If G L Peiris moved only gradually into seeing his principal role as advancing the agenda of the Secretary of Defence, his intellectual counterpart in the inner echelons of government, Mohan Pieris, had from the start been associated with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. He began his rise to the position of Chief Justice by being Advisor to the Ministry of Defence. His ...
Daily News 4 July 2011 – http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/07/04/fea18.asp Craig Murray After Craig Murray had sent his written objections to what he saw as British condoning of torture, which he thought was in contravention of the International Convention against Torture, his objections were addressed at a meeting in London over which Linda Duffield presided. He was told then that using material ...
I was privileged, a couple of weeks back, to attend the release of the Northern Education Sector Review Report at a ceremony held at Vembadi Girls School. I had last been at Vembadi in 2008, when the then Commander of the Special Forces in Jaffna, General Chandrasiri, arranged what was termed a Future Minds Exhibition. It was at the height ...
The more one studies the 13th amendment to the Constitution, the more one realizes how completely potty it is. I am not sure though whether this lunacy is entirely the fault of J R Jayewardene, even though I have little doubt that his is the primary responsibility for the failure to consider principles at all in formulating legislation, and indeed ...
… and coordinate responsibilities to cover all areas, in terms of subjects and locations Dear Mr Jayasuriya Further to my last letter regarding guidelines you should consider laying down to promote Good Governance, I would like to suggest some practical measures to improve service to the people. As you took office I wrote to you about the work we had been ...
The recent vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva was upsetting, and it would make sense for Sri Lanka to assess what happened and work towards ensuring that such a situation does not occur again. However there seems little chance of that, since the same was obvious a year ago, but nevertheless nothing was done, except to ...
I was quite flattered recently by a mention of one of my books in the review by Michael Burleigh of Talking to Terrorists by Jonathan Powell. Powell, incidentally, had been a few years junior to me at University College, as was the current British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who is of a very different political persuasion. The mention is only ...
In our discussions about the 13th Amendment, one objection suggested with regard to having Members of Parliament assessing those to be appointed to decision making positions was that they might not have time for the task. The point was politely put, on the grounds that Parliamentarians had other tasks to occupy their time, but underlying it also was the idea that ...
Executive Power The word ‘executive’ means ‘doing’. The executive of a country is usually its cabinet of ministers. These ministers are responsible for the day-to-day business of government. Although we refer to a prime minister or a president who has executive power as the head of government, he or she is almost always part of a group of ministers known ...
Given below is the text of the draft Higher Education Act prepared by a Committee appointed on January 27th at the meeting of the UGC and Vice-Chancellors and Directors. It has been sent to His Excellency the President, and also to the Secretary to the Ministry of Higher Education, to take it forward after fuller discussion. The text was also sent ...
Text of a talk by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, June 18th 2012 One of the saddest aspects of the last three years has been the corrosive distrust between all political players. This is almost relentlessly exacerbated by several factors. The first, and perhaps the most worrying, is what I term a failure of rationalism, the ...
Those who watched the celebration of our servicemen on May 19th told me the President seemed upset when he had to condole with the families of those who had died. Catching glimpses of the march past, I could understand that. But in addition to sorry for them, and indeed for the Tamils too who had died in the last days ...
In addressing concerns regarding humanitarian assistance, I dealt previously with evidence that the LTTE had for a long time been determined to restrict supplies, so it could engage in propaganda about willful negligence. To achieve this end it had stopped the ICRC from escorting food ships to Jaffna, and had also attacked a foreign vessel [...]
They show their hand openly here in highlighting their animosity and fear regarding Mrs Rajeswary, who has been fearless in combating terrorism. The Sri Lanka Guardian has now jumped into the fray with an article on the meeting held in the House of Commons on October 12th to screen ‘Lies Agreed Upon’, the rebuttal of the latest Channel 4 ...
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. I was delighted last week to be told that the Human Rights Commission was receiving assistance from the Asia Pacific Centre which coordinates work with National Human Rights Commissions. When, following my ...
Politicizing Education, FUTA’s Trade Union Action and Government Spending Uniquely as far as the developing world goes, and pretty much as far as the whole world too, Sri Lanka does not in theory permit private education. There are a few official exceptions that we all know about, namely a few private schools that are immensely popular. Then there are official ...
By Camelia Nathaniel Reputed for his outspoken nature Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe feels that the government has been too hasty in proscribing the Diaspora groups, and the Foreign Ministry has done nothing about the LLRC recommendation to build up positive relations with the Diaspora. Instead, Professor Wijesinghe said, in an interview with The Sunday Leader, “as happened with Dayan Jayatilleka, they ...
The request to write an article on US Policy towards Sri Lanka in 2008/2009 came at a timely moment, for I had been reflecting in some anguish on the crisis that the Sri Lankan government is now facing. I believe that this crisis is of the government’s own creation, but at the same time I believe that its root causes ...
A recent newspaper article on Sri Lankan relations with India suggested a level of incompetence that even I had not thought possible in our Ministry of External Affairs. The article described the Ministry as ‘virtually defunct’ but that is misleading. It is actually viral in its determination to destroy relations with India, and continuing to talk of its incompetence is ...
Over the last few weeks, a number of consultations have been held about measures to improve the Human Rights situation in the country. These started on an initiative of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, working together with my office as Adviser on Reconciliation. Springing from an excellent seminar series which CHA began on Reconciliation, the first of which was addressed ...
