The President has proposed to make changes to the constitution via an urgent bill.  The changes known as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, seek to remove the two term limit on being elected to the office of the President and the Constitutional Council under the 17th Amendment.  As required under the Constitution, the President has referred the urgent bill to the Supreme Court.  Supreme Court heard the Government’s arguments and the arguments of six intervening petitioners on Tuesday 1 September 2010.  These changes have not been discussed in the public domain and they are sought to be made in secret.  It is important to note that even at the Supreme Court hearing the intervening petitioners were only given copies …

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Ever since reading the article by E Pluribus Unum on Groundviews “A Critique of Sri Lanka Unites: Freedom has not made itself known”, I have felt compelled to respond to it,  but was unsure about how and when . At the back of the triumph of the “Future Leaders Conference, Season-2”, I think the time is now ripe. This reflection serves to share my personal insights into several arguments raised by Mr. E Pluribus Unum and other relevant issues.

What does reconciliation mean for an 18 -year -old, middle class lad from Mannar? What does absence of war mean to a person who has had firsthand experience of discrimination, shelling, killing, heavy checking  and pass systems? Is there a …

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Groundviews exclusively carried Jayantha Dhanapala’s response to erroneous and selective media reports of his submission to LLRC a few days ago, in which he promised an authoritative transcript of his presentation and of the question and answer session from the LLRC.

A covering note to the media from Mr. Dhanapala and the transcripts were sent to us today. Download the transcript here as a PDF, and another PDF noting the members of the LLRC here.

Interestingly, Shamindra Ferdinando, the News Editor of the Island newspaper mentioned on two occasions that he and his newspaper stand by the initial story on Mr. Dhannapala’s submission to …

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Rohan Edrisinha lectures at the Law Faculty, University of Colombo and is also a Director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. In this succinct interview conducted by Vikalpa today, Rohan flags serious concerns over the government’s proposed 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Salient points made by Rohan are,

• Significant problems with the process through which the Amendment was introduced – it was rushed, not consultative and couched in secrecy. Few outside government even had access to the proposed Amendment before it was sent to the Supreme Court.
• The Amendment goes against the promises in the President’s own Mahinda Chintanaya in 2005 and 2010.
• Completely undermines the 17th Amendment, with severe implications for, inter alia, the conduct of …
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Internal Armed Conflicts, Humanitarian Laws and the Curious Transformation of Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala by Kalana Senaratne on Groundviews flagged a number of pertinent questioning arising from the media reportage of Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently.

On our Facebook page as well as through numerous emails sent to the Editors, many present at this session of the LLRC said that media reports, including those on the Ministry of Defence website of Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission were extremely biased and inaccurate. We publish below a response to these reports by Jayantha Dhanapala as well as his written submission to the LLRC.

…

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Eyebrows were raised when I included the word deffa on the mirisgala website under “new entries”. And it’s true that it is stretching the point to claim that it qualifies as standard Sri Lankan English. But perhaps it also gives us an insight into the future of SLE.

Deffa (or defa) is a word that is increasingly common in internet chatrooms etc. It is an abbreviation of the English word definitely, which is used in colloquial Sinhala as an alternative to the slightly formal anivareng. From Sinhala (via Singlish?) it has re-entered colloquial Sri Lankan English with the same meaning. Here are a few examples from the internet:

He will defa help you out.
dudes…we can all defa chip in a bit and …

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Photo courtesy Global Zero

Numerous reports suggest that Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala had some interesting things to say when he appeared before the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently; about aspects relating to the interference of certain States in the internal affairs of other States; about the R2P concept; about the Sri Lankan Armed Forces carrying out a daunting humanitarian operation, saving 300,000 innocent civilians kept as a human shield by the LTTE and thereby preventing a certain ‘holocaust’ (The Daily News, 26 August 2010; The Ministry of Defence (defence.lk), 25 August 2010).

