other things, will call on the Sri Lankan government to implement the recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.

by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka If there is any point on which broad social and national consensus is obtainable it is precisely the flawed character of the CFA and its results. This criticism is not limited to Sinhala and Tamil hardliners. A serious scholarly study by the Norwegians has produced a Western liberal critique.

Transcript of Press Conference by Under Secretary Maria Otero and Assistant Secretary Robert O. Blake, Jr. in Colombo Colombo, Sri Lanka | February 13, 2012 Under Secretary Otero: Thank you. Good afternoon. I am pleased to be here in Colombo for the first time. I’ve had a series of productive meetings with the government of [...]

An Analysis on recent court orders obtained by Police to restrain meetings & rallies By JC Weliamuna Basic Liberties cannot be taken away by any State Organ Let me begin this article with the following often quoted words, worth reading and digesting. “The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the [...]

The Australian Government has studied closely Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report, and welcomes its recommendations for addressing the post-conflict situation. It has also expressed concern however that the report fails to fully address alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

by Dr.Arujuna Sivananthan Sri Lanka is defined as a small open economy; it does not have the ability to alter world prices, interest rates or incomes. It is a price taker. Any attempt to change this reality by policy makers will manifest itself in economic imbalances which shall prove costly. However, whether they have reconciled [...]

by Chandani Kirinde Ousted Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed and two of his Party‘s senior members had to hide inside a hardware shop in Male to escape a teargas and baton attack by policemen, before being detected and dragged out like common criminals along the streets of the city, an official who was injured in the [...]

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “It is so depressing to think we suffer because we are fools” Bertrand Russell – (Sceptical Essays) The February-March session of the UN Human Rights Council will be a trying time for the Rajapaksas. A US sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka is expected to come up in Geneva, if the regime fails [...]

by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne Pro government trade union leaders claim that a certain group of people backed by International Non Government Organizations is conspiring against the country, when it is on the right track for development after 30 years of protracted war. They say that these elements are acting with ulterior motives to reverse the [...]

By Leon Berenger with addl reporting from Deva Athiran This is a sad lot of men, women and children, holed up inside a detention centre in the West African state of Togo, with no money and nowhere to go after they were duped and dumped with the familiar false promise of a passage to Canada. [...]

The number of deaths, those injured and requiring assistance in the government’s war with Tiger guerrillas remains yet to be properly counted, the United National Party (UNP) said on Friday. It has accused the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) of failing to “adequately inquire” into the reasons why the government failed to properly estimate [...]

by Javid Yusuf It is a given that one of the most important segments in any democratic society are the professionals. A professional, by virtue of his training, is able to shed his or her biases and dispassionately examine and come to a conclusion on any matter that he is required to give an opinion. [...]

by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene In the morass of confusion worse compounded that Sri Lanka currently finds itself in regarding the implementation of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), it is important to reiterate and underscore certain valid truths. The nature of Sri Lanka’s accountability problem As said previously in these column [...]

by Asanga Welikala There has been in recent weeks a revival of interest in the full implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment, as part of a broader on-going debate triggered by the publication of the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) about future constitutional reforms addressing the need for devolution and democratisation. As [...]

by Dayan Jayatilleka As world class singers of Sri Lankan Tamil parentage go, MIA isn’t half as good as a new voice, Bhi Bhiman, an American singer of blues-tinged folk music with a voice as clear and mournful as the whistle of a lonesome train coming ’round the bend. MIA’s flair for the theatrical far [...]

By Namini Wijedasa For months, Sri Lanka fought off calls for an international probe into war crimes allegations by marching its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission down the catwalk. Look, the government said firmly, let our domestic mechanism complete its work first. It was not something the world could dismiss.

An Interview with Namini Wijedasa From the moment she spoke out at her father’s funeral, it was evident that Hirunika, the 24-year-old daughter of assassinated SLFP stalwart Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, would take to politics. Last week Hirunika joined the Mahajana Party. In an interview with LAKBIMAnEWS, she said she would rather die telling the truth [...]

by Prof.Rajiva Wijesinha M.P. It was good to hear the message of the President read out in all three languages, and the stress there, as well as in other messages read out, on reconciliation is most welcome We have now emerged from several decades of great danger to the country, when we had to deal [...]

by Stewart Bell TORONTO • The refugee claims from the nearly 600 Sri Lankans who paid smugglers to ferry them to Canada are moving slowly and face dwindling odds of success, new statistics show. More than two years after the Ocean Lady arrived off Vancouver Island carrying 76 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, only one has [...]

by Emanuel Stoakes The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) are expected to consider a motion tabled by the United States over Sri Lankan accountability for war crimes later this month, nearly three years after the end of the island nation’s bloody civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), [...]

THE ECONOMIST | from the print edition THE president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, may well feel pleased with himself. On the face of it, more than six years after his first election, his prospects are still remarkably rosy. In reverence: Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members paying obeisance at Sai [...]

