Archive for the ‘Human Rights’

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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Ground realities in Jaffna and its environs: Two key perspectives

From the psycho-social trauma and destruction of the social fabric in Jaffna after close upon three decades of brutal war to the challenges of post-war development, entrepreneurship and economic revival, these two interviews focus on two leading Tamil civil society activists who have lived in Jaffna from when the war was still raging. Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is the Principal Researcher at the Point Pedro Institute of Development and author of three well read articles on Groundviews. Our conversation was pegged to the socio-economic aspects of post-war scenarios in the North and East. Dr. Sarvananthan’s key ideas for post-war development are captured in SL Govt monopoly impeding economic revival in NE and forestalling private entrepreneurship, an article published in April in the Tamil National. In this scathing critique, he points to a number of problems with the Government’s misguided approach to development in and around the North and ends with a novel idea to kick-start sustainable local entrepreneurship in the region….

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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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Mass Graves: Nothing new to Sri Lanka

The recent discovery of mass graves  at Ganeshapuram in  Kilinochchi and at Nachchikuda in the  Mannar Districts  has  been very much in the news during the past weeks.  Such finds need not  surprise anyone.  Following an analysis of satellite images taken during the height  of the war, the American Association for the Advancement of Science  has already  reported  that on  19th April , 2009 the images showed the roads in the ‘Civilian Safe Zone’  to be  mostly deserted. The images taken on the 24th April, 2009 showed a large grave yard in the same area.  The report adds, that the analysis identified three different graveyards, counting a total of 1,346 likely graves. The satellite images can neither reveal if these graves contain civilians or Tamil Tiger fighters,.. In the circumstances, it is likely that more and more graves would be discovered, if free access to the area is available to the people and the security forces do not  take any…

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Learning Old Lessons from a New ‘Lessons Learnt’ Commission: the ‘Home-Grown’ Way?

One year after the war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has established another commission; known as the ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’. Eight eminent members have been appointed. The Commission is chaired by a former Attorney General. The Commission is to ‘inquire and report’ the following: the facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA); whether any persons/groups/institutions bear direct/indirect responsibility; ‘the lessons we would learn’ in order to ensure there would be no recurrence of such events; a methodology through which restitution to persons affected could be effected; the administrative/institutional measures which need to be taken to avoid recurrence/promote national unity and reconciliation. ‘Lessons Learnt’ When, and how, did this idea of ‘lessons learnt’ come into being? Is this Commission, as popularly claimed by the Government, an entirely ‘home-grown’ mechanism, a ‘home-grown’ solution? A careful examination would show that the Government had the intention of establishing some mechanism which took into account this aspect of ‘lessons…

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SRI LANKA’S POST-WAR FUTURE: A RADICAL PLURALIST RESPONSE TO THE ETHICAL REALIST VIEW

I had not intended contributing to Groundviews’s commemoration of the first anniversary of the end of the war, for the simple reason that there having been no movement whatsoever on post-war constitutional reform, I did not wish to add another gripe of a general nature to this ‘liberal echo chamber’ of ours. Two publications in the past few weeks however have persuaded me that perhaps there is something worthwhile to discuss about constitutional reform from a liberal perspective. The first was the Peace Poll conducted by Dr. Colin Irwin of the University of Liverpool, which contained some astonishing findings about the state of public opinion with regard to power-sharing, and second, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka’s nuanced conceptualisation of a ‘sustainable peace’ in post-war Sri Lanka elsewhere in these pages. Dr. Irwin’s questionnaire is based on the APRC proposals of 2009 which envisage, at least notionally, a measure of devolution and power-sharing that exceeds what is presently provided under the Thirteenth Amendment,…

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The latest Commission of Inquiry in Sri Lanka: Another Exercise in Deception

Louise Arbour of the International Crisis Group is reported to have  said during an interview in the BBC that the government violated the laws of war by blurring the line between combatants and civilians, and that its killings of civilians were not accidents.   Perhaps in response to this, speaking to the BBC Tamil Service recently,  the Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona is reported to have said that  the commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation  set up  recently by the government is sufficient to investigate the allegations of humanitarian standards and human rights violations  during the war. Let us therefore have a look at some of the commissions of inquiry appointed by the governments in the past to check  how effective they have been to understand the veracity of the statement made by Dr. Kohana with regard to the current commission. It is common knowledge that several commissions of inquiry had been appointed from time…

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Vanni in the year after war: Tears of despair and fear

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About six months after the end of the war, in November 2009, the government of Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions on travel to the Vanni[1] and started to allow some of the displaced people to go back to their villages. Although the government still maintains some restrictions on travel, I managed to visit these areas many times. My visits including overnight stay in Vanni without beds, attached bathrooms, running water, electricity, helped me to better experience and understand life there after the war. It also increased my admiration for some of my friends, Catholic priests and sisters, who warmly welcomed and hosted me and my friends every time we visited, despite the very basic and difficult life they had opted to live. My visits took me to interior villages deep inside the Vanni. From Paranthan on the A9 road to Ponneryn, and then further south on the A32 road, down to Vidathalthivu, visiting villages such as Mulangavil, Thevanpiddy. We also visited…

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Post-war Sri Lanka: Challenges and opportunities

This Government, as it commences to address the many challenges facing post – war Sri Lanka, stands today at a watershed of major, unprecedented and possibly never to be replicated, opportunity. Wherever one is located in the Sri Lankan political firmament that obvious and pre eminent condition would have to be admitted. The sense of overall stability about the new Government  pervades all thinking, writing and action, both local and foreign. How valid is this assumption of political, economic and societal stability that the Government so bountifully enjoys today – the first anniversary of the defeat of the LTTE, or of ‘separatist terrorism’, as the government calls it and would like it to be known? The elements of that apparent stability which both local and foreign observers prefer to comment on are well known. They are broadly the massive majorities obtained by the President and his Party at the recently concluded elections. The arguments of the many who contest the…

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Will ‘Peace’ Arrive Before Death?

