Author Archive
February 5, 2010 at 12:20 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Politics and Governance | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
A pre-presidential election conversation I had with well-known lawyer and activist Javed Yusuf touched upon a number of issues vital to Sri Lanka over the course of 2010 and well-beyond. Javed Yusuf was Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the mid-90’s, and in this video strongly argues for the abolition of the office of the Executive President. He notes that the myth of the office protecting the rights of minorities has no basis in fact, noting that no Executive President has really helped the minorities to fulfil their aspirations.
Javed also touches upon issues of post-war reconciliation.
A divergent view is expressed …
December 4, 2009 at 5:35 pm · Categories: Colombo, Elections, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Now officially a Presidential aspirant, erstwhile Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has, since late October 2009 made a number of verbal and written submissions regarding his candidacy and political life after retirement. In October 2009 he made a speech at a Buddhist Temple in Washington DC. On the 12th November, he handed in his resignation addressed to the President. On 27th November, when it was an open secret that he would contest the Presidential elections, he gave an in-depth interview to the Daily Mirror newspaper.
For the first time, the following visualizations of Fonseka’s key submissions to date, using the web based Wordle, reveal the most frequently used words in …
December 2, 2009 at 11:31 am · Categories: Arts and Theatre, Colombo, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation, Vavuniya | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
The late review is at an advantage, in that it is informed by the published critiques of others and subsequent responses online and in print. In this respect, watching Tracy Holsinger’s The Travelling Circus on the last day of its run was to juxtapose the live performance against reviews that dismissed the production as highfalutin nonsense and others that praised it as compelling theatre.
Tracy’s attempt at devised theatre is without, to my knowledge, precedent in Sri Lankan English drama. With roots in commedia dell’arte, devised theatre is a difficult form, which even seasoned actors balk at since it involves co-creation and improvisation instead of the comparatively more straightforward interpretation, direction and delivery of a script. This dramatic inflorescence requires a …
October 29, 2009 at 2:10 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, War Crimes | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
I spoke with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka recently on his take on post-war politics, his interpretation of the Southern Provincial Council elections, the issue of war crimes and the extension of GSP+, the challenges of peacebuilding (with peace seen as more than the absence of war) and the purported entry of the former Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka to mainstream party politics.
October 11, 2009 at 8:07 am · Categories: Colombo, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Victors, if the pre-election shenanigans in the South are any barometer, violently differ on how to share the spoils of war. Unsurprisingly, the war and LTTE are still alive in the pre-election campaigns in the South. Victory against the LTTE and those who championed it are projected as superior, and better fit for political office than those who did not. The nostrums of national security gloss over concerns regarding IDPs. Promises of development abound, as usual without any real basis in economics. Promises of systemic political change, anchored to various pronouncements of the Executive, are also paraded, again without any real sincerity – minority grievances in and to the South, after all, remain largely peripheral to concerns over post-war economic …
September 6, 2009 at 6:23 pm · Categories: Colombo, IDPs and Refugees, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
“On my instructions, due to the priority given to the policy of zero civilian casualties the security forces are limiting themselves to rescue operations of the entrapped civilians held hostage as a human shield by the LTTE.” – Address by President Mahinda Rajapakse to the diplomatic community, 7 May 2009
“Firing should stop,” Mr. Anandasangaree, a former MP and the leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front party, said in an interview. “The government has no business to kill people like this.” He said he believed the latest casualty figures because he had heard them directly from a doctor at the hospital that received the dead and injured. “These are 100 per cent true,” he said. “We can’t trust …
August 23, 2009 at 7:04 pm · Categories: IDPs and Refugees, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation, Vavuniya | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
The floods that affected significant swathes of the expansive Menik Farm a week ago generated interesting responses from government. One of the most revealing was the deafening silence of the usually loquacious Rajiva Wijesinghe, and the lack of any statement over the flooding by the Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe.