By Frances Harrison THERE are signs that the international community is gearing up for action to hold Sri Lanka accountable for alleged war crimes committed by its forces at the end of the brutal civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009. A resolution is being prepared for next month’s session of the UN [...]

by T. S. Subramanian A short inscription engraved in the Brahmi characters has been discovered in the Edakal cave on the Ambukuthi hill in Kerala’s Wayanad district. This is the fifth Tamil-Brahmi inscription discovered in the caves.

by Sandeep Dikshit Fearing for the personal liberty of the deposed Maldives President, Mohamed Nasheed, close aides said some of his Ministers had sought Indian military assistance when the “coup” was under way on Tuesday but none came. “Some Cabinet Ministers told us that India had gunboats in the vicinity and would intervene,” Mr. Nasheed’s [...]

The family of former Maldivian President Mohammad Nasheed have sought refuge in Sri Lanka following the unrest in the Maldives. Sources at Sri Lankan President’s Office told Xinhua on Thursday that Nasheed’s wife Laila Ali had spoken to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa over the telephone after arriving in the country.

Leader of Janata party of India Dr. Subramanian Swamy has stated that he is anti-LTTE but pro-power devolution and political solution in Sri lanka. He disclosed this to DPF Leader Mano Ganesan. The Indian political leader who is in Sri Lanka on a private visit met Mano Ganesan in Colombo yesterday for a discussion.

by Jehan Perera Addressing the nation and the international community on Independence Day President Mahinda Rajapaksa made many inspirational statements. These could be regarded as statements of government policy that will charter the future course of the country. The President’s speech was also finely tuned to appeal to the nationalism of the masses of people [...]

by Sivaramakrishnan Parameswaran -BBC News The year ahead seems gloomy for almost half a million people in a small district in the southern part of India, as a result of last year’s Arab Spring. Mango cultivators in the district of Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, are worried after last year’s political uprising in the Middle East and [...]

by Indran Amirthanayagam At this hour only the fool bird flies, the rest ensconced in the shade of branches and leaves, nestlings pampered by females while males guard against snakes and monkeys, some stealthy cat.

An Open Letter to Minister Keheliya Rambukwella by Sunanda Deshapriya Mr. Minister, I don’t know whether you have seen the film called ‘My name is Khan’. In it, the main character played by popular actor Shah Rukh Khan repeats the lines ‘My name is Khan. I am not a terrorist’ at different points in the [...]

By J.C. Weliamuna This is the question of the day. This is raised nationally and internationally and answers contrast for different reasons. In this article, I endeavor to briefly answer this question from a governance perspective, keeping in mind the present socio-political realities in Sri Lanka. The President appointed the Commission of Inquiry on Lessons [...]

by R. Bhagwan Singh Sri Lankan defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has pleaded for a “fair assessment” of the development work and restoration of normal life in the northern region “within a short time of ending the 30-year war against terror” instead of summary branding of the government as rights-abuser. “In these two-and-a-half years since winning [...]

By R.K.Radhakrishnan Amid Sri Lanka’s growing anxiety over possible disruption of Iranian oil imports due to United States-led sanctions against Iran, two important delegations from the U.S. and India visited the country this week, lent a sympathetic ear — and nothing more — to address the concerns. The U.S. delegation led by its Assistant Treasury [...]

by Namini Wijedasa This is not normal In coffee lounges and around dinner tables in contemporary Sri Lanka, it is not uncommon for people to talk flippantly about who abducted whom or who killed whom in police custody. And despite everything that many Sri Lankans might think or say to the contrary…that isn’t normal, you [...]

by Tisaranee Gunasekara “For quite long periods, at any rate, people can remain undisturbed by obvious lies, either because they simply forget what is said from day to day or because they are under such a constant propaganda bombardment that they become anaesthetized to the whole business”. – George Orwell (Tribune – 2.6.1944) The Rajapaksas [...]

by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne We were told that four prison officers and ten men on remand over drug related offences have so far been identified by the intelligence units, as having been behind the recent riot in the Borella Magazine prison. Police officials say that three prison officers had been seen encouraging the rioters. It [...]

by Ruana Rajepakse It appears that the Government wants to move the Colombo Courts out of Hulftsdorp where they have been located, and periodically renovated and improved, for more than a century. The plan is apparently to split up the High Courts, District Courts and Magistrate’s Courts that are presently grouped together and move them [...]

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene Appropriately for Independence Day, I just completed reading the letter of a young student who had gone abroad to pursue her postgraduate studies after benefiting from the country’s free education systems and then returned home in the expectation of making up her mind whether to stay or return overseas. What prompted [...]

Suresh Premachandran M.P. Interviewed by Chamitha Kuruppu Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran claims the Government is trying to divide his party in the same manner in which it split other opposition parties in the country. He strongly attacks the Government for its lack of commitment to finding a solid solution to the ethnic [...]

Eran Wickramaratne, Member of Parliament, speaking on the ‘Financial impact of the findings of the COPE Report’ at a seminar organized by Women for Good Governance held at the OPA Auditorium last week, stated that the loss from inefficiency and waste far exceeds the losses on corruption in Government institutions. He called economists to undertake [...]

