http://www.irinnews.org/report/96737/Analysis-Sri-Lanka-s-long-road-to-reconciliation

Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN

War returnee Genzia Mary

	Two countries in one
	Militarization of north deepens distrust
	Limited efforts to bridge divide
	Problem of impunity

PUTHUKKUDIYIRUPPU, 9 November 2012 (IRIN) – Genzia Mary, 10, is fascinated by the buses arriving in northern Sri Lanka, their jovial travellers singing in a language that, until two years ago, was completely foreign to her.

Mary lives in Kilinochchi District, part of the country’s northern former war zone popularly known as “the Vanni”. Thousands of southerners, mostly from the majority Sinhala ethnic group, come to visit war attractions as well as a well-known Buddhist temple north of the Vanni.

“There are lots of people in [the buses]. Sometimes there are old ammas [grandmothers] in them, all dressed in white,” she said. Many girls her age also visit, especially during school holidays. “But I have never spoken to anyone of them,” Mary said, disappointed. “They never talk to us.”  Continue reading →

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1709575

http://www.lankastandard.com/2012/11/post-war-sri-lanka-and-womens-rights/

Going beyond UNSCR 1325: Post-war Sri Lanka and Women’s ESCR

An Interview with Sithara Shreen Abdul Saroor

United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, adopted 31st October 2000,

reaffirms the role of women in peace and security settings. In this interview Shreen Saroor explores the potential as well as the limitations of UNSCR 1325, especially in context of post war Sri Lanka. Continue reading →

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-110093-Needed-Alliance-to-protect-rights-of-w

Islamabad

Women’s rights activists and gender experts of South Asian countries stressed on the need for forming a regional alliance to protect rights of widows and single women.

They said that widows and single women are the most marginalised and vulnerable section of South Asian societies and the set of challenges they face is almost the same in all these countries. Continue reading →

http://groundviews.org/2012/09/13/after-a-long-journey-home-solitude-in-jaffana-and-the-silence-of-a-city/

By Dayapala Thiranagama

[Editors note: Dr. Rajini Thiranagama (née Rajasingham), was a Tamil human rights activist and feminist murdered in 1989 by the LTTE. She was one of the founding members of the University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna, which during the war, published some of the most hard hitting critiques and exposes of Government as well as LTTE atrocities and human rights violations. Since 2009, Dayapala Thiranagama’s insightful articles to Groundviews have been amongst the site’s most read and shared].

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This summer, after 23 long years, I drove to Jaffna from Galle with my eldest daughter. We travelled through the heart of Sri Lanka on the A9 road, passing Kandy, Matale, Dambulla and Kekirawa. We drove past areas where I had worked in 1986 as a member of the Vikalpa Kandayama (Alternative Group), laying down an underground political structure. At the time, I had left my academic job in the university to do fulltime political work and was confronted by two great dangers: increasing political repression from the UNP government on the one hand and the JVP’s second insurrection on the other. In my journey from the place of my birth, Galle, to Jaffna in the north, I retraced my own political journey in Sri Lanka to its conclusion, the grave of my wife Rajani. Continue reading →