Thereafter, he had said the following too: that there was a need for an international protocol …

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On our way to the first scheduled hearing of Northern Muslims who were expelled by the LTTE in 1990, we spotted a group of men working hard out in the open, under the midday sun, and we stopped to have a conversation with them. Eight days earlier they had made their way from Puttalam to Marichchakatty with the goal of initiating the ‘journey home’ after the expulsion almost two decades ago.  Happy to leave their landless status in Puttalam and their livelihood as daily wage laborers, they were looking forward to reclaiming their lost lives as farmers and fishermen in their native villages. Although the end of the war heralded a new era and sparked hope of ‘returning home’ the …

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Interview III – Tissa Jayathilaka from Young Asia Television on Vimeo.

In this interview, Tissa Jayatilaka speaks about the Ceylon of his childhood and the experience of being part of the last batch of students enrolled at the University of Ceylon. Tissa also talks about the tumultuous period during the 1970s, the roots of the conflict and flags the opportunities as well as challenges facing post-war Sri Lanka.

Finally, Tissa speaks of academia, literature and his experience as one of the first members of the Council for Liberal Democracy, a think-tank that was founded in 1981, and of his friendship …

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Professor Michael Roberts, in a letter to the editor of The Island, has raised a matter of moral philosophy with regard to the controversy over Suraj Randiv’s deliberate no ball at Dambulla this week in an attempt to denude Virender Sehwag of his century, and the role of Tillekeratne Dilshan in it. Which is worse, he asks, denying a batsman his century by deliberately bowling a no ball, or the widespread practice of making cynically false appeals? His answer to this question is not in doubt: it is the latter, as practiced by the malevolent Australians and South Africans.

No one disagrees with the proposition that the practice, not confined to the Australians or the South Africans, of making sustained …

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The late Ray Wijewardene in conversation with Nalaka Gunawardene

Sri Lanka 2048 panel on Living with Climate Change – Ray Wijewardene is second from right

[Authors note: Dr Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene, who passed away on August 18 aged 86, spent a lifetime being unpigeonholeable – which won him many admirers and a few detractors. Despite being an accomplished engineer, aviator, inventor and Olympian, he chose to introduce himself as a farmer and mechanic ‘who still got his hands dirty’. Unpretentious and always enthusiastic, he was one man who somehow managed to have his head (literally) in the clouds and his feet firmly on the ground.

Ray’s multi-faceted career blended many disciplines and pursuits. At Cambridge University, he studied …

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Prof. Sumanasiri Liyanage, who has written to Groundviews regularly, teaches political economy at the University of Peradeniya, is a well-known political analyst, columnist and on the Board of the South Asia Peace Institute (SAPI).

We began our short conversation with the crisis facing the main opposition party in Sri Lanka, the United National Party, flagging serious issues others on this site like Dayapala Thiranagama have also noted. Prof. Liyanage’s critique of the party stems from his observation that in recent years it has lost sight of a political party’s raison d’être – the capture of political power as opposed …

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Image courtesy Transcurrents

Introduction

The current crisis in the UNP has thrown its grassroots supporters into a sense of hopelessness and disappointment about the future of the party. No political party can afford to let itself disintegrate and disappear from the political stage. If the present crisis is not resolved, it leaves behind a power vacuum and renders whole section of society unrepresented. The UNP’s disunity has already undermined its power, a weakening that would be compounded by a hemorrhaging of its supporters.

Throughout its political journey into maturity and beyond, the UNP has always been able to attract ideologically and politically different individuals and social groups to face dramatic changes …

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We last featured Rohan Edrisinha in February, just after the Presidential election on 26th January. Rohan, who lectures at the Law Faculty, University of Colombo and also a Director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, at the time flagged serious concerns over the implementation of the 13th and 17th Amendments, as well as the tragic irrelevance of the APRC in the process of constitutional reform.

