Witnessing Two Genocides Happening Now
As part of the Kolamba Kamatha Festival, Stages Theatre Group presented , two powerful plays of remembering, witnessing and refusing to look away. In , playwright Ruwanthi De Chickera distills the complexity…
International
Sri Lanka’s Response to the UK Sanctions
Last year, I studied in some depth perceptions of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) and the National People’s Power (NPP) after the consequential presidential election and again after the even more significant…
Sanctions: A Step in the Right Direction to Combat Impunity
The UK government has announced sanctions on three top former war time military commanders and a former LTTE commander accused of serious human rights violations and abuses such as extra judicial killings,…
Long Way to Go on Rights for All
In an oral update session on progress in Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka Maarit Kohonen Sheriff, Director of the Global Operations Division in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for…
Arab Counter Plan for Gaza: An Exercise in Futility
Gaza, a thriving cosmopolitan trading town along Via Maris trade route between Egypt and Turkey until 1948, became the Gaza Strip since then and remained the largest refugee camp for two million…
President Donald Trump’s Gaza Riviera: Madness or Calculated Ploy?
To Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his circle of Zionists, not to mention the Christian evangelists in the US, US President Donald Trump’s announcement to acquire the Gaza Strip – a…
President Donald Trump, Oil and Palestine
The second term of President Donald Trump, a convicted felon and a man of contradictions with fascist traits, is proving to be a bonanza to American billionaires and corporate moguls and disaster…
On the US Foreign Assistance Pause
US President Donald Trump has ordered a 90 day pause on all foreign assistance and aid programmes, with a few exceptions. The pause is supposedly for the US government to take an…
Vulnerable Visitors: The Test of a Nation’s Conscience
The recent arrival of a boat full of Rohingyas in the country raises some associated questions. What is the responsibility of the government towards such vulnerable visitors and what was the fate…
Chasing the Elusive Rainbow
news click What does a second Donald Trump presidency really mean, especially for women and minority rights not only in the US but also globally? (Un)fortunately, we have a considerable number of…
Outside the Oval Office
I make poems constantly about oddities and offenses in American political practice, how one president sent bombs, jets, and drones for use by a rogue state and its murderous army, …
Self Help Words for the Inauguration
The name is vital. Spell it right. If you err, apologize and correct. Then go on as the matter becomes urgent, to speak poems that soar from memory and emotion, rise…
Rohingyas: Why are They in Sri Lanka and What Should We Do?
Rohingyas are an ethnic community from Myanmar’s Rakhine province. They have been facing severe persecution for decades, which continues until today. Myanmar’s government doesn’t accept them as citizens, so they are stateless….
Deadly Desires of Demagogic Twins
US president-elect Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the demagogic twins, seem to be on parallel paths with deadly desires to expand the borders of their respective countries. While Trump wants…
Mullivaikkal War Survivors Assist Rohingya Asylum Seekers
Mullivaikkal is a remote coastal village in the Mullaitivu and its ethnic composition is predominantly Tamil. It is significant as it is where Sri Lanka’s 30 year civil war came to a…