‘Meaningful political reform and reconciliation should be an urgent priority’

A copy of the speech given at the GTF launch by the shadow foreign secretary, Rt Hon. William Hague MP.

‘If history is buried then reconciliation never happens’

A copy of the speech given at the GTF launch by the UK Foreign Secrretary, Rt Hon. David Miliband MP.

Iraq war still a mistake

One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the Iraqi elections Sunday.

In Sri Lanka, money fuels genocide

Over the past year, the cracks in Sri Lanka’s façade of liberal democracy have started to show. Filling them with money, be it through direct aid, encouraging trade or international loans, has obvious appeal. Sri Lanka’s lack of liberalism however, is not due to economic hardship; precisely why economic development will not lead to its salvation. In Sri Lanka money is merely used by the state to pursue its own fascist agenda. Several months after the government claimed victory in the war with the Liberation Tigers, civilians continue to languish in camps or in temporary shelters with no...

Uncovering Sri Lanka's war crimes

Despite verbal acrobatics reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, Sri Lankan officials have been unable to dismiss a shocking mobile phone video from last January purportedly showing Sri Lankan soldiers summarily executing naked and bound captives. The government has consistently claimed the video is fake, without providing any evidence that the gruesome scene was staged or the footage tampered with. Now, the top United Nations envoy responsible for investigating extralegal executions around the world has added his voice to those believing the tape to be genuine. After commissioning three...

Freedom under threat in Sri Lanka

As one drives towards Sri Lanka’s war-torn northern Jaffna Peninsula on the A9 Highway, the island’s main north-south arterial road, the landscape takes on echoes of the Somme, the French battlefield of the first world war.

Tragic triumphalism in Sri Lanka

A YEAR ago, as Sri Lanka’s long and agonising civil war entered its endgame phase, there was little indication that the bloody denouement would make way for the healing and reconciliation that the island-nation so desperately needs.

Sri Lanka has proven that it's unwilling to ensure accountability for serious violations

Writing just before the Sri Lankan Presidential polls, the author, who served on the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, argues that the chances for true investigation into war crimes allegations in the country is remote.

General Fonseka and the challenges to Sri Lankan democracy

President Rajapakse’s crackdown on political opponents, including the arrest of the defeated opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, is not as unexpected or as surprising as many commentators are suggesting.

Shaping Western policy on Sri Lanka

Following the end of decades of armed struggle in May last year, western states, led by the United States of America and the European Union, are reviewing their policy on Sri Lanka . Having followed a path of working with the state to defeat terrorism, the West now has to choose between working with an oppressive state or attempting to reform Sri Lanka into a liberal state with respect for human rights and liberal values. Over the past three decades, in the presence of an armed non-state actor, Sri Lanka had successfully managed to mask its genocidal actions as fight against terrorism. Till...

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