The National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2011 – 2016 as well as the full series of Sri Lanka Rights Watch are available at the Peace & Reconciliation Website. This week saw the launch, by the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs, of two books that provide guidance with regard to women’s rights. One is a Commentary on the ...
Colonel Harun finally left PTK on January 29th. There is no mention in the Weiss narrative of the UN engineer who had volunteered to stay behind. There is also no mention of the way in which he got away. Weiss notes that ‘the ICRC and the UN were able to negotiate the evacuation of hundreds [...]
The full series of Sri Lanka Rights Watch as well as the National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2011 – 2016 are available on the Peace & Reconciliation Website I discussed in Rights Watch last week the need to develop community structures for protection purposes. Whilst this will go some way towards helping the vulnerable, we also need much ...
When we were in Geneva in the dark days of March, I was surprised to read that Senior Minister D E W Gunasekara had been appointed Acting Minister of External Affairs. It was only long after I got back to Colombo that I realized it was an excellent choice, and the Acting Minister’s clear vision and determination had avoided what ...
Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Happy (Part 1) Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Happy (Part 2) Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Happy (Part 3) Underlying Basil’s solipsism was his political ambition. He made no bones about the fact that ...
I come now to what seems a contentious issue, unnecessarily so. The manifesto on which the President won the election clearly pledged that ‘An all party committee will be set up to put forward proposals to replace the current Preference Vote system and replace it with a Mixed Electoral System that ensures representation of individual Members for Parliamentary Constituencies, with ...
Speech of Prof Rajiva Wijesinha Prepared for the debate on the Votes on the Ministries of Justice and of Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms During the Committee Stage of the Budget Debate, November 21st 2014 (Not delivered because of the common candidate press conference) I rise to speak on the votes today of two important Ministries. My main concern ...
Hina Rabbani Khar MP – Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan I was privileged, at the recent South Asia Economic Summit, to hear Hina Rabbani Khar, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, an extremely attractive young lady of what seemed enormous intelligence. She was quite definite in her commitment to greater regional cooperation, and in particular to improving trade and connectivity, in particular ...
It was finally announced recently that Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe had been asked definitely to lead the team that would represent Sri Lanka at the Universal Periodic Review scheduled for November. This followed a number of news items indicating that the Ministry of External Affairs had claimed the team would consist only of officials, which I suppose was only to be ...
One of my Tamil friends was recently at Temple Trees to participate in the exercises the poor President is now engaged in to try to win hearts and minds. But the experience was surreal, for discussion of substance was it seems left to Basil Rajapaksa, whilst the President contented himself with assuring his guests that he had taken precautions to ...
Responses to questions from IRIN, the news agency funded by the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance. 1. As a government official, how do you view the report and what is your response? I no longer have any executive responsibilities, so cannot speak for the government, but as a former government official, who headed the Peace Secretariat during ...
The National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 2011 – 2016 ( sinhala & tamil) as well as the full series of Sri Lanka Rights Watch are available at the Peace & Reconciliation Website. In dealing at some length, over several columns, with the meeting on Prisons convened by the Task Force on expediting implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan, I ...
Military intelligence understands well that the diaspora is not a monolith. Indeed my interlocutor noted that only about 7% of the diaspora were supporters of the LTTE. But this made it all the more culpable that government has done nothing about working with the rest, the more than 90% who have wanted only for their kinsmen who remained in Sri ...
As this series draws to a close, bringing with it perhaps intimations of mortality, I thought of engaging in reflections relating to the death anniversaries of some people I admired tremendously. Closely connected to a range of human rights issues was the murder of Richard de Zoysa, 13 years ago this week, undoubtedly by government para-military forces. At the time ...
To return to the fears of resurgent terrorism in the North, this would seem preposterous given the patent relief of the majority of the Tamil people that the terrorism to which they were subject is over, a fact the military obviously recognizes. But at the same time it is clear that the people in the North have aspirations that are ...
The results of the recent Provincial Council elections are such that everyone can claim some sort of success. The UPFA got the most seats in all three Councils that were contested. The UNP did less badly than at previous elections. The TNA, contesting Provincial Council elections for the first time ever since Provincial Councils were created, largely to satisfy the ...
Having now gone through the LLRC Action Plan, I can understand how sensible it was of the Cabinet to appoint, not politicians, but the Secretary to the President to work on it. And he in turn was inspired to appoint extremely competent public servants who would not be looking over their shoulders to see what political or personal fallouts their ...
by Shamindra Ferdinando Today, the electorate is at a crossroad with twice-president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, launching a new movement to form a government, at the Aug 17 parliamentary polls. A confident Rajapaksa launched his parliamentary polls campaign at Anuradhapura where he vowed to overcome the Maithripala Sirisena-Wickremesinghe combination. The pledge was made at the largest ever gathering in the historic ...
15 Oct 2012 At the last meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan, there was much emphasis on the forthcoming Universal Periodic Review which Sri Lanka will undergo in Geneva in November. I would have preferred direct concentration on the Action Plan, since I believe we should be committed to progress in this ...
I was quite flattered recently when I was told by a former public servant, for whom I had the greatest regard, that I was probably the first politician since S W R D Bandaranaike to be so interested in Local Government. I am not sure that this is quite correct, not only because I am not really a politician, but ...
