Disappearances and killings of will continue as long as ‘anti-terrorist’ operations are continuing, Sri Lanka’s Army commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka said last week in a interview to British investigative reporters. Asked about human rights abuses in the newly captured Eastern province, the commander replied: “This area is not a normal area. So people getting killed and some people going missing will happen as far as the anti-terrorist operations are continuing.” In a program on Sri Lanka by the ‘Unreported World’ program by Channel4, British reporters tried to travel to the island’s North...
With both sides in Sri Lanka's civil war increasingly committed to military means, prospects for peace have all but evaporated.
The current international focus on human rights is insufficient to capture the cold calculations and reasoning in the intentions of the Sri Lankan state’s colonisation of Tamil and Muslim areas.
A review of the al-Jazeera Documentaries, ‘How the East was Won’ and ‘Monks of War’
‘As we entered the premises of the Nallur Kandasamy temple we were confronted by a sea of people seated on the white sands under the blazing sun.’ Thileepan, the young Tiger leader of Jaffna, took the podium on the 14th September at the Nallur Kandasamy temple to commence his fast- unto-death as a protest against India’s failure to fulfill her pledges, and to mobilise the frustrated sentiments of the Tamils into a national mass upsurgence. Thileepan’s non-violent struggle was unique and extraordinary for its commitment. Although an armed guerrilla fighter, he chose the spiritual mode of ‘...
The Sri Lankan government may hail the scorching of the east as a victory but for the civilians of the east it is hell on earth.
A review of the al-Jazeera Documentaries, ‘How the East was Won’ and ‘Monks of War’
"There is clear evidence that production in several sectors of the economy was affected by the prevailing security conditions and the tight money policy."
Displaced since 1990, a Tamil fisherman tells a tale of fleeing one tragedy only to find another catastrophe. Aloysius Premathas, having just seen his son loose his legs in a SLAF air-raid, recounts his familiy’s woes.
Every time 16-year-old Suresh Subramanium steps out of his home in Sri Lanka's heavily-guarded capital, his father says a silent prayer for his son's safe return. The Subramaniums are ethnic Tamils, and run a grocery store in Colombo. They have lived in the city all their lives, and have little connection to the north and east where government troops are fighting Tamil Tigers. But they say life for ordinary Tamils in Colombo is getting worse. "I can't step out of the house without my identity card and police papers. If I don't have them, I will be detained," Suresh said. Tamils, whose...