Archive for the ‘International Relations’

First Failure in Geneva: Trap, Blunder or Model?

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However bad Sri Lanka’s foreign policy is and external relations are, they have yet to hit the nadir that they did under President Jayewardene in the 1980s. The first ever resolution on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka adopted in Geneva by the Human Rights Commission was in March 1987, while the first decision, which it ‘recalls’ in the resolution, was in March 1984, as was reported in the Lanka Guardian at the time (Vol 9, No 23, April 1 1987, p18).  This episode, which in a lead story in the same journal three months later was derided by its Editor as a “roasting”, has recently been disinterred and touted as nothing less than a model of professional diplomacy which should have been looked up to as a lodestar by Sri Lanka’s representatives in Geneva May 2009. A persistent attempt at a revisionist history of Sri Lanka’s diplomacy posits our performance at the UN Human Rights Commission (the predecessor…

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Of Foreign Policy Failures, Geneva Resolutions, Double Standards and other excuses for Non-Reconciliation in Sri Lanka

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Photograph of, by some accounts, the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka.  Reminiscences of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy triumphs spearheaded by the late lamented Lakshman Kadirgamar are fresh in my  mind given that it was only the other day (12 April) that we marked what might have been  his 81st birth anniversary with a tribute to the former Foreign Minister. It is, therefore, doubly sad to reflect on the fact that Sri Lanka’s relations with the world outside our shores are in tatters at present. To say that our foreign policy today lacks coherence,  direction  and depth is to be generous. Had Lakshman Kadirgamar been our Foreign Minister at the time, the  short-sighted  ‘victory resolution’ introduced by Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in Geneva in 2009 would not have seen the light of day. His sagacity would have enabled Sri Lanka to avoid the pitfall of playing into the hands of our opponents, a sagacity that characterised our professional diplomacy even…

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Sri Lanka and Indian / American Agendas

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The good Ambassador caught in a moment denying the existence of rape in Sri Lanka Having read a post by HE Jaliya Wickramasuriya, our Ambassador in the USA, titled “A Role for Sri Lanka in US Pivot to Asia”, I thought it may be ideal to understand how others compete to be in the US pivot to Asia to do business. I   mean “business” only in economic terms and exclude issues such as politics, rights, accountability etc; the presently more quoted US interests. Concurrently, Minister Maithripala Sirisena stating that “the Sri Lankan government had implicit faith in the Indian central government and would continue to maintain close ties with them despite the current situation in Tamil Nadu” meant to me another aspect of relationship building with India. Since USA and India are hand in glove on many fronts Minister Sirisena’s statement too should be considered as a means to engage India and the USA as a joint response for a common…

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Interview with Nimalka Fernando: The UN HRC resolution and beyond

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Nimalka, now we’ve seen that the council voted for the resolution on Sri Lanka. What is your initial impression? It’s a serious voting pattern. Because if you look at the resolution, the resolution has very substantial  concerns raised by civil society for a period of time. From holding elections in the North, addressing issues of impunity, collapse of rule of law, the unaddressed issues of accountability, the failure of Sri Lankan Government to address issues of reconciliation for a long time, and also the selective manner in which the LLRC action plan has been constructed and also the inadequacies in the national human rights action plan. So if you take all those subjects one by one, if you look at the voting pattern one by one, I feel very serious in terms of the resolution. If you take for instance the statement made by Thailand; Thailand voted against the resolution. But Thailand made a very significant statement calling on to…

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UN HRC 22nd Session | Resolution ‘Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka’

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An archive of material around the Resolution titled ‘Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka’ passed at the UN Human Rights Council today. Final text below, and available as PDF here, and as Word document here. ### Human Rights Council Twenty-second session Agenda item 2 Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General Austria, Belgium*, Bulgaria*, Canada*, Croatia*, Denmark*, Estonia, Finland*, France*, Georgia*, Germany, Greece*, Hungary*, Iceland*, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein*, Lithuania*, Malta*, Monaco*, Montenegro, Norway*, Poland, Portugal*, Romania, Saint Kitts and Nevis*, Slovakia*, Slovenia*, Spain, Sweden*, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland*, United States of America: draft resolution 22/… Promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka The Human Rights Council, Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, Guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights and other relevant instruments, Bearing in…

