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Tension over army 'seizure' of Sri Lanka Jaffna land

[ BBC ][ May 25 05:50 GMT ]

There are growing tensions in northern Sri Lanka as Tamil people try to prevent the Sinhalese-dominated army from taking over their land. In a new development, villagers have driven out a group of surveyors sent by the authorities. Thousands more are engaged in court action to try to win back land they were displaced from years ago. [ full story | comments ]

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Tension over army 'seizure' of Sri Lanka Jaffna land

There are growing tensions in northern Sri Lanka as Tamil people try t...

Sri Lanka remembers to forget

On 18 May 2013 the government of Sri Lanka ‘celebrated’ the fourth...

A bloodied childhood in war-torn Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Tamil poet and journalist Theepachelvan Pratheepan shares t...

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Sri Lanka monk attempts to self-immolate

[ AFP ][ May 25 05:48 GMT ]

A Sri Lankan monk set himself on fire on Friday to protest the slaughter of cattle, in the country’s first attempt at self-immolation by a monk, police said. The monk doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself ablaze near a temple in the central town of Kandy during an important Buddhist festival, police said. “Policemen near the temple doused the flames and rushed the monk to hospital,” police spokesman Buddhika Siriwardena told AFP. [ full story | comments ]

Govt. concerned over MoU between US Embassy and Trinco UC

[ Daily Mirror ][ May 24 10:15 GMT ]

The Sri Lanka government yesterday expressed concern over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US embassy in Colombo and the Trincomalee Urban Council to jointly establish a public information and activity centre known as the American Corner, without the knowledge or the authorisation of the Sri Lanka External Affairs Ministry. Government sources said that foreign missions based in Colombo should obtain prior approval or inform to the External Affairs Ministry of Sri Lanka whenever they need to engage with local authorities - which is the international norm. [ full story | comments ]

China to lend $580 mln for Sri Lanka development projects

[ Reuters ][ May 23 10:25 GMT ]

hina Development Bank Corporation will lend $580 million to Sri Lanka to help implement key infrastructure projects, a government document released on Wednesday showed. The loan will bring CDB's total lending to Sri Lanka to more than $1.4 billion. China's increasing influence in the island nation has stoked concerns in neighbouring India. [ full story | comments ]

- Sri Lanka hails Indian housing assistance - PTI

Sri Lanka remembers to forget

[ openDemocracy ][ May 22 13:08 GMT ]

On 18 May 2013 the government of Sri Lanka ‘celebrated’ the fourth Victory Day, or as the state-owned newspaper the Daily News referred to it, ‘Humanitarian Victory Day’. On the same day in Vavuniya in the North, members of the public along with politicians organised an event in memory of those who lost their lives during the last stages of the armed conflict in 2009. The government ceremonies were a show of pomp, military might and triumphalism. In these celebrations, although state forces that lost their lives were remembered and honoured, any mention of civilians who were killed and those who are still missing was absent. [ full story | comments ]

Narayanasamy supports ban on pro-Tamil Eelam meeting

[ PTI ][ May 22 13:06 GMT ]

Union minister V Narayanasamy on Sunday came out in support of Tamil Nadu government for its decision to ban a pro-Tamil Eelam public meeting at Cuddalore, in which JKLF chairman Yasin Malik was to participate, saying the step was right and "in the interest of law and order." "Law and order comes within the purview of the state government and hence Tamil Nadu Government has taken the right step to deny permission for the meeting by the Naam Tamizhar Katchi yesterday," he told reporters here. [ full story | comments ]

- Yasin Malik’s support for Sri Lanka Tamils a sham - Indian Express

Sri Lanka army to reduce presence in northern Jaffna

[ PTI ][ May 22 13:02 GMT ]

The Sri Lanka army has said that it would reduce the number of military camps in the former rebel stronghold of northern Jaffna and hand over lands back to their original owners. “We will reduce the existing 17 military camps in Jaffna to just three,” Army chief Lt Gen Jagath Jayasuriya said. The fourteen camps pulled out from different parts of Jaffna would be relocated in the main Palaly cantonment, he said on Tuesday. [ full story | comments ]

Australian Tamils mark end of Sri Lankan civil war

[ Radio Australia ][ May 22 13:00 GMT ]

More than a thousand people from Australia's Sri Lankan Tamil community have attended a ceremony in western Sydney to mark the fourth anniversary of the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. More than a thousand people from Australia's Sri Lankan Tamil community have attended a ceremony in western Sydney to mark the fourth anniversary of the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. One of the organisers, Seran Sribalan, said it was an emotional occasion. [ full story | comments ]

Tribute paid to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his death anniversary

[ PTI ][ May 22 12:58 GMT ]

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was today remembered on his 22nd death anniversary with leaders paying homage at his memorial in Delhi. President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the late leader's wife and Congress President Sonia Gandhi offered flowers at his memorial 'Vir Bhumi' in the capital. Mrs Gandhi was also joined by son and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, daughter Priyanka and son-in-law Robert Vadra. [ full story | comments ]

Jayalalithaa renews demand for retrieval of Kachatheevu islet from Sri Lanka

[ NDTV ][ May 21 10:23 GMT ]

Voicing concern over attacks on Indian fishermen, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today asked the Centre to take urgent steps for retrieval of Katchatheevu islet, ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974, besides redrawing the International Maritime Boundary Line. The 1974 Agreement signed between India and Sri Lanka had determined Katchatheevu as a part of Sri Lanka, and it was ceded by the Indian Government unilaterally without obtaining the approval of both Houses of Parliament for a constitutional amendment, she said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. [ full story | comments ]

Serendipity, Bob Carr and Sri Lanka

[ Online Opinion ][ May 20 21:52 GMT ]

