Archive for the ‘Ampara’

Archiving ‘Her Stories’: In conversation with Radhika Hettiarachchi

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Her Stories, a unique archive of oral history, was conceived of and curated by Radhika Hettiarachchi. We begin by Radhika going in to what the archive is, and how it came about. Featuring 240 stories of mothers, the archive’s website avers, These histories or ‘Herstories’ showcase a shared history and highlight how we Sri Lankans are rooted in multiple identities, multiple histories, and different experiences. Through the narratives of many, this project also highlights a sense of fundamental humanness that transcend boundaries. These ‘Herstories’ will not only add to the culture of oral tradition and story telling in Sri Lanka, they will contribute to bringing diverse groups together through the lives of others. Radhika notes that the age of the subjects in the archive ranged from those in their early 20′s to those around 65. In the interview Radhika reasserts the importance of looking at women’s voices which are often lost or marginal to history as recorded by men. She…

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Ashraf Nagar: The Courageous Struggle of Peasants against the Forcible Land Acquisition in Ampara District

Ashraf Nagar’s inhabitants can trace back their history to 1952 when it consisted of the following small villages – Aalim Nagar, Vilankadu, Kasangkeni, Muthiriyadiwattai, Pallak Kadu, Sinna Pallakkadu, Kattu Vattai, Ali Mudakadu and Aalim Chennai. Ashraf Nagar’s name was changed in the year 2006 to Oluvil first division and even though it consisted of Muslims, Sinhalese and Tamils the majority of inhabitants were Muslims. Around 156 Muslim families are said to have lived there around this period. By 1972 this number had increased to 272 families and to accommodate the growing need, a Jumma Mosque was established in Aalim Chennai. Over several decades the people in Ashraf Nagar have faced obstacles for their development and in creating a life of peace due to the intervention of several state and non -state actors. It is reflective of the plight of many such villages across the country especially with people who lack economic or political power. In 1983 due to ethnic tensions…

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Provincial Council Election: Real-time updates

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@mhmhisham is turning out the best updates on Twitter. #PCelectionsLK and #ep2012 are key hashtags aggregating all the tweets on the September 2012 Provincial Council elections. See below for aggregation and real time updates. Tweets about “#PCelectionsLK “ Tweets by @mhmhisham Tweets about “#ep2012″ Repost This Article

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Land in the North and East of Sri Lanka: Concern and confusion over Government circular

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Image credit Jeremy Suyker, via Foto8 The Government recently unveiled a policy regarding land in the North and East through the introduction of a Cabinet Memorandum (memo) titled ‘Regularize Land Management in Northern and Eastern Provinces,’ which was subsequently followed by a Land Circular (circular) titled ‘Regulating the Activities Regarding Management of Lands in the Northern and Eastern Provinces’ (Circular No: 2011/04) issued on 22nd July by the Land Commissioner Generals Department in Colombo in order to operationalise the memo. Since then, there have been reports of notices and forms being issued in areas of the North and East for people to register their land under the Bimsaviya project to ensure title registration of their property. At the time of writing, it was unclear whether this specific process was the same as the one set out under the circular. Contradictory information was received from the different divisional secretariat units (DSs) where the forms were distributed; increasing confusion regarding the process…

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Google map on flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka – February 2011

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View Flood-affected regions in February 2011 – Sri Lanka in a larger map The map above identifies the main flood-affected regions, sites where relief and rescue operations have been conducted and specific DS divisions where IDP camps have been setup. Please click on the link below the map to view it on a larger screen. You may click on individual markers for detailed information and zoom in to view the location of specific shelter camps located in the east.  Please note that this map is continuously updated as soon as the Editors of Groundviews receive detailed information and reports from the ground. Between the 11th and the 18th of January, heavy rainfall led to severe floods and widespread destruction in several provinces across the island that affected over 1 million people. 43 people were killed and over 300,000 were displaced. The districts of Ampara, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa and Anuradhapura were severely affected in January and at present with heavy rainfall once again…

