The Story of the Hypocrite in a Tamil Man
Reaction to the recent programme by UK’s Channel 4, , has great variety, ranging from “Ah, didn’t we tell you all along, the Sinhalese and their army are nasty people,” from the…
Reconciliation
Assessing the Validity of Legal Challenges to the UN Panel Report
Apologists for the Sri Lankan government have marshaled a number of arguments in response to the growing pressure on accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some are less clever than…
30 years ago: A time for reflection
Image taken from Jaffna Photo Gallery I write this as a response to Concerned Citizen’s comments on the public lecture and discussion on the Burning of the Jaffna Public Library led by…
The Global Context of Counterterrorism: Strategy, Ethics, and Sustainability in Sri Lanka’s COIN Experience
[Editors note: We were forwarded Dr. Kilcullen’s speech by someone present at the on-going “Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience” seminar in Colombo. The person who sent us the email noted that…
Is the war crimes video confirmed by UN as authentic “unrepresentative and irrelevant”?
The Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, presented at the 17th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva today found, after…
Finding the Middle Ground
Just over a week ago, a couple of my colleagues and I appeared on a prominent Canadian talk show discussing our attempts, as both individuals and organizing members of the Young Canadians’ Peace…
Sri Lanka May Yet Be Lost, or Saved
Original photo Ranga Sirilal | Reuters Two years after the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE, the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war is still playing itself out. Take the events of the…
Going beyond mainstream media: The best Twitter feeds on and from Sri Lanka
Just over a year ago, in April 2010, launched two curated Twitter lists on Sri Lanka to help those in and outside the country access news, information and critical conversations that went…
V-Day 2nd Anniversary: Peace Under Pressure
Original image by J. Adam Huggins for Every mayoralty in Paris has tablets on which are inscribed the names of those from that locality who died in the many wars which France…
Tuyilam Illam: Positivist readings and new debating grounds
[Author’s note: Though I was invited around February 2011 to respond to the discussion in on the issue of Tiger ‘cemeteries’ being desecrated, I was so busy that my draft article simply…
Reflecting on the End of the Sri Lankan Civil War: The Need for a New Conversation in the Global Sri Lankan Community
Although military hostilities in Sri Lanka ended two years ago, the dynamics of the conversation in the global Sri Lankan community continues to be influenced by the nations’ past conflicts. Decades of…
Buddhism and its impact on governance
Image from Travel Blog Today, Wesak is the most revered day in the Buddhist calendar. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, the celebration is led by a small group of apparently sanctimonious humbugs followed…
Reconciliation without Truth in Sri Lanka?
South Africa had a Truth and Reconciliation commission presided over by Desmond Tutu. Human Rights activists who looked forward to Reconciliation and peace at the end of the civil war in 2009,…
Anti-UN sentiment in Jaffna: Fact or fiction?
The reveals that bereft of any public support, the minister and his goons are now ostensibly forcing people to sign their names, and this too in the regions most affected by war….
Sinhala and Tamil translations of UN Panel’s report on accountability
Original image from TNL The official version of the report published by the panel constituted by the UN Secretary General to look into issues of accountability in Sri Lanka was released on…