Archive for the ‘Foreign Relations’

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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UNSG Panel Report on Sri Lanka: Revisiting ‘Accountability’

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Original photo from JDS Ensuring ‘accountability’ is important, but doing so is a complex task. Who is to ensure accountability, when, where, how? – are questions which have always aroused serious debate, and will do, in the future. While there may be no ‘independent/internal’ investigations, one need not be starry-eyed about ‘independent/international’ investigations. For example, ‘Nuremburg’ was an important start, but was never a suitable model. What, for instance, is ‘international’ and who decides the form and nature of this mechanism? Can we go with Chinese/Russian investigators, and if so, would they be independent? Can we go with US/UK investigators, and would they be independent? Also, can we simply investigate the ‘last stages’ of the armed conflict? What about India’s role in the conflict, and are we to forget the manner in which India nurtured armed groups hostile to Sri Lanka? Are we to investigate only the leaders (of the present regime) who defeated the LTTE, but not those of…

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The stupid modern “Man” and his hushed “conscience”

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Over 4 years ago, on a short visit to the US, I was introduced to an Elementary – Teacher in a public school in Brooklyn, at a private party. The adjective for this American was “White” and that distanced him from the Brooklyn majority. What is important here is not that, though. But wait. That may have some relevance to his ignorance. Why not ? He did not know there is a country called “Sri Lanka” now, and that it was “Ceylon” at the time he was born, in the early 60′s. It thus served no purpose to ask this American about Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.* Michael Moore called this ignorant, modern ‘white’ generation, “Stupid White Men”. And they are, or they have to be. This generation and those before and after them, are those who elect the man or may be a woman next time, to sit in the Oval Office, at the White House. They elected and re-elected…

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The leaked UN war crimes report: Key points and context

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The Island newspaper published today sections of what appears to be a large excerpt from the report of the UN Panel of Experts looking into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka. Inner City Press followed up with a report suggesting that the text was authentic, and that the UN deeply regretted the leak to the mainstream media. It also noted that the UN would publish the report in full next week, along with a response from the Sri Lankan government. Groundviews flags below some highlights of this damning report, and places it alongside some other news article for context. Follow our tweets on this breaking story here. Our Facebook fan page will also carry highlights, and features discussions amongst the 6,000+ people already on it. Some key highlights from the leaked report as published in The Island: “In stark contrast, the Panel found credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious…

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ACCOUNTABILITY, RECONCILIATION, DEMOCRACY

Photo credit: Eranga Jayawardena / AP, taken from Christian Science Monitor At a recent seminar at the Acadamie DiplomatiqueInternationale in Paris, a team from the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), on a Paris-London visit, presented on ‘Developments in the Arab World and the Impact on Asia: an Asian Perspective’. I attended eagerly, not only because of the subject’s salience but because these were my recent colleagues and friends. The team’s presentation differentiated the domestically driven developments, most importantly but not exclusively in Tunisia and Egypt, from external military intervention in Libya’s armed civil conflict or civil war. Prof Tan Tai Yong, the Vice Provost of the National University of Singapore (with which Yale has just signed a deal to establish a liberal arts college) and Executive Director of the Institute pointed out that while Asian opinion agreed that the intentional killing of unarmed civilian protestors de-legitimised any regime and constituted a new ‘red line’ for the international…

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Sri Lanka’s Libyan Spring

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Watching Rupavahini news these days gives way for all sorts of unintended jests. Like when  we see Right Rev. Malcolm Ranjith Pieris exhorting Sri Lankan Catholics to show their solidarity with Buddhist brethren by refraining from consuming meat and liquor during the upcoming Vesak season. Of course the good Cardinal may be putting Jesus’ eternal words of  “Turning the Other Cheek” in to practice by ignoring various angry remarks by Sinhala Buddhist supremacist websites and truculent nationalist Buddhist monks directed against him and Church in general in the recent past . Or when we have Education Minister Bandula Gunawardene threatening sue Sirasa network over some supposedly “investigative “reporting done by that television channel over the manner in which the pious minister celebrated his birthday in the company of some 140 Buddhist monks. And on top of all this we have an “analyst” lecturing us on the affront to the human dignity caused by allied bombardment on Gaddafi’s strongholds in Libya….

