The Guardian writes that a clear and present danger is posed by the return of a Rajapaksa presidency, in its editorial on Thursday. In their article, they note that Gotabaya has been subject to lawsuits relating to torture, fraud and corruption. They also note his time as Defence Secretary during the final stage of the armed conflict where an estimated 40,000 Tamil civilians were slaughtered in its final months. Gotabaya is accused of being complicit in crimes against humanity, war crimes and the routine use of sexual violence and torture. Read more here: 'It never goes away' says Tamil...
Alan Keenan, project director for Sri Lanka at the International Crisis Group (ICG) warns that the return of a Gotabaya presidency has already heightened fears amongst minorities and will lead to losses in terms of "reconciliation and accountability for atrocities and human rights violations". Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the Defense Secretary during the final stages of the war which witnessed a litany of human rights violations as well as hundreds of people surrendering to the army during the final stages of conflict to never be seen again. Rajapaksa has been accused of being implicated in the deaths of dozens of journalists as well as their exile.
In the lead up to the Sri Lankan Presidential election 16 November, both Sinhala and Tamil political commentators have quipped that this election is a clear cut choice between “the lesser of two evils” and have insisted on drawing parallels to the 2015 and 2005 elections...
The Tamil political leadership should join the “extra-parliamentary” agitations across the North-East in order to achieve the political goals of power-sharing, accountability and demilitarisation, argued journalist J S Tissainayagam in an article for the Asian Correspondent last month.
Over 250,000 Australians have been campaigning to stop the deportation of a Tamil family from Australia to Sri Lanka. Despite their campaign for fairness, “the Morrison government still insists on denying assistance to the Biloela family,” Meggan Devery writes for Independent Australia. “In early September, Scott Morrison rejected calls from across the nation to resettle Priya, Nades and their two young daughters back in their hometown of Biloela. Dismissing the ‘public sentiment’ surrounding the issue, the Prime Minister maintained that ‘if you make the wrong calls on these issues, then you...
The deafening din of explosions; chaotic coughs through the black smoke; mechanical murmurs of invading tanks, as the international community looks away. The indigenous civilians of the land - retreating in tears. Forced to leave their homes without the remains of loved ones, for family members and martyrs are not distinct. Through their pain, they strive to survive clutching to the dream, that the homeland they loved was not lost. As they navigate the forced disorder, they maintain the belief that the oasis they had built will not be drained. Does this tragedy sound familiar?
Former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, CV Wigneswaran, has written in response to the recent arrests of suspected LTTE sympathisers in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, concluding that he expects said arrests are but “political antics and/or electoral gimmicks!”
In an article for the Jacobin, former Australian senator Lee Rhiannon, draws upon Ben Hiller's new book "Losing Santhia: Life and Loss in the Struggle for Tamil Eelam", and argues the need to stand in solidarity Tamils who have faced genocide by the "exclusivist, chauvinist Sinhala-Buddhist state".
Sinhalese majoritarianism remains a problem in Sri Lanka, said anthropologist Syed Mohammad Ali, calling on it to be “rolled back” to achieve reconciliation on the island. Writing in The Express Tribune, an English-language daily based in Pakistan, he compared the history of the island to that of Rwanda, stating that...
The spectre of the LTTE is “is always raised by the Sinhala-majority political parties, ahead of an election” notes R.K. Radhakrishnan in Frontline magazine on Tuesday, after a former Tamil fighter was arrested in Kilinochchi this week. "Although there has been no terror incident involving the Tamils in Sri Lanka since the conclusion of the war between the Sri Lankan state and the Tamil Tigers in 2009, the LTTE bogey is always raised by the Sinhala-majority political parties, ahead of an election,” he writes. “It is no different for the presidential election to be held on November 16.”