In Sri Lanka, the challenge to achieve transitional justice lies not in the process alone but also in coming to terms with the ultimate goal. In a post-war context, what is the…
Systematic discrimination and human rights violations against minority communities in Sri Lanka are not new in the country’s political and social realm. The most recent of such violations have been brought to…
Maaveerar Naal, otherwise known as Heroes day, is celebrated on November 27 to remember those who lost their lives fighting for the LTTE. While this day has come to be a highly…
Concern is growing, at home and internationally, about increasing unwillingness among leaders – especially the president – to accept checks on the power exercised over the people of Sri Lanka. “I am…
On 18 May 2009, this mother traveled to the army-controlled area via Mullivaikkal Vattuvakal. There she handed over her 33-year-old son to the army. He had refused to come with her, afraid…
It was a dramatic moment: a tall, well-built young man dressed in white with a black band tied across his forehead pushed his way through the closed gates of the church premises…
In different parts of Sri Lanka, families of the disappeared came together to hold events to commemorate the UN Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30. In Digana (Central province), families held…
Today is International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. “I am the luckiest mother in Sri Lanka. I got my son’s body back. There are thousands of mothers who never get…
Until recently, the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) was housed in a magnificent colonial building in a leafy Colombo suburb that used to house members of parliament; now it has been relegated…
(written for the 21st Death Anniversary of Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam) This is the time to remember Neelan and Sithie Tiruchelvam. Along with Kumari Jayawardena, their living rooms were spaces where scholars and…
It has been 37 years since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, a riot that set the country ablaze and sparked a 30-year long and bloody war. But even after nearly four…
For the past 22 years, activist and renowned contemporary artist Chandraguptha Thenuwara has been memorialising the horrific period of July 1983 through paintings, drawings, sculpture and installation. This year, undeterred by the…
I was a PhD student in London when the carnage of July 1983 erupted and thank God for the bravery and foresight of my mother and sister, my family was saved from…
In July 1995 the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Navaly, Jaffna, was filled with displaced Tamils seeking refuge and safety from the war. People in Navaly, including members of the…
Photograph courtesy ‘The Brother’s Grip‘, Global & Mail, by Ishara Kodikara, AFP May 19th 2020, marked the eleventh year of the end of the fighting in Sri Lanka’s civil war. A protracted…
