Archive for the ‘Batticaloa’

Eastern elections

In the backdrop of a country at war and democracy that’s hostage to the whim and fancy of a President and his coterie of murderous brutes, it’s hard to be even cautiously optimistic about the upcoming elections in the East. For the average voters in the South however, the fact that they are being held at all is a marker of the success of this government in eradicating the scourge of the LTTE from the East. The East is a region of significant ethno-political and cultural complexity and violence where each community harbours grievances against the other. Even during the ceasefire, violent hartals and communal clashes coloured the social and political dynamics in the East (the extremely violent communal clashes in June 2002 in Muttur and Vallachenai is a case in point). There is evidence that youth in the region are alienated and easy pickings for radical, armed extremist groups. The documented emergence of a radicalised, armed Muslim youth in…

Continue reading »

WHAT LIBERATION?

By Bhumi. Based on field trip from 10th – 14th December 2007. Introduction The East is ‘liberated’. It has been so since last June when the government requested it to be celebrated with ‘patriotic joy’. Over 300,000 civilians were displaced in the process and a majority have been ‘resettled’ since then. But a significant minority still remain in the IDP or transit camps with uncertainty hanging over their future. This report, based on short visits and a series of discussions with a number of people in the area – including some of the displaced people themselves – is to communicate some pressing issues and concerns in this process. It aims to highlight aspects of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the District with a specific focus on the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the newly resettled villages in Vaharai and West Batticaloa. In doing so, it hopes to inform and influence concerned policy makers and practitioners to think through…

Continue reading »

Use Of SMS By Govt For Vital Information Dissemination

The growing use of SMS for information dissemination was discussed earlier on Groundviews, and I would like to mention a recent development. At least one government department has been pro active and is now making use of SMS for communication with media. The Media Centre for National Security obtained an application to send out SMS to journalists from a four-digit number. They started on Dec 5th, as far as I know. What I hope now is that the Met Department, Disaster Management Center and other central authorities follow suit and send out quick SMS messages to reporters during an impending or occurring natural disaster. The message could also guide reporters towards a detailed announcement on a website. It could be a short line such as “New announcement posted by Disaster Management Center on website www.xyz.lk” and a detailed message posted in all three languages on this site. This is fast, detailed and saves officials from being stuck on phone lines…

Continue reading »

Alliance Of Parties In The East?

It was reported today that an alliance of political parties plan to jointly contest local govt elections in Batticaloa, but a closer look is revealing. The report http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=2606 stated the following: “An alliance of Tamil political parties has been formed to contest the upcoming local council elections in Batticaloa, EPDP leader and Minister Douglas Devananda said yesterday adding that a final decision on the party symbol and other details would be decided upon within the next few days. Minister Devananda said the alliance was formed between the EPDP, TMVP (Pillayan faction), PLOTE and EPRLF (Varathar faction) following an invitation extended by the EPDP and an agreement was reached to that effect at a meeting held in Batticaloa on Saturday. “The alliance was formed following the meeting held between the area political leaders of the Tamil parties in Batticaloa on Saturday. The alliance will focus on the rights of Tamils in Batticaloa and the development of the district,” Minister Devananda told…

Continue reading »

I/NGOs: Mea Culpa… Your Culpa… or Our Culpa?

Shanaka Amarasinghe Nearly three years have passed since the devastation of Boxing Day 2004. Those three years should have sufficed for grief to transform into resolve, for shock to become measured response and for altruism to become tangible benefit. It is impossible to quantify, despite the diverse and often varied reports available, how much has been done, and by whom. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile considering the societal impact that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), and the good and/or evil that has been precipitated by their presence. The aftermath of the tsunami saw a global outpouring of shock and dollars. The amount of tourists and expatriates affected in the South Asian region saw the world unite in its reaction to one of the worst natural disasters in mankind’s history. South Asia, and specifically Sri Lanka was flooded with aid from various donors. Well meaning individuals sacrificed their beer money and larger organisations mobilised their vast resources – both…

Continue reading »