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “A season of brutal hypocrisy…” Anatole Franc – (Monsieur Bergeret in Paris) The draconian land-grabbing Bill is back. The resurrected Bill empowers the regime to acquire any piece of land, anywhere, by the simple expedient of declaring it of economic, social, historical or environmental import or as a sacred area. The first [...]

by M. S. Shah Jahan “What we want to do is provoke a shock, to set an example. There’s no reason why deregulated finance, which brought us to the current situation, can’t participate in the restoration of our accounts,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said during a live prime-time television interview that lasted over an hour [...]

by Gananath Obeyesekere Book review of The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics edited by John Clifford Holt (Durham and London: Duke University Press), 2011; pp 772 + index, illustrations, $34.95 This massive, ambitious project by a distinguished historian of religion contains a series of essays that span a long time period from Sri Lanka’s [...]

By Santasilan Kadirgamar Before Sri Lanka’s war, there was a noteworthy Muslim presence in Chavakachcheri, a well-known town in the Jaffna peninsula that was completely destroyed in a major battle in 2000. Muhaitheen Jumma Mosque in Chavakachcheri, Jaffna ~ pic by DushiYanthini Kanagasabapathipillai ~ Feb 2011 ~ Journey in and around Jaffna The town’s name [...]

By Dr. Arujuna Sivananthan On the 30th of January, Sri Lanka’s Central Bank announced that it would not draw down the withheld 800 million US dollars (USD) of its International Monetary Fund (IMF) standby facility citing its high interest rate. In a world starved of capital, disbursing the withheld tranches would have posed a simple [...]

by Elaine Pearson As nations such as Canada and Britain weigh in on accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka, it’s time for Australia to add its voice. Prime Minister Julia Gillard hosts a bilateral meeting with The President of Sri Lanka His Excellency Mahendra Rajapaksa at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Wednesday 26 October 2011. [...]

By R.K.Radhakrishnan After promising to go beyond the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution to find a solution to the Tamil ethnic problem, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has done a U-turn and said the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) would now have to suggest a solution. At an interaction on Monday with the country’s editors at [...]

by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka Even if everything the TNA says is true, it is still making a mistake, or perhaps two or three, and is on the verge of yet another wrong turning in the history of error that marks over half a century of Tamil politics. If the TNA’s fears of prevarication on the [...]

By Jehan Perera The government’s approach to problem solving after the end of the war has been two fold. One is to set up mechanisms that would give a different perspective on the problem. With the overall improvement in the country’s post-war situation evident to both citizens and foreign visitors alike, the government has its [...]

We, the following undersigned citizens, strongly condemn the attack on the Viluthu office in Colombo between the night of the 23rd of January and early hours of Tuesday morning, the 24th January. The office was broken into and searched by unknown persons. We are especially perturbed that this incident occurred in a high security zone [...]

by Robert. J. Evans (Sri Lanka’s killing fields have put it beyond the boundary There are compelling reasons why the England cricket team’s forthcoming tour should be called off argues South Asian affairs expert and former MEP Robert Evans.) For years one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game, Muttiah Muralitharan, represented [...]

by Keshia Jacotine Sri Lanka now finds itself between two empires; Britain and China. For nearly 150 years, Sri Lanka (then known as “Ceylon”) was part of the British Empire. Before that, both Dutch and Portuguese settlers exerted control over parts of the country for years. Sri Lanka is now considered to be one of [...]

by Emanuel Stoakes The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed to comment on military activity during the island nation’s bloody civil war. The source, whose name is withheld for reasons [...]

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene It is quite amusing to see the government and all its men using the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) as a barely inadequate fig leaf to cover its total lack of adherence to the substance of the Commission’s recommendations. Unacceptable excuses for delay in implementation Here and overseas, [...]

Pro-government protesters, some armed with clubs, seized the promenade outside Fort Railway Station on Wednesday, to prevent media activists from observing “Black January,” a month when many of Sri Lanka’s journalists were attacked over the years. This was despite the Colombo Fort Magistrate Kanishka Wijeyratna making an order that media activists be allowed to stage [...]

By C.A. Chandraprema The Sinhala weekly Ravaya celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The present writer spoke to its editor Victor Ivan who was exulting over two things in particular – having been able to publish the newspaper for 25 years without folding up the way so many other publications did and secondly, that nobody [...]

By Namini Wijedasa Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, advisor to the president on Reconciliation, has spoken openly and more emphatically on the need for the government to do more for people in areas affected by the war. Excerpts from the interview: QUESTION: You are one of the few members of the government still talking actively about reconciliation. [...]

by Arthur Wamanan Deputy Minister of Resettlement and Vice President of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan says that priority should be given to address the immediate needs of the Tamil people. In an interview with The Nation, Muralitharan blamed the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for making impracticable demands while ignoring the basic needs [...]

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “Buying the army off tends to be a good insurance policy for would-be dictators” – Christian Caryl (Foreign Policy – 24.1.2012) Some walls should never be built; some should never be breached. Many of Sri Lanka’s most devastating ills emanated from our habit of building unnecessary walls, and demolishing necessary ones. Our [...]

By Dhara Wijayatilake Much is being said about the Report of the five-member Committee appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to report on matters relating to the District ranking error that occurred in the 2011 G.C.E A/L results. Some allege that the report seeks to cover up a serious flaw in the Z score calculation that [...]