Category Archives: reconciliation

February 7, 2011 · 11:48 am

The failed boycott of the Galle Lit Fest

Ruana Rajepakse, from the Island, 6 February 2011

 Candace Brushnell in Galle

Two writers who were not scheduled to take part in this year’s Galle Literary Festival, namely Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, called on the writers of the world to boycott the Festival. They were joined in this call by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF) and the German-based Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS). According to the organizers of the event which is now in its fifth year, only one writer, Damon Galgut from South Africa, heeded the call. A few others who cancelled at the last minute pleaded other reasons such as visa issues and therefore cannot be considered boycotters by conviction. One such, namely Kiran Desai, was at pains to emphasize how much she had enjoyed her previous visit to Sri Lanka.

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February 5, 2011 · 1:35 am

Reflections on our National Day: Freedoms and Rule of Law

Shanie, in Island, 5 February 2011

What is democracy for –

If we wish for kings

And military rulers?

Why speak up against oppression –

If we ask for laws of emergencyc

And penal codes?

Why fight for freedom of expression –

If we ask writers to ‘know the limit’?

Why ask for commissions on corruption –

If we don’t forget to bring

The corrupt to power?

The above is a translation of a poem written by Mahesh Munasinghe, a young Sinhala poet and posted in a literary website ‘Boondi’. This was quoted in a recent essay by Liyanage Amarakeerthi, the Peradeniya academic. The poem becomes very relevant to us today as we celebrate the 63rd anniversary of our independence from western colonial rule. In many spheres of our political, economic and social life, we seem to have gone backwards rather than moving forward. The recent destruction of the offices of the Lanka e-News website at Malabe, not very long after the destruction of the MTV studios at Pannipitiya and the attacks on Sirasa Head Office at Slave Island, is indicative of the insanity and the abuse of power by those in authority. The Asian Human Rights Commission has in a statement issued this week listed the large number of journalists killed, abducted or disappeared over the last four years. All of them were prominent critics of those in positions of authority. But this is not to say that these killings and disappearances are only of recent origin. Governments in power have over the past few decades targeted journalists, no doubt because the media is the most effective tool to express ideas contrary to what those in authority want the people to know, as well as to expose corruption among those in authority. As we celebrate our freedom day, let us not forget that democracy cannot exist without the unfetterd freedom of expression and the right to express new ideas and opinions and to the right to expose any corruption in the functioning of public institutions. Subject to the laws of libel, the freedom of expression can have no restrictions. As the young poet states, don’t talk of freedom of expression and at the same time talk of writers ‘knowing their limits.’ Continue reading →

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February 5, 2011 · 1:22 am

Brig. Sudantha Ranasinghe on former Tiger combatant rehabilitation

R. K. Radhakrishnan, in The Hindu, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article1155465.ece –title different. See additonal note at end

Sri Lankan Commissioner General of Rehabilitation Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe shares the experiences on the rehabilitation of former LTTE combatants, in Colombo, on Wednesday. More than 5000 former combatants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been re-integrated with their communities, Sri Lankan Commissioner General of Rehabilitation Sudantha Ranasinghe, said here on Wednesday.

Photo: R.K.Radhakrishnan

“No where in the world this has happened,” he said and added that this feat was achieved in just over a year and a half. The total number of ex-combatants now trying to cope with the new realities of life in a civil society is 5764. Of this 3649 are men and 2115, women.

When the Sri Lankan Army overran the North in early 2009, as many as 11,696 fighters of the LTTE were segregated from 300,000 internally displaced persons, and profiled depending on their involvement with the militant organisation. Of the combatants held, 9078 were male and 2024, female. According to Army statistics, 594 were underage (between 12 and 16). A vast majority of those detained were single (7407) while 122 were widows.

Initially, the combatants were classified into three categories, as recommended by the Sri Lankan Attorney General. The recommendation was based on national security, maintenance of law and order and public safety. The 5764 persons who are now part of the society in Jaffna and elsewhere in the north, belong to the first category: of those who were drawn into the conflict, largely without their consent. The second group of just over 4600 persons, who have been with the LTTE for “a significant period of time,” will have to wait longer before they are considered for release. The third category will have to undergo the legal process. Continue reading →

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January 31, 2011 · 2:16 pm

The other side of Murali

Hilal Suhaib courtesy of his islandcricket.lk/blogs/hilal

 The history books will forever remember Muttiah Muralitharan as one of the greatest ever, if not the greatest, bowler to have played the game. But former assistant coach Paul Farbrace shared another side of Murali that others may not know of.

