Dilip Simeon's blog

Protesters broke into the Sri Lankan leader's official residence in Colombo on Saturday as more than 100,000 amassed outside, according to police, calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign over his handling of the country's economic crisis.  Video broadcast on Sri Lankan television and on social media showed protesters enter President's House -- Rajapaksa's office and residence in the commercial capital -- after breaking through security cordons placed by police. Images show demonstrators inside the building and hanging banners from the balcony, as well as swimming in the residence's pool. Rajapaksa is not at the site and has been moved elsewhere, security officials told CNN. It is unclear how many security personnel are present at the location.... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/09/asia/sri-lanka-protest-president-saturday-intl-hnk/index.html PM Wickremesinghe willing to resign, make way for all-party govt to take over Protesters take over President Rajap...

Suppression of democracy; brutal majoritarianism and minority extremism in Sri Lanka are worth noting by concerned  Indians.  The following is a transcript provided by the author of her talk at a recent panel discussion.   The panel discussion may be viewed at:  What's Happening in Sri Lanka?   [Why did these self-professed [Sri Lankan] left leaders betray socialist principles in this way? There seem to be three reasons. One is their belief that nationalisation as such is a socialist measure, regardless of the character of the state that is carrying it out. For example, nationalisation of the plantations by a Sinhala supremacist state had a devastating impact on Tamil plantation workers, but they didn’t care, despite having fought for the rights of plantation workers in an earlier avatar. The second reason is their disdain for democracy, which they see as connected to capitalism and the bourgeoisie, whereas I see it as the product of struggles by working people ...

Troops and military vehicles have been deployed in the streets of Colombo amid widespread protests against the government over the economic failure of the country. The army said this was done to “ensure public security”, a news report said. On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence ordered the Army, the Air Force and the Navy personnel to  open fire on anyone looting public property or causing harm to others  amidst violent protests in the island nation over the unprecedented economic and political crisis. The Indian High Commission in Colombo Wednesday dismissed speculative media reports about New Delhi sending its troops to Sri Lanka. It reiterated the Ministry of External Affairs’ stance that India is fully supportive of Sri Lanka’s democracy, stability and economic recovery. Earlier, the Commission denied reports that “certain political persons and their families have fled to India”. “These are fake and blatantly false reports, devoid of any truth or substance. High...

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has deteriorated into a medical crisis, with the top medical union declaring a national health emergency over a life-threatening shortage of drugs. On Tuesday the country’s most powerful trade union, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), called a meeting and declared a medical crisis as doctors and hospitals reported a widespread lack of medicine. The south Asian country is in the grip of the worst financial crisis in its history, with record inflation leading to shortages of fuel and food, and crippling hours-long power blackouts imposed. A state of emergency has been declared after mass protests erupted across the country calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down. On Monday Rajapaska’s entire cabinet resigned, and his ruling government has lost its parliamentary majority after a mass wave of defections…. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/05/sri-lanka-faces-medical-emergency-economic-crisis-drug-supplies More posts on Sri...

As a child, Wishma Rathnayake was fascinated with "Oshin," a popular 1980s' television drama about a young girl who rises from poverty to head a Japanese supermarket chain. Urged by her father to emulate her hero, Rathnayake started learning Japanese with a dream of one day moving to Japan from the small Sri Lankan town of Gampaha, northeast of Colombo. When her father died, the university graduate convinced her mother she could earn enough money working abroad as an English teacher to fund her retirement. The family remortgaged their home, and in 2017, Rathnayake moved to Narita, on the outskirts of Tokyo, on a student visa. Within three years, she was dead. After overstaying her visa, Rathnayake was detained in Japan's immigration system, where she died on March 6, 2021, at the age of 33. Rathnayake's case made headlines in Japan and fueled debate over the treatment of foreigners in the country, where 27 immigration detainees have died since 1997, according to...

The sudden  demolition of a memorial in the Jaffna University Campus  in northern Sri Lanka to remember Tamil civilians killed during the LTTE’s last stand against the Sri Lankan Army in 2009 has brought attention to the simmering and yet unaddressed issues of post-war ethnic reconciliation, justice and accountability, as well as a political resolution of the Tamil question. The demolition triggered protests by Sri Lanka’s Tamil community in the North and East, and condemnation by Tamil diasporas and human rights groups, and from politicians in election-bound Tamil Nadu including Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and DMK chief M K Stalin. The widespread outrage, and a hunger strike by students on the campus, seems to have taken the government by surprise. On Monday, three days after the demolition, University Vice-Chancellor S Srisathkunarajah visited the site, and promised to rebuild the memorial. The online portal of the Sri Lankan weekly Sunday Times said “ he led the...

The election of Rajapaksa could be a decisive moment for  Sri Lanka . Referred to as “the terminator” by his own family, Rajapaksa is known for his nationalistic and authoritarian leanings and is still facing allegations of corruption and torture.  “It is all our worst fears realised,” said Hilmy Ahmed, the vice-president of the  Sri Lanka  Muslim Council. “Sri Lanka is totally polarised by this result and we can see through the votes there is now a clear divide between the Sinhala Buddhist majority and the minorities. It is a huge challenge to see how the country could be united.” The election took place seven months after the  Easter Sunday attacks , in which saw self-radicalised Islamist extremists bombed hotels and churches, killing more than 250 people.  Rajapaksa, a former army colonel who served as secretary of defence when his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president between 2005 and 2010, played on fears stoked by the attacks and put security ...

