Archive for the ‘Peace and Conflict’

Burning of the Jaffna Public Library: 30 years on

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Image taken from Jaffna Photo Gallery 1st June marked the 30th anniversary of the burning of the Jaffna Public Library. An eye witness account was delivered at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies by Mr Silan Kadirgamar,former senior lecturer University of Jaffna, former President of Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality, Jaffna branch and Founding member of Jaffna Citizen’s Committee(1981). The speaker recounted the events that contributed to the heightening of ethnic tensions since Sri Lanka attained Independence in 1948 culminating in the fateful incident which he felt was a turning point in the ethnic conflict. His analysis of the event was primarily to remind society that they must ensure that such a crime should not recur as ‘those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it’. Unfortunately, the limited few comments from the audience seemed to trivialize the subject by recounting details of the incident rather than discussing its substance. Others tried to offer dubious leads to the…

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Placing ‘Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience Seminar’ in a critical light

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Admirably, the Government was kind and open enough to provide a live web feed of the proceedings of the three day Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience seminar, held in Colombo. This allowed for non-invitees and non-participants like us to monitor the saccharine presentations via the web, flagging inconsistencies as well as inconvenient truths that were unsurprisingly left out or marginalised in the proceedings. Often tongue-in-cheek but flagging serious issues and concerns, our updates over Twitter and on this site were anchored to content presented at the seminar by a range of government and army representatives. We published a key address by Australian counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen on Day One and, given it’s official stance, rather surprising comments by the US Embassy’s Defence Attache on Day Two. On day three, the final day of the seminar, we listened in real time to the presentations by Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank, Lalith Weeratunge, Permanent Secretary to the President of…

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US Defence Attache’s observations on the end of war in Sri Lanka (Updated with US State Department response)

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The on-going ‘Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience‘ seminar is providing much food for thought. The Global Context of Counterterrorism: Strategy, Ethics, and Sustainability in Sri Lanka’s COIN Experience by Dr. David Kilcullen published on this site is based on a speech delivered at this seminar. The proceedings are webcast live (though our experience is that the webcast only works on the Windows platform and not on OS X or Linux, and is rather poor in terms of quality) with key presentations archived on YouTube here. We were sent today the brief submission of the US Defence Attache’s observations on the end of war in Sri Lanka, recorded from what must have been one of the Q&A or discussion sessions today. What he says is, “Hello, may I say something to a couple of the questions raised. I’ve been the defence attache here at the US Embassy since June of 2008. Regarding the various versions of events that came out…

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The Global Context of Counterterrorism: Strategy, Ethics, and Sustainability in Sri Lanka’s COIN Experience

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[Editors note: We were forwarded Dr. Kilcullen's speech by someone present at the on-going "Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience" seminar in Colombo. The person who sent us the email noted that "Australian counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen speech today at def seminar. It was the best for the day where he insinuated that by giving strong political leadership to finish the war, the MR is indirectly responsible for war crimes. He got a very good ovation from the audience, which included the army commander and Rajiva Wijesinha. We were laughing, because the "government" folks missed the egg on their face lines." Emphasis ours.] ### Defense Secretary Rajapaksa, Professor Peiris, General Jayasuriya, distinguished officials, officers, and delegations: Good morning. Thank you for organizing this important conference, and for your kind invitation to talk frankly with you about Sri Lanka’s experience in Eelam War IV.  As I said when I accepted the invitation to attend, I believe your defeat of LTTE is…

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Floating Spaces: Theatre and censorship in Sri Lanka

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Some of the best conversations featured on this site have been with those involved in the arts in Sri Lanka. Noted theatre personalities featured on Groundviews to date include Tracy Holsinger, Mohamed Adamaly and the iconic Iranganie Serasinghe. Jake Oorloff joins this august list, and as Co-Creative Director of Floating Space Theatre Company, his work has been reviewed and featured on Groundviews before. Gaza Monologues, produced for the first time in late 2010, was reviewed here and an interview with Jake and Ruhanie Perera, the co-founder of the Company, was featured here. A review of ‘My Other History’, their most recent production on post-war reconciliation in Sri Lanka appears here. We ask Jake why a few years ago he started a new theatre company, when there were already quite a few established ones around, which then led into a discussion around Jake’s approach to theatre and acting. Jake explains what theatre is for him and what in general theatre is,…

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Is the war crimes video confirmed by UN as authentic “unrepresentative and irrelevant”?

