Features

Human-elephant conflict and housing needs of villagers

Agbo is back home at Mahakanadarawa leading his harem (Source: YouTube).

Published

1 month ago

2025/12/12

Thilina Walpola

During the recent Ditwah cyclone, elephants were seen floating in treeless floodplains that were once their forest habitats. On a good-weather day in 2017, near Kokilai, the Navy found a pair of elephants riding waves after a beach outing two kilometers offshore in the high seas. Divers guided them ashore after a 12-hour struggle. Trains barrel through elephant herds regularly, decapitating half a dozen in one tank. A herd of elephants over 100 parades across a highway serenading motorists stuck in a kilometer-long traffic jam. Recently, adding insult to injury, a lone elephant was sitting deep inside a latrine pit behind a small house, and was dug out by a caterpillar tractor. A speeding bus ran over and killed a baby elephant, and police shot dead the mother who stood crying over her baby’s body. The tusker named Sinharaja was still a baby when the Army pulled it out from an agri-well some years ago in Nuwarakalaviya. He is now royalty tasked with carrying the sacred tooth relic at the Dalada Maligawa. These extraordinary events, rubrics of a national drama, show that fates, ours and elephants, are inexorably linked.

Over 7,000 elephants and countless villagers in Sri Lanka are torn apart daily by myriads of unpleasant encounters. Our elephant population is multiplying alongside us, making these encounters even more remarkable. As the government owns all elephants and writes laws for them, it also owns the product of these encounters. Since it has law books for the villagers, too, it cannot disregard the mess its protégé, this patrician in the wild, leaves on the villagers’ doorstep. Only the government can find a lasting solution to blunt the prickly edges of this national emergency, but not without contributions from the villagers.

George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, “Some animals are more equal than others.” But the sentimentally charged public opinion about our cultural icon cannot outweigh the burden it placed on villagers living on the edges of elephant habitats.

As will be explained later, I propose a Gam Udawa-type house for each newly married couple who choose to remain within their village’s boundaries. If anyone edits this out as impractical, please come down from the ivory towers and visit a village bordering an elephant corridor to see for yourself the internecine damage elephants and villagers cause to each other.

There is no rich body of literature on the kinetics of village housing. But the volume of villagers’ experience is a safe guide to navigate it. I saw, over the span of three decades, how a major elephant corridor, one or two kilometers wide, adjoining my village above Mahakanadarawa reservoir, got swallowed up as villagers built (and still do) homes there. Thus, one way to stop this is to contain the village where it is now. Halting home-building activities in elephants’ homes is a futuristic idea that the government has not tried. This experience also suggests that a study of the environmental impact of new village housing is in order.

Little parts that drive conflict

The government does not hear or see the little parts that drive the human-elephant conflict in the village. The only elephant problem it has is an 8 am to 5 pm thing, caged and tied to concrete stumps with steel chains at a compound in Dehiwala, minutes from Colombo’s urban universe. Together with Dehiwala, provincial compounds like Pinnawala, and a few national parks hold less than 1% of the Sri Lankan elephants, leaving the rest to roam around and harass villagers. Officials who have the power and know-how to resolve this tragedy do not feel it in real time. They do not live anywhere near where elephants live.

Indeed, it is a stretch one may suggest the government can find new space for the elephants like grandiose, unwieldy ideas like port-city-style landfills along the coast. However, we can work with existing landmasses more studiously using other methods. Driving elephants to the current Managed Elephant Ranges (MER) is not one of them. MER seems to lack sufficient food, as evidenced by the emaciated elephants we see in these ranges. An elephant is a big animal and needs a bigger lunch setup.

HOW WE GOT HERE

Until the mid-20th century, abundance of forest accommodated all villages and some more elephants; there was no reason to think villagers were taking elephants’ feeding ground any more than governments had any plans to reduce friction before it reached an unmanageable level. Elephants’ feeding grounds occupied forest area about two kilometers wide in higher ground between two tank cascade systems, each independently sharing water from parallel watersheds.

