{"id":101766,"date":"2013-08-22T12:43:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T07:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=101766"},"modified":"2013-08-26T16:16:29","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T10:46:29","slug":"sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s Army Of Buddhist Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Ellis<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Eric Ellis<\/p><\/div>\n

A founder of Sri Lanka\u2019s Army of Buddhist Power tries to explain his militant views on Muslims, and how they fit with the government\u2019s triumphant story of post-war reconciliation<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s raffish capital, where we begin our series, is in economic catch-up mode. Colombo is replacing the colonial-era roads and railways built when Churchill was a boy and \u2018Ceylon\u2019 was a languid tropical afterthought for the British who ruled the plantation island.<\/p>\n

Though it took its time \u2013 10 years \u2013 to be completed, a sparkling new tollway to the beachy Rajapaksa heartland in the south has cut the journey from Colombo from a congested three-to-six hours to just one.<\/p>\n

In the conflict-ravaged Tamil north, Indian engineers are re-connecting the war-severed train line that once carried passengers from Colombo to Jaffna.<\/p>\n

In the mostly Sinhalese\u00a0\u2018deep south\u2019 of the island<\/span>,<\/a>\u00a0President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s home region of Hambantota is being lavished with the country\u2019s biggest infrastructural project, a US$1.5 billion stampede of white elephants that\u2019s giving the town a new port, international airport and cricket stadium \u2013 all named after President Rajapaksa \u2013 and a convention centre and even an\u00a0alternative Bollywood complex<\/span>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more in the The Globalmail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

*Eric Ellis<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is an award-winning journalist who writes about the politics, economics and societies of South and South-East Asia.\u00a0He has written for a range of international journals;\u00a0Fortune Magazine,\u00a0Forbes, the\u00a0Financial Times,\u00a0Time Magazine,\u00a0The Times,\u00a0The Bulletin\/Newsweek,\u00a0The Spectator,Institutional Investor,\u00a0Euromoney,\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald,\u00a0The Age,\u00a0The Australian Financial Review\u00a0and the\u00a0International Herald Tribune.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":101767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nSri Lanka\u2019s Army Of Buddhist Power - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sri Lanka\u2019s Army Of Buddhist Power - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-22T07:13:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-08-26T10:46:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/ERIC-ELLIS.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"485\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist\/\",\"name\":\"Sri Lanka\u2019s Army Of Buddhist Power - 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