Keenie Meenie: A ‘deniable’ arm of Whitehall?
Book Review – Phil Miller, Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who got away with War Crimes, (Pluto Press, 2020) Eleven years ago, in May 2009, the Sri Lankan security forces decisively defeated…
Post-War
10 Years After the War: A Reminiscence
Although the war ended a decade ago, the ethno-political and social fractures from violent conflict endure. On no other day are they more apparent than on May 18. Often, what we see,…
10 Years After the War: Violence in a Time of Peace
Although the war ended a decade ago, the ethno-political and social fractures from conflict endure. On no other day are they more apparent than on May 18. Often, what we see, read…
Implications of the populist frenzy of the Presidential Election
Photo courtesy In the aftermath of the 2019 Presidential Elections which concluded another era of the Sri Lankan political journey, it is necessary to delve into the fragility of the Sri Lankan…
A Betrayal of Trust: On Gotabhaya’s Candidacy and Shavendra’s Promotion
The International Day of the Disappeared is on August 30, and I was in Mannar when a group of mothers were preparing to show their collective resistance at Omanthai in the North…
Traces of War on Their Bodies
These are the stories of people whose daily struggles come from witnessing and being trapped in the middle of a war that lasted three decades, who think that it would have been…
The Terrorist, The Muslim and the Other
It was a casual Sunday breakfast, as I was making notes on refugees in Sri Lanka, when my partner, his eyes still peeled on his phone, exclaimed in shock that a church…
Memory and the Security State
The sun was scorching at the Mullivaikkal memorial grounds as people gathered to remember loved ones and Tamil civilians killed during the war that came to an end on May 18th 2009….
Memorialisation on May 18th: From Politicisation to Peoplisation
At the last stages of the war thousands of civilians who lived in the Vanni Region of Northern Sri-Lanka were killed, injured and disappeared. Surrenders of war and persons among detainees were…
Easter Sunday Attacks: A personal reflection
After three successive days of numbness, fear, anxiety, trauma, devastating sadness and anger I pen these thoughts. I do not have any ‘rational’ explanation for the horror that we are experiencing. I…
Prioritising vetting in Sri Lanka’s Transitional Justice process
Major General Shavendra Silva faces credible allegations of violating international humanitarian law and human rights. During the last stages of the war in 2009, he was the Commanding Officer of the 58th…
Repayment and Relief: Addressing microfinance debt in Sri Lanka
Nadaraja Devakrishnan stumbled on the gravity of the microfinance debt issue purely by chance. He was attempting to begin community gardening in a small village, to respond to rising cases of CKDu…
The Case for Foreign Judges in a Judicial Mechanism in Sri Lanka: Countering Falsehoods
In a few weeks, Sri Lanka marks a decade since the end of its brutal war, but its long legacy of abuses remains unaddressed. Decades of inaction, denial and silencing have contributed…
A Great Tree Has Fallen: Father Harry Miller S.J. Passes On
As the New Year dawned in 2019, I received the news that Father Harry Miller had died. Members of the Batticaloa Peace Committee had been visiting him in recent weeks, and had…
Chief Minister Wigneswaran breaks with the TNA and forms the TMA
As the term of office of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) concludes this month, Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, elected from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), actually from the Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi…
