Archive for December, 2006

Remembering the tsunami – along the south coast…

A couple of days ago (26th), I travelled along the South Coast, leaving Colombo early in the morning. I was with a friend who had come here to film some stuff relating to the second year since the tsunami. A translator also accompanied us. Our first stop was Peraliya – that place where the wave got the train killing some 1,200 people. To mark the second anniversary, a giant Buddha statue (based on the one that was blown up by the Taliban) was going to be ‘opened’ by the President and other digniteries. We didn’t want to hang around, and kept heading down the coast. Around 9am, we came across a small church. They were going to hold a service that included both Buddhist monks and Christian priests – a dual-denomination event. It was small and there was a sense of intimacy. We hung around and filmed parts of the service. There’s a long way to go – according to…

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Thoughts For Discussion – A JVP View

I would like to throw out a few ideas for those who come from a peacebuilding paradigm for discussion if possible. My recent chat with a long-time supporter of the JVP, now aged about 50, driver of a three-wheeler who had two children, helped me see more clearly his point of view. After working at a ceramic factory for 20 years, where he progressed to being a skilled operator of the kiln, he was layed off along with everyone else at that plant with little compensation. He received a salary of under Rs10,000 a month at the time he was layed off. He didn’t find an opportunity to use his skills elsewhere and after being treated badly by another employer, he resorted to driving a three-wheeler. “I don’t have to be beholden to anyone else. I have my freedom and respect and I can live a life minding my own business,” he told me. What struck me most was his…

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A Citizen’s Notes – Thoughts on Human Rights in Sri Lanka

Inspired in part by Sanjana’s speech in early December, I wrote a column for Ravaya on human rights in Sri Lanka, from the perspective of a citizen. This article is in Sinhala and is available by clicking on A Citizens Notes.

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Mobiles Working Again

After the tension situation (aug 11th) all the mobile phone connections cut by security forces in Jaffna for security reasons. From 25th the mobile phones working again in Jaffna. The mobile phone companies sent the bill for the cut period also. Only Dialog and Mobitel is workin in Jaffna.

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Curfew Relaxed In Jaffna

The curfews which were imposed in the Jaffna peninsula have been relaxed this week from 11.p.m to 4.a.m unlike last month when it was declared between 6.pm and 5.am and the 18 hour curfews per day in August. The power cuts have also been eased from the 18 hour duration to 4 hours from 12 midnight to 4am.

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Maps of shame

Every time I look at an OCHA map of Sri Lanka, the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis is made really clear. For here, we have entire regions, districts of Sri Lanka suffering under multiple humanitarian crises. There are swathes of land without access, thousands of families without adequate food, water, shelter. The OCHA map also paints a picture markedly different to that of the Government’s rosy image of returning normalcy. Who can these communities turn to? Caught between a Government more interested in a witch-hunt against NGOs, an LTTE that’s hell-bent on Eelam through even more bloodshed and violence, mysterious armed groups that appear and disappear overnight, and all manner of other travails and hardships that we cannot even imagine, the OCHA map is a grotesque reminder that while we party in Colombo, there are fellow citizens dying, starving and have little hope in 2007 of a better life. Every OCHA map marks out clearly a responsibility to act to…

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  • 19 Dec, 2006
  • 0 Comment
  • Human Rights,
    Jaffna

The Best and Worst Tea in Sri Lanka

While Sri Lankan tea is considered one of the best teas in the world, people of Jaffna get to taste the worst tea. The reason is a shortage of tea in Jaffna. After the land route closed, there is a shortage of all things including tea. The worst tea is selling in Jaffna for Rs1200.00 per Kg. People also don’t have any alternatives at the moment.

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Human Shields In The Battle Of Sri Lanka

The SLMM in a statement on Dec 12 said they are concerned over the alarming situation in Vakarai. They pointed to the LTTE failing to protect civilians by restricting their movement, and the SLMM being refused access by the army due to security reasons. People are questioning whether there is human security in Sri Lanka, especially in North-East war affected areas, where civilians live as human shields, whether they are willing to or not. Behind this there are many political issues for both the government and LTTE. In the past, the UN, SLMM, and human rights organizations have failed to take effective steps to stop this. They only issue statements condemning both parties some times. Closure of A9 highway to Jaffna and A15 to Vaharai has created many problems such as food shortages, other basic needs and lack of security for civilians. While the human shield issue is the face of the problem, there are other issues behind it. This…

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Chikenguniya Spreads In Jaffna

More than hundred thousand people have been affected by Chikenguniya in the Jaffna District. Some students sitting for the Ordinary Level examinations were reported to have fainted in examination halls. Deputy director of Health Services Dr.R.Ketheswaran said seventy thousand patients took treatment in government hospitals and that private hospitals were also full patients sufferring from it. There is also a shortage of staff in government departments since 80% of the staff have also been affected. Due to the shortage of Paracetamol, prices of this painkiller have risen to 5.00 Rs per tablet.

