08/14/2010
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The Island
Last week I highlighted three episodes as evidence of the dystopian state of Sri Lankan politics. There are many more but one in particular deserves dishonourable mention: the KP interviews. The serialized media interviews of T.S. Pathmanathan (KP) should raise the concern whether Tamil politics in Sri Lanka is being reduced to the status of serial stories published in Tamil Nadu magazines like Kalki, Kumudham and Ananda Vihadan. All three were staple reading among Sri Lankan Tamil middle class families in better times. In hard times now, people have no time for stories but story telling is becoming the pastime in Tamil politics.
08/12/2010
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BBC
A panel looking into the final years of the Sri Lankan war has heard that the threat of conflict remains.
08/01/2010
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Lakbima
A commission inquiring into the failure of the ceasefire agreement and events leading to the war’s end will use locations near affected areas to record evidence from witnesses, said its chairman last week.
08/01/2010
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Himal Southasian
EDITORIAL Over a year after the end of the war, the Sri Lankan regime is continuing the politics of confrontation, undermining the possibilities for reconciliation in the post-war period. There remains an urgent need for reconciliation between multiple actors: between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities, polarised by nationalist mobilisation; between the state and minorities who have faced majoritarian discrimination; and between the government and the United Nations, which have become increasingly estranged. The challenge before Sri Lanka now is whether it can move forward as a genuinely multi-ethnic polity and an accepted member of the international community, particularly when local participation and international support are both vital for the reconstruction and development of the war-ravaged society. Since the end of the brutal conflict 15 months ago, Sri Lanka has also completed two national elections, ensuring the political stability of Mahinda Rajapakse’s government and strengthening his hand. However, the president’s actions on the ground, and his administration’s response to international engagement, would have one believe that the conflict was not over.
07/28/2010
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Daily Mirror
The month of July is a pertinent time to talk about communal politics and their impact on Sri Lanka. Finally at the end of three-decade-old war the country has arrived at a much desired juncture that must move away from past mistakes. These include revisiting the Black July, the origins of the war or the ethnic cleansing carried out under the leadership of Prabhakaran. These must only serve to facilitate a healing process that understands the devastation of ethnic politics.
07/21/2010
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IRIN
BANGKOK, 21 July 2010 (IRIN) - The defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Sri Lankan army last year and an overwhelming election victory by the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) could provide an opportunity for reconciliation.
07/18/2010
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Sunday Leader
An opinion piece by Tisaranee Gunasekara: The prime target of Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s delusive fast was neither the UN nor its Secretary General, but the Lankan public. Minister Weerawansa and his political handlers would have known that their attempt at blackmailing the UN Secretary General was bound to fail. And, as even the Sinhala nationalist defenders of Weerawansa’s actions admit, the fast was not really meant to end in, death. So why fast, if one knew that the UN was not going to knuckle down? And why call it a fast-unto-death, if there was no real intention of, fasting unto death? Minister Weerawansa’s was a pseudo fast (unto death) and its real aim was to delude the Lankan people into forgetting, at least momentarily, their many substantive discontents and rally round the Rajapaksas in outrageous ire against the ‘evil machinations’ of the latest ‘arch-villain’, Ban Ki Moon.
07/16/2010
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Khaleej Times
July 16--DUBAI -- Sri Lanka is finding its feet a year after the rout of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the death of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
07/15/2010
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The Economist
NEITHER Sri Lanka’s government, nor the United Nations seems ready to back down over an increasingly bitter dispute. This week a spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, confirmed that a panel of three experts will be convened as planned to advise him on “accountability” for war crimes that were allegedly committed as Sri Lanka brought its civil war to a bloody end early in 2009.
07/14/2010
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The National (UAE)
COLOMBO // Sri Lanka’s cabinet met yesterday in a town formerly held by Tamil rebels during the country’s 30-year civil war in the latest effort to try to heal the wounds left by the bloody conflict.