Sri Lanka: In The Eye Of The Storm

By Ana Pararajasingham

When Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war ended last year it was noteworthy in several ways — including a rare if not unique example of a government defeating a long running insurgency and the related issue of China openly taking sides in a distant internal conflict. In fact it was China’s policy — which emerged in full light in 2008 — to back the government in its 25 year struggle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that enabled victory two years later.
After a US decision to stop selling arms to Sri Lanka  in 2007, Beijing quickly stepped into the breach, not only supplying arms and equipment but also invaluable diplomatic support. But this assistance, not surprisingly, has come at a price.
Colombo’s decision to boycott the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo is as political as the decision by Norway to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident in the first place.  It was inevitable that Sri Lanka should be drawn into this contest given the crucial role played by China in helping Colombo annihilate the Tamil rebels.   Full Story>>> 
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A government’s arrogance and a country’s plight

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene

It appears to have gone unnoticed that the annexures to the report of the Advisory Panel to the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) show that the engagement of the Sri Lanka Government with the Panel had gone far beyond the surreptitious visit of toplevel government officials to New York. As must be recalled, this visit was first disclosed in this newspaper and denied until it was conceded much later by the Minister of External Affairs. Possibly this concession may have been prompted by the realization that this fact would have anyway come to light through the publication of the Panel report which could not have been prevented by threat, inducement or promise. Unbelievable arrogance of government officials But quite apart from this secretive visit, the annexures to the Panel report disclose lengthy submissions annexed under the covering letter of the Minister of External Affairs setting out the Government position. This is the same Panel which the Minister now condemns as being ‘legally, morally and substantially flawed’. If (hypothetically) the Panel had absolved the Government of all wrong doing, would the Minister have welcomed the report as being legally, morally and substantially correct? The answer to this hypothetical question is all too obvious. So the truth is that the Government assumed that the UNSG, (quite possibly the most indecisive and faltering head of the United Nations that we have had in history), even if he had been bludgeoned into appointing the Panel, would not go so far as to publicly release the Panel report. It also assumed in an unbelievably arrogant manner, that the Panel itself would uncritically accept the Government’s ‘reconciliation’ and ‘restorative’ process.

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