These are also issues flagged in this video, where Rohan expresses his impatience with ideas such as the post of an Executive Prime Minister, which he notes is not just confusing, but dangerous to boot since …

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[Editors note: We reproduce below two open letters sent to the Editors of the Daily Mirror and Daily Mirror online respectively. The letters flag significant concerns over a marked lack of professionalism and violation of established media ethics by both the online and print versions of the newspaper. The letters are published for any responses that either of the Editors wish to send to Groundviews, and for others to critically engage with in what we feel is a vital and necessary debate on mainstream media standards in post-war Sri Lanka. The author of the two letters blogs at http://electra.blogsome.com.]

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Letter to Editor of Daily Mirror

Dear Ms. Liyanaarachi,

As the Editor of the Daily Mirror, I wish to bring to your …

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In June 2010 the Minister for Resettlement, Milroy Fernando stated that there were 60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka and that the Government would resettle them by August 2010. With some 30,000 IDPs remaining in Menik Farm at the end of July it would not be impossible for the Government to close the camp down and meet this self-imposed deadline.

With the movement of these IDPs it would not be too unexpected if the Government was to announce that there are no more IDPs in Sri Lanka. It would also not come as too big a surprise if the Government would phase out the Resettlement Ministry, as a part of the expected cabinet re-shuffle when the President …

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The story about Minister Mervyn Silva tying a Samurdhi Officer to a tree as punishment for not participating in a dengue prevention programme in the Kelaniya district was bad enough. The statement made by the UPFA General Secretary, Susil Premajayantha that the party or the government is not responsible for the actions of Minister Mervyn Silva opens up far more serious issues.   What we can infer from what the UPFA General Secretary said, is that neither the UPFA nor the government has any control over its Ministers.  The pertinent question then is:  who is in control? Surely,  we not are supposed to believe that the Cabinet of Ministers act as individuals and are not accountable to anyone in the government?

Minister Premajayantha consciously or unconsciously has …

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Photo courtesy the Daily Mirror’s febrile imagination

On the 29th of July 2010 I read a strange and badly written editorial that appeared in the Daily Mirror newspaper. To put it mildly, the editorial was a diatribe against the so-called recent trend of ‘persuading’ citizens to become gay. It demonstrated an appalling lack of good judgment to believe that anyone can be persuaded to change his or her sexual orientation. What offended me most was the editor’s charge that there is a hidden agenda by certain groups and individuals to ‘rope in a few dozens of unsuspecting leading personalities in society to their clubs.’ It almost sounded like …

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Enough conceptual theories are produced and articulated on the need and urgency of the political power sharing in Sri Lanka. Avoiding the torturous repetition and gauging the current diminishing appreciation for any theoretical discourse or appetite for challenging conceptual explanations, we suggest the following five points abstract as a summary of recommendation for a new constitutional re-arrangement for a stable/unitary, yet democratic and modern Sri Lanka

Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka 2015
Structure of Administration

1. Confirm the State of Sri Lanka as a unitary state
2. Constitutionalize the devolution of political and administration powers to
3. 5 recognised Provinces
   1. Northern Province
   2. Eastern Province
   3. Central Province
   4. Southern Western (From Puttalam to Kalutara)
   5. Southern Province and
4. 3 Special Zones ( under direct Prime Minister rule)
   1. Colombo District
   2. Kandy District (Total rule under Buddhist laws and Sangha …
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My name is Madduma Bandara — a brave young journalist working for Ceylon Daily Lies. I am going to tell you the story of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman by the name of Sivapuranam Sivahamy. What follows is consistent with the official policy of CDL, “we report, you decide.” Permit me to engage your imagination a bit.

Sivahamy comes from a farming family in the north of Sri Lanka, a poor village about 15 miles from Jaffna town. They had enough to eat, but not much more. When the family is away in the fields, leaving the children at home, Sivahamy’s older sister takes charge of the cooking, but wouldn’t let anyone have their evening meal, however hungry her younger siblings …

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