In the face of a great deal of evidence to the contrary, Bob Carr has declared Sri Lanka an ideal democracy. He has declared their institutions sound, and scoffed at the idea of corruption within the ranks of the Rajapaksa Government. He has declared the police, army and navy to be clear of charges of detaining and torturing members of the Tamil minority. He believes that the Sinhalese majority are free of triumphalism and ethnic abuse of Tamils, amounting to state sponsored genocide, following a bloody civil war that occurred because of the very attitudes and practices being deployed against Tamils today. [ full story | comments ]

Defence sec. opposed to police powers for PCs

[ Daily Mirror ][ May 24 10:17 GMT ]

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said he would never agree to the granting of police powers to provincial councils in accordance with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. He said that he had arrived at this decision after having considered the dangers and the challenges it would pose to the security services.At present no provincial council exercises police powers, and if they were to be granted such powers in future, such a measure could pose a serious threat to national security and he foresaw a dangerous situation, he said. [ full story | comments ]

Tamil asylum seekers granted lawyers after court plea

[ Age ][ May 24 10:14 GMT ]

"If people don't know their rights and aren't able to present their claims and there's a miscarriage of justice... we could be sending people back to the real risk of torture or death." Under current law, the government must give people in immigration detention "all reasonable facilities... for obtaining legal advice or taking legal proceedings in relation to his or her immigration detention" at their request. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka president's son faces rugby misconduct claims

[ BBC ][ May 22 23:14 GMT ]

Sri Lanka's rugby authorities are investigating President Mahinda Rajapaksa's rugby-playing son after claims that he assaulted a referee. One report says Rohitha Rajapaksa has been suspended from the game but the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) denies this. Witnesses said they saw Mr Rajapaksa, 22, physically attack the referee after his side lost a match this month. Rugby is the island's most popular sport after cricket. [ full story | comments ]

A bloodied childhood in war-torn Sri Lanka

[ Rediff ][ May 22 13:07 GMT ]

Sri Lankan Tamil poet and journalist Theepachelvan Pratheepan shares the experiences of his petrified childhood days spent in the war-torn island nation with Rediff.com’s Shobha Warrier. He was born when the ethnic conflict and the war broke out in 1983 in Sri Lanka [ Images ]. He grew up listening to fighter planes hovering over his head and watching men, women and children walking hundreds of kilometres in search of safety. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka denies scuttling power devolution

[ IANS ][ May 22 13:03 GMT ]

Sri Lanka denied Wednesday plans to roll back power sharing mechanisms with the Tamil minority despite attempts to stop long overdue elections in the former war-torn north. Technology and Research Minister Champika Ranawaka announced Tuesday plans to present an act in parliament next week to abolish provincial councils and the India-backed 13th constitutional amendment, reports Xinhua. The main Tamil political party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has insisted that it would not contest the upcoming elections in the north if police and land powers were taken away by the government. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka opposition says government threatened to sack strikers

[ Reuters ][ May 22 13:01 GMT ]

Sri Lanka's opposition parties and trade unions accused the government on Tuesday of threatening state employees with the sack if they took part in planned street protests against a sharp rise in electricity prices. Only a few hundred people joined the demonstrations, coordinated by the political opposition and trade unions, despite expectations of much larger crowds on the streets of Colombo. The government rejected the accusations, saying that the planned walkout had simply failed. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka's BBS: an old spectre in new garb?

[ openDemocracy ][ May 22 13:00 GMT ]

The latest, and perhaps most disturbing development in post-war Sri Lanka’s ethnic relations is the recent rise of a Buddhist activist group, Bodu Bala Sena (BBS-Buddhist power force), driven against Sri Lankan Muslims, the island’s third ethnic minority. BBS explains its mission as strengthening the Buddhist faith in the island, providing spiritual leadership and saving Sinhala Buddhism from external threats. A more vicious strategy has emerged however with Muslims as the prime target, a perceived threat to the Sinhala Buddhist community’s ethno-religious majority. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka braces for strike against power hike

[ Gulf Times ][ May 21 10:24 GMT ]

Sri Lanka is bracing for a nationwide strike today, which opposition parties have pledged will bring the country to a stop and pressure the government into rolling back recently increased power prices, officials said yesterday. This is the latest in a string of protests that have erupted in Sri Lanka’s capital since last week, called by opposition parties against a government decision to increase electricity prices by as much as 59%. [ full story | comments ]

Possessing memories, designing cemeteries - Part I

[ JDS Lanka ][ May 20 21:59 GMT ]

The aftermaths of wars are coined by various, often divergent, forms of national politics of commemoration and historiography. In a pluralistic world, states and governments are globally committed to the production, remembrance and celebration of their distinct interpretation of history and the memory of those who have fallen for the concept of the nation-state. Amidst their varying tales, at times, a common denominator can be found in the acknowledgement of an emphasis granted to the memorization of suffering and sacrifices, especially in the process of reconciling with historic passages of severe national and/or societal violence and trauma. [ full story | comments ]

- Possessing memories, designing cemeteries - Part II - JDS Lanka

Four years on, genocide continues off the battlefield

[ openDemocracy ][ May 20 18:37 GMT ]

In May 2009 as the armed conflict between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government of Sri Lanka came to a harrowing end, Sri Lanka’s genocidal offensive against the Tamil population of the North-East reached a peak. Four years on, as the Tamil nation – scattered worldwide through decades of oppression and armed conflict – remembers the massacre that took place, the prospect of a stable and secure future remains bleak. Sri Lanka has long proven itself both incapable and unwilling to deliver accountability and justice to the Tamil people, yet the international community too has failed to instigate a credible process towards it. But most of all, the systematic destruction of the Tamil identity continues, unchecked. [ full story | comments ]

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