Archive for the ‘Features’

A Supreme Court & Government that erode investor confidence in Sri Lanka?

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The Sri Lankan government is callously gambling with investor confidence. The effects are already evident, and will get worse.  ### One can understand President Obama’s urgency. His legislative programme has been delayed by a divided Congress, his approval ratings have fallen and next year is election year. Hence his new slogan is ‘We can’t Wait’. Despite claims of unconstitutionality and abuse of power he has resorted to issuing executive orders to get things moving. Obama would envy President Rajapakse. With complete control of Parliament, the latter enjoys high approval ratings and an election is not any time soon. Yet Rajapakse’s government is in an equal hurry. Thus certain legislative proposals are being pushed through Parliament as ‘urgent bills’. Around a year ago, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was presented as an urgent bill. The latest is the Expropriation Act previously known as the ‘Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Underutilized Assets Bill’. There a lots of things wrong with the…

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Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka

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Norwegian Development Minister Eric Solheim with Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva. Image courtesy Colombo Telegraph Norwegian peace efforts in Sri Lanka have been the subject of heated debate and controversy, ever since they became public in December 1999. This debate has spawned many different stories about Norway’s involvement in Sri Lanka, some of them very critical. The evaluation entitled “Pawns of Peace”, which is presented in Oslo today, attempts to provide a systematic and comprehensive overview of Norway’s role as a mediator, as well as a ceasefire monitor and aid donor, from 1997 and 2009. Based on a combination of interviews with key protagonists and archival research at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our report provides a detailed narrative of the rise and fall of the peace process and it draws conclusions and lessons about Norway’s involvement. The report criticizes several aspects of this involvement, but it also underscores that the tragic story of Sri Lanka’s peace process and the…

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Women Left Behind: Truth Commissioning in Sri Lanka

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A mother displaying the photographs of his sons which are missing during the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) session in Trincomalee, December, 3-5, 2010. Photo courtesy Centre for Human Rights The power and promise of national exercises like the LLRC lie in the way that they can access the voices of those who have not traditionally been heard, and use them to build a more representative and inclusive collective memory. Yet for Sri Lanka’s Tamil women, the LLRC simply reaffirms bad old habits, writes Jo Baker [i] In the lead up to the release of the report by Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), strong concerns have been publicly raised about the value of a process that aims to build a clear picture of the conflict, without fully including or representing those who were most directly affected. This has led to important questions regarding who has been heard, how their concerns have been addressed, and whether they will…

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CHOGM-2011: HOW DIPLOMATIC VICTORIES END IN DISGRACE

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[Editors note: As noted by the author below, an example of the distressingly bad propaganda of the Sri Lankan Government, attributed in some websites to the Director General of the President's Media Unit, Bandula Jayasekera. It's not the first time an airbrushed image of CHOGM involving the President has been published in Government controlled media. This image appears on the website of the state owned newspaper, and may have appeared in print as well. The original URL is www.dailynews.lk/2011/10/31/news00.pdf, but it may be taken down anon. Download the PDF here.] ### The 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) raised renewed concerns about the ability of the Commonwealth to tackle human rights problems concerning its 54-Member States. CHOGM-2011 is being hailed by Sri Lanka as another diplomatic victory. Amnesty International slammed the Commonwealth, calling it an ‘absolute disgrace’ that the countries agreed to hold the next CHOGM in Sri Lanka. There was a particularly interesting human rights issue which came up during…

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Peace, Military and People: Are non-military engagements of the military valid?

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Sri Lankan Army selling vegetables. Photo: Ministry of Defence – Sri Lanka War or internal armed conflict in the North and East was over; Emergency is no more; but still the military is everywhere. The military is now engaged in peacetime police-work, whale watching, selling vegetables, agriculture,  cleaning, constructions and many other non-military activities. Yet why isn’t there sufficient public debate on this? In this article I endeavor to briefly analyze some of the issues that need attention in the public interest. Engaging the military for non-military duties is regulated under the law. For example s.23 of the Army Act authorizes the President to order all or any of the member of the Regular Forces to perform certain non-military duties, provided the President is satisfied that there is an immediate threat of action to deprive the people of Sri Lanka of essentials of life by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light or with means of…

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A Prima Facie Critique of The New Bill to Vest in the State Under performing Enterprises and Under Utilized Assets

