Month: December 2016

By Dharisha Bastians. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday vowed to make it his mission to topple the National Unity Government and regain power in 2017, nearly two years after he was ousted in a shocking election upset. During a meeting with Colombo-based foreign correspondents, the former President said that even though the National Unity Government currently held a two thirds majority, that balance of power could shift given the current political climate. “They are fighting with each other. It can’t go on like this. It is bad for the country,”…

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The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government’s efforts to give Sri Lanka a new constitution to address the vexed ethnic issue and strengthen democracy has hit a rough patch. While there were broad-based and transparent public consultations and sub-committees have submitted their reports to the Steering Committee presided over by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremsinghe, yet there is no clarity regarding the issues which have plagued the country since independence. Contentious issues like the nature of states, whether it will be federal or unitary; the Unit of Devolution, whether the Northern and Eastern provinces will…

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By Latheef Farook – Latheef Farook Racist politics cost $200 billion, death and destruction: Yet monster of racism begins to raise its ugly head and the country, many fear, is heading towards yet another disaster Two hundred billion US Dollar is a colossal sum of money especially for a tiny country like Sri Lanka though blessed with the best of natural wealth and a literate population. Converted even at the rate of Rs 145 it would be around 29,000 billion rupees. Had this national wealth been utilised to develop and…

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State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran raised some eyebrows with her recent speech where she admired the slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as an exemplary figure. She praised him as someone of a higher calibre than leaders in world politics. Some Sinhalese politicians dismissed this as an immature statement of a person who was making attempt to retain some popularity by a controversial statement on a terrorist leader. However, Vijayakala Maheswaran’s mistake of glorifying Prabhakaran blunted her message’s real meaning. She did not address the Sinhalese community. She was addressing the Tamil…

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by Shamindra Ferdinando Civil society grouping Left Centre supportive of the ruling UNP-SLFP coalition yesterday lambasted the administration for its failure to bring those responsible for the wartime assassination of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Nadarajah Raviraj to justice. An unidentified gunman shot dead MP Raviraj in Colombo in Nov, 2006. Addressing the media at the Centre for Society and Religion (CSR), Maradana, Saman Ratnapriya, Chameera Perera and Anura Bandara Rajaguru alleged that a spate of high profile crimes hadn’t been resolved so far. Ratnapriya cited TULF MP Joseph Pararajasingham’s…

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A draft Bill to give effect to the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) has been presented to Cabinet by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. However, the Defence Ministry and the Ministry of Law and Order have proposed amendments that have been sent back to the Prime Minister’s office for consideration. The Ministries of Finance and of Justice had also made observations. Earlier, Cabinet had granted approval for Sri Lanka to ratify the ICPPED and for a law to be drafted that would incorporate the…

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Prof. R. Sivachandran, a Central Committee member of Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), in an interview with the Dailymirror by email, advocates the Federal structure of government for the North and East. The ITAK is the dominant ally of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the moment. Expressing views at the time a constitution-making process is underway, he says powers cannot be devolved under a unity form of government as in today, fulfilling the aspirations of the Tamil people. Excerpts of the interview. Q. There is a strong demand for Federalism…

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Professor Emeritus of University of Peradeniya G. H. Peiris who has done extensive research in contemporary politics speaks about unitary and federal concepts, and the way forward for Sri Lanka. In an email interview with, Dailymirror he says the Eelam struggle remains despite the demise of LTTE leadership in the battlefront.   QThere is confusion in the minds of ordinary people on the unitary character of a constitution and Federalism. How do you define both? An unitary constitution is one which is designed to confine supreme political power of a nation-state…

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Raviraj killing: Sufficient evidence for indictment | Charges Filed Against Six Suspects in Raviraj’s M The Gun used for kill Raviraj belongs to SLA | At TMVP Leader “Pillaiyaan” Implicated in Assassin ‘Sinhala Only’ Jury for Raviraj case – UK TAMIL This further confirms erosion of faith in courts : lawyer Sumenthiran   (Lanka-e-News -25.Dec.2016, 11.55PM) It is a well known fact that even though Raviraj was murdered  during the Rajapakse regime , no investigations were duly conducted into it by the regime . However after  the good governance government…

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Flanked by two notorious Buddhist monks, Justice and Buddha Sasana Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe once again played with numbers, claiming that there were 28,000 Sinhalese in Batticaloa before the war, even though statistics released by the Department of Census and Statistics very clearly state that that there were only 11,255 Sinhalese in Batticaloa in 1981, in comparison to 233,713 Sri Lanka Tamils and 78,829 Sri Lanka Muslims. Addressing media at the Mangalarama in Batticaloa on Wednesday, in the presence of Bodu Bala Sena’s Galagoda Atte Gnanasara and Ampitiye Sumana, Rajapakshe also came to…

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Urges govt not to vacate Mailady By Shamindra Ferdinando The National War Heroes Front has taken up with President Maithripala Sirisena a range of contentious issues including the ongoing moves to introduce a new Constitution at the expense of Sri Lanka’s unitary status. The grouping urged President Maithripala Sirisena to ensure national security. The delegation included Major. Gen Kuma Herath, Colonel J. Ritigahapola, Major P. Undugoda, Major Arjuna de Silva (amputee), Chief Inspector Ariruwan, Warrant Officer Wikum Gunasekera (both legs amputated, Warrant Officer Nissanka, Corporal Mahiraj (wounded due to police…

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President Maithripala Sirisena has told the Global Sri Lanka Forum (GSLF) that the recommendations made by the constitutional sub-committee on Periphery and the Centre Relations were merely proposals, members of the group said on Thursday (22). Coordinator, Global Sri Lanka Forum (GSLF), a newly formed organization of Sri Lankan expatriates, Nuwan Ballantudawa, told a media briefing on Thursday that President had assured that the recommendations of the subcommittee on periphery and the centre will not be implemented or discussed in Parliament. The President had given this assurance when the GSLF…

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Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave 50 Million to kill MP Raviraj Says former police Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and senior human rights lawyer M.A. Sumanthiran says the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and Attorney-General’s Department had found evidence pointing to the involvement of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) in former Parliamentarian Nadaraja Raviraj assassination. Additionally, the public prosecutor’s indictment accused some “persons unknown to the prosecution” of being involved in the murder. “So it was obvious that a few junior-level naval officers had not done this on their own. They…

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