Uncategorized

By Dayan Jayatilleka – Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka As confirmed by Dr. Jehan Perera’s latest column, the PM disclosed in Mannar that Indian Prime Minister Modi had urged him, President Sirisena and ex-Presidents Kumaratunga and Rajapaksa to solve the ethnic problem by bringing in a new Constitution without delay. The PM said that this will indeed be undertaken, and a draft document presented in a week or two, with a draft Constitution ready for adoption in two or three months. What the new Constitution really hopes to achieve are the political and economic aims of the PM and his allies and the economic and strategic aims of his foreign patrons. What is the underlying intent and core content of the new Constitution? What is its very […]

   BY SHAAHIDAH RIZA If the law was implemented equally amongst all, the extremist elements will be contained and reconciliation can be achieved said United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene. In an interview with Ceylon Today he noted that foreign elements control the extremists who have been responsible for the hate motivated attacks in the recent past. Abeywardene added that these extremists were trained and funded by these foreign elements and were used to oust former President Mahinda Rajapaksa by causing discord amongst minorities, so that the latter would turn against the then President. Excerpts follow: ? What are your views on the Cabinet reshuffle? A: The UNP leadership has betrayed its party. This is the first step of a long journey […]

Today, Eelam is heard only in the occasional slogans of a few regional parties like the MDMK, PMK and VCK In public sphere too, the cause doesn’t elicit the response it did a couple of decades ago. It has been eight years since the Sri Lankan civil war ended the bloody way it began with the demand for an independent Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. Today, Eelam is heard only in the occasional slogans of a few regional parties like the MDMK, PMK and VCK and some fringe organisations and social media where a few young and restless try to reinvent the romanticism of a lost struggle. In public sphere, the cause doesn’t elicit the response it did a couple of decades ago. While there […]

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today called for unity in the country saying there cannot be room for another war but was not prepared to give powers to the provincial councils as per the Sri Lankan constitution because it gives some rights to the minorities in North and East. He and President Mithiri fear giving equal rights to the minority will reduce their support among the Sinhalese. He says the unity must be protected to take the development agenda of the country forward and he did not speak of the promises made to the minority of sharing powers through provincial councils since  8 January 2015. Wickremesinghe was speaking at an event held at Temple Trees today which was attended by participants from the North and South. The […]

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 May 2017, 22:09 GMT] The deployment of Sinhala military belonging to 232 Brigade Headquarters of the occupying Sinhala military at Kudumpi-malai (which is also known as Thoppik-kal and Baron’s Cap) in the interior of the northwestern hinterland of Batticaloa is not only a demographic and structural threat, but also a cultural threat, complain Tamil villagers. More than 500 Eezham Tamil families were living there during the times of the LTTE. Only 120 families have managed to resettle there amidst the deprived infrastructure and basic facilities to them. Their temples are still under SL military occupation. Tamil Heroes Cemetery, which was the largest one in the district, has been fully bulldozed and a Sinhala military base is built there. Monuments of SL military’s […]

By C.V. Wigneswaran – C.V. Wigneswaran A few years ago a group of officials from the Northern Provincial Council met a farmer in Vavuniya and asked for his preferences in respect of some matter. The old man braced himself up, looked at the officials and said “Sirs! I am 78 years old. This is the first time I am hearing of officials wanting to note down what my preferences are. Hitherto you decided what was best for me. Never asked me what I want”. Government Economic Development Programme and Jaffna District Development Projects under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Hon’ Ranil Wickremesighe at the Jaffna District Secretariat on 19th May 2017 at 3 pm views of Chief Minister, Northern Province: Hon’ Prime Minister, Hon’ Ministers, Hon’ Members of Parliament, Hon’ […]

Featured image by Raisa Wickrematunge On May 18, 2009, Sri Lanka ended a decade long civil war. The day after, May 19, has traditionally been celebrated as “Victory Day” and marked with military parades. That is, until May 19, 2015, when Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne announced that the Government of Sri Lanka would instead mark “Remembrance Day” in memory of those who had lost their lives. The move gave fresh hope to families of the North, who often had their memorial day activities blocked while the news simultaneously broadcast images of the “Victory Day” parades. In 2015, families were able to commemorate the fallen, but under surveillance. It has been increasingly apparent however that these changes are only cosmetic in nature. On May 17, courts […]

