Archive for the ‘Districts’

Sinhala Buddhist Rationale In An Omnivorous Society

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Photo courtesy Ada Derana My new neighbour, a quiet middle class, young Sinhala Buddhist professional from beyond Matara, who started constructing his own house, brought down a “Kattadi mahathtaya” from his village to evoke blessings on the property, the new construction and on himself and his young family, before the foundation stone was laid. The ritual went on with loud chanting and drumming through midnight, a public nuisance, but tolerated in silence, as it was his belief for which he also had a right. Early morning we woke up when a cockerel screamed it’s life out. The final sacrifice of a “life” made in this ritual called the “Bhahirava poojah”. This is no isolated event in this Sinhala Buddhist society, where people construct their own houses and often indulge in such sacrificial poojahs. May be there are other similar rituals too, when “life” of animals and birds are sacrificed, in lieu of a safe and prosperous future for the person(s)…

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Lifting of Emergency: Exposing the Sham Exercise

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Photo credit AP Author is a Human Rights & Constitutional Lawyer, Eisenhower Fellow, Senior Ashoka Fellow Much has been said about the recent decision of the Government to end the Emergency in Sri Lanka. Some welcomed the move and others are yet to make any pronouncements.  This short essay is an attempt to examine the implications of the decision of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) together with the nature and effect of withdrawal of the emergency. What is Emergency? Proclamation of Emergency is made by the President under section 2 of the Public Security Ordinance (PSO). With the proclamation the President is empowered to promulgate Emergency Regulations under section 5.  The proclamation is generally referred to as “Emergency in the country”.  This is an exceptional situation that, among other things, permits the Executive to bypass Parliament and introduce forceful regulations having the effect of law.    Those regulations, which are called Emergency Regulations, can even be contrary to laws passed…

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  • 15 Sep, 2011
  • 12 Comments
  • Colombo

Why is Right to Information in the Moragoda Mayoral Manifesto?

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[Editors note: Prof. Samarajiva is at the time of writing, the Head of the Policy Planning Group, Milinda for Mayor Campaign. Groundviews is critical of all political parties and candidates, but not equally so. Prof. Samarajiva's article is published here as the continuation of a lengthy exchange on the topic of RTI on Milinda Moragoda's Facebook page. Please also read Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality.] ### It appears that the commitment given to recognizing the Right to Information (RTI) by Milinda Moragoda in his Mayoral campaign has created both excitement and confusion.  This is good. The confusion appears to originate in the conflation of the national and the municipal.  Some insist RTI cannot be implemented at city level when the central government has expressed no enthusiasm for it at the national level.  Obviously, the Colombo Municipality cannot legislate for the central government.  But it can legislate for itself, for functions that come under its authority. Pragmatic RTI Can…

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Who is “Pulidaran?”: Reflections on International Day of Democracy

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Photo courtesy Vikalpa Who is “Pulidaran?” What everyone knows – “On July 15, 2008, Pulidaran reportedly shot Kanapathipillai alias Satchi Master, while in Batticaloa prison.[1] What everyone does not, or chooses to ignore – “Pulidaran was a mere boy of 14 when he was arrested under suspicion of terrorism. Pulidaran was held for far longer than 18 months. He is now 29. He was detained for 14 long years before any charges were brought against him. In the news, Pulidaran was described as a LTTE cadre. Most readers did not stop to question what Pulidaran was doing in prison. The words “LTTE cadre” was more than sufficient to quell doubts.”[2]  In “celebration” of the International Day of Democracy today, I would like to bring our attention back to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA)[3], (particularly in light of the recent ‘so called’ removal of the Emergency Regulations (ER),) which has reared its ugly head in the “Democratic” Socialist Republic of…

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Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality

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Milinda Moragoda’s on-going mayoral campaign is interesting on many counts. Particularly appealing to me is that it is extremely web media savvy. The campaign’s central website, http://www.ourcmb.com, is leagues ahead of what any candidate, at any election in Sri Lanka has produced. Aimed to elicit public feedback on a 12 point, 100 day plan for Colombo, the website is a model for how politicians can use the web to co-create policy in what is promised is an open, transparent manner. Milinda’s Facebook group, growing apace in the number of fans, is something other candidates have done in the past, but not to this degree of curatorial prowess. He also has a presence on YouTube and Twitter. All this would prima facie suggest a politician unafraid of public scrutiny, genuine engagement on critical issues and uses these tools to be the change he proclaims he wants to see. Sadly, not so. In an article titled ‘Open-source policy formulation for Sri Lanka’s…

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Channel 4′s ‘Killing Fields’: Journalism, Advocacy or Propaganda?

