The Select Committee report under the chairmanship of Vijitha Herath   traced the origins of the relationship between the Burghof Foundation (BF) and the Ministry of Constitutional affairs which resulted in two agreements of 2001 and 2006 which was the central issue examined by the parliamentarians at a Select Committee. The first Agreement of 2001 was during the period of Chandrika Kumaranatunga where G.L.Pieris was the Minister and the second Agreement was in 2006 under the Mahinda Rajapakse regime with D.E.W. Gunasekera as the Minister. Read more...

A Prabhakaran dead can be more menacing than a Prabhakharan alive. Prabhakaran missing could be still worse. The call to surrender laying down arms is to place the pill under his tongue - Prabhakaran fears to face Tamils without arms and ammunition. Prabhakaran dead or alive would not matter, if the legitimate grievances of the Tamils are attended, without leaving it in the freezer. Read more...

The Jihadist terrorist attack in Bombay (pop 19 million) the commercial capital of India on 27 November which killed nearly 200 people was cowardly, brutal and outrageous. That is what must be emphasized and not what expert level of planning and training went into killing innocent people as the media is oft wont to emphasize. Sadly it recalls in much the same way the Indian trained but surely not planned Tiger terrorist attack on pilgrims, most of them women, worshipping in Anuradhapura in 1985.

In a dying declaration, Prabhakaran writes his own obituary in praise of himself.  

He throws a dead rope to the international Tamil community to carry out a rescue operation. The cornered, make believe king of Eelam, once hopeful of extending imaginary borders to encompass a Greater Tamil Nadu, dispatches an SOS from his shrinking kingdom before it passes into oblivion.

His ghost writer presented a script which became worthless at the time he read the contents. An apt phrase was selected as a prelude to his doomed expectations-“Today, there are great changes taking place in India”. Unfolding was a drama in India where the pleas of Chennai was checkmated by events in Mumbai. Prabhakaran desperately required a revised script to maintain his own credibility- it was too late and not forthcoming. Fortunes have certainly deserted him. Terrorism in India undid the terrorist in Sri Lanka, in his farewell speech.

Protect Lanka believes that Sri Lanka has entered a critical milestone in the history of its war against terrorism.   For the first time, there is a well focused, planned strategy with adequate resources to dilute and eventually eliminate the forces of terrorism which has maintained a stranglehold on our nation.   We are able to exercise our right to protection from terrorism.  Protect Lanka believes that this is also an opportune moment to reflect on the strengths and positive aspects over the past 25 years, giving credit to our achievements as a nation which has not allowed terrorism to destroy our social networks and commitments to development.More on Recognising Sri Lankas' Strengths

The dissolution and the dismantling of the LTTE is not a defeat for the Tamils. We must ensure after the defeat of the LTTE, the Tamils in the North are brought into mainstream democracy after 30 years of being captive in the hands of the LTTE and have been deprived of the benefits we have enjoyed. Majority of the Tamils are law abiding citizens of whom only a handful are terrorists.

If not for the men and women in the forces who are prepared to lay their lives to save the nation could we today live in safety and security in our homes or send our children to school or engage and transact in business and commerce or indulge in our professional affairs or travel to the airport to take flight or socialize at parties and functions or enjoy events of entertainment? We live a relatively normal life in the midst of a raging war, thanks to the security forces.

Separatist Propaganda would have us believe that it was the abrogation of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact [BC Pact] of 26.7.57 and of the Dudley Senanayake-Chelvanayagam Pact [DC Pact] of 23.3.65 that led to separatist terrorism, and that this land would have been a haven of peace had these Pacts been implemented. It is indeed tragic that many  have agreed with these manifestly untenable contentions as a result of their  appalling ignorance of the content of these Pacts, and the circumstances in which they  were executed. Read more Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact [BC Pact]

It is in the zone of the bizarre to the bewildering. Action Contre la Faim(ACF) the controversial French NGO made a dramatic entry to the sittings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations purporting to safeguard the interest of their deceased employees but soon took to heel when the relatives of the deceased employees turned tables and blamed the ACF for negligence and holding their employer answerable for the 17 deaths.

