The above observation, which Minister Dilan Perera made at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Liberal Party, was exemplified recently following an interview I did in Delhi with IANS, the agency that one associates with distinguished journalist Narayan Swamy. This time it was a younger man who interviewed me, for a very long time, though what was ultimately sent out ...
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. Whilst I have been impressed recently by the work of several police officers in the North, who have initiated imaginative and effective programmes to support the vulnerable, there is clearly ...
One area in which the Human Rights Commission has an vital role to play, in terms of the National Human Rights Action Plan, is that of training the judiciary. This cannot be done easily by another branch of government, since it would not do for the executive to trespass on the independence of the judiciary. At the same time it ...
Government needs to be accessible to the people. At present however everything militates against this. Laws are formulated in language people cannot understand. They are amended with no effort to ensure that clean copies of the latest version are available for anyone to consult who needs them. Instead you have to go through the original Act and then all the ...
Having spent a week over the New Year in Laos and Cambodia, exploring ancient Khmer temples and gazing at spectacular waterfalls, I thought it would be difficult to return to the mundane realities of Human Rights in Sri Lanka. However some of what I saw and was told relates to one of the problems we are going through, and sheds ...
At the Frontline Club discussion on Sri Lanka, I finally came across Frances Harrison. The name had been familiar, for in recent years, whenever I went to England, she used to tweet madly about me, in what seemed to me desperate hysteria, though I soon enough found out that many journalists tweet in that mad fashion. This time round, her ...
Sri Lanka needs a National Environmental Policy that can be effectively enforced to deal with current threats. We should not only react, but should develop and implement policies that will reduce risks. In fact the Disaster Management Centre, together with the National Building Research Organization, has developed plans in some sectors. But these institutions need to be strengthened, and given ...
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 will be ...
One of my colleagues on the recent Parliamentary delegation to India noted that all the senior Indian political figures we met asked us about our electoral system. They were very polite, and did not mention that they thought it was a mad system, but they very gently indicated that they had heard it was quite [...]
Business opportunities need to be developed throughout the country. Though infrastructural development has been good in many parts of the country, the people need to be empowered to make use of new facilities and opportunities. As I was told a couple of years back, in the Wanni, by a representative of a Women’s Rural Development Society, they were grateful for ...
Namal in fact had no inhibitions about discussing with friends the lucrative business deals he was involved in. But it is possible that he did not think there was anything wrong with all these. Over the years a culture of close involvement of politicians with the business sector had developed, and the favours received from them were seen simply as ...
Chanaka Amaratunga 1958 - 1996 Introduction by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP at the seminar to launch ‘The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka: History, Philosophy, Presentation’ in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka Thirty years ago, to paraphrase the article Chanaka Amaratunga wrote to celebrate Liberalism Ten Years After, a political movement committed to the ...
It is entirely understandable that the President should indulge his son Namal. Given the manner in which politics in Sri Lanka has been conducted, it is also understandable that he should see him as his eventual successor. The tradition goes back to the first Prime Minster of Sri Lanka, D S Senanayake, who wanted his son Dudley to succeed him, ...
Siobhain McDonagh’s researching journalist A very strange article about the meeting at the House of Commons to screen ‘Lies Agreed Upon’ appeared on the Athirvu.com website on 13th October 2011. I believe it was written by the young man called Daran whom I had befriended at the event, who told me that he was a freelance journalist called Canaa, ...
Mahinda Samarasinghe was appointed by Cabinet to chair an Inter-Ministerial Committee to implement the Human Rights Action Plan, and wanted me to serve on it as well as on a smaller Task Force that would push things forward. Nishan told me the Minister had wanted to appoint Mohan to chair the Task Force but I told him, and the Minister ...
The Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunge, explained to me how it happened. In 2010 the President had wanted to put this brother too into Parliament, but he had scoffed at the idea and said the prospect did not interest him. However, he had added that, if the President wished to give him other responsibilities too, he would be pleased to ...
This whole controversy is taking up a lot of time. The issues of principle, that need to be resolved are about Governance and ethical behavior, but that is in relation to the behavior of Cabinet Ministers. With regard to FUTA, what they did and said is not a problem, though I am sorry that their most recent claim is only about ...
1. In a series of articles entitled “Enemies of the President’s Promise: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs”, you have chronicled the degeneration of the regime from its glorious days into an autocratic regime with no vision or direction for itself and for the nation it claims to protect from international conspiracies. How would you look back on the performance ...
Though the Reconciliation meetings I attended were confined to Divisional Secretariats in the North and East, the concerns looked at previously were general. In addition there were concerns relating to the conflict situation, in some instances affecting Sinhala communities too. Chief amongst these were problems about land title. The LLRC Action Plan highlights the importance of dealing with these, reflecting ...
