Latest news with #AnuraKumaraDissanayake
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Need answers': Will Sri Lanka's Tamils find war closure under Dissanayake?
Mullivaikkal, Sri Lanka – On a beach in northeastern Sri Lanka, Krishnan Anjan Jeevarani laid out some of her family's favourite food items on a banana leaf. She placed a samosa, lollipops and a large bottle of Pepsi next to flowers and incense sticks in front of a framed photo. Jeevarani was one of thousands of Tamils who gathered on May 18 to mark 16 years since the end of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war in Mullivaikkal, the site of the final battle between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that fought for a Tamil homeland. As on previous anniversaries, Tamils this year lit candles in remembrance of their loved ones and held a moment of silence. Dressed in black, people paid their respects before a memorial fire and ate kanji, the gruel consumed by civilians when they were trapped in Mullivaikkal amid acute food shortages. This year's commemorations were the first to take place under the new government helmed by leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected president in September and has prompted hopes of possible justice and answers for the Tamil community. The Tamil community alleges that a genocide of civilians took place during the war's final stages, estimating that nearly 170,000 people were killed by government forces. UN estimates put the figure at 40,000. Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which itself led violent uprisings against the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s and 1980s, has emphasised 'national unity' and its aim to wipe out racism. He made several promises to Tamil voters before the elections last year, including the withdrawal from military-occupied territory in Tamil heartlands and the release of political prisoners. But eight months after he was elected, those commitments are now being tested – and while it's still early days for his administration, many in the Tamil community say what they've seen so far is mixed, with some progress, but also disappointments. In March 2009, Jeevarani lost several members of her family, including her parents, her sister and three-year-old daughter when Sri Lankan forces shelled the tents in which they were sheltering, near Mullivaikkal. 'We had just cooked and eaten and we were happy,' she said. 'When the shell fell it was like we had woken up from a dream. The house was destroyed.' Jeevarani, now 36, buried all her family members in a bunker and left the area, her movements dictated by shelling until she reached Mullivaikkal. In May 2009, she and the surviving members of her family entered army-controlled territory. Now, 16 years later, as she and other Sri Lankan Tamils commemorated their lost family members, most said their memorials had gone largely unobstructed, although there were reports of police disrupting one event in the eastern part of the country. This was a contrast from previous years of state crackdowns on such commemorative events. 'There isn't that climate of fear which existed during the two Rajapaksa regimes,' said Ambika Satkunanathan, a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, referring to former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brothers who between them ruled Sri Lanka for 13 out of 17 years between 2005 and 2022. It was under Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan army carried out the final, bloody assaults that ended the war in 2009, amid allegations of human rights abuses. 'But has anything changed substantively [under Dissanayake]? Not yet,' said Satkunanathan. Satkunanathan cited the government's continued use of Sri Lanka's controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and a gazette issued on March 28 to seize land in Mullivaikkal as problematic examples of manifesto promises being overturned in an evident lack of transparency. Despite his pre-election promises, Dissnayake's government earlier this month denounced Tamil claims of genocide as 'a false narrative'. On May 19, one day after the Tamil commemorations, Dissanayake also attended a 'War Heroes' celebration of the Sri Lankan armed forces as the chief guest, while the Ministry of Defence announced the promotion of a number of military and navy personnel. In his speech, Dissanayake stated that 'grief knows no ethnicity', suggesting a reconciliatory stance, while also paying tribute to the 'fallen heroes' of the army who 'we forever honour in our hearts.' Kathiravelu Sooriyakumari, a 60-year-old retired principal, said casualties in Mullivaikkal in 2009 were so extreme that 'we even had to walk over dead bodies.' She said government forces had used white phosphorus during the civil war, a claim Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly denied. Although not explicitly banned, many legal scholars interpret international law as prohibiting the use of white phosphorus – an incendiary chemical that can burn the skin down to the bone – in densely populated areas. Sooriyakumari's husband, Rasenthiram, died during an attack near Mullivaikkal while trying to protect others. 'He was sending everyone to the bunker. When he had sent everyone and was about to come himself, a shell hit a tree and then bounced off and hit him, and he died,' she said. Although his internal organs were coming out, 'he raised his head and looked around at all of us, to see we were safe.' Her son was just seven months old. 'He has never seen his father's face,' she said. The war left many households like Sooriyakumari's without breadwinners. They have experienced even more acute food shortage following Sri Lanka's 2022 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in the cost of living. 