Archive for the ‘Post-War’

The sentencing J.S Tissainayagam: Not in my name!

I am Sandun Ratnaweera, a 59 year old Sri Lankan Sinhalese from the Galle District. I attended Richmond College, and I have a government job.  Sinhalese is the language that my family speaks at home. Therefore I would consider myself a very common Sinhalese man  – just as regular as most of all other Sinhalese in this island. It is on this basis and identity that I was shocked and appalled at the conviction and the sentencing of J.S Tissainayagam when I first heard it. I was even more appalled when I read more carefully media coverage of his case and sentence. How could anyone come to the conclusion that the common Sinhala man (which I consider myself) could have been incited into violence  – into killing innocent Tamil neighbours  - by two paragraphs? What kind of race do our law-makers think we are – rabble-rousing, irrational, unthinking murderous? Let us look at the evidence  – these obviously “murderous” paragraphs:- In…

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Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka on history of power-sharing in Sri Lanka and the 13th Amendment

The Centre for Policy Alternatives recently launched Power-sharing in Sri Lanka: Constitutional and Political Documents 1926 – 2008, a compendium of important constitutional proposals and political ideas that have featured in debates about power-sharing and the constitutional form of the Sri Lankan State since before independence to the present. Invited to critique the tome was Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka’s erstwhile representative at the United Nations in Geneva. In his submission, Dayan pointed out that, “in a poly-ethnic mosaic such as Sri Lanka, the most realistic thing to do, is to go for the activation of what is already in our constitution, the 13th Amendment. I fear another ten, fifteen years going round and round the Mulberry bush talking to the TNA or on internal self-determination whilst things change on the ground in a very different way. This is where I stand on the issue of power-sharing.” Speaking of three models of power-sharing – accommodation, assimilation and domination, Dayan went on…

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Sri Lanka on a collision course with the West

Why on earth is the Rajapakse regime on a collision course with the West?  Okay, we are being bullied by the West, but haven’t we asked for it mainly on account of our  stubborn resistance to  international appeals for independent investigations into war crimes and human rights abuses?  Taking blanket cover under a ‘conspiracy theory’ to undermine Sri Lanka  by the West due to our ‘strategic importance’ borders on the ridiculous. It sounds more like a ‘Jamis’ Bond plot to distract and entertain an impoverished and ignorant rural polity. From Solheim to Milliband, we have identified so called ‘international conspirators’ who serve as convenient scapegoats or punching bags. Alas, the regime does not stop to think of the long term consequences of the shortsighted unsustainable ‘ collision diplomacy’ which our role model authoritarian states such as oil rich Iran and Libya have the economic power to counter, unlike resource starved Sri Lanka. The collision course became most evident  with the…

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A former Editor and senior journalist on the sentencing of J.S. Tissainayagam

Lakshman Gunasekera is a senior journalist in Sri Lanka and former Editor of the Sunday Observer. Asked about his reaction to the sentencing of fellow journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, he had this to say.

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Eyes Wide Open

“On my instructions, due to the priority given to the policy of zero civilian casualties the security forces are limiting themselves to rescue operations of the entrapped civilians held hostage as a human shield by the LTTE.” – Address by President Mahinda Rajapakse to the diplomatic community, 7 May 2009 “Firing should stop,” Mr. Anandasangaree, a former MP and the leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front party, said in an interview. “The government has no business to kill people like this.” He said he believed the latest casualty figures because he had heard them directly from a doctor at the hospital that received the dead and injured. “These are 100 per cent true,” he said. “We can’t trust the LTTE’s version, but this is from the horse’s mouth.” – Interview with V Anandasangaree in Canada’s National Post, 11 May 2009 A day after torrential rain resulted in widespread flooding in Menik Camp in late August, I published online the…

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Living in a very small world: and dying to have a piece of it

