Archive for the ‘International’

Conviction of Efraín Ríos Montt and the need for accountability

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Image courtesy The Guardian On 10 May 2013, former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. It was the first time that an ex-head of state had been convicted for genocide by a court in his or her own country. The case is of international importance, including in Sri Lanka. President Ríos Montt had ordered the deaths of 1,771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group in 1982 and 1983. He was in power during the bloodiest phase of a civil war that lasted from 1960-1996, during which an estimated 200,000 were killed and 45,000 more “disappeared”. Others were raped, tortured in other ways or driven from their homes. While mass murder and ethnic cleansing took place in the countryside, in the cities trade unionists and student leaders were seized by the security forces. The military were supposedly battling left-wing guerrillas but civilians suffered in huge…

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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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Underneath an Arabian Bo Tree

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It was late evening in the Persian Gulf and there was a cool summer breeze wafting through the wide wooden door as the two ladies approached it. One of them carried my favoured Sri-Lankan sweetmeat “Lavariya”, which she presented to me with a kiss on both cheeks. I returned the favour by handing a parcel of homemade dhodhol specially brought from Sri-Lanka. We were in Bahrain, a tiny oil rich island off the coast of Qatar with a Causeway to Saudi-Arabia. It is known for its pearls and petroleum and like many countries in the Middle East has a strong Sri-Lankan population (an estimated 14,000), that ranges from housemaids to Senior Managers. The women were here to take me to see something very unusual in these parts; a Buddhist temple. Yet what was special about it was that there was a statue of Lord Buddha that was found in a temple called Barbar in Bahrain, which was 1500 years old….

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Colonizing Childhood and Zionist Pedagogy: Interview With Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan

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Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, peace educator and activist and co-laureate along with late Prof. Izzat Gazzawi of the 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech awarded by the European parliament. Peled-Elhanan has translated Albert Memmi‘s Le Racisme (1982) and Marguerite Duras‘ Écrire (1993) into Hebrew. In 1997, her daughter Smadar, aged 13, was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem. “Terrorist attacks like this are the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and state of siege imposed on the Palestinians”, she told reporters in the aftermath of Smadar’s death. She and her family work with the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Professor Peled has critically dissected the ideological content of Israeli schoolbooks for the past five years. She considers children as victims of Israel’s militaristic, settler-colonial culture. Her radical views have exacted a professional cost. “University professors have stopped inviting me…

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Taking old friends too seriously: Sri Lanka, Burma and Buddhist extremism

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People collect pieces of metal from the rubble of a neighbourhood in Pauktaw township that was burned in recent violence October 27, 2012. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun (Caption and content from Reuters) Sri Lanka’s long relationship with Burma is something that anyone who has even a nodding acquaintance with Sri Lankan history is aware of. In both nations, Theravada Buddhism has been a vital political idea that has cemented the legitimacy of monarchs. Both Burma and Sri Lanka saw a Buddhist revival as a response to colonial occupation, a revival which has allowed Buddhism to fuse with nationalism as both countries achieved their independence. With such a similar and connected past, it should come as no surprise that the Bodu Bala Sena’s manifesto echoes that of the 969; an extremist Buddhist organization in Myanmar that seeks to ethnically cleanse Myanmar of Muslims, who make up 4% of the country’s population.  The 969 take their title from Buddhist numerology and have styled themselves…

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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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Pope Francis: Options for the poor, disappearances, dirty wars, dictatorships in Argentina, Sri Lanka and elsewhere

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Image courtesy New York Times, Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters The new Pope has been hailed as someone known for his simple life style, identification and sympathy to the poor, proclaiming “how I wish for a Church that is poor and for the poor”. In his homily at the Mass that formally installed him as the Pope today at the Vatican, he referred to the Church’s mission as one that has to show love, concern, and protect all people, particularly those in need, and also the environment. Several heads of states and the US Vice President was reported to have been present, and in their presence, the new Pope called on the “those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill” to be “protectors of one another and of the environment”. Amongst the heads of state present was Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who faces a travel ban by the European Union for alleged…

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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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Lady in Green

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I am travelling from Colombo to the United States. Who doesn’t like a change of pace? There will also be additional passport stamps. While I consider myself a pretty well-stamped man, one cannot be satisfied with past achievements… I absolutely love flying. I am looking forward to the reading and catching up on movies. I’ve wanted to see “Argo” for a while now. I’m also looking forward to the miles. Now that I’m Platinum, I get double miles whenever I fly. This is one sweet deal. It’ll be Colombo to Abu Dhabi to Chicago to elsewhere today. That’s how it goes if one’s flying from the island and not wanting to spend the big bucks. Colombo to Abu Dhabi came and went. Abu Dhabi to Chicago is about to begin. I’m making my way to the back of the cabin. I have just located my seat. “Hello,” I tell the woman seated in 43-A. I usually go out of my…

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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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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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