All photos by the author At journalism school I was taught to get as close as possible without getting involved. Go in, get the story, don’t become the story, don’t interfere with the story. These rules played like a soundtrack on loop in my mind when I visited Aluthgama and Beruwela, four days after the devastating riots in June ...
Various explanations have been offered by Government officials around the discovery of skeletal remains in Mannar some months ago. The BBC reported in January that a government medical official overseeing the excavation, Dhananjaya Waidyarathne, said the bodies had been buried in layers and that he was “very much worried” (sic) that no signs of clothing or human-made artefacts had ...
Coca-Cola has paid Rs 130 Million to Water board as voluntary compensation for Kelani River pollution issue reports Lankadeepa newspaper — Azzam Ameen (@AzzamAmeen) September 25, 2015 It appears that due to the pressure on the company, Coca Cola has paid Rs. 130 million as voluntary compensation for polluting the water supply of Colombo. As reported in the news ...
Image courtesy BBC Venerable Watareka Vijitha Thero is a Buddhist Monk and the Chief Incumbent of the Rotalawela Mahaweli Maha Viharaya in Mahiyanganaya, in the Uva province. Vijitha Thero is also an elected member of the Mahiyangana Pradeshiya Sabha (a local government council in the Badulla district, in the Uva province), representing the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). ...
[Editors note: The author was married to Dr. Rajini Thiranagama (née Rajasingham), a Tamil human rights activist and feminist murdered in 1989 by the LTTE. She was one of the founding members of the University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna, which during the war, published some of the most hard hitting critiques and exposes of Government as well as LTTE atrocities ...
Photo by Anushka Wijesinha, 2011, via IPS Since the end of war in May 2009, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government has sought to forge a new overarching Sri Lanka identity inclusive of all ethnic and religious communities. As articulated by the President himself in his first post-war speech to parliament: “the word minorities have been removed from ...
This is a summary of a longer report. Please download it as a PDF here or read it online here. All photos taken and provided by the author. Introduction According to Article 7, paragraph 2(i) of the Rome Statute[1], an Enforced disappearance is defined as “…the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence ...
M.A.Sumanthiran, is a National List Member of Parliament from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Groundviews has carried in the past the Minister’s submissions to Parliament against the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, for which he faced the most outrageous heckling and insults within the legislature itself, and from fellow MPs from Government. With this and other media reports in ...
Thirty years ago today, on Black July, I was 3 years old. I doubt I even knew what the difference between Sinhalese or Tamil or Muslim meant at the time. I am angered that the 30 years since has taught me otherwise. I’ve spent the last 6 weeks, working with Sachini Perera who invited me to be a part ...
JAFFNA. “Even though the war is over and the guns are silent…it doesn’t change a thing. We still face threats. We are still feeling the fear,” said 35 year old Thevanayagam Premananth, the editor of Uthayan newspapers. We talked in his office, part of the compound that had once been the torture chambers of the Tamil Tigers. A mug ...
Photo courtesy Tamil Guardian First, the colours. My memories of July are full of dark colours, foreboding and angry. Grey dominates. Grey, the colour of the smoke that is everywhere, even in your tears. Then there is red, bright and angry, the colour of blood, like a crimson spray on the grey smoke. Lastly there is the orange of ...
Photo courtesy Aquila Style The new year has brought significant changes in Sri Lanka. President Maithripala Sirisena and his Government face many challenges and opportunities. Reform has been promised and expectations are high. In the wake of the elections, Pope Francis’ visit to Sri Lanka to canonize the country’s first saint was a highlight. Those involved in setting out ...
An article published in the Colombo Telegraph (see PDF here, the site itself continues to be illegally blocked in Sri Lanka by all ISPs) makes several allegations against me. This hasn’t been the first article on that site which has targeted me personally and Groundviews as a platform. It is however the most serious in a series I expect to ...
Groundviews and Wikileaks Groundviews has in the past published two key article based on content obtained through Wikileaks. Wikileaks on Sri Lanka: A breakdown and implications was the first article on the unprecedented release of US diplomatic cables, and published just hours after the tranche was made available on the now well known, and much attacked website. Groundviews was ...
[Editors note: Apologies for the slow-loading time of this page if on a slow Internet connection, on account of the high-resolution images embedded in it.] The 30-minute “documentary” on Sri Lanka produced by the Thompson Advisory Group (TAG), freely available on YouTube, is a key ingredient in the Rajapaksa regime’s charm offensive in the lead up to the UN HRC ...
Like many people I used to think that such agencies as the BBC and ABC provided balanced reviews and were relatively unbiased. No more. Further confirmation: a recent panel presentation by ABC in March 2013, entitled “Continuing Genocide in Sri Lanka” and anchored by Jane Hutcheon, exposed in blatant nudity the lop-sided perspectives within Aunty ABC. The presentation was ...
Photo by Abdul-Halik Azeez Journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge‘s murder on 8th January 2009 was utterly horrible and yet, even more unforgettable was the Rajapaksa government’s reaction to it. Lasantha’s last editorial, published posthumously, didn’t mince words. It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious ...
Having moderated a session with Shashi Tharoor earlier this year at the Galle Literary Festival, we met up again in Colombo last week to talk about the writer-politician’s new book, and his views on literature, politics, the freedom of expression and our region. Shashi Tharoor is a well known writer, speaker and politician. From Riot to Bookless in Baghdad, ...
Image courtesy DBS Jeyaraj Introduction President Jayewardene did not like the word ‘colonisation’. Instead, he preferred the terms ‘land settlement’. But the Land Settlement Ordinance uses ‘settlement’ to mean a settlement on claims over ‘land’. Item 18 of the Provincial Councils List of the 13th Amendment, reads as follows: 18. Land, – Land, that is to say, rights in ...
Photo courtesy The Asia Foundation Since the war ended in Sri Lanka in May, 2009, the wave of sympathy for the victims of the war resulted in philanthropists, members of the Sri Lankan diaspora, individual well wishers and funding organizations providing prospective INGOs, local NGOs and charities with the resources needed to expeditiously help the war victims to resume ...
