Archive for the ‘Politics and Governance’

Thanks, Guys

Nobel-peace-prize-2010

Liu Xiaobo , Winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2010, “ CHRD Vassals, serfs, dependent states, including erstwhile defenders of human rights, we appreciate and respect your well-considered decisions to absent yourselves from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies for the common prisoner who shall not here be named, who has filled pages of certain duplicitous democracies with his seditious ideas. He will remain in jail and the Middle Kingdom shall prosper without end.

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The ‘Godayata magic’ of Oxford

Occidentalism: in the thrall of the “West“ The “Godayata magic“ of Oxford There is a storm engulfing this country “ not the incessant rains and consequent floods that have brought much suffering especially to the rural poor and urban slum dwellers. Rather, it is a storm over the failure of our Head of State (somehow “President“ seems inadequate to describe Our Great Leader) to gain access to the podium of a student debating society in a distant foreign land “ a debating society that does not even speak our languages at that! This comment focuses on the cultural contradiction we are seeing being acted out in this reversal of Orientalism: the plague of Occidentalism. All the hue and cry and Parliamentary fisticuffs currently on-going seems to be about expressing outrage at this humiliating exclusion, condoling the Great Leader for his great loss, probing the causes of this huge debacle, identifying the operational lapses that led to it, and finding and…

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DIASPORA EXTREMISM, INDIA, CHINA & SRI LANKA

“A social group dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to “liquidate“ or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it leads kindred and allied groups.“ “ Gramsci The Wiki leaks mega “dump“ is an international relations s analyst“s dream. It is also great fun, don“t you think? Consider this: if leaking diplomatic cables and stuff pertaining to past events evokes a howl of condemnation from the metropolis for giving comfort to enemies of western states, and endangering national security and personnel, how can Sri Lanka be faulted for preventing real time coverage of the war, and especially its concluding stages? Furthermore, if the Wiki Leaks exposures are quite so heinous and damaging, why pressurise Sri Lanka to hold an independent international inquiry into the war? Won“t that compromise national security and affect the lives of military personnel? Or is it that some lives and secrets are far more important than Sri Lankan ones? The massive WikiLeaks detonation took place in…

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Bell Pottinger and official communiqués of the Sri Lankan government

Statement issued by Mr Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka For security reasons the speech by His Excellency President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka at the Oxford Union, the home of free speech, has been cancelled. This is a decision that has been made unilaterally by the Oxford Union, reportedly as a result of pressure applied by pro-LTTE activists. His Excellency said: “I am very sorry this has had to be cancelled but I will continue to seek venues in the UK and elsewhere where I can talk about my future vision for Sri Lanka.“ His Excellency went on to say “I will also continue in my efforts to unite all the people of our country whether they live in Sri Lanka or overseas. As a united country we have a great future. If we allow divisions to dominate we will not realise our true potential. We have had thirty years of division and conflict. We must now…

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Whose reality in Sri Lanka?

No one will deny that Sri Lanka has experienced dramatic changes over the past 18 months. The military defeat of the LTTE came as a surprise to many defence and security analysts, including myself. But the issues that gave rise to the vicious rebellion – and in some ways provided it with the fuel to persist and expand – have basically remained untouched. Even the former General and Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, Sarath Fonseka (now controversially imprisoned) believed that the LTTE could be defeated in a classical military sense yet continue to operate as some form of low-level insurgency.“ A useful way for understanding the military defeat of the LTTE is to analyse the strength of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces, the weakness of the rebels and the role played by foreign states. Firstly, the government“s effort to enhance the military capabilities of the armed forces was crucial. In part this was achieved through a sheer increase in…

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Interview with Bradman Weerakoon

Deshamanya Bradman Weerakoon, who turned 80 recently, is an elder statesman in Sri Lanka and one of the oldest living civil servants in the country. During over half a century of public service, Bradman served nine Sri Lankan heads of State. It is frankly impossible in 24 minutes to capture this wealth of experience. What the discussion did concentrate was on key chapters in Bradman’s life. Bradman’s answers are always measured and diplomatic. We began by discussing the pregnant title of his memoirs, Rendering Unto Ceasar, placing it in Biblical context (from Matthew 22:21) and going on to explore why Bradman embraced Buddhism when he was around 18. We then discussed the Tamil pogrom of 1983, where the then President made Bradman the first Commissioner General of Essential Services (CGES). I asked Bradman how it felt like to work on humanitarian aid and relief within a government, and indeed a President, widely known in later years to have condoned the…

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Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Second-Term: A New Beginning?

When the LTTE showed, consistently and convincingly, that it did not understand the language of ‘peace’, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, correctly, turned to a language that the LTTE understood well; ‘war’. All other options were exhausted, and any option, other than the granting of a separate Tamil Eelam State, was bound to fail because what the LTTE wanted was simply that: a separate State. The most significant political achievement of President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his tenure as President of Sri Lanka (since 2005) then, was the indubitable and unprecedented leadership he gave to ensure the defeat of the LTTE. While there were many others who contributed to this in large measure, the armed conflict could not have been successfully concluded in the absence of President Rajapaksa’s leadership. It is with reference to this fact that any assessment of President Rajapaksa should commence, since it is an achievement that cannot be belittled by any means, given the old predominant view that the…

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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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