Islands in the sea of forest

Villages in the North Central, Northwestern, Eastern, and eastern half of the Southern Province remained as islands in this sea of forest. Collective personality embedded in the village was that residents could hunt, harvest timber, and make small chena plots in these forests. The concatenation of many such forest buffers formed elephant highways that were major feeding grounds. Everyone lived happily until the government’s neglect in addressing the population explosion of elephants and our own created the present predicament like a Class 4 wound.

A village community is a swarm, usually numbering around 100 individuals. Increasing membership in a swarm trigger some to move out to new locations. In a colony of bees, for example, an alternate queen bee will lead a part of the overpopulated colony out to set up a new community. Similarly, in the village, where two or three couples marry each year, and if the space for housing sites is limited, as is the case in old villages, a couple might emigrate to another village or town. The one or two with what biologists call the ‘group mind’ stay in the village, becoming the seeds that begin to spawn more warms, amplifying the elephant-human problem.

The new couple is looking to build a house closer to their larger family. But as space for potential housing is gone, the next option is to move beyond the traditional village boundary, where the one- to two-kilometer elephant feeding grounds begin. On these grounds, this family finds not only a spot for a house but also timber that had been the property of elephants and other wildlife since before the village’s genesis. In a nutshell, this is how elephants began to lose their land.

Land grab

With this land grab, though isolated, friction over space ensued, leading to physical confrontation with elephants. The government’s inaction in mediating this problem is telling.

As years go by, this progression has led to the appearance of dozens of new home gardens, each slowly taking up at least a hectare of virgin forest. In a few decades, hundreds of such hectares will have been devoured by these progenitors entering the village marriage fraternity.

Meanwhile, the explosion of the rural population seems to influence the mechanics of elephants’ behavioral evolution. Back then, elephants were shy. I remember a herd disappearing into the woods in seconds after seeing a moving firebrand tipped with glowing embers. Aiming a flashlight made the herd disappear into the woods like blowing smoke into a beehive. In contrast, now a wild elephant caparisoned with a dry crust of mud bath walks casually on a road, duly giving right of way to motorists, and stops by a lonely roadside tea kiosk. He waits patiently, not for tea, but until the kiosk owner offers him a bunch of ripe bananas!

Today, elephants are so common and share our space more often, villagers assign lovely names to identify tuskers. In our childhood, we rarely saw a tusker because he owned a large swath forest, so his contact with us was minimal. Hence, the name tag was the least he needed.

HOUSING IN CITY AND VILLAGE

Whether people live in a crowded city with sprawling multistory housing compounds or in a village with two dozen homes under an irrigation tank, their universal human need is housing. In the city, with limited horizontal expansion, the housing idea must become improvisational. Thus, it grows vertically because it’s the only direction the cramped city can build. Having no such problem, after the old gammedda ran out of space, villagers moved horizontally to new tracts of forest beyond the village borders. Missing in the discussions on the loaded thesis of elephant-human conflict is this premise – the housing need of newly married villagers, the overarching subtext of this problem, not seen by anyone outside of the village. This married couple clear a track of forest, marking the beginning of the gradual encroachment of the village into an existing elephant range.

When it comes to housing, villagers in elephant-roaming areas are left to fend for themselves. Overcrowding in villages had not received the government’s attention because it never put a premium on housing in a village.

Both parties are victims here. Any steps to help them have become untenable due to poor management (of the problem) and the uncontrolled population upsurge of the parties. This drama is what the successive governments have missed seeing. Although the government and private sector have been generous with housing issues in the city, not extending the same kindness to villagers is why they are in this loveless embrace with elephants.

Meanwhile, beginning in the mid-20th century, the city has adapted to meet its residents’ housing needs. The scale ranged from clusters of one-room homes like UC Quarters in Urban Council jurisdictions, to modest multi-unit housing compounds, ‘flats,’ like the eponymous ones at Narahenpita, Maligawatta in Colombo. Over the past couple of decades, towering megastructures catering to the new affluent residents have further diversified the city’s housing options.

