News

April 25, 2011    The Expert Panel’s finding that the government and Tamil Tigers committed abuses and that the government has failed to hold its forces accountable shows the need for an international investigation. Russia and China should stop blocking efforts to find justice for victims in Sri Lanka and support the panel’s recommendations. – […]

Many such stories have been shared by Vanni people, particularly families of those directly affected, during hearings of the government appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in the North. Such stories are also reflected in the submissions to the LLRC by the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka and Church of Ceylon and Church […]

Mon Apr 25, UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The Sri Lankan army killed most of the tens of thousands of civilian victims of a final offensive against Tamil separatists in 2009 but both sides may be guilty of war crimes, a UN panel said Monday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he could not order an […]

The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) issuing a press release yesterday condemned the advisory document of the UN General Secretary’s expert panel. The release said: “The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna is of the view that the advisory document of the so called expert panel comprising three persons is entirely a result of personal exercise on the part […]

April 26, 2011      * Influential polling firm’s global wellbeing surveys in 2010 claims only 5% in Sri Lanka are thriving    * Says high wellbeing eludes the masses in most countries as majorities in 19 out of 124 countries “thriving,” mostly in Europe and the Americas Despite the end of the war, doubling of per […]

April 25, 2011, 9:01 pmUrges govt to meet legitimate grievances, rights and aspirations of Tamils The Communist Party of Sri Lanka says UNSG Ban Ki-moon’s move, at the behest of a section of the international community, is motivated and dictated by their global strategies and geo-political interests and not by humanitarian considerations or through compassion […]

Tuesday, 26 April 2011 The BJP has said that India should not bail out the Sri Lankan government from being implicated in the report of the UN panel of experts for violation of human rights during the final stages of the war with the LTTE, ‘The Hindu’ reports. BJP national executive member L. Ganesan has […]

New York, 25 April 2011 The United Nations has today made public the advisory report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on accountability with respect to the final stages of the decades-long armed conflict in Sri Lanka, which was submitted to him on 12 April 2011. The decision to release the report was made as […]

If the Government says that it is flawed as it has been quick to do, surely would not the simplest option have been to issue a sober and calm denunciation of its contents and findings without all this unseemly hysteria?   By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene Could anything have betrayed our desperation more clearly than the […]

Gorden Weiss says the UN should have exerted pressure on the Sri Lankan government to stop attacks on civiliansThe United Nations should have done more to prevent civilian casualties at the last stage of the war in Sri Lanka, a former UN spokesman said. Gorden Weiss, the UN spokesman in Colombo during the peak of […]

By Saroj Pathirana The Attorney General (AG) and the police have been ordered to release all Tamils in custody for longer periods without charges says Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice (CJ). CJ Asoka de Silva said he has taken measures to provide relief to the Tamil detainees during his two-year tenure in the office. “We have […]

By Saroj Pathirana Efforts to reduce the sweeping powers of the executive president failed due to the actions of Sri Lanka’s opposition, says the chief justice. CJ Asoka de Silva said the status quo of the 1978 constitution that authorised the executive president to make all senior appointments to the judiciary was re-established by the […]

    * Banging Ban Ki-moon as Bakamoona may not be the best course as diplomatic blunders contributed to this crisis    * Russia and China will go thus far and no further for Lanka, while India may take neutral stand By Our Political Editor Ministers have been “grounded”. A directive from President Mahinda Rajapaksa says they […]

The mysterious leaking in Colombo of the Darusman (UN) Report was accompanied by a carefully choreographed outbreak of patriotic-hysteria. The President, in a hyperbolic-excess, declared his willingness to brave the electric chair  By Tisaranee Gunasekara “The illusion of destiny extracts a remarkably heavy price”. — Amartya Sen (Identity and Violence) The mysterious leaking in Colombo […]

by Steve A. Morrell The United Nations (UN) is being used by Western imperialist powers which have been acting in an acrimonious manner against Sri Lanka, National Languages and Social Integration Minister, Vasudeva Nanayakkara charged last week. “They are scheming to put Sri Lanka and the Government into difficulty by making baseless war crimes allegations”, […]

