Archive for the ‘Foreign Relations’

DIASPORA EXTREMISM, INDIA, CHINA & SRI LANKA

“A social group dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to “liquidate“ or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it leads kindred and allied groups.“ “ Gramsci The Wiki leaks mega “dump“ is an international relations s analyst“s dream. It is also great fun, don“t you think? Consider this: if leaking diplomatic cables and stuff pertaining to past events evokes a howl of condemnation from the metropolis for giving comfort to enemies of western states, and endangering national security and personnel, how can Sri Lanka be faulted for preventing real time coverage of the war, and especially its concluding stages? Furthermore, if the Wiki Leaks exposures are quite so heinous and damaging, why pressurise Sri Lanka to hold an independent international inquiry into the war? Won“t that compromise national security and affect the lives of military personnel? Or is it that some lives and secrets are far more important than Sri Lankan ones? The massive WikiLeaks detonation took place in…

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Interview with Bradman Weerakoon

Deshamanya Bradman Weerakoon, who turned 80 recently, is an elder statesman in Sri Lanka and one of the oldest living civil servants in the country. During over half a century of public service, Bradman served nine Sri Lankan heads of State. It is frankly impossible in 24 minutes to capture this wealth of experience. What the discussion did concentrate was on key chapters in Bradman’s life. Bradman’s answers are always measured and diplomatic. We began by discussing the pregnant title of his memoirs, Rendering Unto Ceasar, placing it in Biblical context (from Matthew 22:21) and going on to explore why Bradman embraced Buddhism when he was around 18. We then discussed the Tamil pogrom of 1983, where the then President made Bradman the first Commissioner General of Essential Services (CGES). I asked Bradman how it felt like to work on humanitarian aid and relief within a government, and indeed a President, widely known in later years to have condoned the…

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“Chiran Jayathu” – “Aayubowewa”

Let all as citizens comprising the civil society of Sri Lanka, join together in unison and with one voice, in response to the earnest appeal made by Renton de Alwis in “Back to Basics” stating “Our President is taking on the next phase of his governance. There is so much more he has to do to guide this nation on. For that we must wish him well and more importantly, resolve that there is so much each of us as individuals and as one big family of 20 million people can and must do, to help ourselves” and wish H.E. the President on his birthday and assumption of his second term of office saying “Chiran Jayathu” and “Aayubowewa”, Happy Birthday and All the Very Best, thus expressing sincere appreciation of his leadership and governance of the past and also for the expected delivery in the future as supported by the following: “I am proud to announce that my country has…

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The campaign to save Rizana Nafeek: Ways to help

A demonstration was held in Colombo today to demand the immediate release of Rizana Nafeek. A month after Rizana was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, Groundviews ran an article urging the public to act to save her life. Rizana’s future: what WE CAN DO noted that, “Rizana, like hundreds of thousands of other Sri Lankan women, had gone to work in the Middle East to alleviate her and her family’s poverty. Through the remittance from people like her, Sri Lanka is kept financially afloat. There have been reports of Government representatives meeting to figure out what to do. But in this situation, I am not optimistic that Sri Lanka’s Government will do anything that is effective to help a poor Muslim woman (who has no political influence) on death-row in a far away country. Out of sight, out of mind.” Three years on, nothing has changed and the author’s pessimism over the Sri Lankan government’s inability to secure her release…

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Ariyasinha urges NGOs to change strategy: A response

Image courtesy South Asia Foreign Relations Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU, Ravinatha Aryasinha says that NGOs need to complement the work done by Sri Lanka in a post-conflict environment, where reconstruction and development takes precedence and either their inability or refusal to accept this stark reality has led to misunderstandings and disagreements between NGOs and the government. the truth is that the govt wants all funds of NGO’s for R&D to be chanelled thru govt that’s where the problem lies Ambassador Ariyasinghe delivering the Olcott Memorial lecture on Saturday in Colombo called for “greater differentiation between NGOs on the part of government, as well as  better coordination between the government authorities and NGOs operating within the country. Additionally, screening of  NGOs to ascertain whether the organization as well as its staff are qualified and experienced enough to engage in the work they wish to undertake, and greater accountability on the part of NGOs themselves, can help improve the relationship”….

