Articles by Rohini Hensman

The rushed passing of the 18th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution by parliament - allowing for greater powers and removal of term limits for the executive presidency - has precipitated the descent of Sri Lanka into a dictatorship. Both the ruling and the main opposition parties - not to mention the lax supreme court - are responsible for the current state of affairs. Seeds of hope, however, exist in the democratic consciousness of the Lankan people and in the fact that politicians from the left and the minority Tamil community have raised their voice against the amendment.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been destroyed, but the future looks dismal for the Tamils and indeed for all of Sri Lanka. There are three critical and interlinked steps that need to be taken if the country is to have a political and economic future: demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law (including curbing the powers of the executive presidency) and democratisation.

The conflict in Sri Lanka arises from the irreconcilable goals of the Sinhalese political elite and the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Can a shift in emphasis from devolution to democracy help resolve this ethnic crisis?

The costs of sustaining the US's new 'Empire' will become apparent to its public only when these costs directly accrue to them. This will happen, as this article suggests, only when (i) other nations stop subsidising the US's imperial adventures by colluding in them and (ii) the dollar loses its role as the world's reserve currency.

From the standpoint of women workers, especially those in the third world, the 'anti-globalisation' agenda makes no sense. It would simply deprive them of considerable employment opportunities as also the possibility of improving employment conditions through global solidarity and coordination. A much more sensible objective would be concerted action to shape the global order in accordance with a women's agenda. This would in the first instance mean working for an extension of the reach of international law, and for democratic institutions of global governance. If capitalism is acting as midwife at the birth of a borderless world, shouldn't we be ready to nurture the new arrival and imbue it with our values of justice and love instead of trying to push it back into the womb of history?