Mangala’s party and the Citizen’s dream
I begin my article with some quips and observations from friends and colleagues on Mangala’s new political party and his political vision as articulated by him to the media recently. Clearly, the…
Month: June 2007
Fighting for democracy
“Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda, and in most modern conflict, the men of war prey on the ignorance of the populace to install fears and arouse hatreds.†Sashi Tharoor,…
DARE WE DREAM?
Unveiling his political vision for a ‘new Sri Lankan order’ this week, Mangala Samaraweera challenged Sri Lankans to envision a better future. Dare, he said, to dream which, as a rallying cry…
Remembering Sivaram
Last week’s revelation that Tamilnet had been blocked to Sri Lankan citizens took the country yet another step further away from media freedom, posing the question: How much worse must the situation…
Closer Look At Operation To Capture Thoppigala
To recap what has happened recently, 15 LTTE bodies were recovered on 22nd June in Toppigala while the government forces and LTTE both launched heavy artillery and mortar strikes at the front…
Edifice of Retrogression
“There will be a political vacuum in the ethnic relations of this country as long as devolution is a non-starter, a mere word in the south. Despite the balance of forces, the…
War, abductions, killings, human rights violations and evictions
War, Abductions, killings, human rights violations, and evictions are synonyms widely used to describe the current situation in Sri Lanka especially in the international area. Are we facing the gravest period of…
A Small Victory for Human Rights
R.M.B Senanayake Photo credit: Dinidu De Alwis Hundreds of Tamils temporarily resident in Colombo in lodges were summarily bundled into buses and forcibly taken to the towns in the North & East.…
The flip side of picturesque: Estate workers in Sri Lanka
From Al Jazeera’s channel on YouTube. Also read Causing a storm in a tea plantation.
Sri Lanka : Decades of Displacement
From UNHCR’s video channel on YouTube. Also read Maps of Shame.
Sparks from the Notes of a Vagabond Mind
The Sri Lankan film director and writer, Tissa Abeysekara, is one of our greatest storytellers in both Sinhala and English. Two of the best examples are his short novel, Bringing Tony Home,…
Defence Secretary: The epitome of bad governance
The last column suggested that the tide of popular opinion may well be turning against the Rajapakse regime on account of the human rights and humanitarian situation, international censure and the rising…
Sri Lanka blocks TamilNet
Follow up to Tamilnet banned? – How to continue to access the site from Sri Lanka Original story available from here. [TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 15:32 GMT] TamilNet has completed 10th…
Tamilnet banned? – How to continue to access the site from Sri Lanka
Reports received by Groundviews indicate that Tamilnet is inaccessible from many major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Sri Lanka. At the time of writing, the site is confirmed to be inaccessible from:…
SRI LANKAN DEMOCRACY IN PRACTICE: 1997 – 2007
On 27th June 2007, Tony Blair leaves office after a little over a decade as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He leaves office a reviled figure, largely due to the…