TMVP Protest In Batticaloa Today

The TMVP is organizing a big protest at the Weber stadium in Batticaloa today. According to the Pillayan-led TMVP, it is against LTTE atrocities in the East and the TNA. The TMVP also wants solutions to problems faced by people being resettled in the East, for example in terms of lack of jobs, all of which will go into a signed letter to be delivered to the President. TMVP Spokesman Azad Moulana says they expect 25,000 people from three regions of the east to voice their protest and gather at the stadium, which is scheduled to start at 9.30am. They may also try to bring together Karuna supporters to show their support for the above cause whether voluntarily or by some degree of force. The Karuna-Pillayan struggle is unfolding quite rapidly, as readers are no doubt aware, and the latest I have gathered, which I thought I would put down here, is that Karuna cadres are restricted to Ampara, while…

Continue reading »

Karuna Leaves The Country

TMVP leader V.Muralitharan alias Karuna leaves country to Briton few days ago leaving Pillayan for TMVP administration says several sources. At the same time Moulana reappointed as TMVP spokesman in place of Mahesh. Karuna, Pillayan issue was big headache for government and other anti LTTE groups earlier, as well as inside the TMVP. Few cadres were killed from both sides in last few months. Finally Pillayan controlled the Trincomalee District, while Batticaloa, Ampara was under control of Karuna’s faction. The TMVP cadres were mentally tired regarding the deviation. However Pillayan mostly focused on political wise as well as military from beginning. He received the goodwill and trust from the Tamil, Muslim communities and within the TMVP. After the deviation few Karuna cadres created tension among the communities. Also the other Tamil movements like EPDP, EPRLF, TELO, etc had worried regarding TMVP activities in the east. Several clashes happened recently. Specially the Muslim community suspected or mistrusted the TMVP due to…

Continue reading »

SMS news alerts during emergencies – The experience of JNW and the tsunami warning of 13th September 2007

Chamath Ariyadasa The coverage by the media of yesterday’s earthquake near Indonesia might be of interest to some readers, and as the editor of JNW, Sri Lanka’s first SMS news agency, I thought of penning my personal opinion and raising some issues that could be discussed further. My biggest concern at the moment, as a journalist, is getting access to the initial tip off from authorities on an impending disaster and the subsequent official news messages in a timely manner so that they can be passed on to the public as fast as possible. There isn’t an email or SMS alert system in place, that I know of, that could easily meet this need. I know of the Met Dept website (http://www.meteo.slt.lk/Tswarn.html) which goes some way towards improving access to information, but I wouldn’t know when its updated. An SMS or email by the Met Dept or Disaster Management Centre would go a long way towards helping the media pass…

Continue reading »

To Be Heard……… Talk or Shoot?

Shanthi Sachithanandam “Nation, is the geo-social entity providing maximum security for the survival of a community, Nationalism, is that fundamental desire For the assurance of a Nation Nations uniting and dividing Of their own volition, is the Expression of their urge for that assurance Alas, as usual, this time too Our Nation lost the basis of its existence V.I.S Jeyapalan Bathed in the glare of the media and a high-pitched war rhetoric, the military operations in the East were the visible war efforts to most of us in this country and abroad during the past few months. But simultaneously, elsewhere in the East, the government had stealthily opened up another war front away from all the publicity and fanfare. This particular battle was part of a longer term strategy than anything that had been envisaged by the security forces in the North-East. Extraordinary gazette notification was its hardware that carried ammunition in the form of legality, which was deadlier than…

Continue reading »

How The East Was Won – Watch the Al-Jazeera documentary

Groundviews was the first to review the new Al-Jazeera documentaries on Sri Lanka (Mistaking Night for Day in the New Dawn of the East: A Review Article of the al-Jazeera Documentaries, ‘How the East was Won’ and ‘Monks of War’). You can now watch this documentary online. See the Groundviews video channel for Al-Jazeera’s previous videos on Sri Lanka (including a previous People Power documentary titled Tiger Tax – Part 1 and Part 2) and more. Part One: Part Two: Repost This Article

Continue reading »

Voldemort rising

“If humanitarian intervention is indeed an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?” Kofi Anan, former UN Secretary General At the time of writing, news of the liberation of the East and the resulting celebrations have captured headlines and the public imagination in Sri Lanka. Not much analysis though as to what it all means and answers to questions such as what now, and whether the fall of Thoppigala is any guarantee of animating a hitherto non-existent capacity of this government to articulate an enlightened approach to the ethnic question. Careful to not arouse the wrath of those who in power volubly state that to call to question the liberation of the East is to defile those who died for the protection of national sovereignty and undermine the morale of the troops, many analysts tread a…

Continue reading »

