militarisation

BACKGROUND Sri Lanka is slowly emerging from the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 outbreak and heading towards the General Elections that is scheduled to be held on the 2nd August. At this moment, three factors dominate Sri Lanka’s social and political landscape. The first is the militarization of government and governance. The second is […]

Last month (May 2020) a Magistrate in Jaffna had withdrawn quarantine orders against the organizers of end of war commemorations, based on appeals by lawyers.[1] At least three lawyers have faced reprisals in the days afterwards. Attorney-at-Law Mr. Roy Dilaksan’s house was reported to have been attacked by unknown persons.[2]  Another lawyer who had appeared for the […]

Image: To combat this, a critical mass of civil society must mount an apolitical challenge to the political establishment . Governance in Sri Lanka today is transitioning from a constitutional (albeit flawed) system of checks and balances to tugs of war between competing political power centres that are constrained not by the Constitution or statute […]

Sri Lanka: End Persecution of Journalist: Dharisha Bastians Targeted for Reports, Defense of Human Rights (New York) – The Sri Lankan authorities should stop targeting, intimidating, and harassing journalist and woman human rights defender, Dharisha Bastians, and her family. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Front Line […]

Image: Relatives and friends of Ramalingham protested against his killing, staging a sit-in protest blocking the Kandy-Jaffna A9 Highway. A 24-year-old man has died after being shot and killed by Sri Lankan army soldiers earlier this evening, with locals taking to the streets to protest his murder. The incident occurred this evening in Muhamalai, at approximately […]

The voyage from Serendib to Sri Lanka through Ceylon continues to be an uninterrupted tale of opportunities lost, scorned and spurned. The brutal end to the quarter-century war with the Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009 brought an unprecedented opportunity for the government to heal the Sinhala–Tamil ethnic divide. But now a new front is opening, one against Sri Lanka’s […]

Image: A Presidential Task Force appointed for Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province, and focusing on Pottuvil in Ampara District, has more to its innocuous title than strikes the eyes. I will tell you a little secret about archaeologists, dear reader. They all pretend to be very high-minded. They claim that their sole aim […]

“From now until the elections, we will not know when, and where, and how the fireball will fall on us, and what the nature of that fireball will be.” Arundathi Roy (Election Season in a Dangerous Democracy – The New York Review of Books – 3.9.2018) The Eastern province is the most ethno-religiously pluralist slice of […]

To those who scoffed that the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Presidency would not come in with a sweepingly heavy hand after the first few months of sweetness and charm, this frightening moment of the iron hand in the iron glove that Sri Lanka is experiencing at its onset must surely teach otherwise. These are admissions that Sri […]

The Rule of Law and Democratic Governance. At the Annual National law Conference 2020 organised by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapakse in the course of his address said “the time has come for all stakeholders including the judiciary, government, legal fraternity, and all other citizens concerned, to work together and […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed a Task Force of the heavy mob, which will press its collective knee into the neck of the new, socially legitimate Parliament that will arise thanks to the Supreme Court judgment which cleared the way for the Election Commission to name a date for voting. Lankans live at the overlap of […]

Sri Lanka Brief Fact Sheet: Militarisation and Securitization of Government and Governance in Sri Lanka. June 2020. Here is the list of military appointments made by president Gotabhaya Rajapaksa outside the military establishments. 1. Major General (Rtd) Kamal Gunaratne: -Secretary of Defence (November 2020)i -TRCSL- Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka – The Regulator of […]

The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) is concerned by threats to democracy and the rule of law in Sri Lanka as the government of Sri Lanka responds to the Covid-19 crisis. Recent developments could lead to interference in civilian parliamentary governance by the military, and to a disregard for Constitutional rules and the Rule of Law.  […]

Colombo based Think Tank the Centre for Policy Alternatives has published  a highly critical  discussion paper on the presidential Tasks Forces (PTF) appointed by the president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The discussion paper looks at the recently established two PTFs from strictly legal point of view. Excerpts form the discussion paper follows: Introduction Sri Lanka has witnessed […]

The Gazette notification on the SL Presidential Task Force (PTF) for Archaeological Heritage Management in East has particular instructions on allocating lands to archaeological sites. It is a move to give legal force to the dubious archaeological claims made by the Sinhala Buddhist groups in the East, commented Jaffna-based Attorney, academic and civil society activist […]

