09/05/2011
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Lanka Standard
The Emergency is dead. Long live the Emergency Consequential Provisional Bill. By TISARANEE GUNASEKARA
06/25/2011
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TransCurrents
Why would a supposedly democratic government reject a freedom of information bill? Why do the Rajapaksas want to prevent the Lankan people from discovering the real state of the nation?
05/01/2011
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dissenting dialogues
The entire issue of dissenting dialogues, Issue No 3, May 2011 can be downloaded as a pdf file through this link. Articles in Issue No 3, May 2011 of dissenting dialogues include: Editorial—Two years after the war: justice, reconciliation and the UN Panel Report; Space, time and cricket: from M.C.C to M-C-M’—by Kanishka Goonewardena; Socialism was in the air we breathed, says Wimal Fernando—Interview with dissenting dialogues; The dynamics of caste politics in Jaffna—Interview with dissenting dialogues; The National Question in Sri Lanka: What are we talking about?—Rohini Hensman; War, peace and the Darusman report—Tisaranee Gunasekara
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.
09/19/2010
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Sunday Leader
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.
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.
06/11/2010
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TransCurrents
It defies reason. The year the war was at its most intense and critical, Sri Lanka’s defence allocation was Rs. 177 billion; but in the first year of peace Sri Lanka’s defence allocation increased by a massive Rs.24 billion to Rs. 201 billion. Normally, defence expenditure increases in times of war and decreases (or stabilises) once peace dawns. Sri Lanka has become the antithesis of this norm; in this surreal land, defence expenditure actually increases during peacetime.