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UPDATE: Google Map on Flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka

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View Flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka – January 2011 in a larger map The map above identifies the main flood-affected regions, sites where relief and rescue operations have been conducted, areas prone to landslides and specific locations that are at risk.  Please click on the link below the map to view it on a larger screen. You may click on individual markers for detailed information and zoom in to view the location of specific shelter camps located in the east. Please note that this map is updated as soon as the Editors of Groundviews receive detailed information and reports from the ground. After our last updated post on 12 January 2011, a Daily Mirror SMS update at 12:50PM reported that there were 21 deaths and over 1,000,000 people affected as a result of the floods and bad weather that continues to devastate these regions. The Eastern Province is the worst affected with over 860,000 flood victims according to the latest figures…

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UPDATE: Situation report on flood-affected areas and a call for assistance

The Editors of Groundviews have received several updates during the course of the day confirming that the situation on the ground is quite severe and we now have a humanitarian crisis in those flood-affected regions with over 950,000 individuals affected from over 250,000 families. The Disaster Management Centre has confirmed as of 1:00PM today that 18 people have been killed and 47 have been injured as a result of the floods. Ada Dernana notes the following in a news story published today, Director General of the DMC, Major General Gamini Hettiarachchi speaking at the media conference said that 11,338 homes had been partially damaged while 1,609 homes had been fully damaged. He added that around 200 tanks had also been damaged in the floods. Meanwhile, P.B. Samarasinghe, Director General of the Meteorological Department said that rains are expected for the next three days while this was the heaviest rains that the country had witnessed in over thirty years. (Emphasis ours.)…

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On Flooding and Disaster Management

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Photo courtesy www.facebook.com/battipeople Over the last two days, torrential rainstorms in the Central and Eastern province have caused severe flooding, landslides and an overwhelming humanitarian crisis with 758,000 people affected island-wide (according to the latest update at 7:14AM today from the Disaster Mangement Centre [via JNW]) 809 houses have been fully damaged and 2948 houses have been partially damaged. There have been nine deaths; nine injuries and four people are still missing (last update Sunday evening.) An article in the Daily Mirror details the extent of the crisis, According to the Centre (Disaster Management) some 55,936 families belonging to 14,519 families have been displaced and had been housed at 138 camps that have been opened.  Several Divisional Secretariat offices in the East were also reportedly under water while Badulla District Secretary Keerthi Disasnayake was also reportedly marooned as a result of a land slide which occurred along the Badulla-Mahinyangana Road. The following areas in the country have been affected by the…

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NATION-BUILDING: WHICH PROJECT FOR THE NORTH & EAST?

When faced with challenging human rights and humanitarian law issues who should we seek out for advice but a celebrated former Vice President of the International Court of Justice? Faced with the task of peace building after a Thirty Years war, to whom should we turn to spearhead a state-aided national effort, or at the very least, for ideas and guidance, but the sole Sri Lankan to win the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education? If the Sri Lankan state and society have done neither, what does that say about us, where we are at and where we are headed? One of the more refined gratifications in my life is the friendship of a few renowned intellectuals like Richard Falk, Emeritus Professor of International Law and Policy at Princeton, and the occasional receipt from him of work in progress. The other day’s email contained three scintillating draft essays, two of which I have finished reading and one that I have commented…

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We Regret To Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time

We regret to inform you that your condolences cannot be accepted at this time. At present, both our pain and our hope defy that word, which has been offered and denied us, which we need and do not need, and which in any case we cannot accept, because they (your condolences) will not reach from what has happened to what will come. We find the word condolences stunning in its insufficiency for past and future. We evacuated our homes in the light; we vanished from our homes in the dark; we walked away from our families, toward the weapons, and wished that we could turn around. Our bodies entered the earth in places we cannot now identify, and so we are everywhere, blown to dust. By both dying in and surviving this place, we will live here long after your condolences become a ghost in your throat. We joined others’ battles, willingly and unwillingly; we walked forward on paths not…