'If we starve, will anyone come and check on us?' said 63-year-old Manoharan Kalimuthu, whose son died in Mullivaikkal after leaving a bunker to relieve himself and being hit by a shell. 'If they [children who died in the final stages of the war] were here, they would've looked after us.' Kalimuthu said she did not think the new government would deliver justice to Tamils, saying, 'We can believe it only when we see it.' Sooriyakumari also said she did not believe anything would change under the new administration. 'There's been a lot of talk but no action. No foundations have been laid, so how can we believe them?' she told Al Jazeera. 'So many Sinhalese people these days have understood our pain and suffering and are supporting us … but the government is against us.' She also expressed suspicion of Dissanayake's JVP party and its history of violence, saying she and the wider Tamil community 'were scared of the JVP before'. The party had backed Rajapaksa's government when the army crushed the Tamil separatist movement. Satkunanathan said the JVP's track record showed 'they supported the Rajapaksas, they were pro-war, they were anti-devolution, anti-international community, were all anti-UN, all of which they viewed as conspiring against Sri Lanka.' She conceded that the party was seeking to show that it had 'evolved to a more progressive position but their action is falling short of rhetoric'. Although Dissanayake's government has announced plans to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, it has rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on accountability for war crimes, much like previous governments. Before the presidential elections, Dissanayake said he would not seek to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. 'On accountability for wartime violations, they have not moved at all,' Satkunanathan told Al Jazeera, citing the government's refusal to engage with the UN-initiated Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP), which was set up to collect evidence of potential war crimes. 'I would love them to prove me wrong.' The government has also repeatedly changed its stance on the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which promises devolved powers to Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. Before the presidential election, Dissanayake said he supported its implementation in meetings with Tamil parties, but the government has not outlined a clear plan for this, with the JVP's general secretary dismissing it as unnecessary shortly after the presidential election. 'Six months since coming into office, there's no indication of the new government's plan or intention to address the most urgent grievances of the Tamils affected by the war,' Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said. 'And the truth about the forcibly disappeared features high on the agenda of those in the North and the East.' Still, some, like 48-year-old Krishnapillai Sothilakshmi, remain hopeful. Sothilakshmi's husband Senthivel was forcibly disappeared in 2008. She said she believed the new government would give her answers. A 2017 report by Amnesty International [PDF] estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. Although Sri Lanka established an Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in 2017, there has been no clear progress since. 'We need answers. Are they alive or not? We want to know,' Sothilakshmi said. But for Jeevarani, weeping on the beach as she looked at a photograph of her three-year-old daughter Nila, it's too late for any hope. Palm trees are growing over her family's grave, and she is no longer even able to pinpoint the exact spot where they were buried. 'If someone is sick, this government or that government can say they'll cure them,' she said. 'But no government can bring back the dead, can they?'
Al Jazeera
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘Need answers': Will Sri Lanka's Tamils find war closure under Dissanayake?
Mullivaikkal, Sri Lanka – On a beach in northeastern Sri Lanka, Krishnan Anjan Jeevarani laid out some of her family's favourite food items on a banana leaf. She placed a samosa, lollipops and a large bottle of Pepsi next to flowers and incense sticks in front of a framed photo. Jeevarani was one of thousands of Tamils who gathered on May 18 to mark 16 years since the end of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war in Mullivaikkal, the site of the final battle between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that fought for a Tamil homeland. As on previous anniversaries, Tamils this year lit candles in remembrance of their loved ones and held a moment of silence. Dressed in black, people paid their respects before a memorial fire and ate kanji, the gruel consumed by civilians when they were trapped in Mullivaikkal amid acute food shortages. This year's commemorations were the first to take place under the new government helmed by leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected president in September and has prompted hopes of possible justice and answers for the Tamil community. The Tamil community alleges that a genocide of civilians took place during the war's final stages, estimating that nearly 170,000 people were killed by government forces. UN estimates put the figure at 40,000. Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which itself led violent uprisings against the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s and 1980s, has emphasised 'national unity' and its aim to wipe out racism. He made several promises to Tamil voters before the elections last year, including the withdrawal from military-occupied territory in Tamil heartlands and the release of political prisoners. But eight months after he was elected, those commitments are now being tested – and while it's still early days for his administration, many in the Tamil community say what they've seen so far is mixed, with some progress, but also disappointments. In March 2009, Jeevarani lost several members of her family, including her parents, her sister and three-year-old daughter when Sri Lankan forces shelled the tents in which they were sheltering, near Mullivaikkal. 