Archive for August, 2009

  • 30 Aug, 2009
  • 2 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Economy,
    Peace and Conflict,
    Politics and Governance

Capitalism, security and foreign aid – The behaviour of aid agencies in the context of Sri Lanka’s conflict

The purpose of this article is to try and explain the behaviour of aid agencies in the context of Sri Lanka’s conflict. With the escalation of the armed conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state in recent times, there have been a number of developments within aid agencies that seem to be contradictory. While some agencies have reduced or even closed down their operations, others continued to support Sri Lanka. The recent decision by the IMF to grant a loan to Sri Lanka is the latest in the latter category. In order to understand this behaviour there we need to move our analysis beyond the confines of the Sri Lankan state and take into account the globalised world. This is true not only in the case of a clearly global phenomenon like foreign aid but for many other aspects of our society in the new millennium. Despite the protests of anti-globalizers, globalization is already a part of our…

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A video of shame and outrage: Responses, positions and clarifications

Video of alleged executions

The video broadcast Channel 4 last week generated a number of responses from the readership of Groundviews. Much has been written about the video, including this well thought out commentary in The Lede, the New York Times news blog. Of the many comments in response to it, this one and the Lede’s response to it stand out: Sinhala-Indian: I think this is Tiger Propaganda. American Should be worring about their own atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don’t really care about Americans anyway. We got our true Indian friends to help us. Indians helped us to defeat the Tiger terrorist and they will help us to defeat this American inspired Tiger Propaganda. LEDE BLOG REPLY: Can you explain how video obtained by a Sri Lankan Sinhalese journalist could possibly be “American-inspired propaganda,” against a military run by an American citizen? If reporting that a video exists and that charges have been made is propaganda, what role do you think journalists…

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Unshed Tears

“These are Elephants, Those are Tamils”1 -words from a friend. Baby Elephants- dearly beloved elders were killed before their tender eyes Baby Elephants-arms, legs, teeth shriveled with the pain of the bullet Baby Elephants- loose wrinkled skin hangs off starving, haunted frames Baby Elephants-left over remnants of humanity scraped up from The scorching earth of Vanni Yes, they are Tamil. Baby Elephants-no newspapers flare up for them in bold headlines Baby Elephants-no person steps into the streets to demand their well-being Baby Elephants-no believers in Ahimsa to speak for them, the intellectuals are mute Baby Elephants-no one to beat their chest wailing “aney” “apoi”2 at their fate Yes, they are Tamil. you know that your mothers lie dead. breasts heavy with the swollen pain of hardened milk. you know that your fathers lie dead who stomped the earth trumpeting intensely standing guard. Whom are you the Beloved of now? you know no countrymen will offer poojas to the gods with…

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Bearing Witness: Submit content on IDPs and Police brutality to win a Flip Ultra video camera

Through Bearing Witness, Groundviews seeks to engender critical citizen journalism on two vital issues confronting polity and society in post-war Sri Lanka. The ground conditions in Menik Farm, worsened by recent flooding, are a non-issue for most mainstream print and broadcast media in Sri Lanka. Yet, as this recent report from the UN’s IRIN news service notes, Close to 300,000 people now languish in 30 government camps in Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Trincomalee districts. Many of the camps – which were hastily erected in the final days of the war after thousands fled south from former LTTE-controlled areas – suffer from severe overcrowding. More than three months since the conflict ended, Zone two of Menik Farm continues to hold close to 55,000 – almost double its planned capacity. In fact, in some parts of Menik Farm, a single latrine caters to up to 80 people [Sphere standards call for 20], while some tents designed for five were accommodating up to 14. There are…

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Status of IDP’s and the ‘Right to Protect’

“Man generally resorts to dialogue, compromise and consensus in resolving human conflicts due to his superior intellect. However, it is not uncommon for man, when under pressure, to submit to his baser instincts of survival by resorting to physical confrontation and warfare despite the attainment of a high level of civilization.” The ‘divide and rule policy’ of the British colonial administration in Sri Lanka covertly took advantage of the country’s ethnic profile to appoint better educated Tamils in key government positions  to act as a buffer against possible sedition by the Sinhalese majority. With the declaration of independence emerged extremist Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism as a response to such discriminatory policy which served as an effective political platform for power hungry Sinhalese politicians. Ever since, the Tamil community has been gradually victimized, marginalized, repressed and regularly subjected to extreme violence by sinhala extremists through pogroms, sometimes state sanctioned, which conveniently served to divert attention from economic mismanagement. Tamil youth who were…

