Archive for the ‘Colombo’

Freedom of assembly in post-war Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Missing Journalist

Sandya Ekneligoda, wife of missing journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, center,  speaks to reporters during a protest rally out side the parliament in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Relatives, colleagues and opposition activists staged a protest rally Thursday demanding that the Sri Lanka government hold proper investigation to find out what happened to Ekneligoda who went missing in January 2010. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via Inquirer News) The war in Sri Lanka ended on 18th May 2009. During three decades of war, civil liberties were severely curtailed, often in an arbitrary manner, without possibilities of challenging them or seeking remedies through independent bodies. The Ministry of Defense, the military and police reigned supreme. Even judicial discretion was curtailed, with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) compelling Judges to obey wishes of the Ministry of Defense and the police through the Attorney General’s department when it came to remanding people, bail etc. The PTA remains as a dreaded legal weapon in the…

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A New Political Regime Post-2010 in Sri Lanka: A Hybrid Regime

Mohinda Rajapaksa at election rally at Homagama, Sri Lanka.

Image courtesy Brisbane Times by Laksiri Jayasuriya, University of Western Australia Introduction The 2010 Sri Lankan Presidential and Parliamentary elections that took place shortly after the end of a debilitating 25 year-old civil war in 2009 constitutes a watershed in Sri Lanka’s politics. Despite the unsettled conditions over the last two decades emanating from this turbulent environment created by the civil war and the seemingly intractable obstacles encountered, Sri Lanka was able to maintain some semblance of the principles and practices of a liberal democracy (Clarence 2008). However, the dramatic events more recently surrounding the end of the civil war and the emergence of a ‘culture of violence, anomie and impunity’ (Devotta 2009) have cast a heavy cloud over the future of Sri Lanka’s democratic polity. The political order that emerged in 2005 with the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government has served to consolidate the illiberal political culture and institutions that evolved with the radical social and…

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‘Women’s Issues’: Shooting the messenger

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Image courtesy ICRW ‘Are we not raped every day when we walk down the street and are leered at ? Are we not raped when we are treated as sex objects, denied our rights, oppressed in so many ways ?’ Archives of Manushi, written by Sohaila (1983) Sri Lanka reminds one of one’s gender. To be female in a public bus is to be visually harassed (or more) and to be reminded of the persistent failures of the establishment to address those issues which are truly important. Organisations such as Sri Lanka Unites have attempted to shine a light on this issue with their Show You Care campaign. Yet, public harassment deserves attention on a larger, central government scale in a manner which considers multiple regions. This lack of personal safety is yet another reminder of the stark inequality in this nation. The lives of bus-folk are worlds apart from those at the other end of the spectrum. The normalisation of cat-calling, hooting and…

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People, Politics and the Constitution: Reading ‘The Sri Lankan Republic at 40′ (edited by Asanga Welikala)

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Photo courtesy Vikalpa, taken at the launch of the book in Colombo. Reading a tome on constitutional history, theory and practice – like Asanga Welikala’s edited collection titled The Sri Lankan Republic at 40 – can be a daunting task. For a start, such books have too much to say about constitutions. The more you read about constitutional documents, the more they begin to appear God-like. For a constitutional-skeptic, this is a horrible prospect. Also, the broader discipline of constitutional law often comes across as an esoteric one. In examining the Table of Contents, one senses that much of what is contained in Asanga’s collection (which runs into two large volumes) is for the specialist. With 1166 pages divided into four parts – namely ‘constitutional history’, ‘constitutional theory’, ‘constitutional practice’ and ‘interviews and recollections’ – one feels (and the feeling comes slowly) that it might just not get read during this life-time. Therefore, one is tempted to skip the academic…

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Sri Lanka Today: Due Process & Civil Liberties or Security State?