The elephants are wanderers and have all the land to move around. But villagers are no longer the itinerant bands they once were in their distant past. Due to their proclivity to acquire acreage from freely growing forests, they become fixed targets for elephants. But don’t accuse the villagers of being xenophobic towards elephants. We see they never show schadenfreude – enjoying an elephant’s misfortune, while it struggles to climb out from an agri-well or a canal. Instead, standing on the edge, they speak kind, encouraging words to the traumatized animal. Some even throw banana stumps at him to eat.

FAILED HOUSING PROJECTS (WIYAPARA) IN THE 1980S

Often, the government itself is the culprit of expanding the village into elephant corridors by introducing new housing projects. Such housing schemes were called wiyapara gewal (project homes). It turned out to be a failed government idea.

Near my village, in the 1980s, the government marked off housing plots along a cart road that ran through a 2-kilometer elephant corridor which began from the end of our tank bund. This stretch separated us from a series of neighbouring villages in the upper reaches of the Mahakanadarawa reservoir, built in 1959. Until then, elephants freely moved between Padaviya, Nachchaduwa, and Kalawewa tanks, using forest corridors between tank cascade systems, including the above, rarely entering villages.

After Mahakanadarawa gobbled up an extensive virgin forest area, elephants circumventing it on the way to Kalawewa stumbled upon a surprise: a society of homes was sitting on the above forest corridor that had always belonged to them. Villagers cut down the verdant forest and started home gardens in their place under the aegis of the aforesaid wiyapara project. It bridged the neighboring village into one extended community. One family even fenced off the kamatha-sised water hole that elephants enjoyed on the rocky outcrop called Wannamgala and enclosed it in the new garden lot with the sign “balla hapai” (dog will bite)!

The Member of Parliament for the area was behind this project, with a piecemeal aid package worth about Rs. 25000 to each land recipient. With that kind of economic magic wand, a half dozen villagers yielded, and now this row of houses bisects what was an elephant highway, sending elephants’ equanimity to coexist with human settlers downhill. Historical blunders like this tell us to reconstruct untested housing concepts to fit the present.

FEW PROPOSALS

Discouraging villagers from spilling beyond village boundaries to build new homes must be a priority in any plan designed to address elephant management issues. It is a way to stop the slow oxidation of elephant corridors where newlyweds continue to stake out claims for home sites.

It is unfair to deny villagers the opportunity to own a piece of their own home garden. On its part, the government can help by creating employment or home-garden opportunities by introducing them to garden crop methods and small-scale industries, which will provide them with a meaningful livelihood and a reason to stay within the village’s borders.

The government must also devise the same plan it uses to address overcrowding in city swarms, by building small irrigation colony-type houses within the village situated for newlyweds in villages on the borders of elephant habitats. New families will appreciate this idea that their government is giving them a hand with a small house within the village limits.

My proposal may sound like a fictive reverie. But math speaks for itself. Consider this: conceivably, if we can prevent that one newlywed couple from carving out its space in a forest tract used by elephants, after a few decades, we would have saved dozens of hectares for elephants by preventing couples from moving there to build new dwellings.

I ask the government not to think of the pink elephant – the cost – in considering this project. If it cannot build the house for free, recover a partial cost from new owners in easy installments based on their verified income.

There are many private and public tracts within a village that remain fallow or undeveloped. The government can offer to purchase these to build new homes. What happened to Alfred House Gardens in Colombo – 3 over a century ago gives us ideas on how to apply the summary of that history to a village where, generally, real estate behaves similarly.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the owners of Alfred House Gardens partitioned the opulent estate, endowing it to the city for a greater purpose. My premise here is that a villager with his own Alfred House estate in the village, parts of which remain fallow, may wish to place a corner of it on the market for ready cash. Suppose the government offers an enticing price. In that case, I have no doubt the owner might consider it. Haven’t we seen this in newly partitioned large coconut plantations elsewhere?

