The Governor of the Central Bank was summoned to the Bribery Commission and grilled for six hours. A three-month travel banwas imposed on him. That one incident demonstrates how far we have progressed since January 8th.
The journey away from Rajapaksa Rule towards democracy, accountability and the rule of law has been far from perfect; it has […]

“I think I’ll call it morning….”
Gil Scott-Heron[i]
Neither their dire warnings nor our nightmarish fears materialised. The election ended as it should, in a peaceful change.
A large chunk of credit for that unexpectedly felicitous end should go to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Had he tried to resist the results illegally and unconstitutionally, as some of his […]

07 January 2015
His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa
President of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo 1
Dear Mr President,
The Importance of January 8th – Lasantha Wickrematunge’s murder
The irony of the presidential election being fixed for the sixth anniversary of the day on which my husband and your ‘friend’, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was assassinated, may have escaped you. It has not escaped me.
Lasantha […]

The recently concluded visit to Sri Lanka of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay was in pursuance of two resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council in relation to serious human rights problems in the country. The visit enabled the Commissioner to see the country situation at first hand without having to rely […]

“…superficial unity, which is the result of the denial or the sacrifice of differences”.
Tagore (The One Nationalist Party)
The regime reverted to business-as-usual literally on the day Navi Pillay left Sri Lanka.
The first salvo of lies against the UN High Commissioner Human Rights was fired, predictably, by
the state-owned Sunday Observer: “UNHRC chief Navi Pillay’s request to […]

“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.
Fifty years ago, on August 28, 1963, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., the uncrowned king of the African-American […]

“In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement…. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.”
Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Just 24 hours after the new Ministry of Law and Order came into existence, an armed gang invaded the […]

This week will be a crucial week for Sri Lanka, or more precisely for the Government, as the woman seen as the
“iron lady” dealing with human rights issues makes her visit to Sri Lanka to get a firsthand account of what happened during and after the war.
During her weeklong stay in Sri Lanka, UN High […]

“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.”
~Thomas L. Holdcroft
Gamini Dissanayake, one of the patriarchs of Sri Lanka’s modern day politics was a victim of a brutal attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE). On October 24, 1994, while he was bidding adieu to a […]

“My grief lies all within, and these external manners of lament are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortured soul”
~William Shakespeare
Mending roofs
Darmasena wakes up  to the haunting melody of the cuckoo’s morning call. Bare- bodied and in his only pair of shorts ragged with wear he gets off the […]