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Photo courtesy The Nation “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” ‘The Second Coming’, WB Yeats (1919) Must the Sri Lankan citizenry accept or acquiesce in the sacrifice, even in peacetime, of due process and civil liberties at the altar of an absolutist model of security? The state, or rather its hard-core and its propaganda apparatuses, has sallied forth to defend its conduct in the Azath Salley affair. Unpacking its aggressively defensive discourse, many things stand revealed. Firstly, that the doctrine of pre-emptive hyper-securitisation has increasingly become the driving doctrine and dominant ideology of a democratic, pluralist state. Secondly that the arguments used to justify the handling of Azath Salley, reveal that the lessons of the recently ended protracted conflict have not been learned. Thirdly that those lessons which are being trotted out as deriving from the thirty years war, are completely at variance with the conclusions of the Lessons Learnt…

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  • 8 May, 2013
  • 3 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Religion and faith

Responding to a reader who critiqued ‘Where every prospect pleases, man alone is vile’

I appreciate Anoja Fernando’s response (The Island, Tuesday 7th May) to my article (‘Where every prospect pleases, man alone is vile’, published on Groundviews) and her reference to those of DLO Mendis and E de S Wijeyaratna. Was the Bishop’s reference to Buddhist and Hindus (and Muslims?) in Sri Lanka, or to non Christian every where? Does it cover Atheists and Agnostics of European origin? What is meant by the word Heathen? I am reminded of the time 29 years ago when I was “shopping” for a church to attend in or close to Harvard Square. After over a month of church hopping, I stumbled on to the church closest to my residence – Christ Church, Cambridge. I had kept it to the end because I was put off by its upper class, elitist image. That church has a long history   going into the British Imperial period. It had been used to station British troops during the American War of…

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Is the Tamil Diaspora Against Unity in Sri Lanka?

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“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes The Tamil Diaspora is a diverse ethnic group. Amongst it, the majority are strongly connected to their kith and kin in the island of Sri Lanka. Arguably, the Tamil Diaspora is also a very powerful body. It reflects the aspirations and the grievances of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka who continue to live under severe suppression, in an open prison. Considering the Sri Lankan state’s oppression of the Tamil people on the ground, the interaction between them and the Tamil Diaspora, though invisible, is very efficient and effective. Since May 2009’s Tamil genocide, the role of the Tamil Diaspora has reshaped to rebuild the lives, and social, economic, cultural and political structures of their beloved ones. This is no easy task, given a powerful section of the Tamil Diaspora chooses not to…

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World Press Freedom day, Uthayan and Freedom of Expression in Sri Lanka

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Photo courtesy SIDA “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties” John Milton 3rd May was declared as World Press Freedom day by the UN General Assembly in 1991. Since then, it is celebrated every year, around the world. It is a time to cherish, re-assert and enhance fundamental principles of freedom of expression, recognize the courage and sacrifices made by numerous individuals and groups, asses threats – past, present and future – and plan accordingly. This year, World Press Freedom Day focuses on themes that are particularly relevant to Sri Lanka. “Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media” and focuses on safety of journalists, combating impunity for crimes against freedom of expression, and securing a free and open Internet as the precondition for online safety. World Press Freedom day has also been celebrated in Sri Lanka, but there has been little to celebrate in last several years….

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‘Rally for Unity’, a March towards Reconciliation

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Photo by Anushan Selvarajah, from Flickr photo set on rally It is often the case that a nation which experienced a protracted war will tend to look forward rather than backward. For Sri Lankans, over the years, the war became a part of their lives, and survival a part of their routine. In such a context, healing becomes a lengthy and culturally-bound process. Though some may find it difficult to achieve, such process cannot be understated or underestimated when it comes to building a deeper unity, thus a sustainable peace for Sri Lanka. But how many of us really took the time and space to actually forgive and heal from a war that scattered a whole nation for over three decades, leaving behind scars that are still visible from the outside. How many of us actually grasped the opportunity to make a change? Last Sunday, April 28th, marked a turning point in building such unity when a “voluntary movement of concerned…

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Rally for Unity: Standing up for an inclusive Sri Lanka

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Groundviews strongly endorsed a rally held in Colombo on Sunday to reaffirm the fact that Sri Lanka is not only a Sinhala-Buddhist country. As the movement’s Facebook event page noted, this non-partisan, non-violent awareness raising rally aims to empower the silent majority of moderate Sri Lankans to stand up for an inclusive Sri Lanka. At its peak, Groundviews was told the rally had around 500 walking from point to point. View Rally for Unity in a larger map In the lead up to the rally, the organisers produced and released a number of videos in support of the rally and the larger movement behind it. All the videos can be viewed here, and interestingly, they feature high-profile individuals and MPs with the Government, those who have represented and defended the Government diplomatically in the past, a World Cup winning doyen of cricket, a well known actor, a senior member of the UNP and senior members of the Buddhist clergy. Groundviews…

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  • 24 Apr, 2013
  • 35 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Religion and faith