This brings us to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). It is a pity that some organisations and individuals declined to give evidence before the LLRC. By doing so, they have made the same mistake that the Government made in not engaging with the UNSG’s panel. The composition of the LLRC includes some outstanding […]

Justice demands that. We must find the whole truth, not just one side. It is wrong for the government to react from the one side, they must think of the Tamil side too. The LTTE too must be investigated (The Sunday Leader’s Faraz Shauketaly spoke to Head of the Global Tamil Forum, Father Emmanuel, asking […]

Sunday Leader that acting on instructions, votes for President Rajapaksa were polled a couple of hundred times from a single computer. This was then repeated from other computers too. By Maryam Azwer 1) Rain, South Korean pop star, 2) Jay Chou, Taiwanese director, singer, songwriter, 3) Susan Boyle, British singer, 4) Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of […]

Even as Sri Lankans cry foul and engage in a finger-pointing, tongue wagging, mud-slinging exercise against UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, none of us, and that includes the entire local and foreign media in Sri Lanka were present in the hinterlands of the Wanni or anywhere near the Nandikadal lagoon as the war drew to […]

Saturday, 23 April 2011 Sri Lanka says the UN panel of Expert report on Sri Lanka has the ingredients of the LTTE remnants and the Tamil Diaspora. Sri Lanka Government spokesman Media minister  Keheliya Rambukwella  said that skeletons of various statements and utterances made by the LTTE rumps and the Diaspora during the last stages […]

Apr 23, 2011 (LBO) – A much respected retired Sri Lankan business executive, financial professional, Chandra Jayaratne, has written President Mahinda Rajapaksa to stop state plans to build a controversial pension fund by dipping its hands into the salaries of private sector workers.Jayarante has been actively campaigning to improve the liberties of all the people […]

2011-04-23 The killing of four more Indian fishermen during the last month by the Sri Lankan Navy is yet another gory reminder that things have not changed in Sri Lanka. In fact the evidence of torture on the decomposed bodies of the dead fishermen provides further proof, if proof was indeed necessary, of the sadistic […]

Weiss says that with the release [leak] of UN report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes, the parallel, with the mass execution of 8000 Muslim boys and men by the Bosnian Serb army and how the horror reached the world from David Rohde, an US reporter, who had hiked through front lines to reach the outskirts […]

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Friday expressed hope that the Centre would take appropriate steps without any delay after the United Nations report on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka is officially released on April 25. In a statement here, he rejected AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa’s charge that his […]

PTI, CHENNAI:AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa on Friday demanded that the government take ‘immediate steps’ to make Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa stand trial for alleged war crimes during the conflict between the Lankan armed forces and the LTTE following a UN report. “The UN Panel report is very clear. It lists out the war crimes of […]

2 April 2011 Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Vanni, S. Sritharan, has blamed the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni for continuing to occupy public buildings, including primary hospitals and schools, causing severe hardships to resettling civilians. The accusation by the TNA MP comes following District Development Committee (DDC) meeting held in Jaffna on Tuesday, […]

April 22, 2011/By Sivanendran The end of the three decade old civil war that pitted the government against the LTTE and divided the population created a reasonable expectation that Sri Lanka would be able to reach reconciliation and healing, which would pave the way for rapid economic progress. But alas the country appears to be […]

: Acid Test for UN and International Community to Act Decisivelyby Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah (April 21, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the light of the UN Panel of Expert’s report, with a view to moving forward with its recommendations, a convergence of opinions from the international community, in support of an international independent mechanism, leading […]

Sri Lanka’s government has launched a petition campaign against the UN making public an expert panel’s report on war crimes committed during the final months of the island’s war. The campaign, launched Thursday by Sri Lanka’s Minister of Private Transport Services, C. B. Ratnayaka, aims to collect one million signatures. It comes two days after […]

By V Suresh Will a UN report lie? Will an Expert Panel specially set up by the UN Secretary General to examine allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity be biased, partisan, project half truths and deliberately malign a state? The questions may be startling to many of us; but to the Government of […]