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Image from Channel 4 Introduction The UK based Channel 4 documentary, “Killing Fields”, possesses an interesting characteristic. It has the power of accentuating the prejudices and biases of viewers. The reaction found on a variety of forums is arguably more illuminating than the documentary itself. Those who feel the Sri Lankan government has done no wrong, are further convinced that there is an international conspiracy and the entire documentary is fake. There are those who are convinced that the Sri Lankan armed forces are evil. There are also those that believe the documentary is evidence of the need for a separate Tamil nation and are busy distributing DVDs to Western politicians. The remainder are horrified by the footage and can not watch the entire documentary. With the broadcast of the “Lies Agreed Upon” [1]  documentary by the Sri Lankan television station Ada Derana [2] , we now have two very one-sided documentaries. Only together can any semblance of balance be achieved. Callum Macrae,…

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Human Rights in Sri Lanka: Impunity against Accountability and Justice

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Image credit AP, via BBC News “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way, and not starting.” – Lord Buddha Authors note: When I was a teenager, I heard from a Sinhala brother that he constantly felt guilty for being unable to protect nearly 70 000-80 000 Sinhala youth who were killed in 1971 and 1989 by their own government in the name of ‘countering  insurgency’. Now, approaching my tenth year of engagement in journalism and human rights activism, I am experiencing a similar feeling. When thousands of Tamil civilians were massacred under the banner of ‘defeating terrorism’, I – along with like-minded others –could not cease or control the causalities.  Since then, it has been my sole intent to do something constructive and seek justice for those who were victimized by the state system in Sri Lanka. (An edited version of an article by Nirmanusan Balasundaram as first published in the UNESCO Chair & Institute of Comparative Human Rights…

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Osama, Prabhakaran and Me

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Photo from The Atlantic I have a bone to pick with these two. In fact maybe an entire rib cage. One of them caused me to question my nationalism and my identity as a Sri-Lankan and the other caused me to have to answer countless questions about my religious beliefs. In essence all my adult life, my religion and my country have been under attack; and yet how did I turn out to be such a pacifist? Shouldn’t I theoretically have bombs in my make-up case and hidden amongst my Manolo’s? Considering the chaos that these men have caused in their bid to achieve their agenda’s I should be a roving lunatic with a thirst for vengeance. As noble as their intentions may have been to their followers, they did harm their own and others in the process, to no significant outcome. In my opinion that is. Firstly let us start close to home. I was brought up in the…

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Marking The Mahinda Moment In Lankan Politics

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Photo courtesy Al Jazeera, Sri Lanka boosts presidential power Perhaps never before has there been so wide a gap, so clear a contradiction, between the views of our country held by the West and the Western dominated international media on the one hand, and the opinions demonstrably held by the citizens of our country on the other (even according to impeccably Western sources).  The gulf between these views is of a magnitude that pressure from the West will not generate the conditions to close it by influencing domestic opinion; in fact the gulf will widen by driving Sri Lankans further away from the external opinion mounting against the country’s policy stance and its democratically elected leadership.  The country’s citizens are not taking their cue from the leadership, and therefore a regime change or striving for it will not change public opinion. Indeed the leadership is hugely popular precisely because it reflects the strongly held and democratically expressed convictions of the vast…

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13th Amendment: Plus? Or Minus?

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Introduction Leader of National Freedom Front (NFF) and the Minister of Construction, Engineering Services, Housing & Common Amenities, Hon Wimal Weerawansa delivered a public lecture on the 7th of September 2011 on the ‘13th amendment plus? Or Minus? at the Youth Services Council, Maharagama. The following commentary is a summary of the key points he made during his lecture. Objective of the Lecture The international community and their local supporters are attempting to reverse the victory Sri Lanka achieved after defeating the separatist terrorists. Now they have commenced a dialogue on ‘13th amendment plus’. Hence this series of lectures intend to bring this conspiracy to the attention of the patriotic actors. Content Today’s world is facing three main kinds of crisis situations Economic instability Political instability Environmental crisis There is a possibility to have an international intervention on Sri Lanka. The background is been prepared for that at the moment. This preparation is taking place in two ways at the…