Part 4 I was the last person in our group to come out of the railway station after divulging the intricacies of my visit to the somnolent policeman and the Civil Defence Force home guard who had checked me to make sure I didn’t poses any lethal weapons. I have never had to sit at a desk interrogating and recording the personal details and intentions of a few thousand people on a daily basis, nor have I had to poke and prod them hoping not to stumble on a firearm or explosive-packed vest. Never have I had to wield a firearm or been trained to use deadly force without any inhibitions to ensure my own survival and the survival of my comrades. Given my life’s experience, or rather the lack of it, I would be a wretched judge of these men and their actions in the course of carrying out their orders. What’s more, I have grown up with a…

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Crossing over to the other side of a unitary state

Part 3 The refurbished metal “Queen of Jaffna” gracefully strode up to the platform in Medawachchiya by 10.30 am – the time I usually start to begin to consider the prospect of crawling out of bed on a regular holiday. But this day was different. I was running without knowing why, being urged by Sachindra to hurry, and dashing along the platform without knowing what the rush is all about, clutching my travel bag by its failing strap and water bottle in tow. It seemed the whole train was disembarking and everyone was running in from both directions of the platform towards the only exit. Sachindra was already standing in line and I joined him a few paces behind. Soon a throng of people were waiting impatiently, in a line that stretched beyond my view of the distant edge of the platform, to be interrogated and for their belongings and bodies to be dug and prodded by unfriendly policemen. Having…

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Shaping the nation’s fabric through Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s winning military strategies

Gen. Sarath Fonseka, Chief of Defence Staff, was recently invited as key note speaker by the Postgraduate Institute of Management Alumni (PIMA) to speak on the topic Winning Military Strategies: Lessons for Managers. The address by the ex-Army Commander was made in context of PIM’s quest to become a community of thought leaders committed to shaping the nation’s socio-economic fabric. He enlightened the audience about the unique Sri Lankan experience applied in the military effort that  could well be applied in the business world, too. The complex planning and strategizing described by him that went into winning the war was indeed awesome. He was the chief architect responsible for strategy, restructure, and implementation of the entire war. The small group guerilla tactics of’ ‘search and kill’ in contrast to conventional battles for territorial conquests was the major deviation from previous war strategies. The strategy was implemented with clinical precision and thus effective in achieving a kill rate that stealthily and…

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Linking North and South: What trains cannot do

Part 2 Weeks before coming to Sri Lanka, I shared with some friends; a desire to help war affected Sri Lankans in whatever capacity possible while I am home. I had a vague grasp of the fact that refugees were just one fraction of the victims of war. Combatants constituted another fraction. I have never heard gunshots or seen bombs going off. However, growing up in an impoverished country which spent hundreds of billions of rupees to buy armaments and cultured on a desensitising daily death toll in the news every night, perhaps I too was one of its victims. So who were the ‘war affected’ that I was going to help and where were they? One of my friends introduced me to Sachindra, who was organising groups of volunteers from the Colombo University to help with the food distribution efforts at Menik Farm – a camp housing more than a quarter million Sri Lankans who have been driven out…

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End of a conflict: An ideal time to bear witness to a brutal war

Part 1 The strap of my bag unbuckled under the strain as I squeezed out of the bus in Kurunegala. The clock tower read an unrushed 6.40 am on its weary face. It was quite possibly a relic from the Premadasa era, bearing testament to a President who erected large clocks in many city centres and villages, subtle messages about punctuality woven into a fabric of ageless and often useful, chaos. I checked my wrist watch, because the clock face that looked over the sleepy town looked too burdened to be reliable. If the train was on time, I had forty minutes to get to the railway station which I knew couldn’t be too far. Struggling to buckle the strap, I went into the nearest shop to ask for directions. “It’s that way, you won’t miss it”. The little I knew about Kurunegala town was enough to give me confidence that I had all the information needed to walk to…

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A travesty of justice: The sentencing of J.S. Tissainayagam