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Sri Lanka: Vanquished Tiger, Roaring Lion

The stakes of life and death, hope and despair, peace and conflict are now higher than they were when the war was declared “over”. The Tiger was declared dead, and the Lion roars. We watched this nation dance to the drum beat of the victor, sing triumphant songs, parade the glory of the forces, rejoice at the restoration of the nation while it ignored the lament of the victim, forgot the dead, and disregarded suffering. While a significant portion of its citizenry grieved, the nation celebrated. We, therefore, expressed but a part of our humanity, and a part of the heart of this Nation. If the nation wishes to forget its festering wounds and ignore a suffering part of its nation – 300000 civilians, men, women and children, the elderly, infirm and dying – languishing in the refugee camps, it probably can. After all, life continues as normal for most of us. It is easy to forget, easy to shut…

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The shame of Menik Farm

The floods that affected significant swathes of the expansive Menik Farm a week ago generated interesting responses from government. One of the most revealing was the deafening silence of the usually loquacious Rajiva Wijesinghe, and the lack of any statement over the flooding by the Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe. On 22 July, Mahinda Samarasinghe noted during an adjournment debate on IDPs in Parliament that, We are quite definite in our view that conditions on the so-called welfare centres and relief villages can and must be improved. As I have said on numerous occasions, these persons are not a mere statistic to be discussed as an abstract problem. These are Sri Lankan citizens with all the expectations, hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow which has been made possible by the defeat of terrorism. We must not let those aspirations wither away for want of concentrated and concerted effort on our part. He went on to note,…

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Headlines

Bodies in the river and a riot in town Stones thrown, belts flying, youth going down Vans on the prowl and cops on the loose Gangsters, mobsters, drugs and booze Kids committing suicide, but still no justice Only transfers, denials and all the usual practice Drains overflowing, thousands behind wire Journalists, diplomats, and NGO’s under fire Baby elephants taken away, MP’s going strong Fancy cars, foreign trips, their kith and kin can do no wrong To protest is foolish, you’ll only be struck down and shoved out of the way Banners, flags, posters and cut-outs are the order of the day So I’ll stop for now, watch the cricket and have some fun Coz after all, it’s just another day in our island in the sun!

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Critiquing the President’s victory speech: Evidence of a majoritarian mindset?

Authors note: The following is the text of a talk before a forum on minority rights organized by the CPA in July. It should, ideally, have been edited for publication. But, given the recent death threat against CPA Director, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, is offered here as a gesture of solidarity. Saravanamuttu is one of Sri Lanka’s most consistent, courageous, anti-racist voices. I am not surprised that the mass-murdering, corrupt, militaristic, totalitarian-inclined government of the Rajapakses would want to silence him. ### My brief today is specific: to reflect on a provocative statement in the president’s victory speech after the military defeat of the LTTE. The speech as a whole, given its occasion and its content, demands serious consideration, debate. Its implications are grave, for the minorities, for those who require ethnic equality as a grounding principle of a fair and enabling polity, and for those who believe in debate and disagreement as another imperative of such a polity. My remarks will…

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  • 20 Aug, 2009
  • 29 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Satire

The Beauty of Barbed Wire: Sri Lanka’s cutting edge exhibition

Barbed Wire that will be on exhibit

Colombo, Sri Lanka – Banyan News Reporters learns that Sri Lanka will hold the world’s first barbed wire exhibition for 180 days beginning 1st September  at the Bandaranaike Memorial Hall under the auspices of the Ministry of Human Rights Disaster Management. Titled ‘The Beauty of Barbed Wire’ the exhibition will showcase cultural uses and relevance of barded wire in Sri Lanka. “Barbed wire is such a misunderstood medium. This exhibition will demonstrate the multiple uses for barbed wire in Sri Lanka and the long-standing importance of barbed wire in Sri Lankan culture” says the curator of the exhibition, Katherine Gracious. The use of barbed wire as an aesthetic boundary is a principal focus of the exhibition. The gardens of the BMICH will also be used for this section of the exhibition with a number of leading garden designers and horticulturalists involved. “While the ‘Rose Barbed Garden’ will be an obvious favourite with the attendees, others such as the ‘Vegetable Coil…

