Recommended reading - Sri Lanka

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Sri Lanka:

Well initiated articles about Sri Lanka appear in every issue of Himal Southasian Magazine, published from Kathmandu, Nepal. The recent issue can be read right away on the web, but Himal Southasian also offers a comprehensive 20-year archive to its readers for FREE. It takes not more than a minute to register and get hold of the wide range of articles, art, cartoons, etc. that have featured in Himal over the years. Go for Himal Southasian Magazine

• Sri Lanka. Challenges Ahead. N. Manoharan, Center for Land and Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi, on the what will come after the military defeat of the the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), that have been cornered to small pockets of Mullaithivu district. In 2006, when the ‘open confrontation’ broke out in the island, the Tigers were in control of over 15,000 square kilometres comprising districts of Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu, Mannar and parts of Vavuniya, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, virtually running a proto-state. IPCS (Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies) Issue Brief, February 2009.

• Origin of the Conflict in Sri Lanka and Sinhala Ethnic Nationalism. Paper by Professor Chelvadurai Manogaran, late Professor of Geography and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Parkside, USA, from the Proceedings of International Conference On Tamil Nationhood & Search for Peace in Sri Lanka, held in Ottawa, Canada 1999. Tamilcanadian.com.

• Exported and Exposed. Abuses against Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Human Rights Watch report documenting the serious abuses that domestic workers face at every step of the migration process. It also shows how the Sri Lankan government and governments in the Middle East fail to protect these women. The report is based on 170 interviews with domestic workers, government officials, and labor recruiters conducted in Sri Lanka and in the Middle East. 14 November 2007.

• Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis - Asia Report No.135 dated 14 June 2007, Produced by the International Crisis Group (ICG) based in Brussels, Belgium. It examines abuses committed by both the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since they resumed their war in 2006. While the LTTE has continued its deliberately provocative attacks on the military and Sinhalese civilians as well as its violent repression of Tamil dissenters and forced recruitment of adults and children, the government is using extra-judicial killings and disappearances as part of a brutal and counter-productive counter-insurgency campaign.

• Muddling the Peace Process. Post-tsunami Rehabilitation in War-torn Sri Lanka. Clingendael Conflict Research Unit (CRU) Policy Brief Report2 January 2005, on how the twenty-year-old conflict in the country has aggravated the impact of the tsunami and now hampers relief and rehabilitation efforts. Also, there is a severe risk that the disaster and the ensuing aid efforts will undermine Sri Lanka’s fragile peace process. The policy brief outlines the challenges involved and offers recommendations to the government, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the donor community on dealing with humanitarian aid in a context of conflict. Written by Dutch researchers Georg Frerks and Bart Klem.

• Dilemmas of Civil Society Aid: Donors, NGOs and the Quest for Peace in Sri Lanka, by Camilla Orjuela, Dept. of Peace and Development Studies, Göteborg University. Peace and Democracy in South Asia (PDSA) January 2005.

• Transiting from Prolonged Conflict to Post Conflict Development: Locating the Case of Trincomalee District of Sri Lanka, by Anders Närman and Upali Vidanapathirana. Peace and Democracy in South Asia (PDSA) January 2005.