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The Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, presented at the 17th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva today found, after digital forensic investigations, new footage from the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war as authentic and proving that war crimes took place there. As noted in this AFP report, “What is reflected in the extended video are crimes of the highest order — definitive war crimes,” the U.N. investigator, South African law professor Christof Heyns, said in a report released Monday to the global body’s Human Rights Council. Heyns said he reviewed the footage showing the apparent execution of unarmed men and women with technical and forensic experts. “The overall conclusion reached by the experts is that the video is authentic and the events reflected in the video footage occurred as depicted,” he told the council. Sri Lanka’s government has maintained that the video is not real.”…

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Finding the Middle Ground

Just over a week ago, a couple of my colleagues and I appeared on a prominent Canadian talk show discussing our attempts, as both individuals and organizing members of the Young Canadians’ Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka hosted by the Mosaic Institute, to find a middle ground with respect to the relationship of the Canadian Diaspora to the internal politics in Sri Lanka. Joining us on the show was Craig Scott, a renowned professor on international humanitarian law and R. Cheran, a high-profile Tamil Canadian academic and journalist. Amongst both our friends and the wider Canadian community, the panel discussion has been acknowledged as an example of an exercise in ‘truth telling’ rather than ‘finger pointing.’  During the half-hour discussion, key points in relation to understanding the mentality of the Diaspora were raised such the role of ethnic affiliation in adopted sides and the emotional intensity felt in the Diaspora during the last stages in the war. Perhaps more importantly, participants also…

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Trafalgar Tigers

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A demonstrator shouts anti-Sri Lankan government slogans during a protest outside a hotel, where Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa is staying in central London on Dec. 2, 2010. Photo credit Dylan Martinez/Reuters It is truly a pity that the Sri Lankan media did not feature the photographs of the demonstrations by sections of the Tamil Diaspora staged over the week of May 12-19 in variety of western capitals, as protest and in mourning for the final week of the war which was also the last week of Mr Prabhakaran’s destructive life. I saw the demonstration in Paris and the subsequent gathering in the Trocadero which was at a vantage point in line with the Eiffel Tower. A few phone calls that came in told me that the demonstrations in New York, London, Geneva and Toronto were the same, and that Paris was no anomaly. The demonstrations were revelatory, and only those who do not wish to see, for whatever reason,…

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India “Punishing Sri Lanka”: Myth or Reality?

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Prof. Rohan Gunaratne- international terrorism expert- addressing the business community last week convincingly and openly cautioned that “India might ‘punish’ Sri Lanka”, if Sri Lanka leans elsewhere to India’s detriment. This is a very serious statement, especially if Indians do not intend doing so. To prove his point, he quoted a meeting with the first Research and Analysis Wing Chief who had told Gunaratne their concerns over President JR Jayewardene stepping away from the Non Alignment Movement, Jayewardene’s intentions to economically favor the USA by opening the Trincomalee Port and the intention to handover China Bay oil tanks to the USA, Voice of America eavesdropping on India etc. Gunaratne would not have had any personal antipathy or bias towards India when he emphatically quoted the past to predict future. Indo- Lanka Joint Statement (JS) The attempt here is to observe whether such punishment could be inferred from the latest hinting basing Indian approaches stated in the JS between India and…

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The Indo- Sri Lanka Joint Communique: Delineating the Parametres of Action in Response to the Panel Report

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[Editors' note: An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror on the 26th of May 2011.] 4. Both sides agreed that the end of armed conflict in Sri Lanka created a historic opportunity to address all outstanding issues in a spirit of understanding and mutual accommodation imbued with political vision to work towards genuine national reconciliation. In this context, the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka affirmed his Government’s commitment to ensuring expeditious and concrete progress in the ongoing dialogue between the Government of Sri Lanka and representatives of Tamil parties. A devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation. 5. In response, The External Affairs Minister of India urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the Government of Sri Lanka, to ensure resettlement and genuine reconciliation, including early return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their respective homes, early withdrawal of emergency regulations, investigations into allegations of…

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A robust debate on No Fire Zones (NFZs) and International Humanitarian Law: Artful dodging of war crimes in Sri Lanka?

