by Maxwin Paul Rayen, Spring 2023 Collective Genocidal Intent in Sri Lanka Dear all, I am writing to share the recent publication of my LLM dissertation, which delves into the subject of “Collective Genocidal Violence in Sri Lanka.” My work critically examines the challenges associated with establishing genocidal intent and the subsequent lack of evidence… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Other
Maaveerar Naal 2023
by Nillanthan Maha, November 25, 2023 [Translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate with help from the editor.] This is the fifteenth Veterans Day since the end of the armed struggle. Over the past 15 years, there have been legal issues in the widespread popularization of commemorations such as Heroes’ Day. Fear cannot be… Read more »
Tamil Coin Issued by King Ellalan during the Anuradhapura Era
by Prof. Paramu Pushparatnam, Ezhuna Online, September 6, 2023 [translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate with improvements by S-J] As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, the ancient history of the Tamils is still shrouded in Mahavamsa darkness, but recent archaeological studies in various parts of Sri Lanka have revealed the biographical information… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s TRC Draft Has Nothing to Solve Tamils’ Concerns – Sumanthiran
by Shihar Aneez, EconomyNext, June 2, 2023 A new draft on Sri Lanka’s Truth Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has failed to meet minimum expectations in addressing the concerns of ethnic minority Tamils who have lost their loved ones in what they allege as forced disappeared, in the final stage of the war, the Tamil National Alliance… Read more »
Sinhalization of the North-East
by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, March 2022 State-Sponsored-Sinhalization-of-the-North-East-March-2022 Executive Summary This report outlines the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL)’s multi-pronged Sinhalization efforts in the North-East through the use of state-aided Sinhala settlements and irrigation schemes, economic marginalization and land appropriation by Sri Lankan state bodies, “Buddhisization,” and repression of memorialization of important… Read more »
CPA 2008: Essays on Federalism
by Rohan Edirisinha & Asanga Welikala, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, 2008 Essays on Federalism in Sri Lanka is a new collection of essays and articles on the Federal idea in Sri Lanka, edited by Rohan Edrisinha and Asanga Welikala. CPA has since its inception been at the forefront of the advocacy of federalism as a… Read more »
Sri Lankan Conflict Map Supports UN Work on Accountability
by Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Sydney, Australia, September 7, 2022 The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has released a landmark interactive conflict map, detailing thousands of reported human rights violations occurring during the civil war in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009. This conflict map will provide crucial foundational support for the United Nations’ and Member… Read more »
The First Thamil Eelam Sports Festival – July 2004
by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Ph.D., July 31, 2022 The First Thamil Sports Festival was held in the Kilinochchi Playgrounds in July 2004. The one-week of sports festival was organized under the guidance of the Sports Unit of the Thamil Eelam administration. Participants from the 8 Districts in the North-East took part in the Week-long competitions in Soccer,… Read more »
Avanka Lanka: An Apology
[Apologies of this sort are a long time coming. Pledges to help the marginalized are always welcome. However, where does this rather capitalist & imperialist statement originate? — “we believe that the Northern province nor the Eastern province cannot develop in isolation but needs to link up with the South and the rest of the… Read more »
‘No Fire Zone’ in Sinhala
by Callum Macrae, Outsider TV, UK, 2015 vimeo.com/121541320
British War Crimes Police Arrest Man Over Murder of Tamil Journalist in Jaffna
by Tamil Guardian, London, February 24, 2022 The Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Team have arrested a 48-year-old man in Britain over the murder of Tamil journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan in Jaffna more than 20 years ago – marking the first time that British authorities have made an arrest over war crimes committed in Sri Lanka. In… Read more »
A Multispecies History of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery 1800–1925
Seeing like the sea by Tamara Fernando, Past & Present, Volume 254, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 127–160, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab002 Published: 21 September 2021 PDF Abstract The pearl fishery of Ceylon was a lucrative source of pearls as well as a theatre of colonial power. But instead of narrating a story of abstracted governmentality, this paper dives below… Read more »
Getting Away with War Crimes
by Phil Miller, Tribune, Dagenham, UK, June 23, 2020 For decades, former British soldiers with friends in high places ran a mercenary enterprise from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua – leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake… Behind this respectable facade, the company took on much riskier contracts, that would see it exert… Read more »
Genocidal ‘Development’ Abetted by Global Partners Seeks to Wedge North-East
by TamilNet, Thursday, 04 May 2017 The occupying Colombo is trying to seize lands in the Tamil-speaking Kuchchave’li division of Trincomalee district in the Eastern Province to construct housing schemes for Sinhala settlers who have been moved out of their lands that were taken over by the SL Irrigation Department for the construction of Yan… Read more »
Why We Prosecute Wartime Misconduct
by Lt. Col. (ret.) Jay Morse, JustSecurity, March 10, 2021 In the early morning hours of March 11, 2012, U.S. Army infantryman Robert Bales walked off his outpost near the Afghan village of Belambai. Over the next five hours, Bales murdered 16 men, women, and children, and injured at least six others in the now-infamous Kandahar… Read more »
Experts Dismayed by Regressive Steps
Call for renewed UN scrutiny and efforts to ensure accountability by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, February 5, 2021 UN human rights experts have expressed their deep concern on 5 February 2021 about the reversal of important democratic gains achieved since 2015 and roll back on limited progress made on accountability,… Read more »
The Disappearance of ‘Father Basketball’ in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
Jesuit Missionaries in Post-Colonial Conflict Zones by Bernardo E. Brown, Journal of South Asian Studies, November 15, 2015 Disappearance of ‘Father Basketball’ in Batticaloa 2015 Abstract In August 1990, Father Eugene John Hebert SJ disappeared while trying to reach his home in the Sri Lankan city of Batticaloa. Caught in the midst of the turmoil… Read more »
ITJP & JDS: Dossier on Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara
by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka & International Truth & Justice Project, Europe & South Africa, November 2020 rear-admiral-sarath-weerasekera August 2020: State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Affairs November 2020: Appointed as Minister of Public Security1 (with control over the Police department, Civil Security department, Police Training College and the Multi-Purpose Development… Read more »
Tsunami and Civil War in Sri_Lanka
An Anthropologist Confronts the Real World by Dennis McGilvray, ‘India Review,’ New Delhi, , vol. 5, nos. 3–4, July/October, 2006, pp. 372–393 Tsunami_and_Civil_War_in_Sri_Lanka …Much of the anthropology of Sri Lanka in the last three decades would have to count as “public” scholarship, because it has been forced to address the contemporary realities of labor migration,… Read more »
Election Sends a Chilling Message
Election rides a Gotabhaya surge and blends to a Sinhala-Buddhist ethos by Kumar David, The Island, Colombo, August 8, 2020 Let everyone first congratulate Deshapriya, Hoole, N.J. Abeysekara and the election staff for conducting a truly first-rate election under trying circumstances – COVID, political interference, a not very helpful AG and numerous court challenges by… Read more »