Category Archives: reconciliation

December 13, 2010 · 10:27 am

Thirunavukkarasu Sridharan of EPRLF interviewed

 Courtesy of http://www. transcurrents.com, 10 December 2010

In an exclusive interview conducted in June 2010 with Thirunavukkarasu Sridharan, the leader of the left leaning Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front, Padmanaba faction, (otherwise known as the EPRLF-Naba), who spoke candidly to Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe about the general situation facing Sri Lankan Tamils after the civil war, the implications of the demise of the LTTE, and Tamil aspirations for the near future.

The Return of Plurality

After nearly two decades of LTTE suppression of dissident Tamil parties, the re-emergence of plurality in Tamil politics since the May 2009 has altered the political landscape for Sri Lanka’s Tamils.

Thirunavukkarasu Sridharan: “The EPRLF is a left-wing progressive political party. Our first leader K. Padmanabha was assassinated in 1990 in Madras by the LTTE, and we have also lost about 1400 EPRLF cadres fighting against the LTTE. Today the EPRLF-Naba has about 300 full time members, mainly around Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Jaffna. In the Tamil diaspora there are also around 500 active EPRLF members in Canada, England, France, Germany and Switzerland. The EPRLF has split in two groups [the ERPLF-Naba and EPRLF-Suresh faction]; our rival splinter group is headed by Suresh Premachandran who is now allied with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) [the TNA is the largest Tamil political formation in Sri Lanka consisting of several parties]. The TNA’s politics is different to us, our politics is cadre based. Politically, the TNA are not broad minded people, their politics was circumscribed earlier by the LTTE and now by the trends of the diaspora.”

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December 13, 2010 · 1:28 am

Another angle: Oxford University Sri Lanka Society’s President questioned

Courtesy of the Sunday Times, 12 december 2010, where the title was slightly different.

Oxford Union Sri Lanka Society President Dilan Fernando offered to answerquestions from the Sunday Times this week in addition to his Right of Reply. He however did not respond to the supplementary questions that were sent to him by the newspaper.

Sunday Times (ST): Did the Sri Lankan High Commissioner Nihal Jayasinghe ever advise you to postpone/cancel President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s address to the Oxford Union?

Dilan Fernando (DF): As you are aware, the President was invited by James Kingston, President – Oxford Union. Thus, there was no question of asking us to postpone/cancel the event. The SL High Commissioner sent the Deputy High Commissioner Mr. Amza (as his representative) and a delegation of the High Commission to the Oxford Union on October 12, 2010. On this occasion, the High Commission delegation on behalf of the SL Government publicly thanked James Kingston for the invitation.

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December 6, 2010 · 2:42 pm

“Rule of law does not apply to the North” : Sumanthiran’s Answers to the “Nation’s” Questions

 By a correspondent, the Nation, Sunday 5 December 2010

 In the absence of veteran Tamil politician and Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, who was indisposed, we spoke to M A Sumanthiran, the articulate new member of the Tamil National Alliance, who was appointed to parliament on its National List after the April general election. This lawyer is also probably the new pragmatic side of the TNA, which was in the past seen as an appendage of the LTTE. He answers some of the vexed questions facing the Tamil community and the country as a whole.

Following are excerpts:

Q: In the past the TNA always voted against the government budget, but this time during the second reading vote it abstained. Is it a sign of warming of relations?
It is not. It is clearly stated in the statement we issued saying that there was nothing in this budget that we could support.
In fact, all the TNA members who spoke at the second reading condemned the budget.
This was only a gesture of goodwill because we have reached an agreement with the President some time in June.
There will be some mechanism set up where we will participate; one in respect of resettlement matters, the other in respect of finding a political solution.
We have been asked for names of our participants and they have been published. But those mechanisms have not been set up.
So we thought instead of continuing to say that we are committed to participating ion these processes we will also do something this time to demonstrate that commitment and good faith in wanting to engage with the government.