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Submission before Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) by Chandra Jayaratne

[Editors note: Chandra Jayaratne is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK, a former President of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and LMD Sri Lankan of the year 2001.] ### 1. Appreciation of Opportunity The eminent members of the Commission and its Secretary are thanked for extending, on their own accord, this opportunity to make submissions before the LLRC. These submissions draw on a wide canvass, strictly within the scope of the warrant of the LLRC and stress issues of concern and detail specific action recommendations for due consideration by the Commission. The LLRC is kindly requested to note that all submissions made herein are based on personal beliefs and commitments and does not represent views of any of the present or past affiliations and positions of leadership held in any private sector or civil society organizations. 2. The Immediate Correction of the Lost Opportunity The opportune…

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NATION-BUILDING: WHICH PROJECT FOR THE NORTH & EAST?

When faced with challenging human rights and humanitarian law issues who should we seek out for advice but a celebrated former Vice President of the International Court of Justice? Faced with the task of peace building after a Thirty Years war, to whom should we turn to spearhead a state-aided national effort, or at the very least, for ideas and guidance, but the sole Sri Lankan to win the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education? If the Sri Lankan state and society have done neither, what does that say about us, where we are at and where we are headed? One of the more refined gratifications in my life is the friendship of a few renowned intellectuals like Richard Falk, Emeritus Professor of International Law and Policy at Princeton, and the occasional receipt from him of work in progress. The other day’s email contained three scintillating draft essays, two of which I have finished reading and one that I have commented…

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Managing diplomacy with melodrama: Sri Lanka’s Madness

Wimal fast

Photo courtesy Vikalpa’s Flickr photostream on the NFF protest The point of departure for this note is the fast unto death by a government (cabinet) Minister, hereinafter referred to as VW, in front of the UN’s Colombo office. The protest campaign launched by the said individual, and his decision to fast, are meant at demonstrating his party’s (and, being a vocal member of the governing coalition, the present government’s) opposition to the investigative panel appointed by the UN SG on alleged war crimes during the last phase of civil war in early/mid 2009. The UN SG has been functioning under prerogatives accorded to him in his mandate. The most recent precedent for a panel of this nature is that on Israel’s thoroughly questionable conduct in the Gaza strip, and its recent atrocities over a humanitarian vessel. Let’s not forget that this panel is chaired by Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN. How can Sri Lankan diplomats currently posted to…

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Compilation of special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka

Special Edition Logo

Download the 162 page compilation of content as a PDF in high quality (25.4Mb), or low quality (3.7Mb). The low quality version is good enough to read, but the photos will look and print much better in the high quality version. From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka. Over this week alone, the site received over forty thousand readers and exclusively featured over eighty thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over a dozen photos, generating over one hundred and fifty thousand words of commentary. Tens of thousands more have read and commented on this content since, making the special edition a sui generis archive of intelligent debate, incisive critique and vital perspectives that mainstream media in Sri Lanka, even post-war, is too fearful to feature. For example, one memorable and particularly hard-hitting comment inspired by the content in this special edition came from Tathagata Bose, an Indian…

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Should we prosecute crimes against humanity?

It must be acknowledged that international law, both customary and humanitarian, is undergoing significant changes with regard to crimes committed during armed conflicts.  Thus it is difficult to assert that international legal measures for dealing with crimes against humanity should be assessed primarily in terms of successful prosecutions given that there is a paucity of empirical evidence to substantiate claims about how well criminal trials actually achieve the goals ascribed to them (Souare, 2009:377-381). More research needs to be done on the subject but I would suggest that decisions to prosecute should be tailored to the specific context and that in some cases an adherence to international legal fundamentalism may be counterproductive. Successful prosecutions may in some cases not be the best method for dealing with crimes against humanity. An investigation of the International Criminal Court shall be the focus of this essay. The decision to create a permanent international criminal tribunal or court dates back to the late 1940s…