Dismissing inconvenient truths – The Divaina’s take on Groundviews

Clearly, Groundviews seems to be doing something right in highlighting the plight of IDPs and refugees in the embattled North and East of Sri Lanka through stories such as I pray God that no one in this world should face the hardships, faced by my child and me and We are nobody’s children… and others. The Divaina, a Sinhala daily published by the Upali Newspapers Group, had this to say on our recent story on IDPs in Trincomalee: “මෙයට සමගාමීව කොටින්ට පකෂපාතී ස්වෙච්ඡා සංවිධාන අලුතින් අන්තර්ජාල වෙබ් අඩවි ආරම්භ කරමින් ත්‍රිකුණාමලයේ අවතැන්වූවන් අතිශය දුෂ්කර ජීවිතයක් ගත කරන බවට ප්‍රචාරයක් විකාශනය කර ඇත. මේ අන්තර්ජාල වෙබ් අඩවිය ආරම්භ කළ තැනැත්තා කවූරුන්දැයි දැන් හෙළි වී තිබේ. ශී ලංකාවේ පූරවැසි මාධ්‍යවේදියා නමින් හඳුන්වා ගනිමින් ආරම්භ කර ඇති මේ කොටින්ට පකෂපාතී වෙබ් අඩවියෙන් පවසා ඇත්තේ හමූදාපති ඝාතන ප්‍රයත්නයෙන් පසූ යූද හමූදාව ත්‍රිකුණාමලයේ එචිලන්පත්තු ගම්මානයට මෝටාර් සහ රොකටි ප්‍රහාර එල්ල කළ බවයි. මින් පැහැදිලි වන්නේ වන්නි කොටි බේරා ගැනීමට මෙරට ස්වෙච්ඡා සංවිධාන විශාල මෙහෙයූමක් අරඹා…

Continue reading »

The Indo-Lanka Accord – Some reflections 20 years hence

ඉන්දු ලංකා ගිවිසුම (1987 ජූලි- 2007 ජූලි): අවස්ථාවක්ද? බලහත්කාරයක් ද? “ඉන්දු ලංකා ගිවිසුමෙහි දසවන සංවත්සරය අවස්ථාව පෙන්නුම් කරන්නේ එහි අරමුණ වු ජනවාර්ගික ගැටළුවට දේශපාලන විසඳුමක් සොයා ගැනීමෙහි ලා ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාව ඇදහිය නොහැකි තරම් ආපස්සට ගමන් කර ඇති අන්දම ය.” In this article I go back in time and look at the Indo-Lanka Accord the the dynamics of State power against the LTTE that was the lasting result of it. I speak of the battles that followed, examine the constitutional dynamics of the Acoord and the resulting system of governance, the political regimes in the South who variously interpreted the 13th Amendment, the way the Accord influenced war and peace in Sri Lanka and finally, a series of lost opportunities in the past two decades alone to bring about a transformation of violence and an end to violent conflict in Sri Lanka. Please read my article in full here. Repost This Article

Continue reading »

Wars and Waves: Sri Lanka’s internally displaced

The 28 minute documentary “Wars and Waves: Sri Lanka’s internally displaced” that was produced by COHRE, and directed and written by me, is available online. There was a small private launch a week ago in Colombo. COHRE plans to do a larger public screening followed by a discussion in the coming weeks. The purpose of the film is to highlight Sri Lanka’s IDP issue. The film will be used by COHRE as an advocacy tool, and by its network partners to provoke discussion about the issue. It’s primarily aimed at an international audience. Description of film: In Sri Lanka, a natural disaster and ongoing conflict have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Those who lost everything to the December 2004 tsunami still wait for permanent housing. Families evicted from the North of Sri Lanka in 1990 continue to live in temporary shelters. And now the recommencement of the war is forcing people to flee their homes once more towards refugee…

Continue reading »

Homeless in one’s homeland

Photo credit: Agron, from Portraits of Displacement Worldwide, those rendered homeless and destitute by violent conflict is growing. According to UNHCR statistics, the figure of Internally Displaced Persons stood at over 32 million at the end of 2006. In Sri Lanka’s case, many of those displaced by the tsunami were communities already displaced by war. This double displacement exacerbated their trauma and continues to date. My article end with impressions of a photo exhibition of refugees and IDPs by Gemunu Amarasinghe. Read my article here. Repost This Article

Continue reading »
Page 4 of 6« First...23456

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!"

cezarneaga.eu