Month: September 2016

Lasantha Wickrematunge’s body will be exhumed years after he wrote a column saying the government would kill him. Before they came to kill him, Lasantha Wickrematunge wrote a 2,500-word story about how he was glad to be labeled a traitor, and happy to join the ranks of Sri Lanka’s dead journalists. Wickrematunge was killed as the country’s decades-long civil war neared its final months. For much of the 25-year fight between the government and Tamil Tiger separatists, Wickrematunge criticized the government for killing its own citizens, and he founded the…

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By Vishwamithra1984 – “I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine, one of the nation, of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest” ~ Walt Whitman, Song of Myself ‘It has merely been a talk shop with resolutions and statements. Its notorious genocide resolution a month after regime change…

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The CID has now received strong leads to identify the killers of Tamil journalist, ‘Tamilnet’ editor Dharmaratnam Sivaram alias Taraki, who was abducted by four persons in a white van near Bambalapitiya police station on 28 April 2005 and whose dead body was found from Kimbula Ela near parliament on the following day, say police headquarters sources. White Van abduction was commonly done with the fullest support of Rajapaksha government to silence any one who opposes the government. The White Van abduction was used to kill leading Tamil politicians and…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQicuaAMNmg [Tue, 27 Sep 2016, 18:36 GMT] The main message coming from the ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ uprising, especially from the people, who participated in their thousands, was that Tamils on the ground were not prepared to compromise their collective demand for self-rule in a merged North-East, said Jaffna-based human rights and civil activist Rev. Fr. M.V.E. Ravichandran in a video interview to TamilNet on Monday. Tamils reject the unitary system and the message has now been conveyed clearly to all the corners, he said. “Tamils want to live as a People…

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By Usha S Sri-Skanda Rajah – Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah Dear Mr. Obama, The continued, unfair and unjust labelling of the Tamil Tigers cannot stand. Please lift the ban on the LTTE. In the light of the opinion given by the advocate general to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to remove the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) from the European Union’s (EU’s) terror list, I am appealing to you, to give credence to that advice and act – it should now be accepted the continued unfair and unjust labelling of the Tamil…

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The Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Tamil majority Northern Province, C.V.Wigneswaran, on Saturday gave a clarion call for a people’s movement to raise issues pertaining to the Tamil people and thereby strengthen the hands of their elected representatives. Speaking at the “Ezhuga Tamizh” (Tamils Arise) rally at Jaffna, Wigneswaran said that the problems of the Tamil people cannot be solved just by getting elected to parliament or the provincial councils. They can be solved only by a people’s movement. Elected representatives cannot deliver the goods unless backed by a peoples’…

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Britain is at the forefront of a campaign to have Sri Lanka’s military prosecuted for what it insists were war crimes committed at the end of the war with the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But when it comes to allegations against its own forces, the British Government is unapologetically defensive. The BBC quotes Prime Minister Theresa May as saying she will not allow an “industry of vexatious allegations” against UK troops over claims of abuse in Iraq. This is in response to an inquiry by the Iraq Historic…

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A woman in Neervely, who was allegedly found torturing a six-year-old child in a video clip which was captured by a provincial journalist, was placed under remand custody after being produced before the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court. The woman was arrested after a complaint was lodged to police by the National Child Protection Authority after inspecting a video of the incident that is circulating on social media. Two children, in addition to the child in the video, were taken into police custody and was placed at the SOS Children’s Village in Nayanmarkatta.…

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The Anti-Corruption Secretariat (ACS) has received 434 complaints related to misappropriations of public funds amounting to billions of rupees during the tenure of the Mahinda Rajapaksha regime. ACS Director, Ananda Wijepala, said 317 complaints had already been submitted to the FCID for further investigation. He stated that of the remaining complaints, 28 had been submitted to the CID, 85 to the Bribery Commission and another seven to the IGP for further action. The majority of such misappropriations had taken place in institutions and companies attached to the State with several…

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The Government has adopted a national policy on the war-displaced, which acknowledges that one of the major obstacles to providing them with durable solutions for a return to normal life, is occupation of land by the military and police. The policy calls on the Ministry of Defence to coordinate with the Ministry of Law and Order, to accurately map out all land that is or was owned, claimed or used by civilians, and is currently occupied by any of the three forces or police. These should be returned to civilian…

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President Maithripala Sirisena arrived at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York amidst tight security as the city suffered a major security threat with an explosive device going off on the previous day injuring 29 persons, last Sunday (18). He was received at the Loews Regency Hotel by Minister of Foreign Affairs Mangala Samaraweera, Deputy Minister of Power and Renewable Energy, Ajith P. Perera, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to UN, Dr. Rohan Perera, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Washington, Prasad Kariyawasam and other officials. Dr. Rohan Perera, speaking to media…

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National Co-existence Dialogue and Official Languages Minister Mano Ganeshan pointed out that need of devolution of political power in war hit Majority Buddhist Island.  “It is difficult to talk to Sinhalese people about devolution of political power. They have a fear about another ethnic war. But devolution of political power is essential.” Minister Ganeshan said at Symposium on ‘War to Peace.’ The Symposium was organized by People’s Association for Peace and Development (PAPD) held at the auditorium of SEDEC-Sri Lanka on International Peace day of September 21, 2016. He added,…

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ECJ Advocate-General Eleanor Sharpston Citing Procedural Mistakes Wants LTTE and Hamas to be Removed from EU “Terror List” BRUSSELS: A top EU lawyer on Thursday said Islamist movement Hamas and Sri Lankan rebel group LTTE should be taken off the bloc’s terror list because procedural mistakes invalidated the decision to put them on it. The European Union imposed travel bans and asset freezes against Hamas and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam under 2001 rules. The groups subsequently contested being kept on the bloc’s terrorist black list. The General Court,…

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By Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe – Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe It is simply amazing how the very mention of these concepts in an open discourse on constitutional reform would immediately trigger frenzied, robotic responses from learned professors and self-appointed pundits. The response from Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka to Madam Chandrika’s remarks on the subject is instinctual, political and vituperative, and deliberately distorted and misleading. Federalism His argument has three main points. First, that federalism inherently contains the element of separatism. This is empirically unsupported, as in classic examples such as the US, India,…

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Sinhala racist trend has not ceased to exist and continues unabated, Their hate language is more akin to the Trumpian lobby in the US. By Mohamed Harees – Lukman Harees Listening to the video recording of Galagoda Atte Gnanasara (Thero)’s anti Muslim hate speech in South Korea, I began to realize how well he fits into the title of a ‘Modern Devadatta’. Devadatta tried to assassinate his cousin Buddha . However this modern Devadatta version in saffron robes has already killed the spirit of the message of peace enunciated by the Buddha.…

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