04/26/2011
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Groundviews
Leaked versions of the UN Panel’s report found their way into The Island newspaper, where over the past week, Groundviews has contextualised the content that was published in print. Today, the Hindustan Times published an article based on the full version of the report, based on a leaked version of the full report the paper had acquired. Interestingly, the unimaginable horror highlighted in the HT’s report (body parts of babies on tree tops after shelling by the Army) is not content that was published in The Island.
04/25/2011
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Groundviews
In less than two weeks since the Darusman Report (hereinafter referred to as the Report) was handed over to the United Nations Secretary General (hereinafter referred to as UNSG), a large number of articles have been written about the report, its motivations and on its impact on Sri Lanka. Except in several exceptions, the majority of these renderings seem to have lost the plot, in their failure to provide adequate attention to several key issues surrounding the report, or the ‘leaked’ version of it published in the Sri Lankan newspaper The Island. Public reactions to the leaked sections of the Report are best glimpsed from Groundviews, where comments made by readers include rather heated debates on issues such as the number of Eelam War IV casualties raised in the Report.
04/24/2011
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The Sunday Leader
BY TISARANEE GUNASEKARA The mysterious leaking in Colombo of the Darusman (UN) Report was accompanied by a carefully choreographed outbreak of patriotic-hysteria. The President, in a hyperbolic-excess, declared his willingness to brave the electric chair (unaware that capital punishment is rejected by the International Criminal Court!). He also indicated his desire to turn the UPFA May Day demonstration into an anti-UN melee (does this explain the timing of the leak?). His brother, in a warning to India and the West, announced Sri Lanka’s willingness to seek protection by entering Chinese and Russian orbits. The various Rajapaksas acolytes are competing with each other in fear-mongering, as if the UN is amassing a mammoth-force to invade Sri Lanka, tomorrow.
04/24/2011
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Hindustan Times
Artillery fire from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) positions targetted civilians inside the `no firing zone’ (NFZ) near the north eastern coast and bombed the United Nations (UN) hub, set up to aid displaced Tamils during the final stages of the civil war, the expert panel report to the UN has claimed. Hindustan Times has a copy of the "Report of the Secretary General’s panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka", which was submitted to the UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s office, earlier this month, but is yet to be made public.
04/22/2011
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Groundviews
The Island newspaper continues to publish leaks from the report produced by the Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into post-war accountability in Sri Lanka. Groundviews has covered in detail the Executive Summary and Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the leaks.
The Island published today Part 5, which focusses on the conditions faced by IDPs in the aftermath of the violent denouement of the war in the Vanni.
04/22/2011
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Groundviews
The report on accountability produced by the panel appointed by the UN Secretary General hasn’t yet officially released it to the public domain. What little is known of its contents comes from leaks published in the mainstream media. Sinhala mainstream media have not translated and published in full the leaked version of the executive summary. Commentary in the mainstream media, including in the newspaper the leaks are published in, is vituperatively dismissive. Even senior members of government haven’t been shared copies of the report. Scanned copies of what appears to be the original executive summary have started to appear online on individual blogs. The UN Country office says it has not seen a copy of the report. Mainstream media reportage has focussed on vehement government denials. In sum, there is little or no information on the UN Panel’s report and its official contents with a lot of spin and misinformation.
04/21/2011
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Groundviews
The Island newspaper continues to publish leaks from the report produced by the Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into post-war accountability in Sri Lanka. Groundviews has covered in detail the Executive Summary and Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the leaks.
The Island published today Part 4, which focusses on the significant discrepancies between the United Nations and the Government on estimating the number of civilians trapped in the Vanni during the final stages of the war, and how this numbers debate resulted in horrific ground conditions.
04/19/2011
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Groundviews
The Island newspaper continues to publish leaks from the report produced by the Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka. Groundviews flagged key points and placed in context what is widely acknowledged to be the executive summary of the report, published in The Island newspaper on Saturday. On the 17th and 19th of April, the newspaper published two more excerpts from the body text of the report. Going by the newspaper’s introduction to Part 1, we can expect much more content in the future, which begs the question as to why the UN itself hasn’t yet officially released the report into the public domain.
05/19/2010
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TransCurrents
It is with dismay that I read the news report on the front page of The Island of Thursday, May 6th, titled’ ‘TRAITORS SHOULD BE GIVEN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT’, with an inset that ‘Defence Secretary Rajapaksa says the LTTE rump is exploring every avenue to avenge Prabhakaran’s killing on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon last May’.
11/04/2009
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The Island
JVP MP argues that president's brothers should give up American citizenship.