Archive for the ‘Peace and Conflict’

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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Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill: Progress or Regress?

For nearly six decades since Universal Adult Franchise was introduced in 1931, our State Council/ Parliamentary elections have been on a First Past the Post (FPP) basis. The first Parliamentary election on a Proportional Representation (PR) basis was in 1989, in conformity with the constitution introduced under the Jayawardene Administration. The first Local Government elections under PR were in 1991. The above Bill presented to Parliament in October 2010 will take us some part of the way back to a mixed system in respect of Local Government elections. Inherent in the FPP system is the ‘winner takes all’ principle, i. e. the votes cast for all the losing candidates (which could well total more than those cast for the winning candidate) do not count. Overall, one political party could secure a land slide victory with less than half the total number of votes cast. A small swing, say 10 percent of the votes cast, from the winning party to the…

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The Jaffna priest and the policeman who turned IGP

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“I am speaking from the sacred Keeramalai Naguleswaram temple, home of Lord Naguleswarar and goddess Nagulumpika. I thank you for asking me to talk about the temple. Earlier, Mahinda Balasuriya, he was a DIG here. He was then transferred to Colombo. * A ‘DIG’ is a Director General of Police. We got on well. He came here to get my blessings. So I blessed him. We spoke for a while, then in the end, I told him: “Sir, I’m very happy to hear of your transfer to Colombo, but immediately, you will within one month, get promotion in high post.” Then one day he came here. “Kurrukkal, your blessing is very good. Now, I am an IGP!” * An ‘IGP’ is an Inspector General of Police. So I blessed him and gave him one of the presentations to him. He take it in his hands and like this, he worshipped. Then after he asked me: “Kurrukkal, what do you want?…

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Excellence in exile

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Battered and bleeding, journalist Poddala Jayantha lay on his hospital bed when we visited him on June 2, 2009. He was lucky to be alive after being brutally assaulted by a group of unidentified assailants just the previous day. This was a terrible time for the Sri Lankan media.  Personally, I was struggling to recover from the shock of losing my former editor Lasantha Wickrematunge to the tyranny of the powerful. I was not alone. It was shared grief in a year that recorded a series of violent acts against journalists and media workers. 2009 was annus horibilis for Sri Lankan journalism. Perhaps for clinical analysts, the attack on Poddala was simply one in a series, though a conspicuous one.  There was a difference. Wickrematunge’s life was simply snuffed out, J.S. Tissainayagam was arrested under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) together with his colleagues.  The then Rivira Editor Upali Tennakoon was knifed and the then Editor of Sudaroli…

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Student Unrest in Universities

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Unhappy university students are marching in the Island of Brinka, and I met my good old friend Sivapuranam Thevaram at a pub in the ancient university city of Cowford to discuss this topic. Wannabe detectives on this forum please don’t rush to Google maps to find out where these places are. This is a story, so Cowford doesn’t exist. Brinka is not an island in the conventional sense. It is actually two, consisting of Briland to the north and Nkaland to the south. In the confused and mixed loyalties Thevaram carries in his mind, they merge into one, forming this island paradise. His loyalty is sometimes put to test, the Nkaland cricket team visiting Briland is one such occasion. Briland students are protesting against changes their government has proposed to the way universities are funded. Nkaland students also have some similar grievances. Marching Briland students rioted, damaging Tory party HQ; Nkaland students did the same to Ministry furniture. Let us…

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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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LLRC: Interim report to Government

Though there have been a few reports anchored to this report, we do not know of any place it was published in full. Unsurprisingly, this document looks more at long-term systemic change and does not reference controversial testimony by survivors of the last leg of the war. For more coverage of the submissions given to the LLRC, including on two occasions corrections to mainstream media coverage of the submissions made to the Commission by leading civil society representatives, click here.

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Jaffna and the North of Sri Lanka today: Post war realities, challenges and opportunities

[Editors note: Also  see interview with Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan here, along with one other from a leading rights activist in Jaffna. 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 Sarvanathan is the principal researcher at the Point Pedro Institute, which is a non-for-profit think tank that provides analysis and advocacy on political and economic issues afflicting the Sri Lankan Tamil population in the north. In an exclusive interview conducted in mid-October Dr. Sarvanathan speaks to Sergei De Silva-Ranasinghe about a range of current and contentious matters related to post-war stabilization and nation building in Sri Lanka and how they have impacted on Sri Lanka’s indigenous Tamil population. 1. Tell us about what has happened…

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LLRC submission: The Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the North by the LTTE in October 1990

[Editors' note: Submission to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, 4th of November, 2010.] Northern Muslims in Post Conflict Sri Lanka The entire Muslim community of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province – numbering approximately  75,000 persons, were expelled by the LTTE in a systematic and organized manner during a two week period in October 1990. Northern Muslims were 5% of the Population of the Province and hailed from the five districts  of  Jaffna Mannar Kilinochchi Mulaitiwu and Vavuniya Today, many of them remain displaced in dire conditions in areas outside the war zone.  A 2006 UNHCR survey claims that there are 63,145 individuals living in 141 separate settlements in Puttalam district alone. October this year marks twenty years since the expulsion.  And over one year since the war ended.  Today the Northern Muslims are anticipating return after twenty years in displacement and the time that has passed  since the expulsion has created conditions that are unique to the Northern Muslim experience. Given that…

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Prospects For Post Conflict Reconciliation And Development In Sri Lanka: Can Singapore Be Used As A Model?