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Parliamentary Elections, April 2010: An opportunity for voters in the North and East

I remember visiting Jaffna in 1997. Local government elections were due. Several leading political figures had been assassinated in the preceding years, some by the LTTE, others by anti-LTTE groups.  In the prevailing climate of fear, the Federal Party had reluctantly submitted nominations for elections for the Jaffna Municipal Council and one or two other local bodies. The LTTE was against the whole exercise, but the anti-LTTE gun carrying groups were contesting the elections. The Federal Party candidates showed great courage in contesting but minimized their risk by avoiding public meetings and house-to-house campaigning. Many Federal Party supporters faulted the candidates for avoiding public visibility. They asked: how can we vote for those who are reluctant to publicly or privately ask for our votes? But in the end they did vote for the Federal Party candidates, as did many who had never been Federal Party supporters. The faults they found in the Federal Party were nothing in comparison to those…

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A photo story: Five years on, forgotten victims of the tsunami

"Almighty Allah saved me from Tsunami,and I am confined to a small place now" says Mohamed Ismail Muhlood Umma (62)

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, 4 April 1928 Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai in Saainthamaruthu Today is the 5th anniversary of a tsunami that devastated our country.Five years on, but how many of us still care for the people who suffered? The tsunami hit the Indian Ocean, killing nearly hundreds of thousands in eleven countries and inundating coastal communities with waves unto one hundred feet. According to experts, it was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India were the hardest hit. About thirty thousand people were killed in tsunami, millions injured and many more left homeless in Sri Lanka. The tidal waves hit North, East and South coastal areas. All rushed to the spots to help the victims on December 26th 2004. People canceled their holidays, and work and took part in…

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The Public Servant and the Politician: in Harmony or in Conflict?

[Authors note: This is the text of my comment as a Panel discussant, delivered at the Institute of Public Management on 3rd November 2009] My reflection will be in the context of the present situation. How are these two entities – the Public servant and the Politician relating to each other in today’s world.  Not what the relationship was in a golden past or in a unlikely imagined future. And since my own view is that the relationship today is inherently unsatisfactory, how it could be improved or reformed to benefit the ultimate stakeholder, the public, which is the real object of the executive exercise. Also my comments will be on what can be done immediately within the political, social and economic framework of what we have. Otherwise we may be talking about an ideal future which is only a dream and frankly not an useful exercise. Is there a magic button you could press to start the process of…

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Needed: An Agenda for Reform on Groundviews

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Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other.  Most likely it will be the presidential elections since it is the president who has to decide and since he is much more popular than his party. Moreover, we have been told that he is willing to sacrifice, if necessary, two years of his first term in order to secure a second and a parliamentary majority nearest to the heart’s desire. All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth reminding that we are still in a post-war situation and far from the post-conflict one we ought to be in. What this requires is the prioritization of peace, reconciliation and unity and the firm commitment to ensure that the…

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Much Ado about Eastern Democracy?

After one cease-fire, two formal peace talks, three wars, we wade deeper into Eelam war IV, and we’re back at square one. Or is it we never left? Over 2000 deaths post-2006. Post-tsunami, over 700,000 refugees upon a decimated Northeast bloated with bone and shades of displacement. Unidentified gunmen, parcel bombs, white vans, lurk in every shadow. From Devakumaran to Senpathi, infants in Kayts to civilians in Dehiwala, the value of human life varies inversely with rising prices of petrol and rice, rates of inflation and centralization. And a panoply of issues like the 17th amendment or justice for 17 aid workers dangling a top Temple Trees’ to-do list, in the contemporary context, no more a blunt sword of Damocles, unable to slice even warm butter.  Meanwhile, the slide to war and isolationism continues.  The opposition is unable to soften the hard line. Support for war continues to reinvigorate the ontology and ideology of a defensive Tiger. Newly empowered minorities…

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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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