Threats to Media Freedom in Sri Lanka Increasing Dramatically, Says Amnesty International

In a new report released today, Amnesty International warned that hostilities by Sri Lankan authorities are escalating in the country. In addition, threats to the media and media freedoms inside Sri Lanka have increased dramatically. [TC]

British Foreign Secretary comments on 60th Anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence

He said:

‘The 60th anniversary of Sri Lankan independence is a time to reflect on the health and welfare of the nation and its people as it moves forward in the 21st century. The cycle of violence in Sri Lanka has worsened in recent weeks. Civilian lives have been lost from all communities and regions of Sri Lanka. The end of the formal 2002 cease-fire pagreement does not remove the obligation of all parties to the conflict to protect civilian life. [FI]

“Nation building project continues to be a failure”

By Rohan Edrisinha

Sixty years ago, at the time of Ceylon’s independence from colonial rule, the country was considered Asia’s brightest prospect. Today, Sri Lanka is far, far away from that objective. Indeed, today Sri Lanka is a nation state in deep crisis and its Independence Day celebrations were held amidst bombs, fear and insecurity, not only in the north and east, but even in Colombo. Ten years ago at the 50th Anniversary celebrations, President Kumaratunga reflected that the country had failed in one of its major challenges, that of nation building. Today, the nation building project continues to be a failure, and sadly does not even seem to be a priority of the present political leadership. [FI]

Tamil student among teammates killed at Fort Railway station

“D.S. is a different kind of school. In fact, it is unique because here all ethnic and religious groups live under the same roof, in peace and harmony. This is exactly what the world requires. It is a global need which we practice at the college,” this is what Principal, Ashoka Senani Hewage, said about D.S. Senanayake College in a media interview in 2006. [TC]

Jaffna born youth creates sensation in LA: First Tamil artist to release English rap CD

A Jaffna born youth recently made a sensation in the Los Angeles when he became the first Tamil artist to release an English Rap CD.

The launch was was held at a Hollywood Landmark Mansion which belongs to a Sri Lankan in Los Angeles. [TC]

Sri Lanka at Sixty: The unfinished task of nation building

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

President Mahinda Rajapakse in his address to the nation on our 60th independence day observed thus

”Our challenge today is to be true to the nation”.

He also stated ” our resolve will take us to the creation of a truly free and independent nation in our motherland”

Brave words indeed! [FI]

IFJ Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting, Kuala Lumpur-Joint Statement to President and Government of Sri Lanka

We, the representatives of journalists’ unions and associations across the Asia-Pacific region, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, appeal to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Government of Sri Lanka to protect the safety of journalists in Sri Lanka and uphold the rights of the media to report freely.

What Dayan Jayatilake fails to understand….

by Mano Ganesan

A brief response to Dayan Jayatilake’s ‘Fighting Absolute Enemy‘:

Mr. Dayan Jayatilake lectures on fascism. He has taken great efforts to identify the enemy. And tirelessly describes this enemy as the enemy of Sinhalese, Tamils and all the peoples of Lanka. [TC]

Gotabhaya Rajapakse is making false allegations against me

by Mano Ganesan

I bet my head if Gotabaya Rajapakse proves any of his ‘LTTE link’ allegations against me. He has got his facts, if any mixed-up and he is in the state of confusion. It is because he is speaking out of vengeance. The Vengeance is over our Civil Monitoring Commission’s human rights campaign against abductions, extortions and extra-judicial killings and also reflection of the government’s anger that I did not follow the ’silence for perk’ paths of ministers Thondaman and Chandrasekaran. [TC]

60 Years of Travel Along Ethnical Arrogant Path

By Kusal Perera

In all probability, this year’s Independence Day celebrations would be a show of military might with a strong call for patriotism. It would be a call to bear difficulties with a promise to end terrorism once and for all. [FI]

New APRC proposals have divided Mahinda regime

by Dr.Vickramabahu Karunaratne

It is idiotic, to say the least, for the Government to tell the public after wasting time and money for one and a half years, that a part of the existing Constitution is the solution to the Tamil national problem or is the first stage to such a solution. [FI]

Anandasangaree, Devananda, Petain and Quisling

by Kumar David

According to some Sunday (27th) newspapers Mr Anandasangaree will be anointed Governor of the proposed Interim Administration for the Northern Province and Mr Douglas Devananda appointed as Chairman of the Interim Council. Although the names Quisling and Petain have become synonyms for “traitor” Marshal Petain at least was a highly decorated soldier and in his own way an honourable administrator though Quisling was a rather more murky character. [TC]

How “Col” Karuna Exposed Colonel Gotabhaya Rajapakse In Britain

By Ranjith Jayasundera

The sentencing of Karuna Amman in a British Court last Friday has burst open a legal and diplomatic Pandora’s Box for the Sri Lankan government. Given the rate at which evidence is piling up from all quarters to prove that the government spearheaded the smuggling of Karuna into the United Kingdom, it will soon be impossible to avoid the international ramifications that follow.