The government will then build a small house here and bestow it on the newly married couple. This is one couple that will not pose a threat to elephants’ right of way. If we can push this simple idea to fruition, in a decade or two, encroachment into elephants’ roaming lanes can be reduced considerably around this village. A fitting paradoxical allegory for this is an African proverb that says: “The way to eat an elephant is to take one bite at a time.”

Furthermore, the government may amend the President’s Fund or create an Elephant Fund to provide small housing loans specifically to newlywed couples in such villages. It must suspend the irrational, sneaky and flagrant absurdity of tax-exempted vehicle imports, now allowed to certain privileged government officials. Tax this exclusive club and use the money for this program. Each new car landing on Sri Lankan soil will pollute the environment and be one more headache for elephants feeding at Minneriya tank.

To identify which villages are likely to encroach on elephant corridors, the wildlife department must survey and designate their boundaries. This step is every bit as essential as declaring stretches of forest as elephant corridors. Also, an accelerated tree-planting program to rehabilitate deforested areas on the edges of elephant corridors must be a government priority.

The government must not reward large farming interests and the solar power industries by allowing them to take up elephant habitats. A papaya plantation has alternatives that an elephant family does not.

Finally, failure to resolve this problem will itch our nation’s conscience and shame us deeper. The few patches of forest we can keep uncleared are the ones that tell us just how many more hectares of them refuse to be cleared.

Lokubanda Tillakaratne chronicled life in a village in Gammadde Ninnadaya, and a defunct traditional judicial system practiced in Nuwarakalaviya villages in Rata Sabhawa (Sarasavi Books).

By Lokubanda Tillakaratne ✍️

All News Advertisement

Features

Rebuilding the country requires consultation

Published

21 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

A positive feature of the government that is emerging is its responsiveness to public opinion. The manner in which it has been responding to the furore over the Grade 6 English Reader, in which a weblink to a gay dating site was inserted, has been constructive. Government leaders have taken pains to explain the mishap and reassure everyone concerned that it was not meant to be there and would be removed. They have been meeting religious prelates, educationists and community leaders. In a context where public trust in institutions has been badly eroded over many years, such responsiveness matters. It signals that the government sees itself as accountable to society, including to parents, teachers, and those concerned about the values transmitted through the school system.

This incident also appears to have strengthened unity within the government. The attempt by some opposition politicians and gender misogynists to pin responsibility for this lapse on Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya, who is also the Minister of Education, has prompted other senior members of the government to come to her defence. This is contrary to speculation that the powerful JVP component of the government is unhappy with the prime minister. More importantly, it demonstrates an understanding within the government that individual ministers should not be scapegoated for systemic shortcomings. Effective governance depends on collective responsibility and solidarity within the leadership, especially during moments of public controversy.

The continuing important role of the prime minister in the government is evident in her meetings with international dignitaries and also in addressing the general public. Last week she chaired the inaugural meeting of the Presidential Task Force to Rebuild Sri Lanka in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah. The composition of the task force once again reflects the responsiveness of the government to public opinion. Unlike previous mechanisms set up by governments, which were either all male or without ethnic minority representation, this one includes both, and also includes civil society representation. Decision-making bodies in which there is diversity are more likely to command public legitimacy.

Task Force

The Presidential Task Force to Rebuild Sri Lanka overlooks eight committees to manage different aspects of the recovery, each headed by a sector minister. These committees will focus on Needs Assessment, Restoration of Public Infrastructure, Housing, Local Economies and Livelihoods, Social Infrastructure, Finance and Funding, Data and Information Systems, and Public Communication. This structure appears comprehensive and well designed. However, experience from post-disaster reconstruction in countries such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami suggests that institutional design alone does not guarantee success. What matters equally is how far these committees engage with those on the ground and remain open to feedback that may complicate, slow down, or even challenge initial plans.