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Editors note: Hotel Developers (Lanka) Plc, a CSE listed company that owns the Colombo Hilton hotel was named in a controversial new bill, rushed through Parliament in secret, not unlike the outrageous 18th Amendment. The Bill appears to have been certified by the Cabinet on the 20th October 2011 as an Urgent Bill and was presented to and reviewed by the Supreme Court during the last week. The Bill has reached the Media and Citizens only towards the end of last week ie. after the review by the Supreme Court and possibly after its verdict had reached the Speaker of Parliament The need for this bill to be deemed an Urgent Bill needs to be properly justified by the Executive and unless so justified it appears to be so classified with mala fidei interests to by pass democratic good governance expectations of society The secrecy surrounding the bill and its reported compilation outside the purview of the usual drafting sources…

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Sri Lanka and the death of Muammar Gaddafi

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Muammar Gaddafi was captured alive and killed thereafter. This is a fact that no one contests today. Even the killer himself accepted the responsibility in front of a mobile camera.  Once any individual is captured, in spite of the crimes allegedly committed by the person, whether victim or perpetrator,  due process and the rule of law has to be followed.  That is what makes us civilised people.  An open and transparent inquiry and judicial process based on natural justice is needed in order to establish the crimes committed by the individual, and it is only then that any punishment can be carried out. None of these procedures were followed in the case of former Libyan leader Gaddafi. Gaddafi was a close friend of the government of Sri Lanka and of President Rajapaksha. One of the last politicians to have a photo opportunity with Colonel Gaddafi was President Rajapaksha’s heir apparent, his son and M.P. Namal Rajapaksha.   Only a few…

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Turning Former LTTE Personnel into Sri Lankan Citizens?

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Editors note: Also read a response to this article by Valkryie, titled Response to Michael Roberts’ ‘Turning Former LTTE Personnel into Sri Lankan Citizens?’] Whatever the death toll during the last stages of Eelam War IV in 2009 the official government data in that year acknowledged that 11,696 (9078 male and 2024 female)[i] of those who survived had identified themselves or been identified as members of the LTTE — whether combatants or active functionaries. There were others who had been arrested elsewhere in the island (that is beyond the battlefields), often on flimsy evidence, in the years 2006-09. Muralidhar Reddy stresses that “once bracketed in the category of a combatant, irrespective of the degree of their involvement in the war, there was no mechanism for those detained to prove their innocence.”[ii] In parenthesis let me add that grapevine information from Tamil sources indicate that in April-May 2009 quite a few Tigers seem to have successfully merged themselves with the population that was…

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Reflections on Issues of Language in Sri Lanka: Power, Exclusion and Inclusion

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Photo credit Dinuka Liyanawatte / Reuters, from Time magazine. Keynote address delivered on 17th October 2011 at ‘Language and Social Cohesion: 9th International Language and Development Conference, Colombo co-organized by the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration, Ministry  of Education, GIZ, AusAID and British Council. ### Approach Language is never a simple issue of communication; in contemporary social and political practice everywhere, language goes much beyond its basic utilitarian purposes. In this sense, Sri Lanka is no exception. By now, Sri Lanka has ended an immensely destructive military conflict that had much to do with a crisis of identity linked as much to language as to ethnicity and contested notions of binary-nationalisms and competitive interpretations of history. In this context, this is a crucial time to seriously consider the politico-developmental position of language in imagining the future of the country. Today, I will briefly focus on the historical development of the politics of language in Sri Lanka and explore…

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Bully Boys and Bully Girls

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A few evenings ago, parents were invited to our son’s school which goes up to Grade 8 for a presentation on Bullying.  Dr. Tina Daniel, Asst Professor of Psychology at Carleton University engaged in researching children’s relationships, violence and bullying facilitated the session.   She and her research colleagues had already spent the day in school first making a presentation at the assembly, then a workshop with teachers and classroom sessions with children themselves. In her presentation she showed footage of an actual playground incident where a girl aged 12 was being bullied by another bunch of girls.  As she deconstructed the scene, there was a child seated on the ground and about five girls hovering around her and it appeared innocent enough, but a closer look revealed her being taunted and teased, as she had her head down crying.   It appeared that this pack of girls had a leader who was directing all this. Dr. Daniel stated that bullying does…