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Small Country Diplomacy

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Bosom buddies, Libya’s Qadaffi and Sri Lanka’s President, courtesy Sunday Times Of late there have been several critical comments levied against the manner in which Sri Lanka has conducted her diplomatic relations.  Traditional alliances with the Western world have become somewhat stilted, new alliances have been forged, while fortunately the tempo of our relations with the SAARC countries, our regional neighbours, have remained stable.  The shifts in the balance of power relations have created a certain amount of suspicion and hostility among the Western Powers.  The entry of China, the bête noir of India, has also introduced heightened alertness, but not disharmony into the Indo- Lanka relations.  Sri Lanka needs to fine tune her diplomatic skills as we are dependent on the West for much of our trade, financial aid and investments as much as we are on India, especially with the need to keep the regional balance. Some of the charged atmosphere in Sri Lanka’s international relations, have not…

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The Duplicitous Disclaimer: GOSL, the UN and Accountability

In consideration of the vague exposition on the reasons behind the meeting between Ban Ki-moon and representatives of the Sri Lankan Government in New York on the 23rd of February 2011, as well as the Government’s own disclaimer on the meeting, it is clear that there has been a concerted effort to disclose as little information as possible on this ‘eleventh hour’ attempt by the Government at back-door diplomacy in order to address the UN’s ‘panel on accountability.’ It is rather obvious that suspicions will arise when there are contradictory statements provided by both sides on the content of the discussions, which differed considerably as Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, stated that it was a ‘courtesy call’ on ‘reconciliation and reconstruction efforts,’ while the Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs, Romesh Jayasinghe, stated that the meeting was about ‘legal issues.’ It was also interesting to note Deputy Minister Neomal Perera’s statement, which denied that there was an official visit…

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Sri Lanka and war crimes investigations: Nothing to Lose, but a World to Win

To rephrase the words of Marx and Engels: a spectre is haunting Sri Lanka – the spectre of an international investigation. More specifically, a demand has been made by the West, and will be made in the future too: a demand for an international investigation. The response to such a demand, without any doubt, should be: NO. Such a response should not be based purely on the issue of ‘sovereignty’ alone; i.e. that an international investigation violates Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Furthermore, this response should not be (and should not have been) the fast-unto-death kind. But there are other reasons. One reason is the fact that the demand is made by Western/European States which do not practice what they preach (for instance, when US Ambassador Patricia Butenis stated in her cable of 15 Jan 2010 that “There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes…

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An Era of Sri Lanka’s President: From Mullivaikal to Oxford Union

[Authors note: Mullivaikal is where the last phase of the war between Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) and Liberation Tiger of TamilEelam (LTTE) took place.  According to the Government of Sri Lanka, this was the place war came to an end with the military defeat of LTTE, but for majority Tamils and international human rights activists, this was the place at-least 30000-40000 Tamil civilians were massacred by SLAF. The ‘controversy’ began from here and continues even after 19 months.] The Diaspora re-emergence President Rajapakse, the man who tamed the Tamil Tigers faced his first “Political Waterloo” since he came to the power.  Rajapakse and his family have portrayed themselves as an undefeated regime in the region until the President faced the fiasco in London in early December. This development transpired as outrageous war crimes and crime against humanity evidence have been revealed in the wake of submission to the UN expert panel deadline approached and the president visited to London…

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Thanks, Guys

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Liu Xiaobo , Winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2010, “ CHRD Vassals, serfs, dependent states, including erstwhile defenders of human rights, we appreciate and respect your well-considered decisions to absent yourselves from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies for the common prisoner who shall not here be named, who has filled pages of certain duplicitous democracies with his seditious ideas. He will remain in jail and the Middle Kingdom shall prosper without end. Repost This Article

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The ‘Godayata magic’ of Oxford

Occidentalism: in the thrall of the “West“ The “Godayata magic“ of Oxford There is a storm engulfing this country “ not the incessant rains and consequent floods that have brought much suffering especially to the rural poor and urban slum dwellers. Rather, it is a storm over the failure of our Head of State (somehow “President“ seems inadequate to describe Our Great Leader) to gain access to the podium of a student debating society in a distant foreign land “ a debating society that does not even speak our languages at that! This comment focuses on the cultural contradiction we are seeing being acted out in this reversal of Orientalism: the plague of Occidentalism. All the hue and cry and Parliamentary fisticuffs currently on-going seems to be about expressing outrage at this humiliating exclusion, condoling the Great Leader for his great loss, probing the causes of this huge debacle, identifying the operational lapses that led to it, and finding 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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