Text of a presentation as part of the Global Asia Institute Speaker Series (2010), National University of Singapore. Introductory Remarks and Acknowledgements Before turning to the question the title of this “conversation” poses, I want to express my appreciation for the privilege it is to be living in Singapore, and affiliated with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, the Global Asia Institute and the National University of Singapore. Professor K.E. Seetharam, especially, has made this possible. This occasion provides me with an opportunity to both acknowledge the inspiration his leadership has provided and to thank him publically. The other participant in this conversation, Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka, whom I have known for more than 20 years, also deserves recognition. Anyone who studies Singapore’s development success-story well knows, as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has emphasized, that human intelligence and productivity are its most important resource. Sri Lanka, too, has an exceptional cadre of highly educated citizens whose productivity and…

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A turn for the worse? Undergraduate protests and unrest in Sri Lanka

View Student unrest in Sri Lanka in a larger map. Recent months in Sri Lanka have seen a dramatic increase in the number of protests involving thousands of university students, many of which have turned violent. An online poll by the Daily Mirror has, out of 795 votes to date, 79% agreeing that the involvement of university students in politics has far exceeded limits and needs to be curtailed. Some University lecturers have also found fault with themselves for the growing unrest. As leading regional media has noted, Like the Left in India, the Marxist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), or the People’s Liberation Front here has a strong student base in universities. Now, the government has accused it of trying to exploit that support – through the Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) – to whip up a students’ unrest, a wave of which has engulfed six of the 15 major universities. Vice-chancellors were assaulted; students have fought among themselves; exams…

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Sanctity

Photo courtesy Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

Photo courtesy Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai Sanctity, or rather a loss of sanctity, anchors the meditations that you will find in the few passages below. A recent article in the Economist made a mildly facetious account of the current administration’s efforts to create a Sri Lankan society grounded in ‘good values and ethics.’  The article goes on to discuss the paradox of vice-and-virtue squads in the land that also produces Wonderbras, and of the all out war on public displays of affection. Now, the PDA has always does give many a little discomfort, and Internet pornography really is somewhat unnecessary.  Our beloved president may be taking things a bit too far with his ‘moral rage’, but admit it, there is a little prude inside all of us that wouldn’t mind a modicum of moderation in society. If this administration were to stop at a little necessary tweaking, one could find a way to compromise with Rajapakse’s moral policing. Unfortunately, the denouement of…

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The Media and the Future of Sri Lanka: Young Canadians’ Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka

The co-editor of Groundviews Nigel Nugawela spoke recently at a progressive forum of young Canadian – Sri Lankans in Toronto on the role of media in post-war Sri Lanka, including the use of new media and ICTs. The discussion also featured, V.V. GANESHANANTHAN – Novelist (Love Marriage), Blogger and Journalist ARJUNA RANAWANA – News Manager, OMNI TV Alberta, Edmonton MARTIN REGG COHN – Deputy Editorial Page Editor, The Toronto Star Nigel’s presentation starts at around 38 minutes into the video. The event was part of a series of invitation-only events organised by the Mosaic Institute called “Peace Dialogue” for approximately 100 young, peace-focused members of the relevant sub-communities of Sri Lanka, all ages 18-30, presented in cooperation with the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre.

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Parallel Governments: Living between terror and counter terror in northern Lanka (1982-2009)

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Authors note: Article derived from paper first presented at the conference, Globalizing Religions and Cultures in the Asia Pacific, University of Adelaide, 1–5 December 2008 and developed version published in Journal of Asian and African Studies. Download this paper as a PDF here. Introduction It was Thomas Hobbes (1651) who first pointed out that behind the veneer of states is the spectre of vio­lence and threat of terror that is used to control and rule the subject populations; for example, through the police or, increasingly in the modern ‘security states’, through intelligence agencies and other covert operations. When this control and rule is challenged, comes under question or is weakened, the covert violence becomes more overt, manifesting as techniques of terror. When the power to rule is contested by other parties, they may vie for control, loyalty and legitimacy through terror and counter terror tactics on the populace. The ongoing ethnic war in Lanka was a good example of the…

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From WikiLeaks to WikiLanka: War Is Definitely Savage Though “Accusations” Differ

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The latest WikiLeaks “dump” of around 400,000 US classified war reports on Iraq from 2003 to 2009, the biggest “war leaks” ever in US history, reveals how inhuman and savage the war is, never mind who conducts it and where. A few months ago in July this year, WikiLeaks’ first dump of over 90,000 US classified reports on the Afghan war, also revealed the insanity in waging war. With this second enormously huge “leak”, obviously, there is all round condemnation by the US administration, the US defence and intelligence agencies. Britain can not avoid tagging along with such condemnations, being openly accused of violations in Iraq, through these same “leaks”. The core message in all these “Super Power” condemnations of these “leaks” is pretty much the same. “A threat to national security and to their collaborators and partners in war”. That hyped “national security” is not that of Iraqis and the Afghans, but of the US, the Britain, NATO member…

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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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