01 July, 2011Date set for Sivaram murder trial
 |  |
| Sivaram was abducted in Colombo in April 2005 and his body was found dumped in a HSZ, a day later |
A court in Sri Lanka has set the dates for the trial of the abduction and murder of a senior Tamil journalist.
The Colombo High Court has decided to proceed with the trial on the murder of Tamilnet editor Dharmetnam Sivaram (Tharaki) on 01September.
Mr Sivaram was abducted in Colombo on 28 April 2005. His body was found dumped in Sri Jayawardenepura, a high security zone, a day later.
The Attorney General has filed charges against Arumugam Sri Skadharaja also known as Peter in 2006.
But the case did not proceed further despite having taken for hearing few times for over five years.
International and Sri Lankan media watchdogs have voiced anger over lack of progress in murder investigation.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Sri Lanka Free Media Movement (FMM) have urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa not to let the murderers go unpunished.========================================================
On the government’s political solution and ‘Southern Suaveness’
groundviews journalism For citizens -1 Jul, 2011
Photo courtesy Amal Jayasinghe | Agence France-Presse
The stage is set to appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee in order to formulate a political solution to the north and east crisis. During a meeting with the print and electronic media heads on Tuesday at Temple Trees, President Mahinda Rajapakse had stated that he would accept any solution that will be outlined by the parliament. In an interview with a weekend newspaper last week the Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Pieris revealed that the government will carry out a dialogue with all the political parties parallel to the ongoing discussions with the TNA. Ultimately, according to the minister, these discussions will be intersected at a certain point. Therefore, the ‘point of intersection’ will be the provenance of the ‘political solution’ of the government.
Can this be termed as a bona fide attempt? This is, of course, an important question. The track record of the government in this regard would provide a reasonable answer for this. In the very same manner, the present regime took various steps to find a political solution for the North-East crisis, but all these efforts ended up being time-consuming exercises. The government deliberately transmuted these ‘efforts’ to become fruitless, inefficacious and time-buying exercises. In this context, there is a big question mark about the ulterior motive of this ‘Parliamentary Select Committee’. Let’s revisit the history. Continue reading »
