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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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, …

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“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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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, …

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“Now people eagerly await for the 2004 government to fall. It is easily done. This is the weakest government in post independence. It survives on charitable crumbs and has not a leg to stand on. If this is toppled, and it should be done and done fast, the next government should have the courage to create a new economic order.”

Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, JVP MP, speaking at a party conference in Gampaha, reported in The Sunday Leader, 17th October 2007

I associate the JVP with darkness.

I remember how my mother stitched thick, black blinds to cover all our windows at night during the height of the Bheeshana Ugaya in the late-80’s. I didn’t then understand what the acronym JVP stood for, …

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I got a glimpse of Louise Arbour last Thursday, late in the afternoon. She had just completed her meeting with Mano Ganeshan and some family members of the disappeared. Arbour peered out of the small entrance door to the UN compound. Photographers and video men crammed the entrance. Behind the media scrum were about a 100 or so members of families of the disappeared - all holding up large scale prints of their loved ones for the Human Rights Chief to see.

I doubt Louise Arbour really got to see past the hungry media - but either way, it was a nice gesture by her. She gave some more hope to those who are fighting for the human rights of their …

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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour has concluded her visit to Sri Lanka. At the conclusion of her visit she released a press statement, the highlights of which are worth reiterating since they profile the continuing problem of human rights protection in Sri Lanka today.

The relevant sections of the statement are:

Quoting Arbour

‘….. in the context of the armed conflict and of the emergency measures against terrorism, the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity is alarming.’ ‘…………While the government pointed to several initiatives it has taken to address these issues, there has yet to be an adequate and credible public accounting for the vast majority of these incidents. In the absence of more vigorous investigations, …

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is finally in the island, due, in no small measure, to the campaign of local civil society and international human rights organisations to get the government to invite her to Sri Lanka. This has happened despite the threat and invective directed against local civil society ranging from the perennial accusation of rubbishing the country abroad for pecuniary gain at home, to the more dangerous incitement to hatred — the vilification of local human rights defenders as traitors. .
Louise Arbour is in Sri Lanka because there is a serious enough human rights problem in this country that warrants her presence. Over the years, her office has received information about the full gamut of violations …

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As a family we lived amidst many challenges in the past few years never wanting to leave the peninsula which will always be our home. Even though we witnessed very many battles in the Peninsula, we always felt safe living as a family. Who will want to harm anyone of us. My husband’s and my solace were the five children we have and to provide the best we could. My husband was a social worker and a very close accomplice of Fr Jim Brown. When I use to complain of the hardship we are facing to my husband, he would always say that you should be happy atleast I am around to take care of you and the children since …

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Much has been said and written about the UNP’s supposed abandonment of federalism during the past week. Much of it completely misses the point. Whatever are the politics and motivations behind the UNP’s statement, in terms of the substantive contours of a possible constitutional settlement it delineates, there is nothing to suggest that the party has abandoned the federal idea as a method of power-sharing in a negotiated peace.

The statement sets out the objectives of conflict resolution and constitutional reform as addressing the grievances of the Tamils, meeting the concerns of the Muslims of the North East, and assuaging the fears among some sections of the Sinhalese that devolution would lead to separation. The fundamental principles of such a negotiated …

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Pradeep Peiris, Anupama M. Ranawana

October 2007-10-03

Ranil Wickremasinghe has been labelled as the United National Party’s most unsuccessful leader to date. Whether you agree with this statement or not, it is a solid fact that this gentleman has lost a total of twelve elections during his tenure as UNP chief. Mrs. Kumaratunge probably felt rather blessed to have him as opposition leader during her presidential years, but her ex-colleague Mahinda Rajapakse seems to have benefited the most from Wickremasinghe, as the latter’s track record as opposition leader is currently at its worst point. Not only was he unable to portray the image of an aggressive opponent, but he has also had no luck picking the right and timely issue …

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The traditional Sinhala press has failed to report on the unmitigated farce that constituted the President’s recent visit to New York and the United Nations and the dire state of Sri Lanka’s international relations and diplomacy in general.

My article brings out some of the salient points. For example, that friends and relatives of the President’s wife and the Foreign Minister were also part of the President entourage, the exact number of which is still unknown. What is known however is that the entire motley posse stayed at the Ritz Carlton, where a standard room costs upwards of SLR 100,000 a night.

Many in the group went for private visits and were not seen remotely close to the annals of the …

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The announcement by the United National Party (UNP) that it is “repositioning” itself on the issue of a political settlement of the ethnic conflict has been received with praise for pragmatism in certain quarters but mostly consternation, disappointment and confusion in others.

The UNP which in government was party to the Oslo Declaration of 2002 and the Tokyo Declaration a year after, will not now use or insist on the mention of the word federal or federalism but will stress the need for meaningful power sharing as the pivotal idea on which a solution best suited to the needs of the country will be founded. .

The repositioning of the party’s position is being presented as a constructive avoidance of semantic arguments …

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Many states, especially in the developing world are torn between entrenched mononationalism and the need to keep with the changing world. It is precisely because the ultimate aim of all human efforts should be to help shape the world into a better and safe place for all, that the normative value of the study of the relationship between federalism and nationalism becomes urgent. To that end as Burgess has convincingly argued, a true multinational federation holds promises not just for an individual state but as a possible future order in a globalised world. Therefore it is important to focus on federalism as a ‘peace-creating’ government model, because enough evidence suggests that federalism holds the capacity to engage with nationalism …

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