On 22 July, Mahinda Samarasinghe noted during an adjournment debate on IDPs in Parliament that,
We are quite definite in our view that conditions on the so-called welfare centres and relief villages can and must be improved. As I have said on numerous occasions, these persons are not a mere statistic to be discussed as an abstract problem. These are Sri Lankan citizens with all the expectations, hopes …
August 13, 2009 at 9:32 pm · Categories: Arts and Theatre, Colombo, Politics and Governance | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Tracy Holsinger is one of Sri Lanka’s most accomplished theatre personalities. That she comes from a family of musicians and dramatists is frankly incidental – Tracy’s significant theatrical talent is one honed through hard work, a commitment to professionalism and a demanding standard of acting and directing, evident in this interview.
Many of my generation grew up listening to Tracy on TNL Radio, which is why it so hard to countenance the false accents and inane blathering of radio DJs today. Tracy is recognised more for her compelling theatre than her skills as a radio DJ, though I did ask her in …
July 6, 2009 at 11:02 pm · Categories: Colombo, Media and Communications | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Bijayini Satpathy, for one of the world’s greatest living dancers, is disarmingly mischievous in person. And, as I have experienced with a few others closest to perfection in their chosen art, humble and approachable. She will readily admit to being quite mad and with a casual nonchalance say that she trains from dawn to dusk at Nrityagram. It is then you realise that this is no ordinary dancer, and Nrityagram no ordinary dance school.
This interview was conducted at the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya. The ambient noise in the video reflects the noise levels in which students rehearse and learn dance …
July 3, 2009 at 5:59 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Economy, Foreign Relations, Human Rights, IDPs and Refugees, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Two weeks after I had interviewed Prof. Tissa Vitharana on, among other things, the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, I spoke with the Leader of the JVP Somawansa Amarasinghe for his take on constitutional reform.
During the course of our interview, Mr. Amarasinghe came out strongly in favour of the rights of all minorities, the need to meaningfully look into the well-being of Tamils interned in IDP camps and the importance of a secular State. Recalling the violent history of the JVP, he suggested that it was government that pushed the JVP to violence, yet saw little parallel between this violence …
July 3, 2009 at 5:52 pm · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Education, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
I began my conversation with Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology and Chair of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) by asking him about the state of play in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Sri Lanka, and what exactly the declaration of 2009 as the Year of IT and English meant. We talked about work force development, business service outsourcing, the sustainability of nenasala’s (cybercafes) established by ICTA and efforts by his Ministry to promote IT across the island.
Over half of the programme was devoted to Sri Lanka’s constitutional dynamics, and in particular, options for constitutional reform that included the …
June 14, 2009 at 4:02 pm · Categories: Foreign Relations, Media and Communications, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
In what may be a first for a Sunday newspaper in Sri Lanka, a reference from Wikipedia is used to buttress a case for the alleged pro-LTTE bias of Canadian Liberal MP Bob Rae, recently deported from Sri Lanka after first being issued a visa to enter.
The Sunday Times has a full page devoted to a rather long-winded story titled Lanka’s dual track foreign relations. My interest here is not to debate Bob Rae’s real or perceived partiality to the LTTE, but to briefly look at the manner in which a lengthy excerpt from Rae’s wikipedia entry is used to frame a flimsy argument.
The Sunday Times notes that,
…it was public knowledge that Rae had periodically …
June 13, 2009 at 12:44 pm · Categories: Colombo, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Post-War | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Jagath Weerasinghe is one of Sri Lanka best known and most influential artists (see bio here). He was commissioned by the Sri Lankan government to design the monument ‘Shrine for the Innocent’ as a remembrance for the innocent victims of the ruthless violence that the southern part of the country experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was completed in 1999.
Jagath and I talked about art and politics, how for example the experience of witnessing the Tamil pogrom in July 1983 and being abducted in the late 70’s shaped his political consciousness and in turn influenced his creative output. We …
May 13, 2009 at 3:34 pm · Categories: Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Mano Ganesan was recently featured on Rupavahini, the State and pro-government TV broadcaster, in a manner that suggested he unequivocally supported the LTTE and terrorism.This was noticed and taken up bloggers such as Voice in Colombo who challenged this site to answer a number of questions regarding our perceived bias towards Mano Ganesan and by extension the LTTE.