Confession made by “Colonel” Karuna

The following is an extract from Crown Prosecution Advocate, Robert Meikle’s speech at Karuna’s sentencing hearing, wherein he reads out of Karuna’s statement to the Metropolitan Police:

He said he had been living in Sri Lanka and wanted to come to London as his family and children were in the United Kingdom. He told the investigating officer that the Sri Lankan Government gave him the passport and sent him to the United Kingdom. [TC]

Sri Lankan Tamils after Sixty Years of Independence I

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

Sixty is a magic number in the Hindu astrological calendar. Each year has a distinctive name.The names for these years number sixty . All years come and go in a cycle of sixty. So people born in a particular year will find themselves celebrating their sixtieth birthday in the year with the same name.The sixtieth birthday itself is regarded as a milestone and observed ceremoneously by many. [TC]

Buddhism, Nationalism and Politics

By Dr. S. Narapalasingam

On 4 February 2008, Sri Lanka will be in the 60th year of independence. Although the Government will celebrate the day pompously, the people carrying the burden of the internal war and the high cost of living will have little cause to rejoice. Politicians, particularly those who have benefited tangibly and those anxious to seek power that could be easily abused under the system introduced to serve the self-interests of the power holders will brag about the past achievements and deceptively highlight some positives expected in the near future. [FI]

The long journey towards real freedom

by Rt.Rev Duleep de Chickera

A Message to the Nation on the occasion of Sri Lanka’s National Day

This year we celebrate 60 years of independence from British colonial rule. Our history as an independent people was interrupted and suppressed at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the invasion by the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and the British. There is yet to be an apology from the former colonial powers, for the violence and exploitation to the economy and cultures of countries like ours. [TC]

Sri Lanka at Sixty: Fighting the Absolute Enemy

by Dayan Jayatilleka

“The only question therefore is this: is there an absolute enemy and who is it in concreto?”-Carl Schmitt

Sri Lanka turns sixty this Monday, February 4th. It has been in a single stage (albeit with many phases) of history from the year it turned 35, in 1983. For the past quarter century its destiny has been determined by the secessionist war. Now at sixty, the long war approaches its decisive peak, a highest stage of intensity which therefore also marks its last stage. [TC]

Is Democracy Ready for Sri Lanka?

By Subra S. Massey

After 60 years of freedom from the Europeans Sri Lanka is fasts becoming an un-democratic and non-democratic country. When the current President, Mr.Mahinda Rajapaksa proclaims that negotiations will be held with the LTTE after they have been defeated in the war, I came to the conclusion that Sri Lanka is not ready for freedom and democracy. [TC]

January 30th 1948: The Day “Mahatma” Gandhi Was Assassinated

By Lloyd. R. Devarajah

As I was playing truant and was very poor in my Tamil, I left St. Peter’s College Bambalapitiya where I was a student from 1937 and joined Jaffna College, Vaddukoddai on January 17, 1948. Jaffna College which was my father’s alma mater was founded by American missionaries in 1822. [TC]

Parameters of Second Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka

By A.K. Verma

The cyclical politics of Sri Lanka are again at cross roads. The choice before the Sri Lankan Central Government is between expediency and statesmanship. The majoritarian complexes, as in the past, stand like an immovable rock limiting the options before the Government. [TC]

Sri Lanka’s Underwater Defence Systems-Killing Two Birds with a Single Stone?

by Commodore RS Vasan IN Retd.

The news paper reports on 23rd January 2008 about the installation of the “Underwater defence systems” in Sri Lankan waters is indeed an interesting phase in the fight against the Sea tigers soon after the abrogation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA). [TC]

2008 Report: Human Rights Watch Highlights Abuses in Sri Lanka

Democracy Charade Undermines Rights

The established democracies are accepting flawed and unfair elections for political expediency, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2008. By allowing autocrats to pose as democrats, without demanding they uphold the civil and political rights that make democracy meaningful, the United States, the European Union and other influential democracies risk undermining human rights worldwide. [TC]

Interim Administration for Merged North-East Must be Set-up First

By A.R. Arular

Preamble

This article was originally written by the author in 2001 under the title ‘Sri Lanka - The Way Forward’ and circulated in Colombo and Trincomalee. The article draws on authors own experience of implementing the 13th Amendment as Head of the Research Division of the Chief Minister’s Secretariat of the North East Provincial Council and how it cold be made a basis for resolving the so called ethnic problem. [FI]