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National Reconciliation, Transitional Justice, Rights and Accountability in Sri Lanka

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Image credit Steve Chao, via Al Jazeera Good Afternoon; Esteemed and Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen; Dear friends Thank you for inviting me to share with you my thoughts on reconciliation. I will not devote much time here, to describe the history of the conflict or the background situation in Sri Lanka. The physical and emotional pain that has been handed down through generations in Sri Lanka during the last five decades has mainly been the inevitable outcomes of past policies followed by the successive governments, based on discrimination and social exclusion. The players, particularly parties to the conflict, have continued their unceasing confrontational politics. The current landscape in Sri Lanka and within the diaspora bears testimony to this situation. On-going effects of dispossession, destruction, dispersal and subjugation mean that the affected people have become the most disadvantaged in society. Indications are that the gap between the affluent and the poor continues to widen. The island’s leadership seems neither committed…

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We the Sinhalese

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Image courtesy Lankapura An oyster sucks in particles from its environment and creates a pearl. If instead, it filters out every particle, it is destined to be a lesser being. In untold generations, the Sinhalese people were fashioned from extraditions, waves of invasions, conquered kingdoms and stranded travelers to this fecund island. They are the children of exiles, conquerors and refugees, some noble and often not…. They are begotten of peoples who have absorbed and yielded, been besieged and withstood and been enriched, pearl-like. In time the Sinhalese defined themselves as a race and a culture that can be distinguished from the cultures of India. This is laudable in the face of that overshadowing mass.  We have swum through multi-colored waters and still stand as a discernible ethnicity…but are we quite as boldly discernible and as splendidly isolated as we believe? Our outline has to have merged and blended with the communities we have mingled with; the aboriginal, australo-negroid Veddha,…

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Militarisation of Sri Lanka and its infiltration into Higher Education

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Evidence of militarisation is everywhere – most recently in the sphere of higher education.  The armed forces are involved with development projects, in welfare, and in farming. They are even involved in city beautification, the maintenance of playgroups and shops, of course Sports, and now higher education.  Their increased presence is evident in subtle changes in our daily lives.  The large number of ‘yu ha’ vehicles dropping and picking up school-going children is one that confronts me each school day. Militarisation is, however, not just confined to their conspicuous presence in public spaces but extends to public acceptance and reinforcement of an attitude that glorifies the forces which in turn enables the process of militarization. The military does not operate through a process of consensus building and does not, in general, function according to democratic principles. While those at the lower rungs of the military hierarchy bear the brunt of this oppressive system, civil society is not immune. Last week,…

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Employing thugs as Presidential advisors

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Sri Lankan hospital staff carry an injured person following a shootout on the outskirts of Colombo on Saturday – AP, via Deccan Chronicle An advisor to the President is dead and a Member of Parliament is critically injured.  Also amongst the dead and injured are supporters of the Presidential advisor and the parliamentarian. This incident, where the politicians and their henchmen openly resorted to a shoot-out in broad day light, only proves a common known fact; that Sri Lanka’s politics has, for the past several decades been taken over by thugs, criminals and drug dealers. What is interesting though, is that in this incident the two opponents belong to the governing alliance.  Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra a long time UPFA member and former Member of Parliament was the Presidential Advisor for Trade Unions while relative newcomer to the UPFA, Duminda Silva, is the monitoring MP for the Defense Ministry. It also is evidence that some of the closest advisors to the…

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Local Government Elections: In sending the UNP and JVP to political oblivion the nation may find hope?

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Photo courtesy Sunday Leader “The starting point of [progressive] politics and the state is its categorical rejection of this view of the state as the trustee, instrument, or agent of this society as a whole…In class societies, the concept of the society as a whole and of the ‘national’ interest’ is clearly a mystification” - Ralph Miliband Another humiliating defeat for the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the forthcoming elections would certainly improve the country’s future prospects for democracy with equality and justice.  A UPFA victory could be celebrated with a sense cautious optimism: perhaps it will enable the evolution of a democratic space where we can imagine alternatives to the status quo.   But the UNP and JVP (along with TULF, LSSP, CP and JHU) represent the very forces that they name as evils, and are ideologically and programmatically bankrupt. The contemporary political scene only gives the illusion of democracy, but it co-opts dissent and…

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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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