It was, unfortunately, a necessary war, for terrorism had to be defeated, eliminated. After some thirty long years, on or around the 19th of May 2009, Sri Lanka gained liberation; liberation from the clutches of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), from the clutches of terrorism (May, 2010: The Prime Minister states in Parliament that a new military wing of the LTTE is being formed, is getting ready to raise its ugly head). ‘Terrorism’, however, was only one facet of the problem. The moment that ugly facet becomes non-existent, the moment there is an absence of a violent armed conflict, problems which remained unresolved, problems which could not be resolved through the use of force, re-emerge, re-surface. Political developments which soon followed the defeat of the LTTE proved this, to some extent. An acrimonious debate ensued concerning the 13th Amendment (Did not, for a brief moment in our history, the 13th Amendment become something like the 6th Amendment, like…

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A Tribute to our Unsung Heroes

The teenage girls singing a Tamil song “Tomorrow is Ours” is interrupted by my wife Samantha and I walking in to the classroom.  They giggled coyly as we looked around at them.   They were being trained to be Girl Guides and did not seem any different to any of the many young people I have encountered over the years. One of the leaders, Deepa (fictitious name) walked up to us in curiosity and introduced by the Girl Guide trainer.  She had a presence but seemed restless. Deepa was abducted by the LTTE at age 16 from her Aunt’s home in the Wanni and was trained as a soldier.   She had not seen combat as she was found by the Army in a Wanni camp only three months after.    She has not heard about her parents since then and thinks they are in London.  The other thirty odd girls had suffered similar fates.  Another, Ramani (fictitious name) told us through the…

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The importance of not forgetting

One year ago, the war that had defined our lives for the last 30 years ended.  Brutally, callously and mercilessly fought like most wars are, it ended amidst allegations of immense suffering wrought on the people caught in the middle of the final desperate onslaughts.  Since then according to the official version, Sri Lankans have nothing but happiness and prosperity to look forward to because the one thing that has hindered our progress as a nation has been finally eliminated. That, as I said, is the official version. Since May of last year, however, reports that contradict the official version of the story that ended happily ever after have been circulating.  It started with the horror of the internment of the thousands of people who fled the fighting, the arbitrary arrests and disappearances of those associated with the LTTE, of the suffering of those injured in the fighting, families separated from each other with no means of obtaining any information…

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Dungeons are also peaceful: Enduring uncertainties in post-war Lanka

Is the world coming unhinged? In Spain a judge is on trial for a technicality relating to his attempts to go after war crimes committed by Franco’s fascist regime. The Sri Lankan government’s close buddy the Burmese guerilla dictatorship in preparation  for the election, Burmese style, has forced Suu Kyi’s NLD into dissolution. Panama’s ex-dictator Noriega having done 17 years in US prisons for drug trafficking has been extradited to France to face money laundering charges and possibly an additional prison term. Meanwhile prosecutors in Panama, where his most execrable crimes were perpetrated still await him – pity if the monster dies in a French prison. At home President Rajapakse assigned ministerial oversight of the media to Lanka’s equivalent of a Nazi storm trooper and then had to climb down. It is Jabawockery everywhere! Can you make sense of all this or is it, all round, “ineffable, effable, effanineffable, deep and inscrutable singular (shame)? The war is over, you will…

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Beyond the war psyche in Sri Lanka

Dust is finally settling on the euphoria generated by last year’s military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  Old concerns naturally give way to the new and a year later, people have different realities to grapple with including how to keep their home fires burning. For President Mahinda Rajapakse and the government elected on an overwhelming  ‘gratitude vote’ for providing political leadership to crush the Liberation Tigers militarily, the post war call is to rebuild the lives of 22 million people-beyonds the rubble of yesteryear. If winning the war was no mean task, leading this country post war to new heights and to achieve its true potential will prove a bigger challenge. This requires a collective and concerted effort to go beyond the war psyche that continues to grip Sri Lankan society. Two crucial elections have been fought and won by the incumbency this year largely on the emotional premise of ‘a public demonstration of gratitude’ (read…

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Post-War Sri Lanka: Way Forward or More of the Same?

Without peace, there is no development; without development there is no peace, President Rajapaksa has said. Yet, for the overwhelming majority of the population he presides over, life is quite harsh under the growing burden of the militarisation of the economy and society. Despite rhetoric on the devolution of power about 50,000 Tamils are still detained in camps behind barbed wire. Under such economic and political conditions hopes for reconciliation and the strengthening of civil society look bleak. To understand why this is so and its attendant solutions some understanding of the formation of post-independence Sri Lanka needs to be elucidated. The mode of social development in Sri Lanka was a result of colonial superimposition of capitalism on a society where feudal socio-economic and cultural conditions prevailed. Building such an economy required capital accumulation, wage labour, huge tracts of land and infrastructure, centralisation of power in the hands of a few, and a base for administrative assistance from the locals….

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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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