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Lies, Damn Lies and Mahinda Samarasinghe at the UN HRC

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Image courtesy JDS Sri Lanka Campaign has just released a very good compilation of rebuttals to points made by Min Mahinda Samarasinghe’s address to the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, which can be read and viewed here. Here Sri Lankan civil society responding to Mahinda Samarasinghe’s speech @groundviews @cfhaviland #HRC22 #UNlk scribd.com/fullscreen/127… — Sri Lanka Campaign (@SLcampaign) February 28, 2013 In addition to the content, the production of this document, and its publication online, is itself an interesting development which flags the growing influence of web and social media in countering the wily terminological inexactitudes of the Rajapakse regime and its leading apologists. Civil Society Collective by Repost This Article

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Stratfor and Sri Lanka: An initial study of ‘The Global Intelligence Files’

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Groundviews and Wikileaks Groundviews has in the past published two key article based on content obtained through Wikileaks. Wikileaks on Sri Lanka: A breakdown and implications was the first article on the unprecedented release of US diplomatic cables, and published just hours after the tranche was made available on the now well known, and much attacked website. Groundviews was told some time ago that the US Embassy in Colombo used this article as a key resource in going through the tranche of material on Wikileaks as it pertained to Sri Lanka. From draft to official text: Wikileaks reveals the US response to the end of war in Sri Lanka was a more specific piece, that looked at the drafting process of official statements in general by the US Government and in particular, a statement by the US State Department dealing with one of the most important events on Sri Lanka in 2009. This article was tweeted by the official Wikileaks…

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A former Ambassador speaks out: Interview with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

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In his first interview for public television in Sri Lanka upon his return to the country after his stint as Ambassador to France and UNESCO in Paris, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka talked about a number of issues related to governance, foreign policy, devolution, the growing Islamophobia in the country, his work with youth and the critique that he is “a skilful, eloquent, erudite proponent… of the status quo”. We begin by exploring why he submits, in a recent article to the media, that Sri Lanka suffers from a ‘garrison State delusion‘. He notes that once the war was won, the administration’s stripes – both neo-conservative and ethno-populist – has led to a model of over-securitisation and quasi-occupation. Given what Dr. Jayatilleka sees as a catastrophic failure of foreign and strategic policy in Sri Lanka, he then looks at where the country could head into over 2013 and beyond, given failing, strained relationships with India and the United States, a seriously flawed…

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Interview with Alistair Burt on Sri Lanka

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The BBC’s Charles Haviland interviewed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs Minister Alistair Burt on 1st February 2013, during an official visit to Sri Lanka which saw the Minister meet with a range of stakeholders including the government, TNA and civil society as well as travel to the North of the country. Groundviews recently participated in and archived a Twitter interview with Minister Burt on Sri Lanka, conducted after he returned to the UK. The interview with Charles Haviland is vital record of the Minister’s thoughts on Sri Lanka, including comments, in his official capacity, on the government’s human rights record, progress of reconciliation post-war, the prospects of a political settlement and concerns over the independence of the judiciary and arising from this, the question of whether Sri Lanka is suitable as a venue for the CHOGM meeting. Since the interview has not been published anywhere else to date, including on the BBC, Groundviews is pleased, with…

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Alistair Burt: Archive of Twitter interview on Sri Lanka

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Photo credit FCO [Editors note: Also listen to Interview with Alistair Burt on Sri Lanka] On 5th February 2013, UK Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt hosted a live interview session via Twitter. Alistair Burt is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs. At the time of the interview, the Minister had recently returned from an official visit to Sri Lanka. Twitter interviews are not new. The first international diplomat to do so on Sri Lanka was US Assistant Secretary of State and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake, in April 2012. Sadly, save for Groundviews, no one else from Sri Lanka or interested in Sri Lanka posed questions to him. The second Twitter interview of importance was with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Baroness Valerie Amos in December 2012. Though not specifically anchored to Sri Lanka, the interview was an unmitigated disaster for OCHA, with vital questions around the UN’s possible complicity in…

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Conflict dynamics and Islamic values from Mindanao to Sri Lanka: In conversation with Mehmet Rizal Derindag