My first reaction was panic. As I woke up to the  horrific scenes from churches and hotels in  Sri Lanka ; to news of the dead, dying and injured, on a day of Christian celebration, I desperately rang loved ones, checked on cousins, uncles, aunts and friends. As further explosions occurred, and more deaths were reported, my heart pounded. Finally, I learned that my relatives were all OK, and I began to reflect on an atrocity that must not be allowed to divide Sri Lankans and take us back to the  darkest days of the recent past . A man weeps outside a hospital in Batticaloa, Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/ AFP/Getty Images I was born in Britain to Sri Lankan parents and have a Sri Lankan husband. As a Muslim I know too well the feeling of shock and fear when someone has tried to harm you in a place of worship. I felt today as I felt when I woke to news of the attack on worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left  51 people killed  and dozens injured...

Authorities in Sri Lanka have launched a massive security operation and imposed a curfew after a wave of bombs in churches and hotels in Sri Lankakilledmore than 150 people and injured hundreds. The eight blasts, some of which officials said were suicide bomb attacks, appeared timed to cause maximum casualties among worshippers attending Easter services. In one church, St. Sebastian’s in Katuwapitiya, north of the capital, Colombo, more than 50 people had been killed, a police official said. Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles and splintered wood littering the floor and pools of blood in between wounded worshippers. In total, three churches and four hotels were targeted. The other explosion was in a house in Colombo, authorities said... read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/21/sri-lanka-explosions-80-believed-injured-in-blasts-at-two-churches

The heated debate over reforming Muslim personal law in Sri Lanka has resulted in an unprecedented mobilization of Muslim women across the country calling for progressive and gender-just laws. Securing equality within the family remains one of the biggest challenges for women across the world. Central to this is the struggle to rewrite personal status and family laws that are deeply hetero-patriarchal. Sri Lanka’s constitutional reform process has brought this into sharp focus particularly with respect to equality in the family for Muslim women. At its center are Article 16(1) of the current  Constitution  and Sri Lanka’s Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA).  Sri Lanka’s MMDA, which is applicable to the Muslim minority community, was first codified during Dutch and later British colonial rule as part of a plural system of family laws. Successive post-independence governments guaranteed the maintenance of the MMDA, while recognising the prerogative of the Muslim ...

NB: An 18 year-old report from one of the worlds most courageous defenders of human rights, the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), whose members fearlessly upheld their commitment to humanity in the face of terror and intimidation from all sides - the Sri Lankan government, the LTTE and the IPKF. One of its founders was the feminist Dr. Rajani Thiranagama , murdered by the Tamil Tigers for her condemnation of their atrocities.  Proponents of self-determination may benefit from a reading of this report on the murder (May 1998) of Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran, Mayoress of Jaffna. Its last lines read as follows: "The right to self-determination is a precious right. It has helped in focusing attention on the problems of minorities and in applying pressure on governments to redress grievances and recognise their rights as distinct cultural, linguistic or religious communities. But in exercising this right there is a dilemma. Those who care for the right and help others i...

OF late, I have been studying Sri Lanka’s war experience. The country has fascinated students of comparative politics like me as it defies virtually all conventional wisdom about peace and conflict within societies. Unlike the rest of South Asia, it checks several boxes typically associated with relatively peaceful outcomes for nations. It boasts a 90-plus per cent literacy rate. It is now formally a middle-income country — even when it wasn’t, it didn’t suffer from the kind of abject poverty typical of South Asia. Also, Sri Lanka has an aging population. The worry about scores of youth floating idly and turning to bad things wasn’t as pertinent, at least on paper. Finally, the country’s majority is Buddhist — a pacifist religion at its core. Yet, it experienced brutal violence lasting decades. The LTTE-inspired insurgency introduced suicide bombing to the modern world and killed thousands. Less known but equally violent insurrections took place in the south of the country. ...

The crisis arising from the Sinhala-Tamil student conflict at Jaffna University is a part of the Sinhalese establishment’s absence of conviction on the cardinal importance of secularism and the drift of the Tamil elite towards religious obscurantism. Conflicting nationalist narratives – as adaptations of received history to explain the present and direct the future – have, for each community, its inner logic. This is evident in how the Sri Lankan media has treated the Jaffna University’s  first clash between Tamil and Sinhalese students . In this regard, the university has the opportunity of playing a constructive role in winning over its Sinhalese students through mutual understanding and respect, and thereby creating a base for demanding that other universities do likewise. That calls for courage, foresight and empathy. Unfortunately, following the mores of its Sinhalese counterparts, today the Tamil cause is being presented by extremists and is mired in...

As a young teenager in the Netherlands Benjamin Bavinck (1924-2011) lived through the occupation of his country by the Nazi Germans. As he traversed the various war zones in Sri Lanka between 1988 and 2004, therefore, and recorded his experiences (in Dutch) in his diaries, he brought an experiential background that few other foreigners would have possessed. This pillar of experience was girded by two other sturdy characteristics: (1) what one can present as “Dutch phlegm” and (2) a commitment to the service of mankind that is a trait of those devoted to the helping professions. Bavinck had committed himself to teaching at Jaffna College in 1954 and learnt Tamil during the course of his eighteen-year stint career in the island.[1] He returned in 1988 to serve the Protestant Churches in different parts of Sri Lanka. He was working in various capacities in the helping profession within the Jaffna Peninsula in the period encompassed by Volume Two of his diaries, initially in the space o...