Truth, Accountability and Reconciliation in Post-War Sri Lanka
PEDRO UGARTE / AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO via In the aftermath of the media circus surrounding the resolution on Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council, it is worth asking: how…
End of war | 5 years on
Lifting the veil to reconciliation
‘A Memory of War’ by Vidu Gunaratna When Sri Lanka’s legendary bowler Muttiah Muralitharan was repeatedly accused of chucking by an Australian umpire, captain Arjuna Ranatunge protested by walking out with his…
Sri Lanka’s media, five years after the end of war
Photo courtesy Sri Lanka Brief The guns are silent and the bones buried beneath the sands of the beaches of Mullivaikkal are replete with a story, but the tales they must tell…
Mapping 12 years of Sri Lankan opinion
Perspectives of Sri Lankans over the last decade or so makes for fascinating reading five years after the end of the war. This infographic is only a snapshot of the hope, frustration,…
The hunt for the missing
Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via ### Arriving at the small house among banana trees we are greeted by the sounds of normality. The dog barks. Birds in a cage chirrup. But…
The Search for a Political Solution Five Years after the War
Photo via Ministry of Mass Media and Information “The sovereignty of Sri Lanka is very much intact. And we want it to remain intact. We are Sri Lankans… And we don’t want…
Problems of success? Post-war Sri Lanka’s international challenges
Photo by Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images, via RightsNow Since the end of Sri Lanka’s thirty year-long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the island is often evoked internationally in relation…
A systems approach based on a rights framework for the governance of Sri Lanka
Photo via FT.lk I read the article titled 05/09/2014) by Dayapala Thiranagama with interest. It looks at the construction of Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy model, strengths and weaknesses of RHP, and the weaknesses…
Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe: Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte via Channel 4 Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965)…
5 years after: Reflections as a mother, women and a citizen of Sri Lanka
Image by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP, via FT.com The moment I think of the war it takes me to 1995. Sri Lankans had very high expectations – a new government and a new…
Re-visiting the Rajapaksa Hegemonic Project
Photo by Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg News, via The Japan Times The UPFA regime has accomplished an unprecedented hegemonic political power, consummated by landslide electoral victories: Presidential election, January 2010, Parliamentary Elections March 2010 and…
The failure of the media, civil society and the ‘moderates’
Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena via SC [FR] 97/2014 is a Fundamental Rights application currently pending before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. FH the Petitioner is an 11 year old Muslim girl…
Keep Off the Grass
Photo courtesy Pri’s blog Colombo has been blossoming under the keen watch of Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who, in his self-appointed role as Godfather, presides over a grand plan of urban beautification…
A Brief History of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance from 2004 to 2014: Statistics and Real Politics
Image via Wikipedia By 2015 Sri Lanka will have experienced a decade of rule by the United Peoples Freedom Alliance UPFA government under President Mahinda Rajapakse. He ascended to the Presidency in…
Five Years Later
Photo by Ron Haviv The pearly island, flip in the sea before munching hot prawns near breakers on the beach; be careful with a camera, no point and shoot in sensitive…
