Author Archive
March 31, 2008 at 6:07 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana
In response to the appearance of posters in Colombo promising generous cash rewards for would be suicide bombers who gave themselves up, Sri Lanka’s military spokesman, Brig Udaya Nanayakkara, said last Friday (28th March) in a BBC news report that the police were investigating the posters.
“He said there was no answer when he had called the number himself and he suspected it was a hoax.” (Emphasis mine)
In an absurd turn of events that beggars belief, the Daily Mirror reports today that it was in fact the Defense Ministry itself that had put up these posters!
“Those posters had been put up by the Ministry of Defence and accordingly, now there is an opportunity to all would-be suicide bombers to …
March 13, 2008 at 3:02 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Uncategorized | by Sanjana
The Royal – Thomian is primarily about boys (including those disguised as older and wiser men). The general melee of a Royal – Thomian in our day would guarantee two things. More booze. More chaos. More riotous dancing. And then more booze. So I lied, that’s more than two - but in those days, we never kept count of anything during the Big Match. With fists flying at no one and everyone, the pitch was not the only place to crack balls. There were fights over girlfriends. There were fights over the last dregs of coconut nectar. There were fights over lyrics, deemed heretical by those who sang no better and on no less heretical topics. There were, however, never …
March 5, 2008 at 5:48 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Media | by Sanjana
Mainstream journalism in Sri Lanka is not without its lighter side.
The headline of The Island newspaper today offers a refreshingly original take on corruption in Sri Lanka. Sadly, the same story on their website goes with a different title.
February 13, 2008 at 1:08 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by Sanjana
I don’t oppose all wars… What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war… A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Speech by Sen. Barack Obama, delivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally in Chicago
I’m often asked in person and through feedback on the citizen journalism website I edit, Groundviews , whether I am against war. By this most of my interlocutors implicitly wish to ascertain whether I am opposed to the war waged by Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration against the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). Many have their minds already made up that I am a (Sinhala Buddhist) disbeliever in …
February 5, 2008 at 3:49 am · Categories: Batticaloa, English, Peace and Conflict, Politics, Trincomalee | by Sanjana
In the backdrop of a country at war and democracy that’s hostage to the whim and fancy of a President and his coterie of murderous brutes, it’s hard to be even cautiously optimistic about the upcoming elections in the East. For the average voters in the South however, the fact that they are being held at all is a marker of the success of this government in eradicating the scourge of the LTTE from the East.
The East is a region of significant ethno-political and cultural complexity and violence where each community harbours grievances against the other. Even during the ceasefire, violent hartals and communal clashes coloured the social and political dynamics in the East (the extremely violent communal clashes in …
January 21, 2008 at 10:37 pm · Categories: Disaster Management, English | by Sanjana
On the loose since 12th May 2007, I spotted this Iranian barge banging against the Galle Fort ramparts just opposite the Fort Dew guest-house, adjacent to the Buddhist Temple, over the weekend. Clearly, the thing keeps shifting with the tide since it’s moved on from where is was spotted last year.
Cerno also has a picture of it here.
In a recent meeting with the President of Sri Lanka, Iran’s minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Dr.Daawood Danesh Jafarji has assured Sri Lanka of its continued support in the development of the island’s economic social and cultural activities.
One wonders if the destruction of Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage by Iranian property was …
January 8, 2008 at 8:15 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Human Rights, Human Security, Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana
Sanjana Hattotuwa and Sunanda Deshapriya
Article written for and first published in Mail Today, 6th January 2008.
It was a bloody New Year.
The high profile assassination of an Opposition MP and a bomb explosion in the heart of Colombo are tragic markers of what 2008 holds for Sri Lanka. To add to the drama, the Government of Sri Lanka on the 3rd of January unilaterally withdrew from the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) signed with the LTTE in February 2002.
As we write, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has folded its operations, Norway’s continued role and relevance as a peace broker is highly suspect, human rights abuses grow apace within a culture of total impunity and the country is set for total war.
2008 …
December 29, 2007 at 2:01 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Human Rights, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by Sanjana
It is impossible to prophesise political developments in Sri Lanka with any degree of accuracy. For starters, there is little that is logical about party politics and nothing that is principled. From the pathological condition of politicking for short-term and personal gain to random acts of terrorism and responses that change individual and communal fortunes overnight, Sri Lankaâs incredibly frustrating socio-political developments bedevils easy explanation or projections into the future.
Some aspects of what we will see in 2008 are, however, blatantly obvious from developments the year before. For starters, the UNP will continue its downward spiral into monumental irrelevance. Without any real vision, a significant lack of appeal amongst Southern voters, no meaningful alternatives to the socio-economic policies and …
November 24, 2007 at 7:27 am · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by Sanjana
The first Rajapakse I knew, closely related to the current President, was from over ten years ago, in a different country at a time when the Executive of the day had begun a âwar for peaceâ campaign that was also sold as the only way in which peace could be achieved and soon.
We were both undergraduate students in the same University though in different colleges. He kept an immaculately clean apartment, tastefully furnished with a well appointed kitchen which always harboured the delicious promise of homemade Sinhalese food. We worked closely together on many projects. He was precise, sensible, quick witted and reflecting back on his nature, essentially a political animal in training. I realize now why I was then …
October 19, 2007 at 1:59 pm · Categories: Colombo, Districts, English, Politics | by Sanjana
“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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