How to foster lasting peace in this country after three turbulent decades is the topmost discussion point today wherever Sri Lankans meet. There is a strong feeling the silver lining of hope that glimmered on the 18th May 2009, when the source of terrorism received the last bullet, is fading away under the increasing turbulence caused by politicians in anticipation …
Read More »Local Features
Citizens’ Commission to investigate expulsion of Northern Muslims
The Law and Society Trust (LST) together with the Community Trust Fund (CTF), the People’s Secretariat (PS) and the Rural Development Foundation (RDF) has set up a Citizens’ Commission to investigate the expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE in October 1990. The LTTE expulsion of Muslims from five Northern districts in October 1990 has not been …
Read More »Muslims settled by King Senerath in the East reciprocate by resisting ‘Eelam’! by M.M. Zuhair P.C
Ashroff King Senerath, who in 1626 settled nearly 4,000 Muslims in the East of Sri Lanka following their expulsion from the island’s Western coastal belt by the Portuguese led by Captain de Saa, must be the most delighted to hear, if the dead king could, that the descendants of those whom he settled in the then Batticaloa regions had reciprocated …
Read More »Misapplying R2P in Sri Lanka, By Jorge Heine
The concept of Responsibility to Protect has triggered resistance in many countries of the Global South precisely because of its potential misapplication to situations such as the Sri Lankan one. Lakshman Kadirgamar, the former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, was one of the most incisive legal minds of his generation. A former president of the Oxford Union, he made significant contributions …
Read More »Into the valley of baboons, By Kath Noble
It would seem that disagreeing with Izeth Hussain is an offence punishable by deportation. As he pointed out in his charming letter of June 22nd entitled ‘Go home, Kath’, I devoted one paragraph of my last article to his comments on the Human Rights Council vote. My suggestion that he might offer to hold David Miliband’s bag while he gave …
Read More »Devolution Debate
Mao wrote famously, “Power flows through the barrel of a gun.” So do Constitutions. It is true that a Constitution, the fundamental law of the people, should have behind it a broad consensus among the people, but that consensus will mean nothing at all unless it is backed by the gun, with the means of legitimate violence in the hands …
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