The Future of the Aragalaya
Lenin once remarked that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. Much more than a decade passed last week at Galle Face. Beginning with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s desperate and…
#GoHomeGota
Questions of Justice and Accountability
As videos of helicopters taking off in the early hours of Tuesday May 10 appeared on social media, rumours swirled that some members of the Rajapaksa family had fled Colombo. While the…
In Search of a National Government
My favourite politician, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, tweeted a few days ago on her preferred course of action for the way out of the present mess we find ourselves in. “Ok, let’s talk…
GotaGoGama, Galle Face and the Youth
“Country is facing one of the most difficult and challenging economic, political and socially decisive times in its history…Government has erred by banning use of chemical fertilizer and not going for a…
The Difference We Long For
A few days ago, a Buddhist monk and two Christian priests were beaten up opposite the official residence of the prime minister of the country. They were among more than 30 peaceful…
The Inverted October Coup
The president of Sri Lanka, sensing the serious frustration of the electorate at non-performance, sacks his prime minister and swears in another prime minister. The former prime minister was reinstated but even…
Is the Aragalaya Checkmated?
Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his first interview as the new prime minister, said he would protect the GotaGoGama site while Army Commander Shavendra Silva said that if the protesters were not violent they…
Sri Lanka’s People, Parliament and President
May 9, 2022 will be remembered as one of the darkest days in post war Sri Lankan history. The country, already teetering on the brink of economic collapse due to incomprehensible levels…
People’s Tribunal Hears Evidence Against My Father’s Killers
Today the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists in the Hague will commence hearing evidence in the assassination of my father Lasantha Wickrematunge. The indictment alleges the Sri Lankan government’s complicity…
The Need of the Hour: A Nelson Mandela
Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown requires urgent remedial measures and the political impasse created by a president and his administration, which both refuse to either take responsibility or credibly effect corrective policy measures,…
When Peaceful Protests Turn Sour
Until Monday afternoon, the protests at Galle Face Green were overwhelmingly peaceful. Even when demonstrators stormed into the outer precincts of the Presidential Secretariat, it was to engage in symbolic resistance epitomised…
Won’t Go Yet
Thugs, goondas, thousands of them, gathered in villages and towns in the interior and boarded buses to the capital– their purpose, to break up the tents set up outside the Prime Minister’s…
The End?
“We must love one another or die,” wrote Auden in September 1, 1939 as the world slid into calamity. Gotagogama and the nationwide anti-Rajapaksa struggle it pioneered and symbolized seemed to be…
Thugs Attack Peaceful Protesters, GotaGoGama Destroyed
After 30 days of peaceful protests, the Rajapaksa regime unleashed its thugs on the protesters outside Temple Trees. After demolishing the tents and assaulting the people gathered there, the thugs proceeded to…
To the Sisters of My Motherland
My beautiful motherland, ravaged by invaders and damaged by internal conflict over the centuries, is now drowning in the depths of economic despair. There is no respite in sight for the people…
