Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: What? Why? How?
Photo courtesy: Steve Chao /Al Jazeera via JDS With our Government busy defending itself from war crime allegations, protecting the sovereignty of the country and advising the common man to say ‘no’…
Reconciliation
ITAK’S PLAN OF ATTACK: THE BREAKOUT STRATEGY
The keynote speech by Mr. R Sampanthan, the leader of the main Tamil parliamentary party at the recent congress of that organization is in many respects a landmark event. It sheds light…
Reconciliation: The Symbolic and the Substantive
Photo courtesy JDS Against the backdrop of grave planetary changes, Sarath Fonseka’s release, G.L. Peiris’s visit to Washington DC and the third anniversary of the defeat of the LTTE, an evaluation of…
Truth and Dialogue as Theatre: Some Reflections on the Frontline Club Panel on Sri Lanka
I watched the Frontline Club panel on Sri Lanka, belatedly and reluctantly. I am skeptical about such public enquiries and debates into complex matters, which threaten to reduce the dialogue and truth…
3 years after the end of war: Official statements vs. reality
Sri Lankan Army soldiers march during a Victory Day parade rehearsal in Colombo on May 16, 2012. Sri Lanka celebrates War Heroes Week with a military parade scheduled for May 19. PHOTO/…
Three years after the war in Sri Lanka: To celebrate or mourn?
Photo courtesy For the 3rd successive year, the Sri Lankan government has made elaborate arrangements to celebrate the end of the war in Colombo. This year, May was declared as “war hero’s commemoration…
Reconciling what? History, Realism and the Problem of an Inclusive Sri Lankan Imaginary
What does reconciliation signify in the Sri Lankan context? In many post-conflict contexts the idea of reconciliation dominates public discussion. This is no different in Sri Lanka. But what exactly is meant…
Democracy, Good Governance, Human Rights and the Effective Implementation of the LLRC Report
Photo credit JDS Aung San Suu Kyi, the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1991 in a contribution titled “Human development and human dignity” stated that The concept of human development is…
Extra Time
The latest news from the family-run, once independent island, is the appointment of a presidential committee to decide upon which recommendations to adopt regarding the erstwhile ethnic question, which has been subsumed…
Mobs, Monks and the Problems of Political-Buddhism
Original photograph REUTERS/Damir Sagolj It is always a curious and odd little matter, to witness how even Buddhists become so obsessively attached to ‘sacred’ lands and in protecting them, commit acts seemingly…
Surrendering and Disappearing: Where are they now?
In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared…
Dambulla Mosque Attack: A Litmus Test of a Nation in Transition from Chauvinism to Civility
This is in response to the comments to my previous post – Dambulla Mosque Attack: Is there a hidden hand? At the time of writing this, there were nearly 50 comments displaying…
Photo essay: Freedom, Religion, and Dambulla
Navin Weeraratne’s photo essay around the recent violence in Dambulla has already been shared widely on Facebook, and elsewhere on the web. Describing himself to us as “an amateur photographer, toy painter,…
The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
A week ago, we disgraced ourselves. Racist louts, some in the garb of Buddhist monks, engaged openly in speech and behaviour so violent, even those who led it were forced to suggest…
The Geneva Debacle of March 2012: The lessons not learnt
Photo courtesy Vikalpa The outcome in Geneva last year (March 2011) of the voting on Sri Lanka’s conduct of the war and related human rights record was very clearly in favour of…
