Archive for the ‘Politics and Governance’

THE CONTINUING VIOLATION OF THE SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT: YET MORE UNCONVINCING EXCUSES

Rohan Edrisinha It is pertinent at this moment to examine why even now the 17th Amendment to the Constitution is not implemented. The media has reported that President Mahinda Rajapaksa told Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe during their meeting this week that he could not move forward in this regard because a parliamentary select committee is looking into deficiencies in the 17th Amendment. This is not a valid excuse because the 17th Amendment is part of our Constitution, it is already law. It is acceptable if a select committee wants to improve on the 17th Amendment but you must apply and implement the law as it is, and then if necessary improve it later. Everyone agrees that there are weaknesses in our Presidential system. Does that mean that until these weaknesses are overcome you don’t have Presidential elections or that nobody will hold the office of President? The excuse for further delay is utterly unacceptable. Furthermore, the parliamentary select committee as…

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Public Perceptions: National Security and/or Human Rights

Bhavani Fonseka and Pradeep Peiris Introduction The global war against terrorism has lead to a situation where the use of force, pre-emptive strikes, display of military power are justified in the name of defeating evil and protecting national security. In the wake of 9/11 and the death and devastation, the global war against terrorism was fuelled, with only one goal in place: to defeat terrorism. In this single minded drive to eradicate ‘evil’ there was no space for issues such as human rights, fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. The global war against terrorism has resonance in Sri Lanka, and has been conveniently used by the hawks within the present regime to justify and fuel the military campaigns. With the election of Mahinda Rajapakse in November 2005 as the fifth Executive President of Sri Lanka and his Sinhala nationalist policies, there has been a steady development and fuelling of nationalist sentiments among sections of society in Sri Lanka. On similar lines…

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The Attacks on Civil Society Organizations

Sumanasiri Liyanage Dr Pradeep Jeganathan’s dinner experience in Delhi with a French anthropologist reminded me a recent meeting I happened to have with a European high level diplomat in Sri Lanka. Referring to the recent events in Sri Lanka, he said: “I would be worried if similar things have happened in Balkans or even in India, but I am not worried at all for what is happening in Sri Lanka”. Is this a difference between an anthropologist who in Dr Jeganathan’s account was superficially worried about Sri Lanka and a diplomat who has been here for quite a long time but least worried about the Sri Lankan events? The diplomat in my story was rather angry as international community failed to tame the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). Did my experience contradict Dr Jeganathan’s dinner experience? I would say no. Two stories, in my view, reveal how the imperialist mind works with regard to the countries in the global South;…

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Current situation in Jaffna, Sri Lanka: A resident speaks out

The current socio-economic, political and ground situation in Jaffna from a resident in the embattled region in the North of Sri Lanka as captured by Vikalpa Video. Also see Present situation in Jaffna: A video interview in English and Sinhala.

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Bala Tampoe on war and the erosion of democratic governance in Sri Lanka

Well known and senior trade union leader Bala Tampoe speaks on the war in Sri Lanka and the state of governance in the South. He notes that even militarily defeating the LTTE does not mean guerilla warfare or their terrorist attacks against civilians in the South will cease. He goes on to note that: “…on top of that they are talking about a political settlement. [The Rajapakse regime] can never achieve a proper political settlement till and until they recognise the right of self-determination, which is a democratic right, of the Tamil people and the Muslim people in the North and East, and establish some kind of proper constitutional basis for them to exercise that right within the framework of a democratic constitution. But they cannot have a democratic constitution in the first place when the rest of the country is under a Presidential Executive which amounts today to a virtual military police dictatorship under the Emergency.”

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A reponse to ETHNOS OR DEMOS? – QUESTIONING TAMIL NATIONALISM

Fashionable as any aspiring theoreticians, writer Publius with above article once again takes on a contemporary and important topic, yet with wider pseudo interpositions and an assumed role of political advisory. Following is a very short response. Those who know me will bear witness that I am neither an Eelamist nor a separatist. I envisage and endeavour for a normative multination democracy where the Thamil nation, legally, constitutionally and normatively will restore its nationhood with or without a state because all nations does not need to own a state (Taylor 1992,2004) ,but every nation needs to live in its fullest freedom including the right to self determination. (Connor 1990, 2002) The core of the argument forwarded by Publius is encapsulated ‘’…A debilitating weakness of Tamil nationalism, both in Sri Lanka and in the Diaspora, has been its proponents’ unwillingness to ask this question and engage the debates on this theme within liberal constitutionalist theory to suit their particular context. In…

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‘GSP PLUS’ PRIVILEGES: THE NEED FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

ROHAN EDRISINHA & ASANGA WELIKALA There has recently been speculation and media reports about the European Union’s system of tariff preferences known as the ‘GSP Plus’ programme, of which Sri Lanka is presently a beneficiary country. The tariff preferences create massive advantages in particular to our apparel industry, and have implications for the wellbeing and employment for thousands in that important sector of our economy. It is vital, therefore, that Sri Lanka retains this privilege. The controversy relates to the fact that Sri Lanka’s continued beneficiary status comes up for renewal later in 2008, and whether Sri Lanka continues to qualify for the GSP Plus benefits in terms of the requirements that are set out for this by the European Union. One of the important requirements to qualify is that the beneficiary country is placed under a general obligation to ‘ratify and fully implement’ a set of twenty-seven international conventions. One of the key international human rights conventions listed under…

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APRC and 13th Amendment: Video interview with Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne

Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne is a President’s Counsel in Sri Lanka and Senior Adviser to Sri Lanka Ministry of Constitutional Affairs & National Integration. See more at Vikalpa Video.