Beyond collective egos: Our relational grounds of belonging and faith

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While racial hatred burns, with fires so ably lit by the ignorant on both sides of Palk Straits, there is another source of energy – hidden from view but none the less real – that burns deep inside. For the Sinhala Buddhist today, regaining identity and faith is necessarily bound up with reclaiming a lost inheritance. This inheritance is our cultural relationship with India or Maha Bharata which shaped and moulded our broad sense of “Sinhalese-ness” and “Buddhist-ness” for 16 centuries through a line of 134 monarchs up to Vijayabahu I (1055-1110 AD). But Vijayabahu liberated a dying state. His brilliant nephew Parakramabahu (1153-1186 AD) represented a glorious end to a glorious culture. More importantly for us – he also represented an abandoned and failed beginning of a new culture that might have been. The physical remains of this abandonment can be seen at the Demala Maha Seya in Polonnaruva and the Suthigara Chaitya in Dedigama – ambitious works that…

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First Failure in Geneva: Trap, Blunder or Model?

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However bad Sri Lanka’s foreign policy is and external relations are, they have yet to hit the nadir that they did under President Jayewardene in the 1980s. The first ever resolution on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka adopted in Geneva by the Human Rights Commission was in March 1987, while the first decision, which it ‘recalls’ in the resolution, was in March 1984, as was reported in the Lanka Guardian at the time (Vol 9, No 23, April 1 1987, p18).  This episode, which in a lead story in the same journal three months later was derided by its Editor as a “roasting”, has recently been disinterred and touted as nothing less than a model of professional diplomacy which should have been looked up to as a lodestar by Sri Lanka’s representatives in Geneva May 2009. A persistent attempt at a revisionist history of Sri Lanka’s diplomacy posits our performance at the UN Human Rights Commission (the predecessor…

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Of Foreign Policy Failures, Geneva Resolutions, Double Standards and other excuses for Non-Reconciliation in Sri Lanka

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Photograph of, by some accounts, the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka.  Reminiscences of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy triumphs spearheaded by the late lamented Lakshman Kadirgamar are fresh in my  mind given that it was only the other day (12 April) that we marked what might have been  his 81st birth anniversary with a tribute to the former Foreign Minister. It is, therefore, doubly sad to reflect on the fact that Sri Lanka’s relations with the world outside our shores are in tatters at present. To say that our foreign policy today lacks coherence,  direction  and depth is to be generous. Had Lakshman Kadirgamar been our Foreign Minister at the time, the  short-sighted  ‘victory resolution’ introduced by Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in Geneva in 2009 would not have seen the light of day. His sagacity would have enabled Sri Lanka to avoid the pitfall of playing into the hands of our opponents, a sagacity that characterised our professional diplomacy even…

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Strategy of Tension versus National Unity

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Photo via The Globe and Mail, by Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press The power system in modern societies is polycentric and therefore there are innumerable movers and shakers that influence society either in conflict or conciliation. Compared with olden societies, relying on a few powerful stakeholders does not lead to quick fix of problems due to its multi-polar nature. Therefore the advocates of social harmony and peace should understand the real nature of the problems at hand and understand how they should be addressed. They require a nuanced understanding of the contemporary society and its nature of power structure. Absence of this sense would lead to responding to the fringe than the core of the problem. The emergence of Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and their associates threatening the Muslim community and other minorities in a post war society at a time when communities are clamouring for peace, unity and reconciliation is intriguing. In the post war Sri Lankan society, after the decimation of…

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‘Long War, Cold Peace’ & the Return of Dayan Jayatilleka

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After what seemed to be a brief but palpable and conspicuous absence from serious public engagement (in late 2012), Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka has returned from Paris; a return marked by his characteristic interventions in the press and the release of a book, titled ‘Long War, Cold Peace: Conflict and Crisis in Sri Lanka’ (Vijitha Yapa, 2013). The book, his second major publication on Sri Lanka, brings together most of his writings on Sri Lankan affairs which were published in the papers during the past few years. This is a timely intervention; not only because the author was a former diplomat who had staunchly and successfully defended the country overseas, but mostly because his views on numerous domestic and foreign policy matters seem to run counter to the dominant ideological positions adopted by the present regime. The confluence of these factors makes Jayatilleka’s intervention a coruscating and critical one, with the delightful (or dangerous?) potential of irking the regime; especially a…

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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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