WHAT'S HOT IN SRI LANKA



	Sri Lanka where "stupidity" becomes a 'key word' in political policy

2009-07-21

It was a total misfortune. Yes, to have read the draft that became the new UNP policy when unanimously adopted by two committees of the UNP and its "working committee" headed by their leader Wickramasinghe for a proposed "broad national consensus (alliance)", according to a news web site that has since a fortnight been blocked to the Sri Lankan surfers from Sri Lanka. It is now clear, here in Sri Lanka, the Tamil people would have to find their own solution(s) to their decades old political grievances, some day, if not sooner, then later.

The two major political parties are set to compete in riding the "Sinhala wave" for sheer Southern popularity. For the rest of Sri Lanka, it is going to be an eternal "political conflict" with no options to choose from, with the new UNP policy borrowing a phrase from the JHU-NFF ideology. "The war in the North is now over. That is reason for joy" the policy document says, promising economic development by "Bhoomi-puthras".

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	An article from the Sri Lanka Guardian forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: Zero Faith in Governance

2009-07-16

“Lasantha from the Leader paper went overboard. I took care of him. Poddala agitated and his leg was broken. Now a fellow in my electorate is trying to stand against me. I now tell him in his own hometown, I will give him only seven more days. If he does not resign as chairman of the Kelaniya Pradeshiya Sabha, don’t blame me later on. You’ll don’t find fault with me. If this fellow goes against what I say, I will send him to the place where I sent Lasantha,” Non-cabinet Labor Minister Mervin Silva stated publicly at a meeting in Hunupitiya, Kelaniya on 9th July.

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	Tribute to Lasantha Wickramatunge. Sri Lanka towards totalitarian state through monopolizing media industry

2009-07-07

Lasantha Wickramatunge was not in Sri Lanka. President Rajapaksha assigned a duty to a Deputy Minister, Faiser Musthapa. That was for him to bring Lal, Lasantha’s brother, to his presence. Lal was not only Lasantha’s brother but the Chairman of the Leader Group of Publications.

The Deputy Minister called Lal on the phone to say he would be coming to this company to convey an important piece of news. Lal awaited Faiser’s arrival. Faiser came as promised and asked Lal to get into his vehicle telling him that they could talk while travelling in the vehicle. Lal, who was nonplussed, got into Faiser’s vehicle. Instead of telling why he came to meet Lal, Faiser began drawing a red herring. Meantime, he ordered his driver to proceed with his driving. The vehicle with security personnel for VIPs was following. All at once, the vehicle with Lal inside turned sharply into “Temple Trees” where the President was residing. Lal had nothing to say.

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	Sri Lanka’s disregard for public opinion

2009-07-07

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	Sri Lanka authorities complicit in torture

2009-06-29

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	Is the war really over? - Lionel Bopage

2009-06-29

The end of the conventional war in the north and the east of Sri Lanka witnessed the almost total annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) including its leadership. However, the Government forces are still carrying out clearing up operations throughout the island. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered; many thousands wounded; hundreds of thousands expelled from their habitats and many hundreds of thousands interned into camps. The deaths of the militants have been celebrated by the overwhelming majority of the Sinhalese and some of the Tamils and Muslims. The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is allegedly engaged in destroying any incriminating evidence of its culpability in war crimes. The fate of three doctors, who were earlier praised by the UN for their heroic services to the wounded during the war, serves as an example.

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	Reconciliation and painful realities on ground

2009-06-27 | www.dbsjeyaraj.com

A harsh fact of life is the hiatus between rhetoric and reality.

One is starkly reminded of the chasm between promise and performance as we see current developments unfolding.

On the one hand there is the very discernible yearning of ordinary people from all ethnicities to put the past behind us and move forward to reconciliation, justice,amity and unity.

But there are other forces obstructing this natural process by obstinately sticking to obscurantist ideology.

