Photo courtesy Tamilnet. Download this letter from here. It can also be viewed online – Page 1 and Page 2. ### The Chairman and Commissioners, Presidential Commission on Missing Persons Dear Commissioners, Submission Regarding My position with regard to appearing before the above Commission in Mannar I am thankful for your very kind visit to me and for your ...
Image courtesy Sri Lanka: One Island, Two Nations. The following letter was sent to Groundviews by a reader with the following covering note: The letter I send you is from a Collective of Families of Disappeared Persons who engaged in the Sri Lankan government’s disappearences commission. It highlights a number of problems in the commission process. The government has promised to ...
Image credit Steve Chao, via Al Jazeera “The general population doesn’t know what is happening and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know” – Noam Chomsky Introduction In the article Post-War Sri Lanka: Way Forward or More of the Same? published in May 2010, I concluded: If peaceful coexistence through power sharing is not achievable, the probability of another conflict ...
Original photo from Ilankai Tamil Sangam School closed early today. Amma was looking very jumpy when she came to pick me up, but she wouldn’t tell me why. When we went to get Loku and Chuti, Chuti was nowhere to be seen. We walked all over school looking for him and finally found him running around with a chair ...
Photo from MSN News Groundviews interviewed Luwie Ganeshathasan, a Researcher in the Legal and Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (the institutional home of this website), on several key issues arising from the impeachment proceedings against the current Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Shirani Bandaranayake. ### Is there provision in the constitution to impeach the CJ? Yes. ...
Image courtesy Hill Post On May 16 a seminar was held at the Marga Institute to launch a publication by the Independent Diaspora Analysis Group – Sri Lanka (IDAG-S) – The Numbers Game: Politics of Restorative Justice. I was at the seminar and will here attempt to provide an impression of the ideas generated in the discussion. This is ...
November 2 marks the International Day to end Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. To mark this day, Groundviews spoke to a cross-section of people, including editors and the family members of journalists killed in the pursuit of a story. Together, they called for justice to be served, in order to bring peace to the families of those killed or ...
Photo by Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images, via The Dish 2015 witnessed two national elections in Sri Lanka- Presidential and Parliamentary, with a mandate given to President Maithripala Sirisena’s government to usher in much needed reforms. This reform project is likely to include a broad and diverse set of issues including those related to the past and reconciliation, ideally focusing on the ...
Evolution is the biological manifestation of development. Which, in action merely refers to a ‘gradual unfolding’ usually towards a state of greater complexity or stability. Evolution as a process of natural selection for the most robust model of response to any environment, has been a fundamental force shaping land use in all societies; It is manifest in the biological ...
Image courtesy The Independent Last week, Tamil children in the North of Sri Lanka reportedly took to the streets to demand the release of their parents detained for years[1] under anti-terror laws[2]. This was hardly reported in mainstream Sri Lankan media. But many Sri Lankan media reported that two suspects in the Town Hall bomb case of 1999 (injuring ...
Photo by AP Photo/Sanka Gayashan, via Japan Times A slogan from one of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign websites for tomorrow’s election reads, “Let’s start afresh”. Looking at it harder, the slogan is as audacious as it is insulting. When you strip away its optimistic posturing, the slogan’s meaning becomes clear: Just imagine the former president, as he sheepishly sweeps his ...
As with every war the silencing of the guns or the signing of a treaty are often only a small step in a long journey of reconciliation. The true progress in rebuilding a society or country fractured through years of conflict can only happen when the people of that country are able to heal within themselves. In Sri Lanka ...
On May 19 six years had passed since the war ended. Six years ago former president Mahinda Rajapaksa spoke to the people of Sri Lanka commenting the final battle of the war: “Our troops went to this operation carrying a gun in one hand, the Human Rights Charter in the other, hostages on their shoulders, and the love of ...
Dear Mr President, Please accept my good wishes on your election victory on a platform for good governance, justice and fairness. During the past few weeks, we watched – first in astonishment, and then with mounting hope – how you set out as the underdog yet resolutely worked towards election victory. Your short and swift journey to become the ...
World AIDS Day, 2010, One Voice – SARYN We were in Busan, Korea last week, where S, a young man living with HIV, and I were presenting at the International Conference on AIDS in the Asia and Pacific on how the People Living with HIV Stigma Index had helped empower a local community that is marginalized and often forgotten in the response ...
Photo courtesy JDS On 8th May 2010, the Urban Development Authority (UDA) demolished 20 homes that were occupied by 33 families on Mews Street in Kompannyaveediya, Colombo 2. Families were informed verbally a month prior to the demolition that they will have to vacate their homes and served the same in writing only 3 days prior to the demolition. ...
Photo courtesy Sachini Perera Photography How ‘The Show Must Go On’ came about described on the exhibition’s Facebook event page. Sachini Perera, who I first came to know of through her work with Women and Media Collective is clearly a talented photographer, but what makes her debut exhibition compelling is how she frames her subjects – singers, musicians and ...
AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via The Star 19 years in remand without conclusion of case, 17 years and case still ongoing in High Court, 15 years to file charges, 400-500 court hearings without conclusion of a case, 15 cases against one person, and 21 persons (or more) reported as arrested under the PTA in 2015. The Prevention of Terrorism Act ...
Image taken from Protect the Buddhism – බුදු දහම ආරක්ෂාකරමු Facebook group. In recent months there has been an increased outpouring of virulent anti-Muslim sentiment by persons claiming to speak for all Sinhala Buddhists. Organized groups led by Buddhist monks have held public meetings, distributed pamphlets, and made press statements. Articles in mainstream Sinhala and English newspapers have propagated ethnic and ...
Political activists and leaders of the People’s Struggle Movement in Sri Lanka, Mr. Premakumar Gunaratnam[1] and Ms. Dimithu Attygalle[2] disappeared on 6th April 2012. Prior to their disappearance both activists had been preparing for the first convention of the Frontline Socialist Party, a party formed by a dissident group from the opposition party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP – meaning ...
