A Sri Lankan army dog and handler won the Washington-based Marshall Legacy Institute’s (MLI) ‘Team of the Year - 2019’ award this week, as the island continues to have military relations around the globe despite concerns of rights abuses committed by troops.
As Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary and accused war criminal Gotabaya Rajapaksa launches his campaign to become the island’s next president, 47 Roots looks back on his previous statements and his hardline Sinhala nationalist appeal.
Former Chief Minister of the Northern Province C V Wigneswaran denied claims he is backing any of the candidates in the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential election and said that with the exception of one outsider, all other Sinhala candidates have ignored demands put forward by Tamil political parties.
Releasing a statement earlier today, the former Supreme Court Justice also said he had not called for a boycott of the polls as reported in some Southern media outlets.
Sajith Premadasa, the United National Party’s candidate for Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential polls, launched his election manifesto this morning, pledging to strengthen the military, increase UN Peacekeeping involvement, create a “National Intelligence Act” and implement a “Sri Lanka First” foreign policy.
<p>United National Front's (UNF) leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said he will be the Prime Minister in a future government if Sajith Premadasa is elected as President.</p>
<p>Speaking at a media briefing in Colombo yesterday, Ranil said that the UNF had achieved a lot under the current government and that it would continue under a new government, Colombo Gazette reported. </p>
The families of Tamil asylum seekers who have fled to the UK are being harassed, threatened and in some cases physically assaulted by Sri Lankan security forces, said the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) in a press release last week.
“Spouses and parents in the villages of the north of Sri Lanka are being visited by police and army within days of the person in London giving a media interview or participating in a protest,” said the ITJP.
An upscale Colombo cafe triggered outrage over social media and has launched a reported investigation from Sri Lanka’s official languages commission after it displayed a sign instructing its employees that “No Tamil” is to be spoken.
Today marks 24 years since over half a million Tamil men, women and children fled their homes in Jaffna, ahead of a major military offensive by the Sri Lankan government led by Chandrika Kumaratunga, in what became known as the Jaffna Exodus.
<p>K.M Razool, a senior Tamil language journalist, has taken legal action against his former employer, Capital FM, after he was suspended for not publishing unverified content which would attack TNA leadership and favour the SLPP candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the lead up to the Sri Lankan general election.</p>
The General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Sinhala extremist group in Sri Lanka, has vowed to settle in Mullaitivu at the site of a controversial Buddhist vihara, located in a Tamil majority district in the North-East.
The Sri Lankan government claimed it had achieved a “great victory” in securing a $480 million dollar grant from the United States as part of Millennium Challenge Corporation Grant.
Sri Lanka’s cabinet approved the grant on Tuesday, which will allow American funding of infrastructure and traffic management projects across the island.
During a session in Brussels, Secretary-General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Helga Schmid met with Sri Lanka’s Ambassador for the EU, Grace Asirwatham, and noted that trade relations between Sri Lanka and the EU had witnessed significant growth in recent years.
<p>Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) presidential candidate said he will rehabilitate more than 250 former LTTE cadres, who are still being held in custody and reintegrate them into society.</p>
<p>“There had been around 5,000 Tamil youth at camps even before 2005. By 2015, we rehabilitated all of them except for 274 individuals. They too will be rehabilitated,” Gotabaya told the crowd at a rally in Vavuniya.</p>
The Sri Lankan army has reportedly set up a sham archaeological museum inside its camp opposite the Neeraviyadi Pillaiyar temple and are claiming the artefacts were from the area and belonged to the disputed Buddhist vihara built next to the temple.
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The General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Sinhala extremist group in Sri Lanka, has vowed to settle in Mullaitivu at the site of a controversial Buddhist vihara, located in a Tamil majority district in the North-East.