“It was noted that the LTTE is not permitting the civilians to come out of Mullaitivu and Killinochchi. This is a very unfortunate situation. We ask the LTTE not to hinder the innocent civilians from proceeding to safer areas as the war is escalating and the lives of these innocent civilians are greatly endangered. Innocent civilians must not be used as human shields.” said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference In Sri Lanka in a Press Release dated the 23 rd September 2008.

Testifying before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights violations fathers of two deceased aid workers who died at the ACF office in Mutur blasted the Paris based NGO for being responsible for the death of their children during August 2006, when the LTTE launched an attack shortly after closing the sluice gates at Mavil Aru.

The dissolution and the dismantling of the LTTE is not a defeat for the Tamils. Sri Lankans have a rich ethos of togetherness at all social levels to bind the nation which was disturbed by separatist forces with the connivance of mischievous NGO elements. Majority of the Tamils are law abiding citizens of whom few became terrorists. These terrorists were the deadliest in the world and subjugated the Tamils wherever they were, to become captive pawns; Tamils without a political and national leadership were incapable of countering the strategies of the terrorists. Read more on Amity after the War.

A sector that has little accountability but claims its presences as the 8th largest economy is the NGO sector worth USD1 trillion a year globally with an employee base of 19million workers which excludes the volunteers. NGO presence in Third World nations has been in debate & not without reason. NGOs have been accused of imperialism, neocolonialism, carrying out Western foreign policy, conversions of the poor to Christianity, vilifying Governments even funding anti-Government political campaigns & most recently aiding & abetting terrorist & separatist doctrines not to mention their internal setup that also lists cases of corruption & mismanagement. More on Questioning NGO Corruption & Neutrality

Sri Lanka may win the battle against Tamil Tigers but not the war as “they have’nt got the Tamils on their side  -N.K.Narayan, National Security Advisor ( India)

India neither could defeat the Tamil Tigers nor get the Tamils on their side when the IPKF was around in the North and East. Defeated on both fronts in despair they left. Can Sri Lanka do both or undo the gallant work of the armed forces who have sacrificed so much?

An expression by the National Security Advisor but there is more to it –it reflects more the hopes of India than the thoughts of India. Yet it carries a message which needs to be addressed. The grievances of the Tamils require responses. It is not only the Tamils but should include other minorities together with the Sinhalese who are a provincial minority in two provinces, all of whom have exclusive grievances. Importantly, are they legitimate grievances? If so, it is imperative that relief must be forthcoming without hindrance.
Read more on "Sri Lanka -From Here to Eternity"

Although the duties, responsibilities and rights of people were codified during the reigns of ancient Emperors such as the King of Ur (2050B.C.), Hammurabi in Mesopotamia (1780 B.C.), Cyrus the Great (6th Century B.C.) in Persia, and Asoka the Great (265B.C.) in India, it was only in the 18th and 19th centuries that thinkers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and others in the US and France came to realize that human rights should be considered part of natural law.   Despite this, it was only after the world witnessed the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust during World War II that the world community acted with frenzied urgency to enshrine certain rights that arise from the fact of being human, and to proclaim and adopt such rights as a common standard for aspiration by all Peoples and all Nations of the world.   This commitment resulted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948. Read More...

The main impulse for this paper is Tissa Jayatilaka’s essay titled ‘G L Pieris, Jayantha Dhanapala and R2P’ (The Island, 5 December 2007) in which there is an endorsement cum elaboration of what Gareth Evans said at the ‘Neelan Thiruchelvam Memorial Lecture’ in July this year on the emerging concept of ‘R2P’ (‘responsibility to protect’ human rights – an acronym to make it sound like a mysterious manthram?), and a refutation of the reservations which G L Pieris has expressed about the possible pitfalls of converting the concept to a concrete course of action pursued in the name of safeguarding human rights. Read more : The Other Side of R2P

The post-election phase is developing into a more bizarre scene than anything that happened in the east. Actually, the elections took place under more reasonable conditions without any of the hysteria that is driving the opposition, the NGOs, the diplomats and pro-UNP media round the bend. To their astonishment, the Asian Election monitors commended the electoral process and praised the voters who participated in it. But this was not music to the ears of the anti-national Jeremiahs.  Read more...