Murali at Kilinochchi in November 2003 (Pic courtesy of Kushil Gunasekera but also on World Food Program web site)

“He spends a lot of time at orphanages in Colombo. He gives an awful lot of money and time to these places,” Farbrace told BBC. Farbrace served as Sri Lanka’s assistant coach from 2007 to 2009 and spent a lot of time with Muralitharan behind the scenes. He reminisced fondly on one particular incident involving Muralitharan’s generosity, “On a young lad’s second birthday, instead of buying him lots of presents, he took all 100 kids from the orphanage to a water park because he thought that was the best way of spending his money.“He is a really kind hearted person and I think many people are genuinely delighted that he’s done so well.”

After the Boxing Day tsunami, Muralitharan and his manager Kushil Gunasekera helped create countless tsunami success stories on the island, assisting the impoverished affected by the tsunami get back on their feet. Where the government and other more prominent NGOs failed, the Gunasekera-Muralitharan partnership managed to provide thousands with permanent shelter. More importantly, they constructed sustainable communities equipped with play grounds, swimming pools and computer labs for tsunami survivors to rebuild their lives. Continue reading →

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January 31, 2011 · 2:02 pm

A harrowing tale from the depths of the Eastern Province

Alex Van Arkadie, received 30 January 2011 via Victor Melder, sending us a “Summary [re] a visit to meet war displaced families in the Welegakandya  dwelling and Chenkalady village, Batticaloa District, North-Eastern coastal belt of Sri Lanka”

During our visit to Sri Lanka last August, my spouse and I joined three members of the National Fisheries Solidarity (NAFSO), Negombo, viz. Mr. Herman Kumara (Director), Ms. Geetha (Secretary), and Mr. Jesudasan (Committee member).

 Few years back (and as Coordinator of the Project Appraisal Group for well over two decades), the Lankan NGO NAFSO coordinated closely with our Rome 1% for development fund to secure funding for a successfully yet on-going women’s inland fish farm project in Polonnaruwa.

 Riding a 4-wheeler at 07:30 a.m. that morning, our little group left Negombo, a major fishing village on the Western coast.  Nearly a quarter of our 9hr. journey (one-way) continued across the Central Dry Zone expanse on bumpy roadway and rugged gravel track. To arrive at the lagoon town we drove exactly eastward in the arid heat past shattered homes and huts, public schools, health clinics, workshops, market yards, places of diverse worship, abandoned irrigation channels and ruined tanks. Even the scanty vegetation scattered in between an occasional waterhole or oasis alongside their sturdier palmyrah plantations which once thrived in this region had not been spared the ravage of the brutal ethnic war.  

 Our single stop 7-hrs. later for a hurried make-do lunch was at a wayside eatery in Batticaloa Town. From there it took us over an hour driving inland to cover 60kms. There, we were received by a group of about 30 men and women. Not only are these people a living witness to the scars and inflictions suffered from a long war between national military forces and Tamil separatists, but bear vivid testimony to the social discrimination, civil abandonment, and indifference that have arisen thereafter and therefrom.  Most aged parents (widowed or otherwise) — by prevalent tradition — live and depend on their married children for sustenance and survival. Continue reading →

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January 31, 2011 · 1:57 pm

Long Reads launched by Groundviews earlier this year

The proof is alreadyin the puddiing, but I present theirvery own INTRODUCTION to this new dimension of citizen journalism as it is vested in Groundviews with the observation that my own articles tend to be on the long and too-long side of the equation. Michael Roberts.

Dear all,

I am pleased to formally announce the launch of Long Reads on Groundviews. This section brings to the site long-form journalism found in publications such as the Economist’s fantastic Intelligent Life quarterly, Foreign Policy, The New Yorker and the New York Times. Inspired by the Longreads blog, these articles offer more in-depth deliberation on key issues covered on Groundviews. See http://groundviews.org/category/issues/long-reads/page/2/  Continue reading →

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January 20, 2011 · 10:40 pm

Galle Literary Festival: Groundviews’ Penetrating Riposte to Chomsky, Arundathi and other Myopic Crusaders

  Sanjana Hattotuwa, from http://groundviews.org/2011/01/20/responding-to-a-facile-appeal-galle-literary-festival-and-the-freedom-of-expression/

 Vikram Seth autographs his book, 2008,  Pic by Michael Roberts

 The Editors of Groundviews received via email this morning intimation of an international appeal made by Reporters Without Borders and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a network of exiled Sri Lankan journalists. The Galle literary festival appeal notes inter alia, “We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country.”

