President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September this year contained several ambitious statements. In particular, the following lines in his speech raised the hopes of…
Currently as the UN General Assembly (UNGA) sessions proceed in New York, the real action is at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, where the conduct of the Sri Lankan…
When a government contravenes the rule of law, crushes human rights, reneges on its responsibility of protecting its own citizens and begins attacking them instead, the international community will step in. It…
As the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) meets for its 48th session, the dire situation in Sri Lanka is under international scrutiny. Amidst ongoing concerns, work has begun on holding the…
August 30 is marked across much of the world as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. For the families and the friends of the disappeared and human rights groups…
Today of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances “Sri Lanka has the world’s second-highest number of cases registered with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.…
Sunday Times In October 1990, The LTTE ordered some 75,000 Muslims in the Jaffna peninsula to leave their homes within 48 hours; they were allowed to take Rs. 300 and some clothes.…
Almost every conflict around the world from Bosnia to Syria, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka, involves Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV). It refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion,…
Breakfast for three, hundred and fifty rupees. A trail of tea travelling through cups of steel, One held over another. Trees burdened by what they’ve witnessed, Hunched over. A sly wink. A…
It must be an occasion for us as Sri Lankans to assess progress we have made in addressing root causes for the conflict through a political process and moving forward towards co-existence…
Photo courtesy of Kumanan Kanapathippillai Over three decades of civil war has touched the lives of Sri Lankans of all ages, all races and all social classes. Fathers, sons, daughters and wives…
The first five months of 2009 brought immense and unprecedented pain to the people of northern Sri Lanka, and to their many Tamil relatives outside the country who looked on and received…
Calling a civil conflict or a civil war, a war itself, is very misleading. Wars are fought with external enemies. However, civil conflict or a civil war is a fight that takes…
Thennamaravadi is an isolated rural village some 65 kilometres north of Trincomalee on the Pulmoddai Road. The inhabitants rely mostly on farming and fishing to make a livelihood. They have some livestock…
A protracted war leaves behind many legacies – grieving families, shattered limbs, destroyed homes, disrupted education, lost livelihoods and psychological trauma. One of the lesser known legacies is land blanketed with landmines…