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December 5, 2010 · 2:09 pm

Sumanthiran Interviewed: No Solution in Sight

 Raisa Wickrematunge, from the Sunday Leader, 5 De. 2010

 M.A. Sumanthiran is a prominent Tamil rights lawyer, and a member of the Tamil National Alliance. Elected into Parliament this year via the National List, Sumanthiran has often spoken on the rights and urgent needs of Tamils in the North and East. The Sunday Leader met with Sumanthiran in Parliament to discuss Budget 2011 and other issues with him.
Excerpts:

Q: During the second reading of the budget, the TNA abstained from voting. Do you think that was a good decision?
A: We made a statement saying we cannot support this budget. During the second reading, all our members who spoke criticised Budget 2011 and gave reasons for it. For far too long, people (particularly those in conflict areas) have remained in the same state. Despite our continually urging the government to involve us in the resettlement process, that hasn’t happened to date. It isn’t that the government refused to do that, they did ask and obtain Member’s names to be a part of the mechanism. We decided we needed to do something more than words, to express our honest willingness to participate in these processes. Abstaining from voting against the budget at the second reading was that gesture of goodwill and good faith. Now, it’s left to be seen whether the government will start these processes as promised.

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December 5, 2010 · 1:51 pm

Noel Nadesan’s Reflections on Life & Times as a Submission to the LLRC

Noel Nadesan — a statement was made before LLRC at Colombo on 30/ 11/2010

A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen,

I thank the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission for having invited me to present my point of view. I consider it a privilege to have this opportunity to submit my view on this important occasion. I am an expatriate Sri Lankan from Tamil origin, living in Australia. I have decided to narrate the events on my life as [it interlaces with] the tragic story of the 30-year-crisis that ruined the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians of all communities. With this narrative I hope to illustrate how communal relationships can deteriorate overnight and rebuild too. I also hope to demonstrate the various political threads that exacerbated to the communal politics and led to unnecessary violence that could have been avoided by both sides.
At the outset I must mention that I am a member of the Tamil Diaspora Dialogue team engaged actively in working closely with Sri Lankan and international authorities to foster reconciliation, peace and rehabilitation. I must also acknowledge the constructive proposals and ideas made by Dr R. Narendran, Professor of Physiology, who has been a part of the Diaspora Dialogue Team. I have incorporated some of his ideas. However, I must emphasize that I take full responsibility for all the statements made in my submission.

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November 29, 2010 · 5:21 pm

President Mahinda Rajapaksa: Strengths and Limitations

Victor Ivan, a refined and re-edited version of an article in the Sunday Leader, 28 November 2010

 The swearing in ceremony of President Mahinda Rajapaksa following his second successive victory at the presidential elections was held on November 19. President Rajapaksa cannot be considered as a state leader who has been subjected to a just evaluation. Either we hear loud praises being sung about him or vicious and furious allegations hurled against him. This article seeks to weigh the strengths and limitations unique to President Mahinda Rajapaksa as a state leader.

He can be considered as a leader who is the most powerful and colourful among  those state leaders who emerged since Sri Lanka’s (SL) Independence. He can be identified as different from other state leaders on two factors: Hitherto every state leader was from Colombo and primarily Colombo oriented, whereas Mahinda Rajapaksa is the first state leader who is  from a village and village oriented. The other important reason which makes him stand out from other state leaders is the role of saviour  he had to play in his field. No other present state leader of Sri Lanka was afforded the opportunity to play this saviour role. He is the first and only leader who was saddled with that challenge.

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November 27, 2010 · 6:43 pm

Military defeat of the LTTE is by no means a defeat of the Tamil people

Gamini Keerawella, courtesy of the Financial Times

http://www.ft.lk/2010/11/27/military-defeat-of-the-ltte-is-by-no-means-a-defeat-of-the-tamil-people/
 This image accompanied the article [no clarification provided]
 Subsequent photographs will be the website director’s insertions

A new dawn broke over Sri Lanka last year. There is new promise of a new era of peace and stability over the island. There is optimism in the air; optimism that the time has come to address all outstanding issues in a spirit of understanding and mutual accommodation.