Now in its fifth consecutive year, the Galle Literary Festival has been called many things, but a ‘conference’ it has not. Things go inexorably downhill from here. This ill-advised appeal reminds us of the equally ill-conceived Amnesty International human rights campaign during the last cricket world cup in 2007. At the time, even well-known human rights defenders in Sri Lanka wrote against AI’s campaign. As The Amnesty Campaign: Taking the Eye Off the Ball by Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu noted, “The full extent of the  Kamila Shamsie speaks, 2008, Pic by Bron     impact and damage of this campaign is yet to be seen. One hopes that public discourse on human rights protection in Sri Lanka is not going to be irretrievably obscured and obfuscated by reference to the rights and wrongs of this campaign or that Sri Lankans will in any way be deterred from lending their voice to the urgent need for human rights protection in this country, by concerns about being unpatriotic that have been aroused by memories of this campaign. The Amnesty campaign has been clumsily and insensitively conceived. It as made an issue of itself in Sri Lanka and detracted attention from the issue in Sri Lanka it rightly sought to draw attention to.” Continue reading →

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January 19, 2011 · 10:02 am

Presidential initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka: The Trilingual Master Plan

Sunimal Fernando, Advisor to the President, Sunday Island, 9 Janaury 2011

 President Rajapaksa reaches out to Muralitharan’s son and wife … during Test match in Galle, Murali’s last outing in this realm

I refer to the article appearing on Page 4 of the Sunday Island of January 2 entitled ‘The Trilingual Master Plan and Monolingual National Anthem Muddle’ in which the author states that “The trilingual project appears to be the brainchild of Presidential Advisor Sunimal Fernando,” a fact that is incorrect. H E the President announced his vision of a Trilingual Sri Lanka way back in February 2009 when he stated as follows: “When marching forward into the future as a single people, it is my view that the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people should engage with one another in each other’s language. I therefore visualize for the future a bi-lingual Sri Lankan society. Individual programes in this direction are already being implemented in the Ministries of Public Administration and Education with the facilitation of the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration. However, I shall be directing my officials in the near future, to take steps to prepare a Comprehensive National Master Plan with disaggregated Action Plans for realizing a bi-lingual public service and a bi-lingual nation within a specified but realistic time frame.

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January 18, 2011 · 12:52 am

High Security Zones in the north

Now that the goernment has provided an alternative route to Jaffna and in conditions of peacetime with a gradualreturn to normality, the issue of the High Security Zones and a bloated military presence in the Peninsula and northern Vanni should be reviewed. The map below is from my files and is probably dated and overblown. Again when a Tamil lecturer told me last June that twenty percent of the land area in the Peninsula was occupied by armed services personnel, he may have been exaggerating, but the issue remains. My travels indicated that there certainly were numerous cantonments on the northern coast and between Point Pedro and Elephant Pass not to cantonments and manned guardposts those along the A9 between Elephant Pass and Omanthai.  This is an invitation for recent vistiors and government sources to provide more accurate updates. Michael Roberts .

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January 17, 2011 · 1:15 pm

Canadian Tamil moderates reject Rudrakumaran’s claim

Lenin Benedict, Courtesy of the Lanka Guardian web site http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/12/catpad-rejects-rudrakumarans-claim-of.htm

 We Canadian Tamils for Peace and Democracy (CaTpad) totally rejects the claim by the Mr.V.Rudrakumaran of so called Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), as “ Thamil Eelam was the Thirst of Tamils” but was the thirst of LTTE. Until 2002 ceasefire agreement, the slogan of the LTTE is “Pulikalin Thaakam Thamil Eelath Thaayakam” (Thamil Eelam is the Thirst of Tigers). In the ceasefire LTTE agreed to abandoned their separate state claim and accepted the united Srilanka Constitution, they were forced to give up this slogan when its was questioned by Srilankan officials at various meetings and occasion that LTTE still promoting the ideology of separatism as its official position, LTTE was compelled to abandon this slogan and changed to “Thamilarin Thaakam Tamil Eelath Thaayakam” (Tamil Eelam is the Thirst of Tamils) to convince its hard core supporters and hard core Tamil Nationalist in the fear of loosing its image as a savior of Tamil Nation.
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