Feizal Samath

SRI LANKA: Twenty Years Later, Wounds of Anti-Tamil Riots Fester

Twenty years after Sri Lanka's worst pogrom of minority Tamils, an event that shamed a nation while the world looked in horror, bitterness and pain among Tamils toward the majority Sinhalese has eased, but remains hard to forget.

LABOUR: Sri Lanka Becoming Departure Point for Human Smuggling

By Feizal Samath

Relaxed entry rules into Sri Lanka for Indians and Pakistanis aimed at boosting tourism and trade has also led to the increasing use of the island nation as a conduit for human smuggling to the west, mainly Italy, officials here say.

SRI LANKA: Small Credit Makes a Big Difference in Women’s Lives

By Feizal Samath

Winnifred Weerasinghe gave up a teaching job due to health problems and tried her hand at being self-employed. Struggling until Ceylinco Grameen Credit Ltd extended her a small loan, the 45-year old Sri Lankan now sews clothes for the local market and has been able to have her own house built.

SRI LANKA: Relevant, Not Big-ticket, Reconstruction Plans Needed

By Feizal Samath

Ask farmer Saranaris from Sri Lanka's north-west whether the future lies in economic growth and private sector-led development and he says, ''I want to continue growing rice, but the big people (donors) tell me to grow something else.''

SRI LANKA: Anti-Poverty Reforms Will Add Poverty – Critics

By Feizal Samath

H M Bandara Menike, a 52-year-old widow with three children who cultivates two acres 140 km north-west of the Sri Lankan capital says: '' I don't know anything about poverty reduction reforms.''

SRI LANKA: Anti-Poverty Reforms Will Add Poverty – Critics

By Feizal Samath

H M Bandara Menike, a 52-year old widow with three children who cultivates two acres at Karuwalagaswewa, about 140 kilometres north-west of Sri Lankan capital, says: '' I don't know anything about poverty reduction reforms.''

SRI LANKA: Tigers’ Demands Show Room for Revival of Peace Talks

By Feizal Samath

The Tamil Tigers' renewal Thursday of their demand of a rebel-led interim administration in Sri Lanka's north-east, in return for resuming peace talks, is a welcome move that keeps the door open to continued negotiations, analysts here say.

SRI LANKA: Returning Migrant Women Get Shelter, Time to Think

By Feizal Samath

Sithy Umma can count herself lucky. Returning from Saudi Arabia pregnant after being raped by her employer's brother in 1993, she was accepted by her husband when she came home to Sri Lanka.

SRI LANKA: Tiger Rebels’ Suspension of Talks Shows Fear -Analysts

By Feizal Samath

A sudden decision by the Tamil Tigers to suspend its participation in the seven-month old peace talks with the Sri Lankan government came as no surprise to political commentators here, who believe it is an arm-twisting exercise by the rebels.

IRAQ: Sri Lankan Workers Still Going to the Middle East

By Feizal Samath

Despite the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, workers from Sri Lanka are continuing to travel to countries like Kuwait next door, even as Asian labour-sending countries try to see what role there would be for their workers in the Middle East after this war.

POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Economic Woes Higher Priority than Peace

By Feizal Samath

New poll results showing that Sri Lankans are most concerned about daily economic woes explain why it is not easy to mobilise more mass movement in support of the peace process, analysts say.

SRI LANKA: More Road Deaths Come with Boom Times, Experts

By Feizal Samath

Permanent peace in war-battered Sri Lanka will not only see prosperity - like many other countries recovering from conflict - but could also lead to more deaths on the road, experts say.

SRI LANKA: Green-friendly Move May Not be so Green after All

By Feizal Samath

What the Sri Lankan government took as a green-friendly step this month - the use of sea sand instead of exploiting river sand that has put the environment under threat - may not be so green after all.

SRI LANKA: Labour ‘Reform’ Hurts Workers – Critics

By Feizal Samath

As the government speeds up investor-friendly labour laws, Sri Lanka's trade union movement believes the country is sinking under the spell of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and is threatening to pull out from an apex labour advisory group.

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Returning Home at Time of Peace Far from Easy

By Feizal Samath

When residents of a refugee camp in Sri Lanka's war-torn northern region refused to return to their former homes during a ceasefire last year, the government closed the camp and a temporary school, and stopped all food rations.

SRI LANKA: Rights Issue Needs Higher Place in Talks – Analysts

By Feizal Samath

Sri Lanka's peace talks, now entering its sixth month, could lose credibility unless human rights issues are pushed even higher up at the top of the agenda, rights activists here warn

SRI LANKA: Time to Build on Gains in Peace Talks – Analysts

By Feizal Samath

This year will be crucial for Sri Lanka to build on the early gains achieved during the ongoing peace talks with the Tamil Tiger rebels, say analysts.

In the government's favour is the growing number of people who believe that the country is unlikely to go back to war, says Kethesh Loganathan, a conflict resolution analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), an independent think tank in Colombo.