Groundviews first highlighted the case of J.S. Tissainayagam last year, noting that, Salient points of Tissa’s case point to a larger and more chilling deterioration of media freedom in Sri Lanka under the Rajapakse administration. Tissa’s case in particular reveals a particularly twisted logic, and through it, confirms fears that the regime in the South now completely mirrors the intolerance of media freedom and free expression the LTTE is known and reviled for. In May 2009, President Barack Obama referred to Tissa as an emblematic example of the distressing reality of journalist’s jailed for their writing. On 31st August 2009, Tissa was sentenced by the High Court in Colombo to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). As the Times flags, The Sri Lankan Government accused Mr. Tissainayagam of taking money to spread Tiger propaganda in a case that the US Department of State said last year “appeared to be politically motivated”. Mr Tissainayagam had…

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A video of shame and outrage: Responses, positions and clarifications

Video of alleged executions

The video broadcast Channel 4 last week generated a number of responses from the readership of Groundviews. Much has been written about the video, including this well thought out commentary in The Lede, the New York Times news blog. Of the many comments in response to it, this one and the Lede’s response to it stand out: Sinhala-Indian: I think this is Tiger Propaganda. American Should be worring about their own atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don’t really care about Americans anyway. We got our true Indian friends to help us. Indians helped us to defeat the Tiger terrorist and they will help us to defeat this American inspired Tiger Propaganda. LEDE BLOG REPLY: Can you explain how video obtained by a Sri Lankan Sinhalese journalist could possibly be “American-inspired propaganda,” against a military run by an American citizen? If reporting that a video exists and that charges have been made is propaganda, what role do you think journalists…

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Bearing Witness: Submit content on IDPs and Police brutality to win a Flip Ultra video camera

Through Bearing Witness, Groundviews seeks to engender critical citizen journalism on two vital issues confronting polity and society in post-war Sri Lanka. The ground conditions in Menik Farm, worsened by recent flooding, are a non-issue for most mainstream print and broadcast media in Sri Lanka. Yet, as this recent report from the UN’s IRIN news service notes, Close to 300,000 people now languish in 30 government camps in Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Trincomalee districts. Many of the camps – which were hastily erected in the final days of the war after thousands fled south from former LTTE-controlled areas – suffer from severe overcrowding. More than three months since the conflict ended, Zone two of Menik Farm continues to hold close to 55,000 – almost double its planned capacity. In fact, in some parts of Menik Farm, a single latrine caters to up to 80 people [Sphere standards call for 20], while some tents designed for five were accommodating up to 14. There are…

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Status of IDP’s and the ‘Right to Protect’

“Man generally resorts to dialogue, compromise and consensus in resolving human conflicts due to his superior intellect. However, it is not uncommon for man, when under pressure, to submit to his baser instincts of survival by resorting to physical confrontation and warfare despite the attainment of a high level of civilization.” The ‘divide and rule policy’ of the British colonial administration in Sri Lanka covertly took advantage of the country’s ethnic profile to appoint better educated Tamils in key government positions  to act as a buffer against possible sedition by the Sinhalese majority. With the declaration of independence emerged extremist Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism as a response to such discriminatory policy which served as an effective political platform for power hungry Sinhalese politicians. Ever since, the Tamil community has been gradually victimized, marginalized, repressed and regularly subjected to extreme violence by sinhala extremists through pogroms, sometimes state sanctioned, which conveniently served to divert attention from economic mismanagement. Tamil youth who were…

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Sri Lanka: Vanquished Tiger, Roaring Lion

The stakes of life and death, hope and despair, peace and conflict are now higher than they were when the war was declared “over”. The Tiger was declared dead, and the Lion roars. We watched this nation dance to the drum beat of the victor, sing triumphant songs, parade the glory of the forces, rejoice at the restoration of the nation while it ignored the lament of the victim, forgot the dead, and disregarded suffering. While a significant portion of its citizenry grieved, the nation celebrated. We, therefore, expressed but a part of our humanity, and a part of the heart of this Nation. If the nation wishes to forget its festering wounds and ignore a suffering part of its nation – 300000 civilians, men, women and children, the elderly, infirm and dying – languishing in the refugee camps, it probably can. After all, life continues as normal for most of us. It is easy to forget, easy to shut…

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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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