'We had just cooked and eaten and we were happy,' she said. 'When the shell fell it was like we had woken up from a dream. The house was destroyed.' Jeevarani, now 36, buried all her family members in a bunker and left the area, her movements dictated by shelling until she reached Mullivaikkal. In May 2009, she and the surviving members of her family entered army-controlled territory. Now, 16 years later, as she and other Sri Lankan Tamils commemorated their lost family members, most said their memorials had gone largely unobstructed, although there were reports of police disrupting one event in the eastern part of the country. This was a contrast from previous years of state crackdowns on such commemorative events. 'There isn't that climate of fear which existed during the two Rajapaksa regimes,' said Ambika Satkunanathan, a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, referring to former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brothers who between them ruled Sri Lanka for 13 out of 17 years between 2005 and 2022. It was under Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan army carried out the final, bloody assaults that ended the war in 2009, amid allegations of human rights abuses. 'But has anything changed substantively [under Dissanayake]? Not yet,' said Satkunanathan. Satkunanathan cited the government's continued use of Sri Lanka's controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and a gazette issued on March 28 to seize land in Mullivaikkal as problematic examples of manifesto promises being overturned in an evident lack of transparency. Despite his pre-election promises, Dissnayake's government earlier this month denounced Tamil claims of genocide as 'a false narrative'. On May 19, one day after the Tamil commemorations, Dissanayake also attended a 'War Heroes' celebration of the Sri Lankan armed forces as the chief guest, while the Ministry of Defence announced the promotion of a number of military and navy personnel. In his speech, Dissanayake stated that 'grief knows no ethnicity', suggesting a reconciliatory stance, while also paying tribute to the 'fallen heroes' of the army who 'we forever honour in our hearts.' Kathiravelu Sooriyakumari, a 60-year-old retired principal, said casualties in Mullivaikkal in 2009 were so extreme that 'we even had to walk over dead bodies.' She said government forces had used white phosphorus during the civil war, a claim Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly denied. Although not explicitly banned, many legal scholars interpret international law as prohibiting the use of white phosphorus – an incendiary chemical that can burn the skin down to the bone – in densely populated areas. Sooriyakumari's husband, Rasenthiram, died during an attack near Mullivaikkal while trying to protect others. 'He was sending everyone to the bunker. When he had sent everyone and was about to come himself, a shell hit a tree and then bounced off and hit him, and he died,' she said. Although his internal organs were coming out, 'he raised his head and looked around at all of us, to see we were safe.' Her son was just seven months old. 'He has never seen his father's face,' she said. The war left many households like Sooriyakumari's without breadwinners. They have experienced even more acute food shortage following Sri Lanka's 2022 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in the cost of living. 'If we starve, will anyone come and check on us?' said 63-year-old Manoharan Kalimuthu, whose son died in Mullivaikkal after leaving a bunker to relieve himself and being hit by a shell. 'If they [children who died in the final stages of the war] were here, they would've looked after us.' Kalimuthu said she did not think the new government would deliver justice to Tamils, saying, 'We can believe it only when we see it.' Sooriyakumari also said she did not believe anything would change under the new administration. 'There's been a lot of talk but no action. No foundations have been laid, so how can we believe them?' she told Al Jazeera. 'So many Sinhalese people these days have understood our pain and suffering and are supporting us … but the government is against us.' She also expressed suspicion of Dissanayake's JVP party and its history of violence, saying she and the wider Tamil community 'were scared of the JVP before'. The party had backed Rajapaksa's government when the army crushed the Tamil separatist movement. Satkunanathan said the JVP's track record showed 'they supported the Rajapaksas, they were pro-war, they were anti-devolution, anti-international community, were all anti-UN, all of which they viewed as conspiring against Sri Lanka.' She conceded that the party was seeking to show that it had 'evolved to a more progressive position but their action is falling short of rhetoric'. Although Dissanayake's government has announced plans to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, it has rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on accountability for war crimes, much like previous governments. Before the presidential elections, Dissanayake said he would not seek to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. 'On accountability for wartime violations, they have not moved at all,' Satkunanathan told Al Jazeera, citing the government's refusal to engage with the UN-initiated Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP), which was set up to collect evidence of potential war crimes. 