These questions included whether Mano Ganeshan violated the constitution of Sri Lanka by actively speaking on behalf of a separate state called a “Tamil Ealam”, whether he believes that Tamil Ealam is a reasonable idea or a “considered solution” in solving the problem in North, whether LTTE is responsible for massive human rights violations and if so, how he could justify speaking …
May 3, 2009 at 12:14 am · Categories: Constitutional Reform, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Vavuniya | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
“I would accept 50,000 dead to finish the LTTE. That’s what it comes down to. And I would, to end that war.”
This is a verbatim excerpt from an email I got today from a prominent blogger in Sri Lanka. Truth be told, we have all heard this argument of late – sometimes in hushed whispers, at other times a loud and bold statement of patriotism. Some see merit in it, suggesting that since the LTTE is inextricably entwined with the civilian population, only a scorched earth policy can guarantee remaining cadres in the Vanni will be eliminated.
Others are outraged by the idea, and point to sickening videos of injured and dismembered children, the LTTE’s use of thermobaric weapons, and …
April 26, 2009 at 12:55 am · Categories: Constitutional Reform, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
I recently interviewed Dr. Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the National Peace Council. Jehan is also a columnist for the Daily Mirror and the Lanka Monthly Digest in Colombo. He holds a Doctor of Law degree from Harvard Law School and a BA in economics from Harvard College.
Based on his significant experience as a civil society activist, I asked Jehan whether NGOs in particular had fostered any appreciable difference in the quality of governance in Sri Lanka. Jehan stated that after a quarter century of working in civil society, he was acutely aware how little impact it had in shaping the …
March 18, 2009 at 7:55 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Media and Communications | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
This sadly is not an unusual sight in Colombo. Despite well-known problems arising from industrial and vehicular emissions and the Central Environment Authority’s Vehicle Emission Testing Programme, we see a number of these wretched vehicles on the road.
This bus belonged to (or was operating under) one of Sri Lanka’s best known travel agencies. Weathering financial woes, it may be the case that they cannot maintain their vehicles as best they can. But should they care about more than just their bottom line?
Pulling up behind this bus and switching off my A/C because it was pulling in all the smoke, …
March 10, 2009 at 11:00 am · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
14 years ago there was cricket, but no SMS.
The challenge then was to communicate a ball-by-ball account of Royal’s tawdry batting and its inevitable and ignominious defeat to an enthusiastic Thomian old boy network outside the grounds and abroad on the days of the Big Match. Things were simpler then.
A few of us had a bottle of Mendis Arrack stashed in a safe place, ensconced in more newspaper than was necessary (a broken bottle was to be avoided at all costs), and checked up on more frequently than consumed. We were College or House Prefects then, and drinking alcohol in public was to undermine an existing social, political and moral order. We were also young, our live(r)s fresh, …
February 21, 2009 at 1:17 am · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
I had just posted The psychopathology of the LTTE suicide bombers here when the first JNW SMS news alert came of an LTTE air raid in the environs of Colombo. A friend called in to say that air defences had been activated and my wife called to ask whether I had electricity. All of Colombo was in darkness, but beyond the Nugegoda junction there was power.
Packed hurriedly and gave a call to Airport Express to advance my pick up time by an hour.
Gave the following update to a friend at around 11pm.
I am typing this on my Blackberry en route to the airport. Around an hour ago, the LTTE launched an air raid on Colombo. One bomb suspected …
January 8, 2009 at 5:04 pm · Categories: Colombo, Peace and Conflict | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
Watch reactions to Lasantha’s murder in Sinhala here.
The Editor in Chief of the Sunday Leader and one of Sri Lanka’s best known journalists Lasantha Wickremetunge was murdered this morning en route to work. He was shot repeatedly and succumbed to his injuries at around 2.15pm. The murder of Lasantha comes just two days after after the arson attack against private TV broadcaster MBC / MTV networks that destroyed their Main Control Room and studios.
On both counts, the Rajapakse administration points to some mysterious armed force hell bent on discrediting the government. It has done what it does best – expressed outrage, ordered …
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