There is expectation that the recent election will sow the seeds for genuine reconciliation between the various communities. At the same time, there is also apprehension that things may not quite work out the way it should and yet another opportunity may slip away. But, one thing is evident there is now a historic opportunity to shape the destiny of Sri Lanka and its people – Nirupama Rao (10 May 2010).

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November 27, 2010 · 12:45 pm

Justice for the Fallen and the Deprived

Shanie in Notebook of a Nobody

Courtesy of the Island, 27 November 2010

Yasmine Gooneratne wrote the poem ‘Yasodhara’ on a different theme. But the last stanza above perhaps reflects the mind and mood of many Yasodharas of our country at this time. Rizana Nafeek languishes in a death row in Saudi Arabia betrayed by life and hoping, like millions around the world, that she will be allowed to return home to her family and friends in the impoverished village of Mutur. And within our own country, there are thousands of women, widowed by a tragic war, who suffer in silence with their shaken gaze leaping from emptiness to emptiness.

 Rizana Nafeek

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November 27, 2010 · 5:56 am

President Rajapakse meets Tamil Parties’ Forum

Courtesy of the Island, 27 November 2010

The same report appeared in the Daily News so this must be an official communique. The formation of the TPF is an important new development in so far as the previous situation saw disunity among the Tamil representatives serving as a hindrance to moves towards devolution (however limited) because it provided the governing regime with an easy excuse for its prevarication. The talk-shop beween Tamil leaders who have been coopted by GOSL as local ‘warlords’ and client bosses on the one hand and other Tamil leaders who are less compromised on the other could potentially help the Tamil people. Whether these men — yes all men note — are in alignment with the farmers, fishermen and labouring poor who make up the majority of the Tamil people of the north and east is another question. And one wonders where KP and his network fit into the scheme of things.

    We should also be mindful of Muttukrishna Sarvanathan’s point that the government is parceling out its largesse, with different Tamil leaders given different arenas of authority. This is classic divide and rule politics. In my view, within the perspectives that led me to write about the Asokan Persona in SL politics, this is also a reproduction of a top-down patronage system of distributive largesse which can be read as a central facet of the “populist authoritarianism” that is a feature of this government [and for that matter many governments past]. Michael Roberts.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had a landmark meeting with the members of the Tamil Parties’ Forum (TPF), comprising representatives of a majority of Tamil political parties of the country, to discuss aspects of post-conflict reconciliation at Temple Trees on Friday (Nov 26), according to a government statement.

The meeting was significant in that those present comprised Tamil politicians who had strongly opposite views in dealing with the problems of the LTTE and a solution to the ethnic conflict.

Key figures among them were Minister Douglas Devananda, V. Anandasankari, T. Siddarthan and Chelvanayakam Chandrahasan, son of the former Federal Party and TULF leader, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, now active in relief work of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu.

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November 20, 2010 · 5:27 pm

Sri Lanka’s Other Half: A Guide to the Central, Eastern and Northern Provinces

Juliet Coombe

Buckle up and hold tight!!

Classic cars, fat cigars, blue pigeons, singing fish, warplanes,delicious palmyrah jam and bejewelled Bollywood saris, BBC Lonely Planet photographer and journalist Juliet Coombe was determined to be the first writer back into northern Sri Lanka after 26 years of war, despite having just had a baby and being knocked back several times by the Ministry of Defence to go by the usual means of transportation. She finally found herself in a tiny jump seat in a huge military plane, still holding her baby aka her chief negotiating card on her way to Jaffna with a bunch of generals.

In contrast to the north, going east led her to lost lagoons, unspoilt beaches and magnificent forts that sit atop rugged cliffs.  On her journey, Juliet, got to know the ferrymen who until recently had only Tamil Tigers as passengers and took up their suggestion to try the hot water wells with magical healing powers near Trinco. From here she headed inland to central Sri Lanka – much more than just historical sites. Here wildlife is still prolific – leopards abound as well as an elephant corridor. Artists gather in large numbers, especially around the amazing Sigiriya rock.

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