How do we prosecute war crimes in a country such as Sri Lanka when the state deliberately obscures the truth and prevents independent observers to investigate?
Showing all posts tagged Sri Lanka
The dangers of living in today’s Sri Lanka
I’ve written extensively about the gross human rights abuses taking place in Sri Lanka, a brutal war backed by various world powers for their own interests. This statement from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka is timely: 8th January marks the first anniversary of the assassination of Lasantha Wikrematunge, the senior journalist and founding editor…
Sri Lanka, tourist destination for the blind
At a time of gross human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, rely on the British Labour party to ignore decency: Ben Bradshaw, the Cabinet minister responsible for tourism, was facing criticism last night for flying to Sri Lanka for a Christmas holiday two days after the British Government raised “serious concerns” about human rights in…
Sri Lankan complicity in war crimes must be checked
A few weeks ago on ABC Radio PM we heard the following interview with Sri Lanka’s former foreign secretary Dr Palitha Kohona, now Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United Nations, talking about the alleged killing of surrendering Tamil Tiger fighters in the closing days of the civil war: The ABC asked him what his role…
Australia snubs Tamil refugees
My following article is published in US magazine The Nation: Sri Lanka’s brutal war against the Tamils, a native ethnic group that has suffered legal, economic and political discrimination for more than half a century, has come at a huge domestic and global cost. Human rights in the Sinhalese-dominated nation are consistently violated, with journalists,…
What it means to advocate the ”˜Sri Lanka model’ for Israel/Palestine
My following article is published on US website Mondoweiss: It is easy to frame the conflict in Israel and Palestine as inherently unique. In many ways it is – decades-old occupation, US-supported racial discrimination and failure of Western journalism to hold the powerful to account – but other struggles have eerie similarities. This year Sri…
Australia trades any good will towards Tamils for a cheap buck
Western Australia human rights group Project Safecom released a statement yesterday that captured the hypocrisy at the heart of Australia’s foreign policy. We care about human rights until we don’t. In other words, human rights is far less important than keeping rogue states on side for trade or diplomatic benefits. Maybe the government should just…
A Tamil uprising in Sri Lanka was only a matter of time
When a government uses overwhelming military force and simply ignores the wishes of the people being murdered, expect an insurgency that will change its face but remain determined to achieve set goals. Sri Lanka, you have been warned: A Marxist group of Tamil militants with connections to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Cuba is preparing…
Sri Lanka could teach a thing or ten to Israel
Israel, having trouble managing your Palestinian “problem”? Not to worry, copy Sri Lanka and simply murder civilians in the name of “fighting terrorism”. The face of modern Zionism (courtesy of the Jerusalem Post, of course): The Sri Lankans had more or less lived with this horror since 1983. Then 9/11 happened and a new dynamic,…