Why Women Need Survival Guides in 2024
After the results of the US election were announced and Donald Trump was elected as the 47th President, I am seeing many women’s “survival guides” popping up on my TikTok advising them…
justice
Rohingya Refugees in Sri Lanka Seek a Permanent Solution to Their Plight
Hundreds of thousands of terrified Rohingya refugees flooded onto the beaches and paddy fields of southern Bangladesh in August 2017. When the refugees – almost 60 per cent of whom were children…
Gurunagar Church Bombing: Justice Must Be Done Even After 31 Years
November 13, 1993 will be 31 years since bombs were dropped by the Air Force over St. James Catholic Church in Gurunagar, Jaffna. Nine civilians were killed, several others injured and church…
Traveling Genocide
I will not be silent. When Sri Lankan soldiers murdered seventy thousand Tamil civilians in the Vanni during the last months of the last Eelam War, there were cries…
Out of Yaffa
He has never visited Yaffa, home of his grandfather, just forty miles away across No Man’s land and the border fence. He has not seen the Wailing Wall, stepped on the…
US Imperialism Drives Middle East War
(Lenin) (General Alexander Haig, American Secretary of State) It is little over one year since Hamas fired those deadly rockets on Israel as mark of its violent struggle to liberate Gaza from…
Naming the Dead and Disappeared as an Act of Memorialisation
Naming the names of the dead is an important act of memorialisation; for those they leave behind, it is their names that contain their essence. Palestinians in Gaza are writing the names…
Will the President and the NPP Take Courageous Steps Towards Reconciliation?
Maatram Sri Lanka’s history is deeply scarred by ethnic tensions and addressing these divisions is crucial for the nation’s future. The National People’s Power (NPP) and its leader, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake,…
Building on Hope, Gaining Trust: Challenges for a New Government
Elections can be times of hope, offering the possibility of a fresh start, yet also bring deep divisions to the surface. Sri Lanka is one of several countries where in 2024 voters…
Global Israel Poses Global Threat
Global Israel is a name coined by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his latest book and it refers to “a coalition that includes most governments, mainstream media and some parts of…
Monitoring Mass Grave Excavations
The Colombo Port is an economic hub of Sri Lanka. In this densely populated area, a group of people are digging a pit during the day; it is not a gem pit…
Presidential Candidates Ignore the Scourge of Enforced Disappearances
None of the three leading presidential candidates have directly addressed the issue of enforced disappearances despite the fact that Sri Lanka has the second highest number of disappeared people reported to the…
Truth, Reconciliation and Interim Secretariat
A recent UN Human Rights Council session raising grave concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka, including a report by High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, was the focus of a…
Time for Sri Lanka to Chart a New Course on Human Rights
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged Sri Lanka to break from the past and chart a new course. Addressing the 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council…
The Search for the Disappeared: Struggle, Recovery, Resolve
As news of a mass grave breaks on television in a household in the North, its residents, a family of the disappeared, try to find ways of coping with this information. A…