The formidable new axis powers fighting for lebensraum, calling themselves the international community (IC) is having nightmares. Osama and Al Zawahri are threatening to ratchet up their holy war and threatening to send them all to hell.  But what gives them unending nightmares is that Obama, a Black may become the next President of the USA. That will make many white eyes either don the suicide jacket (Louise A has already got her first fit on) which revolted them before or scramble up steeples to P. Read More...

As you are well aware the threat – internal and external - to the survival of our beloved nation assumes many forms, the latest and perhaps the most ominous taking the guise of “humanitarian intervention” through the emerging doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). Read more....

Human rights & the dignity of life are some of the colorful words that make up western rhetoric. It was the US’s desire to liberate the Iraqi’s from the Stalin of modern times – Saddam Hussein & his weapons of mass destruction that urged 2 US Governments to enter Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction but Saddam was captured & later executed but for the “freed” Iraqi’s their “freedom” was far from over. Read more...

The proliferation of UN-sanctioned interventions in ‘internal conflicts’ since the late 1980s though facilitated largely by the concurrent easing of super-power rivalry, was also an outcome of a distinct trend of increasing global concern on protection and promotion of human rights in the context of the contemporary tide of revulsion against genocidal atrocities in conflict situations such as those of Somalia, Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo. Read more....

There are internal and external threats to the survival of Sri Lanka.   Such threats assume many forms. The latest and perhaps the most ominous one takes the guise of “humanitarian intervention” through the emerging doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). Read more....

When a law has been violated it is not unusual for the party accused of such serious offence who has no credible defence, to seek refuge in some form of “special pleading” in exculpation or mitigation. The United States Government and its NATO allies acting in collusion, who must take full responsibility for the several violations of International Law and the Charter involved in Kosovo’s UDI... Read more...

United Nations Organization (UNO) was formed after the Second World War by member nations among other things to ensure that a militarily powerful nation will never be able to threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another member nation. However this very basic intention of the UNO has been made to stand on its head after many western nations recognized Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. Read more....

In the past few weeks there have been many media reports that point to the prevalence of confusion and disarray among the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE/Tigers) in the face of heavy losses inflicted by the armed forces of the government of Sri Lanka. Apart from many references to injury sustained by the Tiger leader Prabhakaran in the course of an aerial bombardment last November, there are a few speculations according to which he could even be dead. Read more....

The versions of what transpired at the recent meeting between representatives of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and a delegation of the ‘British Tamil Forum’ (BTF) as reported in the press (including several websites that carry news on Sri Lanka), though varied in content and focus, could be summarised as follows:  Read more...

The hope and expectation that the UN Charter would provide an effective answer to the use of aggressive force and unlawful interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign states, and be an acceptable instrument in the management of international conflicts, was not realized and may be described, in the words of Antonio Cassese  as   “the end of a magnificent illusion”. Read more...

Referring to Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, Roger Cohen in his column to The New York Times of February 21, 2008, titled "A Change to Believe In" stated: "….(Kosovo) is in effect the first major fruit of the ideas behind R2P" (Responsibility to Protect). Read more...

“We will adhere hundred percent to the CFA. We plead for the continuation of that agreement’. This statement was issued by Nadesan the current political head of the LTTE. ‘Sri Lanka’s unilateral abrogation of the CFA will only add to the violence and the terrorist activities’ Eric Solheim made the above statement soon after. Read more...

In the Neelan Tiruchlevam Memorial Lecture delivered at the ICES in July last year, Gareth Evans, the President of the International Crisis Group, in focusing on the limits of State Sovereignty in relation to the Responsibility of the State to Protect its People (R2P) considered it opportune to warn the audience that recent events in Sri Lanka made foreign intervention a live possibility. Read more...

The ‘ Kingdom of Yugoslavia’ came into being as a nation-state at the conclusion of the First World War in 1918. Carved out as it was from the former Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, it brought together within a sovereign nation-state, several disparate nationalities inhabiting parts of the Balkan peninsula and the Danube basin. Read more...