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Mehmet Rizal is a UN Ambassador For Peace and presently based in the Philippines. As noted in his biography, Rizal played a key role in bringing the Philippines government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) together for a landmark peace agreement, and also brought OIC and Turkish foreign ministry into the negotiations process. Turkish by birth we talked about the history of violence in Mindanao, and in particular how Islamic principles can practically contribute for inter-communal harmony and nation building. We begin by looking at how 9/11 shaped Rizal’s worldview, and led to his taking up studies as well as travel to represent Islam in a better way, and redefine its enemies, as more violently and popularly portrayed by extremists and fringe elements. We then go into the conflict dynamics of Mindanao, and its historical roots. Rizal then goes on to explain why he entered the complex and fractured conflict, and why he believes that true change must come not…

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Eating properly and smiling: The evasive Valerie Amos on Twitter

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On 18th December 2012, at around 10pm in Sri Lanka, Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator took to Twitter, ostensibly to answer questions related to the UN’s role, relevance and responsibilities regarding humanitarian aid and relief work. The event with Baroness Amos was announced via the Twitter account of, inter alia, UN OCHA, which also had a photo of her in front of a laptop, getting ready to face the questions. RT @unocha: .@valerieamos is now replying to questions from @alertnet and Twitter users around the world. #AskValerietwitpic.com/bn3zd4 — Groundviews (@groundviews) December 18, 2012 The event was conducted with the hashtag #AskValerie. Baroness Amos is (whether through office aides or by herself it remains unclear) fairly active on Twitter via @ValerieAmos. However, despite her own and OCHA’s familiarity with web based social media interactions, yesterday’s Twitter question time with Baroness Amos was a cogent example of how not to curate and conduct public debates…

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Canadian Senator Hon. Hugh Segal on impeachment of Chief Justice in Sri Lanka

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Image courtesy Flickr Debates of the Senate (Hansard) 1st Session, 41st Parliament, Volume 148, Issue 130 Wednesday, December 12, 2012 Hon. Hugh Segal: Honourable senators, the recent and further steps by the Government of Sri Lanka to impeach their Chief Justice should concern all Commonwealth citizens and governments. Clear Commonwealth values around the rule of law and democracy as expressed in the Harare Declaration and the Latimer House Principles embraced by all Commonwealth heads of government in 1991 and 2003 are being violated by this present and unconstitutional impeachment effort. Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma was in contact with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister on this issue on December 10. We appreciate that contact very much. Today, President Rajapaksa announced that he would appoint an independent panel to review the findings of the parliamentary report. There is much to review in terms of the questionable way in which the investigation was handled, the lack of time for defence preparation by Chief…

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Give Full Force and Effect to the Separation of Powers & Unity in Diversity

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Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Guardian On the 19th day of May 2009, with the end of the military conflict that had divided the country for over thirty years, Sri Lanka entered a new era. The next step that Sri Lanka has to face is also extremely sensitive due to nationalistic feelings of the various ethnic groups. A durable peace can be built only if all these groups that go to form the Sri Lankan society feel that they are a part of the same nation. Building a nation had always been somehow a difficult task in Sri Lanka. Susil Sirivardana in his article titled “Paradigms and Foundations in Nation Building: A Way of Understanding” underlines that Sri Lankan leaderships believe in illusions that historically we were already a nation and hence, nation building as such, was not the central challenge of national politics. The articles mentioned in this paper appear in the book “Nation Building:Priorities for Sustainability and Inclusivity” edited by…

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Reflections on the US Presidential Elections

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Photo courtesy BBC The outcome of the United States Presidential elections is too close to call. Yet, three presidential debates reinforced the perception among informed voters that Mitt Romney is both a weak and most unpredictable candidate.  He does not grasp the complexities of the economy—a failing he obscures by refusing to be clear about his policies. His continual self-contradiction and his appeal to the fears of voters highlights an insincerity. Mitt Romney’s small government is a travesty Mitt Romney’s scapegoating of “big government” for all our economic and social woes is not backed by a meaningful definition of big government, nor does it seem to be based on an historically informed understanding of the government’s role in the economy and its implications for development. His five-point plan could not possibly address any of the issues he falsely attributes to big government. Romney even knocks policies that he admits are successful, if they have anything to do with the “big…

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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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