An option that the task force might wish to consider is to develop a linkage with civil society groups with expertise in the areas that the task force is expected to work. The CSO Collective for Emergency Relief has set up several committees that could be linked to the committees supervised by the task force. Such linkages would not weaken the government’s authority but strengthen it by grounding policy in lived realities. Recent findings emphasise the idea of “co-production”, where state and society jointly shape solutions in which sustainable outcomes often emerge when communities are treated not as passive beneficiaries but as partners in problem-solving.

Cyclone Ditwah destroyed more than physical infrastructure. It also destroyed communities. Some were swallowed by landslides and floods, while many others will need to be moved from their homes as they live in areas vulnerable to future disasters. The trauma of displacement is not merely material but social and psychological. Moving communities to new locations requires careful planning. It is not simply a matter of providing people with houses. They need to be relocated to locations and in a manner that permits communities to live together and to have livelihoods. This will require consultation with those who are displaced. Post-disaster evaluations have acknowledged that relocation schemes imposed without community consent often fail, leading to abandonment of new settlements or the emergence of new forms of marginalisation. Even today, abandoned tsunami housing is to be seen in various places that were affected by the 2004 tsunami.

Malaiyaha Tamils

The large-scale reconstruction that needs to take place in parts of the country most severely affected by Cyclone Ditwah also brings an opportunity to deal with the special problems of the Malaiyaha Tamil population. These are people of recent Indian origin who were unjustly treated at the time of Independence and denied rights of citizenship such as land ownership and the vote. This has been a festering problem and a blot on the conscience of the country. The need to resettle people living in those parts of the hill country which are vulnerable to landslides is an opportunity to do justice by the Malaiyaha Tamil community. Technocratic solutions such as high-rise apartments or English-style townhouses that have or are being contemplated may be cost-effective, but may also be culturally inappropriate and socially disruptive. The task is not simply to build houses but to rebuild communities.

The resettlement of people who have lost their homes and communities requires consultation with them. In the same manner, the education reform programme, of which the textbook controversy is only a small part, too needs to be discussed with concerned stakeholders including school teachers and university faculty. Opening up for discussion does not mean giving up one’s own position or values. Rather, it means recognising that better solutions emerge when different perspectives are heard and negotiated. Consultation takes time and can be frustrating, particularly in contexts of crisis where pressure for quick results is intense. However, solutions developed with stakeholder participation are more resilient and less costly in the long run.

Rebuilding after Cyclone Ditwah, addressing historical injustices faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community, advancing education reform, changing the electoral system to hold provincial elections without further delay and other challenges facing the government, including national reconciliation, all require dialogue across differences and patience with disagreement. Opening up for discussion is not to give up on one’s own position or values, but to listen, to learn, and to arrive at solutions that have wider acceptance. Consultation needs to be treated as an investment in sustainability and legitimacy and not as an obstacle to rapid decisionmaking. Addressing the problems together, especially engagement with affected parties and those who work with them, offers the best chance of rebuilding not only physical infrastructure but also trust between the government and people in the year ahead.

by Jehan Perera

Features

PSTA: Terrorism without terror continues

Published

21 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

When the government appointed a committee, led by Rienzie Arsekularatne, Senior President’s Counsel, to draft a new law to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), as promised by the ruling NPP, the writer, in an article published in this journal in July 2025, expressed optimism that, given Arsekularatne’s experience in criminal justice, he would be able to address issues from the perspectives of the State, criminal justice, human rights, suspects, accused, activists, and victims. The draft Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA), produced by the Committee, has been sharply criticised by individuals and organisations who expected a better outcome that aligns with modern criminal justice and human rights principles.

This article is limited to a discussion of the definition of terrorism. As the writer explained previously, the dangers of an overly broad definition go beyond conviction and increased punishment. Special laws on terrorism allow deviations from standard laws in areas such as preventive detention, arrest, administrative detention, restrictions on judicial decisions regarding bail, lengthy pre-trial detention, the use of confessions, superadded punishments, such as confiscation of property and cancellation of professional licences, banning organisations, and restrictions on publications, among others. The misuse of such laws is not uncommon. Drastic legislation, such as the PTA and emergency regulations, although intended to be used to curb intense violence and deal with emergencies, has been exploited to suppress political opposition.