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Endangered: Our right to ’shoot’ in public

13 February 2008, Colombo: Earlier this week, a leading Sri Lankan photojournalist was detained, questioned and released by police for taking photographs near a well-known Colombo school. According to news reports, Associated Press (AP) photographer Gemunu Amarasinghe was apprehended by a group of parents who formed the school’s civil defence committee. They had handed him over to soldiers on duty near by, and he was briefly detained by the Narahenpita police. It is not clear exactly why the experienced and credentialed photojournalist had to undergo this treatment. This might seem a minor incident in the context of highly dangerous conditions in which Sri Lankan journalists operate today. It was only a few days earlier that the World Association of Newspapers ranked Sri Lanka as the third deadliest place for journalists (6 killed in 2007), behind only Iraq and Somalia. But Gemunu’s experience is highly significant for two reasons. Firstly, it is depressing that some members of the public have resorted…

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R2P: The Chinthanaya Version

In recent weeks, the public at large has been treated to the unseemly saga of the sacking, reinstatement, cancellation of visa and departure from the island of the Executive Director, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Dr. Rama Mani. What began as a internal problem of succession and transition within that organisation took on quite sensational and sordid proportions in the ways in which it was handled and in the way in which an internal problem within a premier and long standing civil society institution in this country of international repute, culminated in an alleged threat to national security associated with the concept of the Responsibility to Protect or R2P. The internal problems of the ICES are not of concern here, except for the way in which they were dealt with, demonstrating the manifest incivility lurking in the bosom of what prides itself as the community of the sensitive. Be it greed or maladministration, it seems as if the prize…

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War on principles

I don’t oppose all wars… What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war… A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Speech by Sen. Barack Obama, delivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally in Chicago I’m often asked in person and through feedback on the citizen journalism website I edit, Groundviews , whether I am against war. By this most of my interlocutors implicitly wish to ascertain whether I am opposed to the war waged by Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration against the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). Many have their minds already made up that I am a (Sinhala Buddhist) disbeliever in the government’s sincerity to wipe out terrorism from Sri Lanka. This is not kosher particularly in the South of Sri Lanka today. Partly because of the increasing hate I face online and in person, I have asked myself a…

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Lionel Bopage: Reflections on the Current Situation in Sri Lanka

Excerpt: In any conflict resolution exercise the main focus should be the pursuit of a political settlement. However, the APRC or the GoSL do not seem to have any urgency or seriousness of purpose. It has chosen to gamble on a military victory rather than meaningful power sharing as its formula for peace. The government’s only priority this year will be waging war in which one will be forced to become a patriot or a traitor following the Bush Doctrine. The LTTE itself never gave up its campaign in the pursuit of its maximalist demand of separation through violence. Both Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms in Sri Lanka and in the expatriate community suffer from the weakness of the exclusion of the other by pursuing an all-or-nothing strategy. The current situation arose due to the CFA not having any mechanism to deal with escalating hostilities and to enforce protection of fundamental and democratic rights by the parties to the conflict. The…

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ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

The rollercoaster’s rolling full throttle, has a new booster rocket not subject yet to safety experiment, riders thrown every few minutes, smashed to ground, publicists about to stop digging hands into steaming lampreys served with fresh lime juice to wonder perhaps that this rate of civilians hurled to earth must not agree quite with amusement park patterns in the fabled West where children go for rides not to die. February 5, 2008

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War Disguised in Peace Clothing

Recently I had the privilege of spending my Sunday morning with an eminent panel of academics discussing ‘Language, as a Pathway to Peace’. The Galle Literary Festival is an excellent event and its willingness to venture into the topical and relevant, is praiseworthy. Anyone who has followed the ethnic (or is it just ‘terrorist’) conflict in Sri Lanka will understand the hugely divisive role language has played in its history. It was interesting – although not entirely satisfying from a hopeful’s perspective – to hear the role of language as a tool for peace, being discussed by a host of reputed Sri Lankan minds. The panel consisted of Professor Neloufer De Mel, of the English Department of the University of Colombo, who has researched widely on the subject of language and integration, Paikyasothi Saravanamuttu and his protégé Sanjana Hattotuwa from the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), writer Jean Arasanayagam and Rajiva Wijesinha, head of the Secretariat for the Coordination of…

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OBSERVATIONS: INDEPENDENCE

Seven school boys, baseball players, coach, waiting for a train, at Fort Station, exploded; 18 passengers, pilgrims, Kandy to Dambulla, private bus, accompanied by parcel bomb;. grenade thrown outside bird cages Dehiwala Zoo, 7 injured. zoo closed; Anuradhapura, another 12 puffed out, don’t have details yet; SMS stopped on cell phones during Independence Day parade of heavy weaponry, Air force bombs communi- cations base according to Press Spokesman at HQ, no scribes allowed to verify, or human rights group to bring food or medicine; letter from home, husband, late to work, sleeping pill, maker of documentaries forbidden to screen his film, uncle gathering family passports, wedding snaps. Who in hell made this hell, muttered under a thousand tongues; shall we ascribe blame, ask for identity cards to be stamped, race unknown, then burnt, ashes flung into the Bay of Bengal? February 5, 2008 Editors note: Indran Amirthanayagam, as noted on his blog, writes poems in English, Spanish and French. He…

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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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