In what must surely count as one of the most hilarious, unintentionally ironic and terrifying proclamations ever uttered by a modern head of state, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has established a task force to “create a virtuous, disciplined and lawful society” in the country. Terrifying: the body, led by Defense Secretary Kamal Gunaratne, consists almost exclusively […]

5th June 2020, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is deeply concerned with the appointment this week of two Presidential Task Forces by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. These appointments came soon after the Supreme Court refused leave to proceed to all petitioners on the subject of the dissolution of Parliament for more than […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed six months in office on May 18. He came after the Sinhala majority voted him to power after they were disillusioned by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government’s failure to deliver on their promises. The last straw was the failure of the government in taking decisive action to stop the Easter Sunday massacre by […]

The distinguishing feature of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and indeed, at the same time the cause for concern with regard to him, is that he was never elected to any office until he won the presidency. He was a military man first and then the all-powerful bureaucrat as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence – a soldier […]

By P.K.Balachandran/Daily Express. Colombo, June 4: The Presidential Task Force for Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province, which was gazetted on June 2, has no Tamils or Muslims even though Tamils and Muslims together constitute two-thirds of the population of the province. Secondly, the Task Force has a number of Sinhala-Buddhist monks but no […]

Image: Western Province DIG Deshabandu Tennekoon says Police are looking for temporary residents. ECONOMYNEXT – Questions are being raised over a door-to-door survey being conducted by Police in the City of Colombo and its suburbs of residents and the collection of personal data by officers accompanied by unidentified civilians. The Deputy Inspector General of Police […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has brought six institutions under the Ministry of Defence issuing an extraordinary gazette on 22 May 2020. Sri Lanka does not have a minister of defence but it is president Rajapaksa who acts as the unofficial minister of defence.  According to the constitution, the president cannot hold any ministries. The deputy minister […]

Dayan Jayethilleke. The footage on TV news was straight out of my favourite Netflix series. A long convoy of glossy black four-wheel drives coming down a dusty road with a heat haze shimmering in the background. Elite guards in red berets and body-armour, sunshades and carrying Heckler-and-Koch MP6s dismount, escorting the Bosses, also in shades, […]

The state intelligence services has taken full control of the Covid 19 outbreak in Sri Lanka says Acting Assistant Director of State Intelligence Service Parakrama de Silva. He was participating in a live TV programme on the 2nd May. “It is the responsibility of the State Intelligence Service to investigate and contribute to all issues […]

(Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research (ACPR)- Situation Brief No. 3) As the world struggles to deal with an unprecedented global pandemic, it is imperative that states choose an approach that respects human rights in addressing this crisis. This brief highlights several human rights concerns in relation to Sri Lanka’s militarised approach to responding to the […]

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed a Presidential Task Force in charge of Economic Revival and Poverty Eradication under the powers vested in the President by the Constitution and it has five military Generals and one Rear Admiral. The Task Force is responsible for reviving the economy and eradication of poverty while paying special attention to […]

Testing has become the main challenge for Sri Lanka. The government has consciously erected several roadblocks to minimise testing and obfuscate the spread of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka. Despite significant domestic testing capacity, a quota of no more than 212 patients a day are being tested for Covid-19, as at 11th April 2019. With the […]

Image (edited) courtesy of www.demdigest.org. The anti-democracy virus infecting law enforcement officials in Sri Lanka today appears to have proceeded belligerently to the point that an attorney-at-law was arrested this week in circumstances so outrageous that it has drawn the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) out of hibernation to express its ‘concern.’ Pointing out […]

According to the Habeas Corpus Applications  filed on behalf of lawyer Hejaz Hisbullah the CID personal has come to his house in the guise of officials of the Ministry of Health. The application says that Hejaz Hisbullah had received a call at around 4.00 pm purportedly from a person identifying himself as from the Ministry […]

Defence Secretary Maj.Gen. (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne said the prompt interventions made by the military and Police with the support of the intelligence agencies, the impact of coronavirus, compared to other countries, has reduced to a greater extent in Sri Lanka with a significantly low death toll. He said Sri Lankan military’s contribution to combat new […]