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  • 15 Dec, 2006
  • 3 Comments
  • Peace and Conflict

Friday thoughts on the JVP and the LTTE

A few days ago I was looking through old newspapers – clippings from the late 80s. Back then, the JVP were referred to ‘subversives’ and the terrorists were – um – I guess they must have  been fighting the IPKF and the SL Army. But the JVP were the ‘subversives’ and in late 1989, their leadership was hunted down and killed. In the next couple of years, the Army and so-called vigilante groups killed tens of thousands of young men and women. A whole generation was wiped out. I guess the violence by the State put an end to the violence being committed by the JVP. And now, the JVP are in the political system. So, when the JVP advocate a military solution to the conflict between the LTTE and the GOSL, are they  recalling what happened to them? If the Army and their vigilante groups  can wipe out the leadership of the LTTE, followed up by the murder of…

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LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS

The unsurprising minority report of the APRC Experts Panel is a lawyerly representation of 1956-style Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. It is the legal prototype of the JVP/JHU political rhetoric. As such, it is also, in substance and philosophy, the mirror image of that other set of constitutional propositions emanating from ethno-nationalism: the ISGA proposals of the LTTE. An odious comparison no doubt for either group of authors, but hermeneutically both documents point to the same political ontology of ethno-nationalism that is the source of such ‘patriotic’ inspiration for both. Ethno-nationalism translated into legal language is concerned primarily with political power, and the constitutionalisation of power in a way that enables control of politics. Such a conception of power is also necessarily partisan, because the object of power is to secure the prospects of your own to the exclusion, if need be, of the ‘others.’ A couple of examples demonstrate the point. In the LTTE proposal, an assertion is made on behalf…

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QUO VADIS, MAJORITY REPORT?

Dayan Jayatilleke in the Lanka Academic has attempted a rather more refined apologia for the discordant cacophony that passes for government in respect of conflict resolution and peace nowadays, than the government itself has been capable of. He says that the President’s speech to the nation last week and the majority report of the APRC Experts Panel represent two complementary strands of a cogent response by the government to defeat the LTTE’s terrorism and meet the aspirations of Tamils. He is not only sycophantic, but also fundamentally wrong. If this is a strategy, then it sounds remarkably like CBK’s disastrous ‘war for peace’ policy. The majority report is to be welcomed as a rare voice of reason in an otherwise miasmic scenario apropos peace in Sri Lanka, but to overstate the originality of its substance is surely not only historically incorrect, but also inimical to a real debate about its proposals. It attempts to grapple with tough questions, but answers…

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The Storyteller

I first met him in 2004 and liked him immediately. His storytelling was a joy to experience. On our journeys up to Jaffna, the 10 hours would fly as he shared his stories from his salad days with my cousins at St Johns, his work for Home for Human Rights or his take on this politician or that. The story that sticks in my mind is of how he entered politics. When he had to attend the funeral of his former colleague and at the same time to throw in his lot with mayoral politics in Jaffna, his mother refused to let him leave the house. The mother’s anxiety over her son’s decision was understandable. He belonged at that time to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the irreparable gulf between it and the Tigers meant that he was taking a massive risk: the previous two mayors and one mayoral aspirant had all been assassinated. So the story goes,…

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Conflict Situation in Trinco

From my visit to Kantale I can say that Sinhalese people from Seru Nuwara Division are facing human security problems due to artillery and motor strikes from LTTE-controlled Vaharai area. Also over 30,000 people in ‘Vaharai’ are under house arrest, because the LTTE is not allowing them to go to a safe place. The people are facing lots of problems. They don’t have enough food, medicine, education, government services and basic needs. Most of them are living in refugee camps. Already, retaliation of government force to LTTE motor, artillery attack is affecting civilians. The situation is affecting both communities of Sinhalese and Tamils. On Dec 8 the LTTE started retaliating against government strike. On the first day a Sinhala school was targeted by artillery strikes where a teacher and a student were killed and over ten students injured. Regarding this issue, the students union is going to call a hartal in Kantale on Dec 11. Also O/L examination period is…

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The Lessons We Never Learn

The Lessons We Never Learn   The second commemoration of the tsunami disaster is around the corner. In the past month or so, I have come to know of many organizations and collectives scrambling to put together all nature of commemorative activities, be they reports, workshops, evaluations etc. While some of these activities will be better, more sincere, more useful than others, across the board, all the exercises are bound to carry a few common traits. They will grossly exaggerate their own achievements, grossly underplay their own failures and most importantly, convince their audiences that they take full credit for everything that had gone well and are not to blame for everything that hasn’t.  It will be a collective exercise of whitewashing and finger pointing. In the meantime, many hundreds among the tsunami-affected will commemorate the second year of the tragedy while still languishing in transitional shelters and many thousands will do so while still struggling to recover their assets,…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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