International Standards

The writer’s basic premise is that, for an act to come within the definition of terrorism, it must either involve “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” or be committed to achieve an objective of an individual or organisation that uses “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” to realise its aims. The UN General Assembly has accepted that the threshold for a possible general offence of terrorism is the provocation of “a state of terror” (Resolution 60/43). The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has taken a similar view, using the phrase “to create a climate of terror.”

In his 2023 report on the implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the Secretary-General warned that vague and overly broad definitions of terrorism in domestic law, often lacking adequate safeguards, violate the principle of legality under international human rights law. He noted that such laws lead to heavy-handed, ineffective, and counterproductive counter-terrorism practices and are frequently misused to target civil society actors and human rights defenders by labelling them as terrorists to obstruct their work.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has stressed in its Handbook on Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism that definitions of terrorist acts must use precise and unambiguous language, narrowly define punishable conduct and clearly distinguish it from non-punishable behaviour or offences subject to other penalties. The handbook was developed over several months by a team of international experts, including the writer, and was finalised at a workshop in Vienna.

Anti-Terrorism Bill, 2023

A five-member Bench of the Supreme Court that examined the Anti-Terrorism Bill, 2023, agreed with the petitioners that the definition of terrorism in the Bill was too broad and infringed Article 12(1) of the Constitution, and recommended that an exemption (“carve out”) similar to that used in New Zealand under which “the fact that a person engages in any protest, advocacy, or dissent, or engages in any strike, lockout, or other industrial action, is not, by itself, a sufficient basis for inferring that the person” committed the wrongful acts that would otherwise constitute terrorism.

While recognising the Court’s finding that the definition was too broad, the writer argued, in his previous article, that the political, administrative, and law enforcement cultures of the country concerned are crucial factors to consider. Countries such as New Zealand are well ahead of developing nations, where the risk of misuse is higher, and, therefore, definitions should be narrower, with broader and more precise exemptions. How such a “carve out” would play out in practice is uncertain.

In the Supreme Court, it was submitted that for an act to constitute an offence, under a special law on terrorism, there must be terror unleashed in the commission of the act, or it must be carried out in pursuance of the object of an organisation that uses terror to achieve its objectives. In general, only acts that aim at creating “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” should come under the definition of terrorism. There can be terrorism-related acts without violence, for example, when a member of an extremist organisation remotely sabotages an electronic, automated or computerised system in pursuance of the organisation’s goal. But when the same act is committed by, say, a whizz-kid without such a connection, that would be illegal and should be punished, but not under a special law on terrorism. In its determination of the Bill, the Court did not address this submission.

PSTA Proposal

Proposed section 3(1) of the PSTA reads:

Any person who, intentionally or knowingly, commits any act which causes a consequence specified in subsection (2), for the purpose of-

(a) provoking a state of terror;

(b) intimidating the public or any section of the public;

(c) compelling the Government of Sri Lanka, or any other Government, or an international organisation, to do or to abstain from doing any act; or

(d) propagating war, or violating territorial integrity or infringing the sovereignty of Sri Lanka or any other sovereign country, commits the offence of terrorism.

The consequences listed in sub-section (2) include: death; hurt; hostage-taking; abduction or kidnapping; serious damage to any place of public use, any public property, any public or private transportation system or any infrastructure facility or environment; robbery, extortion or theft of public or private property; serious risk to the health and safety of the public or a section of the public; serious obstruction or damage to, or interference with, any electronic or automated or computerised system or network or cyber environment of domains assigned to, or websites registered with such domains assigned to Sri Lanka; destruction of, or serious damage to, religious or cultural property; serious obstruction or damage to, or interference with any electronic, analogue, digital or other wire-linked or wireless transmission system, including signal transmission and any other frequency-based transmission system; without lawful authority, importing, exporting, manufacturing, collecting, obtaining, supplying, trafficking, possessing or using firearms, offensive weapons, ammunition, explosives, articles or things used in the manufacture of explosives or combustible or corrosive substances and biological, chemical, electric, electronic or nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, nuclear material, radioactive substances, or radiation-emitting devices.

