10/01/2010
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Himal Southasian
By: Tisaranee Gunasekara
With the passage of the 18th Amendment, the last real impediment to the Rajapakse dynasty has been removed.
09/30/2010
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Forbes
Sri Lanka has been in the news recently for not the best reasons. After being the best performing stock market globally for nearly two years, investor sentiment is beginning to shiftas disturbing news continues to emanate from that country. Earlier this month its Parliament passed an amendment scrapping presidential term limits and increased the concentration of power in the hands of the president. The government has been accused of war crimes–which it denies–and its foreign ministry refused to give visas to a three-person advisory panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to help the government investigate these accusations.
09/27/2010
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Jehan Perera, National Peace Council
BY JEHAN PERERA President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s participation at the UN General Assembly gave him a special opportunity to inform the world how his government dealt with war and is now dealing with post-war issues. At the General Assembly the President delivered a well crafted speech with aplomb. There were news reports that the government officers whose duty it was to ensure a high turnout of international delegates at the time of the speech were remiss in their duty. This was an opportunity not taken by the large retinue that accompanied the President. The government media reported that this speech had been highly commended with heads of state of Malawi, Saudi Arabia and Serbia amongst those who had sent congratulatory messages to the President.
09/26/2010
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The Guardian (UK)
In concentrating power in his own hands Mahinda Rajapaksa resembles the ruthless Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran
09/19/2010
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Sri Lanka Guardian
(September 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Having removed the sole really-existing impediment to dynastic rule with the 18th Amendment, the triumphant Rajapakses are hatching the next step in their constitutional revolution. According to Minister Maitripala Sirisena, the 19th Amendment will introduce a hybrid of proportional representation and first-past-the-post systems. It will also reform the 13th Amendment, the Indian-propelled constitutional provision which devolved a measure of power from the centre to the provinces and, thus, from the majority to the minorities.
09/19/2010
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Asian Tribune
The predictable guilty verdict against Gen. Sarath Fonseka by the second military tribunal and the overtly partisan manner in which the tribunal conducted itself indicate that the regime is no longer interested even in maintaining appearances.
It wants to punish Gen. Fonseka to the maximum and there can be little doubt that he will be found guilty by other tribunals and other courts, of any crime the Rajapakses see fit to accuse him of. And his fate would be a living lesson to any who think of seriously challenging Rajapakse power, especially from within the SLFP or the government.
09/17/2010
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WSJ
OPINION: Sri Lanka's president wants to stay in power for a long time. Only an organized opposition can stop him.
09/15/2010
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WSJ
One of Sri Lanka's unique achievements was preserving democratic rule through its 26-year bloody battle against Tamil Tiger insurgents. So it's troubling to see democracy—and the prosperity that ought to come with it—under threat now that there's peace in the land.
09/15/2010
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BBC
Sri Lankan officials have released impounded editions of The Economist magazine, its distributor says.
09/14/2010
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Groundviews
“Then they came for me” an oft quoted poem by German pastor Niemoller, in stressing the need for timely political action in difficult political contexts does have sense today, in its abstract form. Yet what is NOT said is that, Martin Niemoller was a dumb anti Communist who helped Hitler to come to power in Germany. What is NOT said is, his anti Communism supplemented Hitler’s racist ideology in letting lose a holocaust that made his poem irrelevant in Hitler’s Germany.