The LTTE attack on the Saliyapura airforce base has reminded those who wanted to think otherwise, that a quick, cheap and/or certain military victory is by no means assured. The attempt to achieve one will take time and cost quite a lot more in human and other resources. In the meantime, the preoccupation with military victory is also underpinning the steady erosion of democracy. Take the last week for instance.

The Wamanan case and the shutting down of the ABC network constituted further assaults on media freedom. The former is an example of crude and shoddy intimidation in response to the exposure of corruption and the latter, one of over reaction prompted by embedded hostility towards media …

continue reading

I do not have any words to express my agony and the untold hardship that I had faced in my village during the liberation of Seelavathrai, south of Mannar by the Sri lanka Army on 01.09.04. .Having woken up to the deafening sounds of the artillery, followed by gunfire, I peeped through the window. I saw total mayhem. People running helter-skelter dragging their children, not aware where they were heading. I thought I will die along with my family. My husband said that it would be best for all of us also to run away from the house as the firing was getting very much louder and closer. Along with our children we went out of the house to be …

continue reading

It is with revulsion that I turned off the television last Thursday in the middle of what was touted to be question time with the President. The powdered faces of those who took part and the supine questioning lent it a grotesque theatricality, which of course, what is essentially was.

What was the idea of this media event? Was it really to answer the questions posed by the public? Or was it blatant propaganda, to further spread the “chintanaya” amongst a hapless population?

I go on in my article to lament the demise of politicians (who have crossed over to the government) who at one time were vociferously articulate on issues such as federalism and human rights and yet are today the …

continue reading

When John Stuart Mill wrote his seminal essay of the same title as this column, he set out, elegantly and persuasively, the foundation for much of the political liberalism of the next two centuries all over the world. He was, however, the member of a society and citizen of a country that gave the world the Magna Carta and parliamentary government, and continues to extol, celebrate, and practice the ideal of human liberty as its central and inalienable value. Last week, the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, decided to tackle his recent trough in the polls by making a major speech at the University of Westminster on the subject of liberty. In it, he promised a new Bill of Rights …

continue reading

I am a veteran internally displaced person (IDP), if that is a status that I could be given and everybody could be proud of. I am originally from Vavuniya and the conflict many years ago displaced the whole of my village and many adjoining villages. We, as so many others, fled for our lives forgetting all our valuables, given the assurance that we will return within days. I was young and with my parents, we moved to be temporarily located in Kala – Oya, Anuradhapura. It was a massive hall without any partitions and deprived all of us from privacy. Change of clothes was also done in the open or we had to wait till it was quite dark. We …

continue reading

By Victor Ivan

The forthcoming budget will be decisive to the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

The 1978 Constitution gave absolute power to the president. Defeating an incumbent president is all but impossible. The only realistic possibility of throwing out the current President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to defeat him in the next presidential election of 2011.

In spite of all the allegations — corruption, large scale human rights violations, unprecedented nepotism and rising cost of living — the President will remain in office until the end of his term. This pattern cannot be altered except by a crisis caused by a complete collapse of the political system, and certainly not by political manoeuvering by the opposition.

At this time, …

continue reading

“The guerilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with,” said Robert Taber, who was the only American among Fidel Castro’s defending forces at Playa Giron.

It is a well-known fact that unconventional forces thrive on the support of the local populace. If a wedge could be drawn between these two factions, the task and the chances of conventional forces achieving success are rendered much easier.

Of course, this is well known to all operational commanders, but, unfortunately owing to a lack of supervision or control, instead of winning the ‘hearts and minds,’ the average Tamil population is being very …

continue reading

On a first reading of the poll results, what emerges is the gap between what people perceive as the hard realities of the conflict and what they desire as the ideal outcome. What is striking is that in the midst of the contradictions in the responses, the overarching commitment to the fundamental principles of peace is almost universal

By Godfrey Gunatilleke

What are the fundamental principles that should govern a process that seeks to achieve a lasting peace? How does the public view the present military strategy of weakening the LTTE and what are their expectations of the LTTE?

What are the constitutional reforms that are likely to be most acceptable to the Sinhala majority and the Muslim minority? How can peace and …

continue reading

By Sumanasiri Liyanage

Somewhere in 2003 when the issue of interim administration for Northern and Eastern Provinces was raised, some, including myself, argued that the country should adopt an interim or transitional constitution including power-sharing arrangement for the war-ravaged provinces.
The idea behind this suggestion was that other important constitutional issues such as all powerful executive presidency with almost no checks and balances and politicization of the bureaucracy may also be addressed in such an interim constitution. However, there was no serious debate on this subject partly due to the political changes that took place in the late 2003 and early 2004. Moreover, it was made clear that no significant change can be initiated without the consent of the executive president.

Things have …

continue reading

By Shanthi Sachithanandam

“Last night was full moon
Oh you Sinhala Buddhist
For whom breaking even an egg on a full moon day is Adharma
How come lives of Tamil people became
More trivial than mere eggs?

Oh Venerable Monks
Walking with shaven heads
within yellow robes
discoloured,
splashed with blood and sprinkled with ash
Don’t open your scriptures but your hearts
Tell me, is this your Dharma?
Is it just,
To deem the lives of Tamil people
more trivial than mere eggs?”

– V.I.S Jeyapalan

It was 1997 and the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had captured most parts of Jaffna peninsula as a result of the ‘Riviresa’ operations. The aid organisation I was working for decided to start its work in Jaffna.

As were and are the regulations, we had to seek military permission to travel to, …

continue reading