The struggle to go home in post war Sri Lanka: The story of Puthukudiruppu
Rajini (pseudonym) was amongst the ten women we met in a church in Vavuniya district about a week ago. At the time she and two of her children were living in Kadirgama…
IDPs and Refugees
Swimming against the tide: Australia’s new asylum-seeker package
Photo courtesy Sydney Morning Herald Though launched with much fanfare and media acclaim, Australia’s new raft of proposals embodied in the Houston package to handle the surge in asylum-seekers is simply treading…
The struggle to go home in post war Sri Lanka: The story of Mullikulam
Photo courtesy National Fisheries Solidarity Movement In 2011, a young Advanced Level student from Mullikulam in the district of Mannar, living as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) in a camp in Thalvupadu,…
Handling disasters: The man-made disaster of July 1983 (Part 2)
[Editors note: Continued from Part 1, which you can read here. The author was at the time of the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom Secretary to the Prime Minister and Commissioner-General of Essential Services from July 1983…
Troubled Waters: Corruption and Human Trafficking in Post-war Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Herald Sun Australia has recently been dealing with an upsurge of asylum seekers who have traveled by boat from elsewhere in Asia. The notes that, “While most boats originate in…
Growing concern over human smuggling and trafficking in Sri Lanka: Interview with ILO
On 2nd July, the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) organised a panel discussion on preventing human smuggling and trafficking. The event was as much a forum to discuss the incredible increase in,…
Handling disasters: The man-made disaster of July 1983 (Part 1)
[Editors note: Part 2 of this essay can be read here.] Looking back at the July 1983 disaster, almost 30 years later, it would be natural to query how key policy issues…
The Disappeared in Sri Lanka’s War in the Recent Past: What is missing in those “Missing”?
IRIN has recently highlighted the fact that “thousands of people are still missing” in Sri Lanka and presented an UNOHCR report that states that there are “5,671 reported cases of wartime-related disappearance…
Interview with Dr. Farzana Haniffa: The eviction of Northern Muslims in Sri Lanka
First interviewed in 2010, Dr. Farzana Haniffa appears again on to talk about the Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE. As the Commission’s website notes, in…
Surrendering and Disappearing: Where are they now?
In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared…
Menik Farm after the cyclone: The continuing misery of IDPs
After a punishingly hot day, the skies seemed to provide some relief to the residents of Chettikulam as they opened to release heavy showers during the early evening of Saturday, March 31st….
What is the bigger lie? US resolution in Geneva or number of people in Vanni in 2009?
Image from Wikimedia Commons “One of the rankest untruths in the public domain today is that the US resolution is innocuous and unobjectionable…” said Amb. Dayan Jayatilleka in his article THE BIG…
Rights, Return & Resettlement: A Critique of the TNA Report on Resettlement
The ‘Resettlement Report October- December 2011’, available on the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) temporary website, DBS Jeyraj’s blog and Sangam.org, is the second report of the Tamil National Alliance Research Series, and…
Sri Lankan Women Human Rights Defenders: Linking Past and Present Challenges
As another year begins to draw to a close on post-war Sri Lanka, we can take stock of which changes, or the lack of change, we see around us. The full…
A Commissioner’s Perspective: Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE
As one of the members of the Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE in October 1990 (Citizens’ Commission), it is my privilege and pleasure…
