Archive for the ‘Foreign Relations’

The questions unanswered by Ass. Sec. Robert Blake: Mapping US engagement in and concerns over Sri Lanka (UPDATED)

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Image courtesy Colombo Page From around 5pm to 5.30pm today, Ass. Sec. Blake took questions from those on Twitter in South and Central Asia. Ass. Sec. Blake is the Assistant Secretary, South And Central Asian Affairs at the US State Department and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka. South and Central Asia is a large swathe of physical as well as ideological terrain. Fearful that Sri Lanka would be forgotten in the deluge of tweets under the hashtag #AskSCA, we published a story on Groundviews flagging our own questions, and what at the time were a few other questions to Ass. Sec. Blake posed by others on Twitter. The session didn’t see Ass. Sec. Blake answer many questions. It started by his office noting that, https://twitter.com/state_sca/status/192565222714777600 This was followed by a few tweets on Nepal, and a congratulatory tweet on the new US Ambassador in New Delhi. The first tweet responded to was on the Maldives, followed by one US foreign…

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The Island Abstains

The decision by the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to abstain from the General Assembly vote calling for an end to violence in Syria, and stepping down of its president, cannot be accused of inconsistency, given the island republic’s wish to continue importing Iranian oil, serve tea at official Syrian garden parties, and its pummel- the- minority most successful bombing strategy, that just three years ago seemed to be the talk of Colombo town. Unfortunately, the government faces a resolution of its own, upcoming in Geneva, and perhaps the abstaining route indicates a not unsubtle wish that it may go unperceived in the noise of those who said yes or no. Some of us noticed, however, the way Lankan diplomats exercised the popular will and we present evidence here in the court of poetry.

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Examining Sri Lanka’s Diplomacy Machine

Lankan Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe

Photo courtesy JDS As promised, the Sri Lankan government made the final report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) public last month. It has also recently released its “National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights: 2011-2016.” The Action Plan was developed in accordance with a commitment the government had made in 2008, the last time Sri Lanka participated in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review. Both documents are part of the Sri Lankan government’s strategy to placate international observers and convince people that there is no need for any kind of international assistance because the country’s domestic institutions are working just fine. Like the LLRC report, the National Action Plan contains some decent ideas and recommendations, but it is replete with missing and false information. For example, the section on the Prevention of Torture is laughable and worrisome. The Sri Lankan government claims that it “maintains a zero-tolerance policy on torture.” This sweeping assertion directly contradicts…

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Curated updates from Indian Foreign Minister’s official visit to Sri Lanka

Tweets from Syed Akbaruddin, Official Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, India & other media reporting on Indian Foreign Minister’s official visit to Sri Lanka in January 2012. Note in particular the reference to the implementation of the 13th Amendment Plus by the Sri Lankan government. [View the story "Updates from Indian Foreign Minister's official visit to Sri Lanka" on Storify]

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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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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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Trail Sri Lanka: Pressure by the International Community may have made a difference?

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Photo courtesy Iromi Perera Some argue that International pressure will not change Sri Lanka for the better; however, recent evidence reveals the contrary. D.B.S Jeyaraj in a recent blog post argued that international pressure could not encourage progressive change in Sri Lanka. As he stated, “I don’t want to speculate about the possible turns and twists in International relations concerning Sri Lanka because I know there will be no real big change whatever the current excitement”. However, the recent Trail Sri Lanka fundraising initiative, which has slowly gained momentum on the Island, over the last few weeks, seems to disprove Jeyaraj’s pessimism. Trail was initiated by an international non-governmental organization Colors of Courage Trust, which is based in the United States. The international effort has successfully gained a strong Sri Lankan corporate backing.  It has MAS Holding, one of Sri Lanka’s largest garment manufacturing companies, as a prominent sponsor. I joined one of the smaller zones in Colombo, which ran from…

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The absence of Patriotism, Pluralism and Cosmopolitanism: ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ in retrospection

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ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS Former Sri Lankan child soldier Warnakulasuriya Anthony Sunil Rexy (right) laughs with other inmates as they play earlier this month at a government rehabilitation center in Ambepussa. Original in The Washington Times. The TV programme entitled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, produced by Channel 4 of the UK, sparked substantial debate and discussion in every strata of interest on Sri Lanka, including the realms of high politics and diplomacy, national an international journalism, the non-governmental sector and the programme carried sufficient weight to trigger a renewed interest on Sri Lankan affairs in the West – which – due to the absence of key strategic interests in Sri Lanka, does not generally have a place in Western foreign policy agendas. While the Government of Sri Lanka condemned the programme as false and criticised its intent at causing international embarrassment to Sri Lanka, Western governments reiterated their common request that Sri Lanka should seriously investigate the allegations of crimes of…

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History is Irreversible – A ‘Postmortem’ on the Seminar, “Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience”

The three day long seminar titled “Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience” conducted by the SL Army and Ministry of Defence was concluded recently. During the event, top level military and civil officers addressed the international delegates and shared their experiences with regard to ‘defeating terrorism”. However, there are many views, opinions, doubts and speculations about the outcome of this seminar. Hopefully, the wheeling of time will provide satisfactory answers to many of these questions. Apart from this, I would like to point out another visible issue that prevailed throughout the seminar, which strikes me as pertinent. All the speakers who addressed this event prevented themselves from uttering one significant name. That particular name was ‘unmentioned’ and ‘unmentionable,’ and it was of course “Former Army Commander Former General Sarath Fonseka”. As we all know, Fonseka was responsible for engineering the military victory by using his knowledge, skills and combat experiences. Soon after the war, he was praised and honoured as the…

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India “Punishing Sri Lanka”: Myth or Reality?