'I would love them to prove me wrong.' The government has also repeatedly changed its stance on the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which promises devolved powers to Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. Before the presidential election, Dissanayake said he supported its implementation in meetings with Tamil parties, but the government has not outlined a clear plan for this, with the JVP's general secretary dismissing it as unnecessary shortly after the presidential election. 'Six months since coming into office, there's no indication of the new government's plan or intention to address the most urgent grievances of the Tamils affected by the war,' Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said. 'And the truth about the forcibly disappeared features high on the agenda of those in the North and the East.' Still, some, like 48-year-old Krishnapillai Sothilakshmi, remain hopeful. Sothilakshmi's husband Senthivel was forcibly disappeared in 2008. She said she believed the new government would give her answers. A 2017 report by Amnesty International [PDF] estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. Although Sri Lanka established an Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in 2017, there has been no clear progress since. 'We need answers. Are they alive or not? We want to know,' Sothilakshmi said. But for Jeevarani, weeping on the beach as she looked at a photograph of her three-year-old daughter Nila, it's too late for any hope. Palm trees are growing over her family's grave, and she is no longer even able to pinpoint the exact spot where they were buried. 'If someone is sick, this government or that government can say they'll cure them,' she said. 'But no government can bring back the dead, can they?'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Sri Lanka, Dissanayake's Honeymoon Period Might Be Running Out
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka—It's been a busy few months at the polls for Sri Lanka, which recently capped off its third set of elections in under eight months, capped by local elections held on May 6. The voting determined the makeup of local councils across the island, and the outcomes signaled that while President Anura Kumara Dissanayake continues to enjoy popular support, his honeymoon period may be nearing its end. The series of polls began last September, when Dissanayake—popularly known as AKD—swept to power on a lasting wave of discontent following the collapse of Sri Lanka's economy in 2022. That crisis saw the country default on its international debt amid soaring cost-of-living conditions and a currency collapse, leading to public protests that unseated then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. As the longtime leader of the traditionally marginalized leftist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, or JVP, Dissanayake was perceived as a political outsider, positioning him well in the runup to the first presidential election since the 2022 protests, known as the Aragalaya movement. His JVP-led National People's Power, or NPP, alliance subsequently earned a supermajority in November's parliamentary elections, winning 159 seats out of 225 on 62 percent of the vote. In the local elections held earlier this month, the NPP still won the largest vote share, taking over councils in the Sinhala heartlands and upcountry areas. But it fell to 43 percent overall, raising the question of where Dissanayake's NPP government stands after six months in power. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. According to Nishan De Mel, executive director of Verité Research in Colombo, the local election outcomes reflects 'a slight cooling of sentiment' toward the government. 'Not that people have become oppositional or turned against it,' he added, describing the shift instead as a slowly building impatience. De Mel acknowledged that the NPP had 'reaffirmed its mandate' in the polls, but the fact that it had lost some of its vote share to the four opposition parties meant that it wasn't as resounding a victory as in the general election. The shift was most notable in the Tamil-majority Northern province, where most councils saw Tamil parties winning the largest vote share and shutting the NPP out of local governments. Upon taking over in November, Dissanayake's NPP government inherited many daunting challenges, primarily the task of repairing Sri Lanka's economy. Following two consecutive years of contraction, the economy grew 4.6 percent in 2024. While presenting the budget for 2025, Dissanayake said the economy is expected to grow a further 5 percent this year. However, little has changed for the poorest in the country, who drove the Aragalaya protests that ousted Rajapaksa in 2022 and have been most affected by the economic collapse. Though Dissanayake's government has attempted to ease the pressure by increasing minimum wages in the public and private sectors, the cost of living remains extremely high. An April 2025 report by the World Bank stated that although poverty was forecast to decline by 1.8 percent over the course of the year, a third of Sri Lankans were 'living in poverty or one shock away from falling back into it.' The report also highlighted an increase in malnutrition in 2024. Ahead of the September presidential election, Dissanayake promised to renegotiate Sri Lanka's bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which has led to punishing austerity measures, including a hike in fuel and electricity prices. But he reneged on that promise after the parliamentary elections, saying the economy was 'in such a state that it cannot take the slightest shock.' A further increase in electricity rates is thought to be on the agenda in the next few months, according to local media. For Ahilan Kadirgamar, a lecturer at the University of Jaffna, the conditions of the IMF bailout agreement are not sustainable. 