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Reconciliation, a Political Settlement and the “Grease Devil”

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Tissa Vitharana eats the President’s cake, courtesy Dinamina. Extremist Sinhala nationalists within the parliament and outside who do not believe that the minority communities have or ever had any grievances see no reason why there should be a political settlement. As Basil Rajapaksa has pointed out if the TNA (Tamil national alliance) thinks it has a mandates for devolution of power, then the president has a bigger mandate from the South not to devolve power. The Defence Secretary, Gothabya Rajapaksa, the most important policy maker in the country today has flatly denied the need for a political settlemet. According to him since the LTTE has been exterminated there is no need for devolution; the present constitution is more than enough for all communities to live in peace. President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself doesn’t appear to be very keen on a political settlement.  He played around with the APRC for almost four years and then discarded the report if produced after numerous…

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  • 7 Sep, 2011
  • 4 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Identity,
    International,
    Youth

Living with HIV in Sri Lanka: Reflections from ICAAP10 in Busan, Korea

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World AIDS Day, 2010, One Voice – SARYN We were in Busan, Korea last week, where S, a young man living with HIV, and I were presenting at the International Conference on AIDS in the Asia and Pacific on how the People Living with HIV Stigma Index had helped empower a local community that is marginalized and often forgotten in the response to HIV and AIDS in low prevalence countries like ours. In truth, I have begun to question if people living with HIV in Sri Lanka matter at all. Those who come forward are often poor; from rural communities that no longer want them (especially if their status is known) or from towns that are not large enough for them to be invisible in or hide in the shadows (especially if their status is known). Is their status known? Surely confidentiality is preserved in rural and provincial Sri Lanka? Nurses and ward staff and gardeners and cleaners are trained not to talk about…

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Searching for Sri Lanka’s Anna Hazare

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Anna Hazare, courtesy Injustices.in Foundation It was just last week that the BBC featured a documentary describing the post war atrocities committed against vulnerable Tamil women in the north and east who are part of the captive Tamil population subject to heavy militarization. Although the state of emergency was suddenly and mysteriously lifted by the President, last week, obviously due to international pressure, we see that new legislation is being introduced to circumvent such action and thereby nullify the objective of removing now redundant laws that stifle democratic freedoms and fundamental rights of the people. While we wait and watch, another phenomenon is taking place – that of the ‘grease devils’ which, incidentally, was also featured on international news recently. Why are areas of disturbance predominantly in ethnic minority populated regions of the country such as Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee,Batticaloa, Ampara, Puttalam and Hatton. The latest attack being in Kokuvil, Jaffna( recently sinhalized name change is  kokavilla). Use of force by…

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Joshua Roman in Sri Lanka

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I met Joshua Roman, a TED Fellow, at TED 2011. TED audiences are very hard to please. Because of the nature of the TED Fellows, speakers and performers, the bar for any presentation is set so high that an appearance on that stage is absolutely nerve-wracking. Many in the audience pay thousands of dollars to attend TED and come from the wealthiest families in the US, corporate giants and Hollywood. In sum, they are usually those with a passion for new ideas and a penchant for music, art and culture. That Joshua received standing ovations every time he performed on stage in front of this critical audience is a singular measure of his musical prowess. As Yo-Yo Ma notes, “Occasionally I get to meet an extraordinary young musician. Such is the case with Joshua Roman. … To me, Joshua is one of the great exemplars of the ideal 21st-century musician. He’s deeply grounded in a classical tradition and he is…

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State of Emergency in Sri Lanka, with or without it

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Photo courtesy JDS The decision of the Sri Lankan government to lift the Emergency Regulations (ER) is received in good faith by many. For example, the International Community has expressed its pleasure and satisfaction. The Indian minister of external affairs, S.M. Krishna welcomed the move as an “effective step leading to genuine national reconciliation in the country” (The Hindu, August 27, 2011). At the same time, it has also generated a suspicion whether the act of repeal is merely an attempt “to generate good publicity for the government on the eve of the meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva next month” (The Telegraph, Calcutta, August 30, 2011). This sense of uncertainty and doubt has being substantiated by the introduction of new regulations which would provide the basis for the operation of Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), High Security Zones (HSZs) and prosecution of LTTE cadres etc. In addition, militarisation of the society, internalisation of emergency rules…

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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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