Negative Criticism of the APRC Proposals

By Rajiva Wijesinha

There has been much discussion recently regarding the proposals of the APRC which the Government has decided to implement. Much of this is based on ignorance and illogicality, and is symptomatic of a general tendency to look at matters in a negative frame of mind. [FI]

Northern Province Requires Good Governance And Not Interim Administration

by S.L.Gunasekara

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution [forced down our throats by the Indian Government] was an unmitigated disaster which resulted in the creation of Eight ‘White Elephants’ called ‘Provincial Councils’ and a proliferation of political functionaries in the form of Provincial Ministers, Members of Provincial Councils and their ‘hangers on’ which drained the public purse of colossal amounts of funds which ought to have been used for the benefit of the People and not for the benefit of such functionaries. [TC]

The Real A.P.R.C. Report Must Be Presented To Public By February 4th

by Rohini Hensman

What a fiasco! We were promised the long-awaited APRC proposals would be released on January 23rd, and what did we get? The 13th Amendment was taken out of the corner where it had been mouldering for twenty years, the cobwebs were dusted off, and it was presented to us as the solution to our problems

APRC Proposals: Cover for Perpetuating Repressive Structures in the North-East

by Rajan Hoole

There is a disingenuously surreal quality about the President’s discovery that the Provincial Councils Bill of 1987 is the answer to giving the people of the North-East a say in their affairs. We need not detail his and his own party’s opposition to the Indo-Lanka Accord which the JVP used to trigger a bloodbath, whose continuing legacy is a nation wallowing in impunity. [FI]

“Military thinking” of govt. cannot help resolve problem

“Thirteenth amendment-no interim or final solution to ethnic conflict “Military thinking” of govt. cannot help resolve problem”-TNA leader R. Sampanthan

by Lynn Ockersz

So, the 13th amendment never came up in the APRC. The 13th amendment was something President Rajapaksa clung to as a last straw because he was not able to come up with a set of political proposals, which the international community was insisting he must do. Therefore, the 13th amendment is no interim or final solution to the Tamil question and can never be acceptable. [FI]

2 Year Anniversary of the Abduction and Execution of the 7 TRO Humanitarian Workers

Full Text of Press Statement by iTRO:

Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) offices today took time to pay their respects and remember the 7 TRO humanitarian workers who were abducted on 29 and 30 January 2006 while traveling through the Welikanda area in the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) controlled Polonaruwa District. [TC]

Sri Lankan defense secretary endorses media repression

Full Text of press statement by The Committee to Protect Journalists, NY

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s brazen public call yesterday to censor the media and reintroduce criminal defamation laws. The comments were published in a Sinhala-language interview by Sri Lanka’s largest weekly, Sunday Lankadeepa, according to Free Media Movement spokesman Sunanda Deshapriya and veteran Sri Lankan journalist Iqbal Athas. [TC]

Irresponsible comments and actions by ministers endanger journalists

Full text of the press release issued by Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), Paris-based media rights advocacy group on Jan 29th:

Reporters Without Borders appealed today to President Mahinda Rajapakse to rein in various government ministers whose inflammatory comments and incitements to violence have serious threatened the safety of dozens of Sri Lankan journalists. [TC]

Maestro Murali: Spin Wizard of Sri Lanka

by Dr. Baptist Croos F.S.C

A nation’s history is embellished by the names of its illustrious sons and daughters ‘its ingenious inventors, chivalrous discoverers, statesmen, painters, scholars, entrepreneurs, patriots, artistes, sportsmen and the whole gamut of professionals.. The latest addition to this impressive galaxy is none other than Muttaiah Muralitharan, the spin-wizard or just ‘Murali’, as he is popularly called, who has made Mother Lanka proud by breaking the world-record for the number of wickets, previously held by the flamboyant Shane Warne of Australia. By any standard, Murali’s record is a remarkable achievement indeed! [TC]

Will there be a third JVP uprising?

by Dr.Vickramabahu Karunaratne

The Government hastily removed the ill-fated health services department circular. It appeared like a bomb blast, disturbing the entire worker population and it disappeared before one could say ‘why?’ [TC]

Caught Between Tweedledum and Tweedledee

by Col R Hariharan (retd)

Sri Lanka is all set to implement the 13th Amendment of the Constitution in full as recommended by the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) “as a prelude to the APRC proposals.” This is what the APRC has recommended to President Rajapaksa in its interim proposal (given in appendix below). And the President wanted it to do so and it has done it. Driving the devolution ghost is as simple as that, it seems. [FI]