5th Column
Home » ColumnsStop dark June from becoming Black July
My Dear Mahinda maama, I thought I must write to you because, while you were visiting Bolivia, Aluthgama was burning. Now, two people are dead, a lot of property has been destroyed and there are many questions that need urgent answers. I know you visited Aluthgama soon after you returned from overseas, despite having a busy [...]
Allies abandon Govt. in its Motion against UNHRC intervention
The Government could not have chosen a worse time to bring a Motion to Parliament with the hope of winning bipartisan support against moves by the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner (UNHRC) to begin an international investigation against Sri Lanka. Far from winning any new support, the Government, in fact, lost support for the Motion from [...]
Higher FDI imperative for economic development
Much higher amounts of foreign direct investment of the right types are needed to propel the economy to higher sustained economic growth and further structural transformation of the economy. This is widely recognised internationally, as well as by most economists in the country, business leaders and analysts. The new Investment Promotion Minister, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene, [...]
Aluthgama aftermath – the official game of smoke and mirrors
In the aftermath of the violence unleashed against Muslims in Aluthgama someone said, in an interview published in a mainstream daily: “We strongly feel some extreme groups were behind this and there was a plan to cause trouble.” While this would seem to be a fair assessment of the situation, it was not a Muslim [...]
A dangerously fraught chapter in post-war Sri Lanka
The atrocity that is Aluthgama 2014 happened at the instigation of outsiders brought into the area. That much is clear. As said by stricken Sinhala and Muslim residents, ‘this had no involvement with our communities, we live next to each other; but when outsiders came and attacked, everyone was attacking each other.’ Carefully planned communal [...]
Iran oil: Rambukwella, EAM exchange fire over fuel
The External Affairs Ministry (EAM) took the extraordinary step of denying a statement attributed to the Minister of Mass Media and Information and Official Government Spokesperson, Keheliya Rambukwella – even as the latter stood by his comments. An EAM media statement surfaced on Friday morning in response to an international newswire report that quoted Mr. [...]
Verbal battle in Cabinet over southwest violence
With items on the agenda cleared at last Thursday’s weekly ministerial meeting, the participants stood up to leave. Just then President Mahinda Rajapaksa intoned “inna, inna thava deval thiyanawa katha karanna” or “stay back, stay back, there are more things to talk.” Thus began a heated discussion on last week’s incidents in and around Alutgama. When [...]
Blood on Bodu Bala robe
Today the Bodu Bala Sena stands in the dock indicted with the heinous charge of attempting to return this nation to the blood-soaked barbaric age of violence from which it had risen so recently. It stands accused of repeated anti-Muslim attacks that have now resulted in inevitable bloodshed and death; and it stands condemned for [...]