Several weeks into Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, journalists on the island are coming under increasing threat. Whilst the island has always been a dangerous place for the press, and for Tamil journalists in particular, over the last month there has been a worrying rise in intimidation, harassment and even physical assaults of media workers, alongside political activists and human rights defenders.
In the wake of Sri Lanka’s presidential elections this weekend, fear has gripped the North-East. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the man who engineered the massacres of tens of thousands of Tamils a decade ago, is back in power. This time, he occupies the highest office in the land. The result, though unsurprising, is terrifying.
As Sri Lanka gears up for a presidential election in just a few weeks time, Tamils on the island find themselves faced with a familiar decision. Almost five years after an election that was hailed as the dawn of a new era for Sri Lanka, the island has instead seen pledges of reforms broken and the failure to address key issues towards accountability, justice and a lasting peace. With leading candidates choosing to boast their Sinhala nationalist credentials, for Tamils in particular, the future seems bleak.
Ten years since the end of the armed conflict, Sri Lanka remains divided. Far from the promise of stability and unity, the fractures that have plagued the country since independence, continue to define the relationships within the island. Sri Lanka has failed to become what the international community expected it would, when the war ended ten years ago - a stable, peaceful, pluralist state founded on liberal, democratic principles. To the Tamils this is unsurprising. The failure to ‘fix’ Sri Lanka begins with the failure to acknowledge the toxic Sinhala Buddhist ethnocracy in its core.
For almost a decade, Tamil victims have looked to the UN Human Rights Council in their pursuit of justice. However, after years of resolutions followed by an extension, alongside lack of any progress on accountability, events at Geneva this week brought another deep disappointment.
Almost four years into the ‘good governance’ government, Sri Lanka’s image of stability and progress unravelled last month in a day. President Sirisena’s sacking of Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa followed by the dissolving of parliament and call for fresh elections, ended any semblance of stability. Revealed instead was disregard for the country’s constitution and rule of law, bribery, violence and an entrenched racism which habitually blames Tamils for the state’s woes. Sri Lanka’s latest descent into turmoil highlights once again the simmering crisis of unresolved ethnic conflict that remains at the island’s core. It is amid the island’s political uncertainty that Eelam Tamils look to commemorate Maaveerar Naal (Tamil Remembrance Day) tomorrow.
At the end of the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) 39th session, there can be no more illusions as to whether Sri Lanka will deliver for the Tamils. Although the government queued up its customary showpiece to coincide with this session - this time a revamped counter terrorism bill - all evidence points to the reality that accountability, justice and a return to normalcy in the Tamil homeland, including demilitarisation, are not forthcoming. Instead in the South, both governing parties, burned by recent electoral blows, have scrambled to regain their Sinhala nationalist credentials and...
A stinging new report from the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) has underscored the urgent need to clamp down on impunity in Sri Lanka. There is now abundant evidence that troops from the Special Task Force (STF), a foreign trained paramilitary unit, have committed atrocities, complete with testimonies from individuals involved in the crimes. Yet Sri Lanka has taken no action to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice – a failure that has appallingly led to an officer involved in these crimes to currently be deployed with the United Nations. The report adds to an...
Villages in Sri Lanka were once again in flames this week as the government declared a state of emergency. More than 100 years after the first anti-Muslim riots in 1915, Sinhala mobs led by Buddhist monks have again gone on a rampage, destroying mosques, businesses and homes. A curfew has been put in place and Sri Lankan security presence beefed up. Yet, with reports that security officials have stood idly by, the violence has continued and only after several days shows signs of simmering down. Amidst the calls for calm and restraint, Sri Lanka’s leaders have glaringly failed to call out the...
Sri Lanka’s unity government suffered an electoral blow at local government polls this weekend, just three years after its surprise victory. The Sinhala people renewed their support for the former war-time president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who asked voters to use the polls as a de-facto referendum on the unity government’s constitutional reform process, which he warned was the gateway to federalism. The Tamil people reaffirmed their support for the Tamil struggle, with Tamil nationalist parties winning the vast majority of seats in the North. Notably however, the Tamil National People’s Front (...