'The sooner they come out of it, the better it would be,' he told WPR. Kadirgamar said the IMF program's austerity measures were 'counterproductive' for Sri Lanka and that 'the burden is being borne by the working people and the marginalized sections of society.' He also dismissed the celebratory coverage of the country's economic growth, pointing out that it was 'starting from an extremely low base.' However, not everyone agrees. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, described Dissanayake's U-turn as 'a very pragmatic decision' taken by 'a very pragmatic politician.' Staying within the IMF framework, Saravanamuttu added, allowed him and the NPP to avoid 'political turmoil in the country when they came into office.' Saravanamuttu nevertheless criticized the NPP for being slow to act on some of its other electoral promises, particularly repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, a controversial law often historically used to arrest dissidents. Not only has the government taken no steps to do so, but arrests have continued under its tenure. Saravanamuttu credited the government with having taken positive action to combat corruption, but added that 'they need to do the actual tangible policy reform that they promised.' In the meantime, he told WPR, 'there is a creeping disillusionment with regard to the way that the government is operating. And the JVP has to do something fast to stem that.' Dissanayake also courted controversy in the runup to the local elections, with allegations lodged by opposition parties that he had threatened to withhold government funding from 'corrupt' local councils. The insinuation was that only NPP-led councils could be trusted. De Mel said that he did not believe the NPP would prevent disbursements to councils led by other parties, but rather that Dissanayake was emphasizing the NPP's anti-corruption stance. De Mel added that the NPP may have over-promised on the timeline and scope of its plans for its parliamentary term, but that 'the challenge for the government is that they must convince the people that these adjustments to their positions are reasonable.' Comparing the NPP's first six months in power to the 2015 government of former President Maithripala Sirisena, who similarly represented a landmark shift away from the Rajapaksa political dynasty when he came to power, De Mel said the NPP had achieved comparatively less. 'In that period, even without having a parliamentary majority, that change in presidency brought much more rapid structural changes in governance than what we have seen in the current government in the first six months,' De Mel told WPR. He added, however, that the need to prepare for the rapid succession of elections had left the NPP government with less time to deliver. Dissanayake's NPP government will also have many challenges ahead on the foreign policy front, particularly when it comes to charting its relationship with China, navigating increased tensions between India and Pakistan, and riding out the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. All of these will have implications on the economic front, particularly the latter. 'This could mean increased unemployment or lowered levels of production or cost-cutting that could affect workers,' Kadirgamar said of the tariffs' impact. 'So we're looking at really choppy times ahead. And for all of this, the NPP really needs a plan, including for how they want to deal with the IMF program, because that's not helping at all.' Kadirgamar said progressive policies like a wealth tax and land redistribution, among others, would be positive steps for the NPP, while Saravanamuttu said an increased focus on digitalization as well as reforms of the public sector and state-owned enterprises were needed. The government will also need to interrogate its relationship with Tamil voters given its performance in the local government elections, although De Mel said this could partly be put down to a different dynamic at play, with people more likely to vote at the local level for parties and candidates they knew. However, given the JVP's history of Sinhala nationalism, it will be important for Dissanayake to build trust with Tamil voters, especially given his government's unwillingness to promise the devolved powers long sought by the Tamil regions. Above all, however, the NPP's mandate to tackle corruption will remain the primary barometer by which its performance will be measured going forward. To succeed on this front, De Mel said, the government will need to understand and 'neutralize' the workings of the 'deep state' that has driven corruption across successive previous governments. In one way or another, the NPP will have to show results soon, as in a post-Aragalaya political landscape, there is far less room for Sri Lankan politicians to maneuver their way out of tricky situations and failed promises. If Dissanayake's electoral successes have shown anything, it is that people are hungry for change. But this month's local election results made it clear that political goodwill does not last forever. Dissanayake and the NPP government know that, had it not been for the failings of their predecessors, they would not be in power today. The flip side of that coin remains that, if they fail to deliver, they could quickly find themselves back on the outside. Jeevan Ravindran is a journalist and researcher based between London and Jaffna, focusing on human rights. She has worked extensively with Reuters and CNN, and most recently as a researcher at Amnesty International, focusing on Malaiyaha Tamils. The post In Sri Lanka, Dissanayake's Honeymoon Period Might Be Running Out appeared first on World Politics Review.