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Original image courtesy PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images A central challenge of curating content on Groundviews is that some of the most interesting discussions which occur on comment threads get obscured over time, and are less visible than the primary material published here. A case in point is the recent thrust and parry of wit over the establishment of the No Fire Zones towards the end of war in Sri Lanka. The debate was between two leading voices on this site and the Sri Lankan new media landscape, Aachcharya and David Blacker, in response to a review of The Cage, the explosive new book on the end of war by former UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss. What follows are key excerpts from this comment thread. To read the exchange in full, click here and scroll down to see the nested comments. In all of the following excerpts, points in bold are by us and not in the original. The debate began with a…

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Two years after war’s end in Sri Lanka: What can the Tamil and Sinhala diaspora do?

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Our review of The Cage by Gordon Weiss elicited an interesting question. Under the monicker Burning_Issue, the comment asked for advice on how best to engage with the Rajapaksa regime, and what the (Tamil) diaspora should do two years after the war ended. The comment is worth reading in full, and the most pertinent section is as follows, I am an expat Sri Lankan Tamil living in the West; I know the majority of the Tamils never wanted a separate state, but prefer that the Tamils should be allowed to live with dignity and security. They need to be able exercise their right to Tamil language on par with the Sinhala. Obviously; given what you have written; the MR regime would not address the Tamil concerns. Against this backdrop, what would you suggest that the Tamil Diaspora should do? There is so much they can do in terms of monetary and technical assistances, but perceive the MR regime as insincere…

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Sri Lanka May Yet Be Lost, or Saved

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Original photo Ranga Sirilal | Reuters Two years after the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE, the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war is still playing itself out.  Take the events of the past month for example:  the public release of a UN Panel Report supported accusations of war crimes against both main parties to the conflict;  government functionaries decried international conspiracies and local traitors;  a government minister claimed to have trained suicide cadres in the Western Province; and in the Eastern Province, a pair of tit-for-tat political killings were a reminder that full disarmament of paramilitaries and personal armies has not taken place.  With the warfare over, the horrendous loss of human life no longer continues.  However, the post-war situation in the country remains far from ideal, and its future does not seem entirely secure. Thinking about the current state of the nation, my thoughts have returned to a moment in Sri Lanka’s political history when an alternative end to…

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The continuing disinformation campaigns in Sri Lanka: Is mainstream media complicit?

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For the second time in a fortnight, subscribers to the Daily Mirror newspaper have been entreated to an interesting disinformation campaign that appears to be conducted with those embedded within, and possibly with the full support of the Sri Lankan Army and its network of patriots. The full page ad above was published on the Daily Mirror on 23rd May. A high resolution scan can be downloaded here. At the bottom, the advertisement is attributed to the ‘Free Mass Media Movement’. No such movement exists, or has existed. With the clear intention to obfuscate rather than enlighten, the name is a spin off from the Free Media Movement, which for a variety of reasons, is well known to government and also amongst media freedom activists. To be fair, the concerns expressed therein about the handling of Osama Bin Laden’s murder raise very serious concerns over the ability of the United States to practice the very policies and practices it preaches…

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Going beyond mainstream media: The best Twitter feeds on and from Sri Lanka

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Just over a year ago, in April 2010, Groundviews launched two curated Twitter lists on Sri Lanka to help those in and outside the country access news, information and critical conversations that went far beyond mainstream media’s economic and partisan shackles. One list featured some of the most compelling bloggers in Sri Lanka. The other, a list of news sources and Twitter accounts of journalists. Because they are oriented towards an international audience, the lists largely capture content published in English, though feeds like @vikalpavoices publish mostly in Sinhala. Coupled with our own feed, the two lists are comprehensive and by the very nature of the medium, constantly updated windows into issues, processes and events mainstream media could not, or would not cover. And even when they did, the Twitter updates on these feeds added new perspectives and often, information vital to understand context. On occasion, they have also served to hold mainstream media – both domestic and international –…

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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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