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	The Whole World is Watching The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media

2009-06-20 | By HENRY A. GIROUX

As the uprisings in Iran illustrate, the new electronic technologies and social networks they have produced have transformed both the landscape of media production and reception, and the ability of state power to define the borders and boundaries of what constitutes the very nature of political engagement. Indeed, politics itself has been increasingly redefined by a screen culture and newly emergent public spaces of education and resistance embraced by students and other young people.1 For example, nearly 75 percent of Iranians now own cell phones and are quite savvy in utilizing them.2 Screen culture and its attendant electronic technologies have created a return to a politics in which many young people in Iran are not only forcefully asserting the power to act and express their criticisms and support of Mir Hussein Moussavi but also willing to risk their lives in the face of attacks by thugs and state sponsored vigilante groups. Texts and images calling for “Death to the dictator” circulate in a wild zone of representation on the Internet, YouTube, and among Facebook and Twitter users, giving rise to a chorus of dissent and collective resistance that places many young people in danger and at the forefront of a massive political uprising. Increasingly reports are emerging in the press and other media outlets of a number of protesters being attacked or killed by government forces.

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	A letter of unity by Mohan

2009-06-11

I write this with a lot of sadness, relief and hope, form what has happened in the past few months. As a Tamil, (and proud to be one) I deeply feel that together, we can build the burnt bridges and pave a path to peace,
happiness, equality and prosperity for us and for the future generations to come.

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	The Way Forward

2009-06-11

I used to call Balasingham Nadesan, the late political commissar of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Mahendran mama. He was a soft spoken and a very gentle man. Mahendran mama used to come to our flat on Park Road often to talk politics with my father over a couple of drinks. I and my brother used to sit on his lap and listen to politics. Balasingham Nadesan was then a constable of the Sri Lanka Police and a member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. He was married to a Sinhalese woman from down south. That was the extent of Balasingham Nadesan’s integration with the Sri Lankan state and society. The violence and the humiliation he experienced in the 1983 anti-Tamil riots drove him north to join the burgeoning Tamil militancy and he eventually became a Tiger.

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	Lion, Tiger and lies

2009-05-27 | http://week.manoramaonline.com

A war crime? The death of Charles Anthony,
Prabhakaran's son, raises questions

SRI LANKA
Too many loose ends in Lankan army's version of Prabhakaran's death
By Anita Pratap
Precisely because he is many things to many people, LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran’s death has been greeted with joy by the Sinhalese, grief by his Tamil supporters, and relief by many who hope his death will bring peace to beleaguered Sri Lanka.

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	Tamil Vision(s) and Sinhala Concerns

2009-05-23 | By Sankajaya Nanayakkara

Mao said that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. In the raging battles in Mullaitivu, the Sri Lankan security forces are liquidating the fighting formations of the Liberation Tigers and hence, the Tamil nation’s bargaining power with the Colombo government is being dissolved in the process. In these circumstances, some fear that the Tamils will have to be content with whatever is given from Colombo. In an interview with the Daily Mirror, October 16, 2008, the Sinhala supremacist Jathika Hela Urumaya ideologue and the Minister of Environment, Champika Ranawaka, says “...once the LTTE is destroyed no solution can be forced upon us by anyone.” The leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and their uncritical backers are as responsible as Sinhala dominated governments for the present predicament of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

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	Punish all who prolonged the war'

2009-05-14

Environment and NaturalMinister Patali Champika RanawakaMinister Patali Champika Ranawaka Resources Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka told the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation's Sinhala Service this week that the politicians and NGO ‘peaceniks’ who deliberately prolonged Sri Lanka’s armed conflict for 30 years under the pretext of searching for ‘peace’ and ‘negotiated settlements’ with the LTTE should be put on trial at the Galle Face Green, Colombo. The parents and families of thousands of security forces members and police personnel - who perished in vain as a result - should determine the punishment to be given to the guilty.

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	Satellite Imagery Offers Glimpse on Sri Lankan War Zone

2009-05-14

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