By Jehan Perera During the period of the previous government May 18 became a day of tension in the North. The previous government celebrated the war victory over the LTTE in the South of the country, while prohibiting any public memorial services for those who died in the last battles in the North. The report last week that police in the North had obtained a court order to put on hold a commemoration event in Mullivaikkal scheduled for May 18, the day the war ended, therefore took the centre stage of public attention in the North. It seemed that the prohibition was for all commemoration services for the victims of the war and that the past had returned to haunt the present. However, the court […]

By Sumanasiri Liyanage “We all know the old joke about a guy looking for his lost key under the street light; when asked where he lost it, he admits that it was in a dark corner. So why he looking for it here, under the light? Because the visibility is much better here.” (Zizek Jokes. 2004) The current debate on constitutional change reminded me of this old joke about drunkard guy looking for a lost key. I shall use the old Marxian term – the national question – rather than the conventional terms – the Tamil ethnic question or the ethnic problem – commonly used in the current discourse. It has been incessantly argued with some justification that a new constitution or revolutionary changes in […]

Many extremely corrupt individuals who carried out thieving to the maximum in the Mahinda Government were given Cabinet Ministry posts on behalf of the SLFP because of the government of good governance. They are doing everything they can to protect their friends and previous masters.  PRECIFAC carried out investigations into big fish such as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya, Basil, Namal, Shashindra, Mahindananda, Wimal Weerawansa, Sarath Kumara, Jagath Pushpakumara and Semasinghe, They were summoned and questioned. There is no difference between the Bribery Commission during Mahinda’s time and Commission of the present, during Maithripala’s time. In both no work was done, only noise. The Bribery Commission, the Large Scale Corruption Commission and the Corruption Secretariat have simply become name boards only. The thieves from then […]

An incident in Kurunegala last night showed how the notorious Bodu Bala Sena’s (BBS) General Secretary Galagoda Atte Gnanasara was above the law, amidst claims by the hardcore Buddhist group that their supporters thwarted attempts by the police to arrest Gnanasara, who has been known for inciting racial hatred between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka. With just a week to go for Muslims to observe their holy month of Ramadan, the minority community in Sri Lanka was once again penalized on Saturday night with the BBS accused of instigating groups to launch an attack across Muslim owned shops as well as at a mosque in Kurunegala. The government remained tight lipped on the incident, while even the country’s mainstream media chose to ignore the […]

By Veluppillai Thangavelu – Veluppillai Thangavelu On April 26, 2017 Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine delivered the keynote address at the SJV Chelvanayakam’s 40th death anniversary commemoration held at Kathiresan Hall, Bambalapitiya. The function was organized by the llankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) the party founded by Chelvanayagam on December 18, 1949 after he broke off from the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC). TNA Jaffna District Member of Parliament M. A. Sumanthiran presided. R. Sampanthan, MP and Leader of the Opposition and the TNA leader also addressed the meeting. In his keynote address Minister Rajitha Senaratne has posed the question FEDERALISM: WHY ONLY FOR TAMILS?  Naturally the Minister’s query has evoked much discussion by way of pros and cons in political circles. Dayan Jayatilleka, an ultra-Sinhala Buddhist nationalist and reputed to be the political […]

By Meera Srinivasan After 20 years in India, wearing a “refugee” tag that led her from one camp to another, it was only in December 2016 that Edward Selyn, 55, returned home. Until a few days ago, she was among a group of people seated under a tent in Mullikulam village in Mannar, in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, protesting in the scorching heat for a month, demanding that the Sri Lankan Navy release her land. She was displaced in 1996 with her entire family, after the civil war broke out. Now, eight years after the war ended and months after her return, Ms. Selyn has not stopped feeling displaced. “I had all my documents and deeds, but still could not get back to the land where […]

The Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province, C.V.Wigneswaran, has said that his administration would not like industries coming up in the province to use locally available resources and would want them to deploy resources procured or purchased from outside the province. “In working out our industries we would prefer not to use our natural resources internally available, if alternatives from elsewhere could be procured or purchased,” he said speaking at a meeting on the economic development of Jaffna District in Jaffna on Friday. Wignswaran said this in the presence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. . Presumably , the Chief Minister said this with a view to preserving the Northern province’s natural resources .But one wonders whether other provinces would allow their resources to […]