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Prof. Rohan Gunaratne- international terrorism expert- addressing the business community last week convincingly and openly cautioned that “India might ‘punish’ Sri Lanka”, if Sri Lanka leans elsewhere to India’s detriment. This is a very serious statement, especially if Indians do not intend doing so. To prove his point, he quoted a meeting with the first Research and Analysis Wing Chief who had told Gunaratne their concerns over President JR Jayewardene stepping away from the Non Alignment Movement, Jayewardene’s intentions to economically favor the USA by opening the Trincomalee Port and the intention to handover China Bay oil tanks to the USA, Voice of America eavesdropping on India etc. Gunaratne would not have had any personal antipathy or bias towards India when he emphatically quoted the past to predict future. Indo- Lanka Joint Statement (JS) The attempt here is to observe whether such punishment could be inferred from the latest hinting basing Indian approaches stated in the JS between India and…

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The Indo- Sri Lanka Joint Communique: Delineating the Parametres of Action in Response to the Panel Report

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[Editors' note: An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror on the 26th of May 2011.] 4. Both sides agreed that the end of armed conflict in Sri Lanka created a historic opportunity to address all outstanding issues in a spirit of understanding and mutual accommodation imbued with political vision to work towards genuine national reconciliation. In this context, the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka affirmed his Government’s commitment to ensuring expeditious and concrete progress in the ongoing dialogue between the Government of Sri Lanka and representatives of Tamil parties. A devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation. 5. In response, The External Affairs Minister of India urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the Government of Sri Lanka, to ensure resettlement and genuine reconciliation, including early return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their respective homes, early withdrawal of emergency regulations, investigations into allegations of…

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How will Delhi listen to Jayalalithaa calling Rajapaksa a ‘war criminal’?

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“Declare Rajapakse a war criminal: Jayalalithaa tells Centre” was a banner headline on 13 Friday in the “Indian Express”, following AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa’s march to victory, at the Tamil Nadu assembly elections concluded last week. No analyst expected the DMK-Congress alliance in TN to be so unmercifully smothered, at this elections. Never has the DMK fallen to third place in assembly elections ever before. Not even after MGR created the AIADMK in 1972 and turned himself into a political demigod in Tamil Nadu politics. Jayalalithaa and LTTE MGR’s brightest co-star for long with a continuing run of box office hits and a popular playback singer too, Jayalalithaa Jayaram though qualified herself to lead the AIADMK, over riding MGR’s wife Janaki, after MGR’s demise in 1987 December, wasn’t beyond MGR in popularity. Yes, she took total control of the party as its revolutionary “Thalaivi”, but was never expected to drub “Kalaignar” Muthuvel Karunanidhi, the veteran and maestro in political manipulation, the…

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War Crimes Accountability In Sri Lanka: Is There A Liberal Democratic Alternative To International Action?

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Sri Lanka’s President pictured here with the Governor of the Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal (L) and his brother Basil Rajapaksa, the Economic Development Minister (R) has repeatedly called the war a “humanitarian rescue operation with a zero civilian casualty policy”. Photo credit: REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte The report of the three-member panel of independent experts, appointed by the UN Secretary General to advise him on the issues of legal accountability arising out of the brutal final stages of Sri Lanka’s war, has finally been published. The panel has found ‘credible’ a large number of allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by the military protagonists in the conflict, the Sri Lankan security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), some of which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has also concluded that a political and legal environment conducive to the transparent investigation and prosecution of these violations does not exist in…

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Much ado about nothing: Is Sri Lanka in danger of being held accountable by the International Criminal Court?

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Image from Joe Klamar/AFP/GETTY Early last year I set about examining, as a recent graduate, the feasibility of any citizen of Sri Lanka being tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed in the last phases of the war between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. I concluded that there is no real danger of any case being brought against the members of Sri Lankan Military or the current administration. Such fears are simply unfounded. I wish to revisit the question of if in fact any citizen in Sri Lanka can be held accountable under the ICC within the current context. There has been much discussion about the issue of war crimes in Sri Lanka in the past week.  The current government and all major political parties have recently commented at many capacities on United Nations panel investigations and its leaked report. Since many commentators have written, and…

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An elephantine gestation: UN Panel’s report on accountability in Sri Lanka released

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Leaked versions of the UN Panel’s report found their way into The Island newspaper, where over the past week, Groundviews has contextualised the content that was published in print. Today, the Hindustan Times published an article based on the full version of the report, based on a leaked version of the full report the paper had acquired. Interestingly, the unimaginable horror highlighted in the HT’s report (body parts of babies on tree tops after shelling by the Army) is not content that was published in The Island. The UN had earlier expressed its deep regret over the leak to mainstream print media in Sri Lanka. Accusations between Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s envoy to the UN in New York and UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq over who is responsible for the leak have been traded. The constitution of the Secretary General’s panel and its mandate was announced in June 2010. As noted on the UN website, “The Secretary-General has appointed a Panel of…

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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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