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People in glass houses…

“Where you from” asked the precocious teenager from Jane, a World Bank official I was escorting to a remote hillside community in the middle of Sri Lanka to show a community based micro hydro system. She proudly said, “America”. She and I were both shocked at the response that followed; “Boo Bush Boo Bush!” accompanied by a thumbs down. Jane had just told me how embarrassed she was to call herself an American after Bush’s tragic unprovoked attack of Iraq soon after 9/11. We were both amazed at this teenager’s knowledge in this remote corner, yet he knew and he had formed an opinion. Such is the result of a communications revolution that is making the world truly global village. No longer can the west have an advantage over others by hoarding information and knowledge. World is becoming level. Yet, it amazed me when the likes of Milliband, Koucher and other western nations tried to force Sri Lanka to stop…

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Interview with Prof. Kumar David

Prof. Kumar David, an electrical engineer by training, regular columnist in traditional print media and a frequent commentator on Groundviews, talks about what’s left of leftist politics in Sri Lanka, the end of war and its impact on Tamil diaspora juxtaposed against th autocratic and essentially one-party rule in Sri Lanka. I also asked him about the growing web and Internet censorship, which in a recent column he had referred to as a disturbing retrogression into a Lanka Internet Dark Age (LIDA). Repost This Article

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National referendums and the aspirations of a diaspora: a Saturday morning reflection

A week ago (Saturday 12 December 2009), I came across a news report about a referendum organised by Tamil nationalist activists in France, in order to [quote] say yes or no for independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the island of Sri Lanka [unquote]. The article, published in Tamilnet, further said that polling was to take place in 30 centres in Paris and suburbs and in five centres out of Paris. A so-called [quote] Formation committee for the country council of Eelam tamils in France [unquote] was mentioned as the chief organisers of the referendum, supported by [quote] 61 Eezham Tamil organisations and two NGOs in France [unquote]. This is not the first occasion that a referendum of this nature has been organised. A similar event held in Norway was given relatively substantial publicity back in May 2009. At a first glance, it appears that the idea of referendums on Tamil Eelam was developed by diaspora Tamil nationalists, i.e. Tamil…

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THE RAJAPAKSE REGIME: BRICKBATS, PLAUDITS

[Editors note: This article complements The Rajapakse Regime and the Fourth Estate, also by the same author.] This is a disjointed exercise that does not claim comprehensiveness. That is impossible in a short essay, the more so because I write without ethnographic exposure to the experiential subjectivities of either the Tamil people in Sri Lanka or the poor people from every community struggling with the cost of living. Terrible Record In a recent essay I have briefly annotated the government’s failure to prevent a series of killings and intimidations directed against media personnel and the widespread belief that elements in its sprawling establishment had a hand in many of these acts of injustice.[i] In step with this record the Rajapakse Regime has consolidated the long tradition of overcentralised decision-making and authoritarianism at the top that has been a feature of Sri Lanka’s so-called democratic institutions for many decades.[ii] It is not surprising, therefore, that little or nothing has been done…

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Taking note of the Lisbon Treaty

Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Klaus signed the 2007 EU Lisbon Treaty on the 3rd of November thereby making the Treaty effective as of the 1st of December 2009. The Czech Republic was the last European Union nation (EU is comprised of 27 nations) to ratify the Lisbon treaty. President Klaus, a Eurosceptic, had earlier opposed the Treaty, and still had many objections to the Treaty, but felt forced to sign the treaty after the Czech Constitutional Court had ruled in favor of the Treaty. The Lisbon treaty was signed by EU leaders on 13 December 2007 bringing to an end several years of negotiations about institutional issues. The Treaty of Lisbon amends the current EU and EC treaties, without replacing them. The 287 page treaty was meant to strengthen the institutions of the European Parliament. Key innovations include a new permanent EU President to coordinate the union’s affairs; creating the post of a Foreign Minister and new regulations to allow decision…

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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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