Human Rights Council defeat a wake up call

Statement by National Peace Council of Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka’s recent unsuccessful bid to maintain its representation on the UN Human Rights Council following a vote by the General Assembly is another event that highlights the deteriorating condition of human rights in the country. Sri Lanka was one of the initial members of elected to the Human Rights Council in 2006 and might have reasonably expected to be re-elected. [TC]

Abduction and release of journalist: End this impunity, says NPC [TC]

Journalist badly beaten up an bruised

Keith Noyahr, deputy editor with the English weekly The Nation, was abducted on Thursday night.

A day later, he was dropped off near his residence, badly beaten up and bruised, says the Free Media Movement, a media rights group in Sri Lanka. [TC]

Children of war wait for better lives

The election of the former child soldier Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan as first chief minister of Sri Lanka’s eastern provincial administration has been welcomed as a sign that stability and the rule of law might be returning to the region after more than two decades of conflict. [TC]

East: Stability on cliffhanger after election

by Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz

The government conducted the first provincial elections in two decades on May 10 in the Eastern Province. The ruling colaition of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) through an electoral alliance with the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) and an “understanding” with the dissidents of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) grabbed 20 of the 37 seats in the Eastern Provincial Council. The TMVP is a breakaway group of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that seeks a separate state for the country’s minority Tamils in the north and east. [FI]

Former child soldier swaps camouflage for lounge suit

by Namini Wijedasa

Ex-Tamil Tiger rebel turned chief minister desperately trying to shed his terrorist label

President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week made an ex-child soldier the powerful chief minister of Sri Lanka’s Eastern province, causing journalists to rummage wildly for some background on the little-known breakaway rebel. [TC]

Vote Sri Lanka off Human Rights Council, Nobel Prize Winners tell UN

 

Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize from three continents called on UN members to reject Sri Lanka’s candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council, the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council said today. Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, and Jimmy Carter of the United States each published statements urging opposition to Sri Lanka because of its abusive human rights record. [TC]

Resettled IDPs rebuilding livelihoods

Tharmalingam Sudarshan, a farmer, returned to his home in Vavunathivu town, Batticaloa District, in eastern Sri Lanka in July 2007, having fled the area for three months due to conflict between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and government forces. He found his house destroyed by elephants, his belongings looted and his farmland fallow. [FI]

Marxism and ethnocentric nationalism

By Dr. S. Narapalasingam

The recent split in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-People’s Liberation Front has revealed the contradictions within the party as well as between ideologies and realpolitik. Besides the clash of personalities between Wimal Weerawansa, the party’s high profile propaganda secretary cum parliamentary group leader and Somawansa Amarasinghe the senior politburo leader, there are other reasons for the rift. [FI]

The murder of “Small Parrot” Maheswari at “Mongoose-Geko” Lane

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

Maheswari who was born on July 17th 1955 hailed from a middle - class family in Karaveddy. Her father was attached to the CTB of old and was a popular figure among school children. Her mother was a school teacher at Vikneswara College [TC]

Pillaiyan, Hizbullah, Keerthi and The Eastern Provincial Council

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

The Rajapakse regime registered a remarkable achievement on Friday May 16th when Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias “Pillaiyan” took his oaths at President’s house before President Mahinda Rajapakse as chief minister of the Eastern provincial council [TC]

Eastern Provincial Council Election & its Results

By Col. R.Harharan (Retd)

The swearing in of Sivanesathurai Chandirakanthan (better known as Pillaiyan, his nom de guerre of militancy days) as the chief minister of the newly created eastern provincial council on May 16, 2008 marks a new turn in Sri Lanka politics [FI]

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Split

by Jayadeva Uyangoda

The radical, Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has split, the real reasons for which are not yet clear. Among the various possible reasons are the mainstream jvp’s unease with a breakaway faction’s Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist project and the collision of the Sinhalese nationalist and class struggle lines within the party. [FI]

Flawed democracy and prosecution of war cannot win peace

by National Peace Council of Sri Lanka:

The suicide bombing in a busy street in Colombo’s commercial area of Fort, targeting buses in which riot police were stationed have killed at least 10 and injured another 95 including civilians passing by in the vicinity. The National Peace Council condemns this attack which has the hallmarks of the LTTE. [FI]

All Lands Home

In Pictures: Few Survivors Found in China Quake

Soldiers rested after working to clear debris of a chemical plant's dormitory in search of earthquake victims in Renhe village on the outskirts of Shifang, one of the hard-hit cities of Sichuan Province, in southwestern China [NYTimes]

Arts - Culture- Heritage

Bhushany Kalyanaraman, Carnatic Musician

Single-minded devotion to Carnatic music — that sums up Bhushany Kalyanaraman. Hers is an extraordinary tale, spanning oceans. Born and brought up in Colombo, Sri Lanka, it was a typical Tamil household where her father used to ensure that everyone was awake at 5 a.m., reciting the Tiruvempavai. A renowned musician, her father had won the title "Sangita Bhushanam" from Annamalai University. All her sisters too sang well [TW]

Tamil Movie Review: Captain Back in Action 

All you need to make a film work is a neat screenplay that's translated well on screen, with little interference in the form of misplaced comedy scenes and item numbers. And, director Madesh has got it right in Captain Cine Creations' Arasangam, produced by L. K. Sudeesh. [Hindu]

New Cinema from Eastern Europe

by K.S. Sivakumaran

Viewers of International Cinema would know that countries in the Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Czechoslovakia produced some excellent films during the 1960s and 70s. Directors like Roman Polanski, Andre Wajda (pronounced as Waida) and others come to mind in this connection. [TW]