Under section 3(5), “any person who commits an act which constitutes an offence under the nine international treaties on terrorism, ratified by Sri Lanka, also commits the offence of terrorism.” No one would contest that.

The New Zealand “carve-out” is found in sub-section (4): “The fact that a person engages in any protest, advocacy or dissent or engages in any strike, lockout or other industrial action, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring that such person (a) commits or attempts, abets, conspires, or prepares to commit the act with the intention or knowledge specified in subsection (1); or (b) is intending to cause or knowingly causes an outcome specified in subsection (2).”

While the Arsekularatne Committee has proposed, including the New Zealand “carve out”, it has ignored a crucial qualification in section 5(2) of that country’s Terrorism Suppression Act, that for an act to be considered a terrorist act, it must be carried out for one or more purposes that are or include advancing “an ideological, political, or religious cause”, with the intention of either intimidating a population or coercing or forcing a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.

When the Committee was appointed, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka opined that any new offence with respect to “terrorism” should contain a specific and narrow definition of terrorism, such as the following: “Any person who by the use of force or violence unlawfully targets the civilian population or a segment of the civilian population with the intent to spread fear among such population or segment thereof in furtherance of a political, ideological, or religious cause commits the offence of terrorism”.

The writer submits that, rather than bringing in the requirement of “a political, ideological, or religious cause”, it would be prudent to qualify proposed section 3(1) by the requirement that only acts that aim at creating “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” or are carried out to achieve a goal of an individual or organisation that employs “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” to attain its objectives should come under the definition of terrorism. Such a threshold is recognised internationally; no “carve out” is then needed, and the concerns of the Human Rights Commission would also be addressed.

by Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne
President’s Counsel

Features

ROCK meets REGGAE 2026

Published

21 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

JAYASRI: From Vienna, Austria

We generally have in our midst the famous JAYASRI twins, Rohitha and Rohan, who are based in Austria but make it a point to entertain their fans in Sri Lanka on a regular basis.

Well, rock and reggae fans get ready for a major happening on 28th February (Oops, a special day where I’m concerned!) as the much-awaited ROCK meets REGGAE event booms into action at the Nelum Pokuna outdoor theatre.

It was seven years ago, in 2019, that the last ROCK meets REGGAE concert was held in Colombo, and then the Covid scene cropped up.

Chitral Somapala with BLACK MAJESTY

This year’s event will feature our rock star Chitral Somapala with the Australian Rock+Metal band BLACK MAJESTY, and the reggae twins Rohitha and Rohan Jayalath with the original JAYASRI – the full band, with seven members from Vienna, Austria.

According to Rohitha, the JAYASRI outfit is enthusiastically looking forward to entertaining music lovers here with their brand of music.

Their playlist for 28th February will consist of the songs they do at festivals in Europe, as well as originals, and also English and Sinhala hits, and selected covers.

Says Rohitha: “We have put up a great team, here in Sri Lanka, to give this event an international setting and maintain high standards, and this will be a great experience for our Sri Lankan music lovers … not only for Rock and Reggae fans. Yes, there will be some opening acts, and many surprises, as well.”

Rohitha, Chitral and Rohan: Big scene at ROCK meets REGGAE

Rohitha and Rohan also conveyed their love and festive blessings to everyone in Sri Lanka, stating “This Christmas was different as our country faced a catastrophic situation and, indeed, it’s a great time to help and share the real love of Jesus Christ by helping the poor, the needy and the homeless people. Let’s RISE UP as a great nation in 2026.”