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Confessions

Stop this struggle He pleads Of his comrades A revolutionary leader Broken in pain In State Custody They set me on the wrong path He blames, pointing to his friends A young rebel in a Lonely rehabilitation camp Dreaming of a quick release. He frets about the cruelty of his Organization on Rupavahini.1 Thinking some good may come of it An old retired warrior Now surrendered into Military Custody. Praising the military loudly He serves sambhar2 into Sinhala plates. A Tamil waiter in Colombo fearing his own Sudden Disappearance. The Sad Truths he brought from a forbidden war zone are untrue He recants to the Rupavahini amidst a circle of Military Weapons. A doctor who treated thousands of wounded. Her daughter was a traitor Disowns a Sinhala mother of her daughter who died of a Sinhala bullet for a Tamil homeland. an elderly agitated voice amongst those celebrating an Ultimate victory. I see the desolation of an Abandoned Cause beneath…

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A note on a father

It was one of those phone calls that one would always remember, the shock it generates pervades all through a lifetime. On Monday 17 August 2009, I received a phone call from my mother, a teacher at Gateway International School, Kandy. In a deeply tormented but extremely strong, poised tone, and keeping her calm to the fullest, she said to me that at around 6.30 pm Sri Lankan time that day, my father, aged sixty-nine, passed away in a hospital in Kandy. She was there until the last minute, and saw him release his last breath, after thirty-three years of marriage. A senior manager at the Bank of Ceylon, my father retired from BoC almost ten years ago. He was one of the kindest and most good-hearted individuals I have ever met, and will ever meet. Hailing from a rural household in the mountains of central Sri Lanka, he was a man who made his way to the island’s national…

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A first hand perspective of Sri Lanka’s largest IDP camp: Are they really ‘our people’?

This is an interview in English secured by Vikalpa with a Sri Lankan Tamil who had visited his family at the “Ramanathan Transitional Relief Village” in May. His family is amongst 260,000+ other IDPs interned in Menik Camp. In an interview conducted before the recent flooding, the speaker records the inhuman conditions and indignity IDPs have to face in these camps. Pointing to the irony of calling them ‘relief centres’, the speaker notes that with upto 19 persons having to share a single tent, hours of queing for drinking water and to use toilets, what they are in fact are detention centres. “The President of Sri Lanka, Hon. Mahinda Rajapakse says these people are his own citizens, but how they treat these people you can’t believe” the speaker notes at the end.

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Unpacking the Truth in Sri Lanka

In recent weeks there has been some talk about a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) as something that will allow Sri Lanka to come to terms with its troubled past and move forward into the promise of its ‘post-war’ future. I have been informally invited into a few of these conversations because I have worked with the International Center for Transitional Justice in connection with TRC initiatives and proposals for such initiatives in a range of countries, from South Africa to the Philippines. However, it is precisely the lessons I have learned from that experience that confirms my skepticism about the proposal for a TRC in Sri Lanka at this juncture. In many contexts with a long complex record of abuse and a fraught security climate, civil society activists (and sometimes the international human rights community), have pushed for the establishment of a TRC in the hopes that this may be the thin edge of the wedge that opens the…

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Implement the 13 Amendment

Now that the war is over the question that comes to mind is in what way we can rebuild this country which has been affected by an ethnic cum terrorist conflict for over three decades. From a political perspective, the Government should fully implement the 13 Amendment to the Constitution. For this to take place problematic areas with regard to the implementation of the 13 Amendment need to be looked into. In an exclusive interview about the 13th Amendment with Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (alias Pillayan) conducted by Vikalpa in March 2009, Chief Minister Chandrakanthan had expressed his disappointment at the Governments failure to fully implement the 13 amendment. The Chief Minister said “At present we are unable to even obtain the powers that are due to us. There is also confusion regarding certain issues. It is not possible to discuss certain issues openly. We are unable to legislate for the benefit of the people even after 8…

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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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