The Print
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Sri Lanka promotes soldiers to mark war victory anniversary
On May 18, 2009, the Sri Lankan Army declared victory over the LTTE, which for three decades had run a parallel administration in the northern and eastern part of the country in their quest to set up a separate Tamil homeland. On Tuesday, a statement from President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's office said that he termed the separatist war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a tragedy. Colombo, May 20 (PTI) Sri Lanka has granted promotions to over 200 military officers and 12,200 other rankers to mark the 16th national war heroes day that marks victory over the Tamil separatist movement of the LTTE. On May 19, 2009, the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa declared that the last bit of land under LTTE control in the north east region had been wrested back by the government troops. The government therefore observes both days and organises various events. 'The Sri Lanka Army has promoted 186 officers and 10,093 other ranks; the Sri Lanka Navy has promoted 22 officers and 1,256 other ranks, and the Sri Lanka Airforce has promoted nine officers and 868 other ranks', said the statement from the president's office. Dissanayake – who is also the Minister of Defence and the Commander in Chief of the troops – was originally not scheduled to preside over the ceremony, but did attend it and also spoke on the occasion. Calling the separatist war waged by the LTTE to set up a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east regions a tragedy, Dissanayake said: 'For decades, our nation endured the horrors of war. This conflict which inflicted immense suffering on our people and land was brought to an end years ago'. Dissanayake's participation at the last minute had come under fire from several quarters. Foreign minister Vijitha Herath, speaking on a talk show on Derana later on Monday night, however refuted those claims. The president's non-participation had been mentioned owing to a miscommunication and he always wanted to be present at the ceremony, Herath said. 'The truth is.. it was a miscommunication.' PTI CORR NPK NPK This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
The Hindu
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Grief knows no ethnicity, says Dissanayake, pledging lasting peace in Sri Lanka
'Grief knows no ethnicity', Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said, as he vowed to ensure 'lasting peace' and build a society 'anchored in justice'. Mr. Dissanayake made the remarks at the 16th 'War Heroes' Commemoration Ceremony' held on Monday (May 19, 2025), a day after thousands of Tamils gathered in Mullivaikkal, in the northern Mullaitivu district, to remember their loved ones who were killed by the armed forces in the final phase of the island nation's civil war that ended in 2009. According to the United Nations, some 40,000 civilians were killed, including in areas declared 'no fire zones' by authorities, and thousands disappeared, in the gory battle that spanned over three decades. Survivors have been unrelentingly demanding accountability and justice for what international rights groups have found to be grave abuse of human rights. Also read: Sri Lanka protests 'genocide monument' in Canada ahead of civil war anniversary 'Our predecessors endured conflict; ours is a generation still grappling with its residual divisions. But we must resolve to leave our children a nation free from strife, a society anchored not in power struggles but in justice,' Mr. Dissanayake said in his address to soldiers. Observing that war is 'synonymous with tragedy and devastation', he noted, 'Today, we witness the remnants of this devastation, children orphaned, parents bereaved, and spouses widowed. Across our land, from North to South, grief knows no ethnicity.' In a rare acknowledgment from a southern leader, of the scores of lives lost in the Tamil majority areas of the north and east, Mr. Dissanayake pointed to people — 'not only in the south but also in the north' — holding up photographs of their loved ones on the streets, mourning their death. 'To every parent, their child is precious. So, as a country that has faced such a massive tragedy, our responsibility today is to prevent such a war from happening again in our country,' he said. Elected to the country's top office last year, Mr. Dissanayake and his majority-wielding National People's Power, raised expectations, including among Tamils who backed them, over delivering meaningful reconciliation and equitable development. Six months since, the government faces growing scrutiny over pending implementation of its pledges. Contending that conflicts, racism, and extremism have been 'strategically exploited' at various times to acquire, sustain, and strengthen power, President Dissanayake said, 'These issues have not emerged naturally; rather, they have been manipulated to secure authority and to obscure the wrongdoings committed.' 'Today, peace is increasingly being portrayed as a sign of betrayal. Reconciliation is being distorted into surrender. But as a progressive society we must raise our voices for more than ever for humanity and compassion. This applies not only within our own country, but across the world,' Mr. Dissanayake said, asking what wars and conflicts raging around the globe have truly brought to people. 'Victory? No, only destruction. That is why I believe we must act with unwavering commitment and clarity in our efforts to achieve lasting peace.' Watch: 15 years on, justice and economic progress elude Sri Lanka's Tamils In a social media post, opposition MP and Tamil Progressive Alliance Leader Mano Ganesan said Sri Lankans should reach a 'patriotic destination' where they are able to commemorate 'all our dead souls and if need to be, victory over all kind of terrorism, state and non-state [actors]' and in the south and north of the country. Urging the government to address 'root causes' of the war, Mr. Ganesan pointed to the discrimination of minorities beginning in 1948, with the Ceylon Citizenship Act that disenfranchised Indian Origin [Hill Country or Malaiyaha] Tamils, the Sinhala Only Act of 1956, and the failure by successive governments to implement various political commitments and legislative pledges, including the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. 'Will the new government undo the past failures of its predecessors and bring justice and accountability?' rights watchdog Amnesty International asked in a post on the commemoration.
