Features

Turning point for justice and reconciliation?

Published

9 months ago

2025/09/2

President Dissanayake

For decades voters have heard promises of integrity, justice and accountability. These promises have come with every election, but they have invariably ended in disappointment. Investigations have faltered, commissions have been wound up, and the very leaders who promised to end corruption and impunity have too often joined the ranks of those who perpetuated them. The NPP government is now making the point that it will do its utmost to deliver on its promises and commitments. The arrest of former president Ranil Wickremesinghe on charges of mis-spending government resources was perhaps to make this point.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake who is the government’s best communicator has countered the notion promoted in sections of the social media and political discussion that the government is not united on the issue of accountability. He has made it clear that the government will go ahead with pursuing those guilty regardless of the political fallout. Referring to the arrest of the former president he said, “This case is not politically motivated. We will not step back from our duty. Those who have abused public resources will face the consequences, whoever they are.” This assertion has drawn a line that many previous governments shrank from crossing.

In addition, the government is now making the point that it will pursue accountability with regard to human rights violations of the past that led to tens of thousands of disappearances. Addressing an event organised by the Office of Missing Persons s(OMP) to mark the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Rathnayake said that the ruling party had experienced these violations at first hand. He assured the attendees at the event that the government would give justice to members of the JVP, LTTE, other organisations and innocent people with no connection to what they were accused of. He said, “We know what it is to live through these violations. We will not forget the tens of thousands of families who still wait for truth and justice. This government will pursue this matter, however long it takes.”

At the same event, Minister of Justice Harshana Nanayakkara laid out the government’s plans for expanding and strengthening the scope of the OMP. He said that the OMP would document at least ten thousand disappearances that had taken place prior to 2000, as the documentation process of post-2000 disappearances had not been completed. “The families of the disappeared have waited too long. The OMP will document at least ten thousand disappearances from before 2000 so that no life lost to enforced disappearance is erased from history.” In doing so it will be important to begin with the several presidential commission of inquiry reports that had been published on this and which the report of the last presidential commission to inquire into the past, the Nawaz Commission report of 2024 has summarized with recommendations. The earlier commission reports contain data that were provided three to four decades ago when the evidence was fresh in the minds of the witnesses.

Inclusive Participation

Ensuring accountability for human rights violations or for corruption committed in the past by previous governments has never proved to be successful. Invariably, the investigations have dragged on and those accused have managed to get off the hook. Previous governments that won mandates based on promises to deal with corruption have faltered right from the start or midway and ended up doing the very wrongs they promised to put an end to. The fate of the 2015 anti-corruption drive, which began with much public hope but petered out amidst compromise and scandal, remains a warning. However, the remanding of the former president has unified the opposition who fear they will be next in line. It has also agitated sections of the general public who are not accustomed to seeing their former leaders being put away in prison.

Resistance to accountability is bound to be very strong and will emanate from all levels and all sectors due to the entrenched nature of corruption and abuse of power. Therefore, the government needs to be strategic and not take on more than it can manage. Already, over 400 stalled corruption and fraud cases have been reopened, including the bond scandal and steps have been taken to recover misused state assets from former ministers and leaders. The approach taken by the government to corruption and criminal issues indicates a resolve to bring perpetrators to justice regardless of their status. Recent arrests of alleged criminal masterminds in Indonesia and extraditing them with the cooperation of Indonesian authorities are indications of international coordination which can be applied more generally.

A salutary feature of the event organised by the OMP was the participation of the international community and civil society. The OMP had invited a large representation of civil society activists in a positive recognition of their contribution to the issue. It suggested that this was no longer to be a closed process of government agencies, but an inclusive effort drawing legitimacy from those who have struggled longest for justice. In addition to civil society and international support, the government will need the support of the opposition to ensure sustainability over the longer period in dealing with issue relating to the ethnic conflict and internal war. It is here that the question of reconciliation and justice for war-time abuses will intersect most deeply with politics.

Bipartisan Commitment

In overcoming the challenge of corruption, abuse of power and impunity, the government needs to consider enlisting the support of those in the opposition who are most like-minded on the issues that require a bipartisan approach to resolve. This would include the Tamil and Muslim political parties. Without some measure of bipartisan commitment, the danger is that accountability and reform efforts especially in relation to the ethnic conflict may become mired in partisan politics in the future. Last week opposition leader Sajith Premadasa met with several representatives of civil society where he advocated the need for a kinder and gentler society especially in the post-war context and the need to ensure that state terrorism never arises again.

Last month the Cabinet of Ministers approved the development of a new National Policy and Action Plan on Reconciliation and Co-existence. This must not become yet another statement of intent but a concrete plan that delivers justice, guarantees language and religious rights, ensures fair representation in public service, and restores equality in development. A credible plan will include clear deadlines to establish the promised independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission, create a prosecutorial body to pursue emblematic cases from the war and the Easter Sunday bombings and scale back military involvement in civilian life in the north and east.

At the present time there is the real possibility of change. The revival of long-stalled corruption cases, the arrest of a former president and the pledges made at the OMP commemoration give reason to believe that change is possible. Resistance will be there in entrenched networks of privilege and power. It will surely emerge from vested interests and strata of society unaccustomed to accountability. It is here that inclusiveness as a strategy to ensure sustainability become crucial and the participation of civil society organisations and moderate opposition political parties and their members becomes important. National reconciliation so long out of reach may now be possible and with it the potential for more rapid economic development.

by Jehan Perera

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.