The highlight of last week’s visit to Sri Lanka by Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee of Liberia was the presentation of a Sri Lankan
Women’s Agenda on Peace, Security and Development to the government. The many co-sponsors of this Women’s Agenda would have wished to make this presentation directly to President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself. However, […]

In a matter of three to four months the government will be facing scrutiny at the UN Human Rights Council which will be scrutinizing the four year
report of the Sri Lankan government for the period 2008-12 in terms of the UN’s Universal Periodic Review. This will be followed by the UN Human Rights Council meeting […]

Sarath Fonseka, the war winning former army commander and the former presidential contender says President Mahinda Rajapaksa is robbing the sovereignty of his people, ‘just like an 18th century sea pirate who looted ships’. “ Such actions are not condoned in any civilized country. If this happens in a country like England — which introduced […]

Shift in government policy
The government’s decision to respond positively to a request by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay to have an advisory and technical team visit Sri Lanka represents an important shift in government policy. The government’s previous position was that that the
international human rights community had no role to play in investigating allegations […]

The government is bracing itself to meet the next round of international human rights challenges that will arise with the commencement of
sessions on the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in November. The UPR comes in a four year cycle for all member countries of the UN, where they are […]

“Ideas are great to the degree that they are feasible…Windbags with grand schemes are incapable of perceiving the relation between the ‘great idea’ that is put forward and concrete reality…” – Antonio Gramsci (Notebook 8)
Dr Vikramabahu Karunaratne gets more things wrong than right, and he does exaggerate, but he hardly ever lies wittingly. Therefore I […]

Dual criticism
The provincial elections–the ones scheduled to be held as well as the one that isn’t—are the subject of political comment. Three are to be held ahead
of schedule, resulting in a dual criticism. One is that they are untimely and the other that they serve solely the interests of the ruling bloc. Critique is to […]

The one day visit of Indian National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon to Sri Lanka is revealing of the power structure in the country in relation
to Indian priorities. He met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The shortness of the visit made it imperative that choices had […]

For, be the constitution of a government what it may, if there be within its jurisdiction a single man who is not subject to the law, all the rest are necessarily at his discretion  – Jean Jacques Rousseau. Discourse: What is the Origin of Inequality among Men, and is it authorized by Natural Law?
This column […]

While everything is debatable, not everything is negotiable. Some things, a few things, simply must not be negotiable. The territorial
unity and integrity of the Sri Lankan state, Sri Lanka as a single indivisible country, must never be up for negotiation. Whoever we negotiate with and whatever we negotiate on, must know and understand this from […]