The landslide victory of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election was an act of sheer defiance by the Tamil people. Their emphatic endorsement of the TNA at the ballot box – whose campaign highlighted the core Tamil political demands and the Tamil armed resistance for independence – was a… Read more »
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Devolution of Powers under the 13th Amendment in Sri Lanka
by MCM Iqbal, ‘Groundviews.org,’ Colombo, July 19, 2009 (The writer was one of the secretaries of the first Provincial Council of the Western Province) 1. Introduction In the aftermath of the defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, many expected the government to put forward the promised political solution to the problems of the Tamils which… Read more »
Rajapaksa Rides The Lion Again
There is a dangerous bifurcation of the country which will not diminish till the Gota-Mahinda regime is driven out. Let’s grow up and get real; there is nothing this regime will not do, if it can get away with it, to sink the new NPC-TNA Administration; the survival of dictatorship is predicated on snuffing out independent power centres. Call me a pessimist if you will; on this topic I am.
MGR Remembered – Part 11
by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 27, 2013 Part 10 Mythologies in the movies of India and Hollywood There is a derisive Tamil idiom which pokes fun at half-baked scholarship. It is, ‘Kundu chattikul irunthu kuthirai ootuvathu pola’ [translation: Like horse riding within a hollow pot]. One cannot ride a horse with the narrow confines of… Read more »
2013 Economic & Social Statistics of Sri Lanka
http://www.cbsl.gov.lk/pics_n_docs/10_pub/_docs/statistics/other/econ_&_ss_2013_e.pdf
Healing Sri Lanka Begins with a New Deal for Tamils
The Tamil National Alliance won a solid victory over the weekend in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province, giveing it the credibility to lobby for political devolution and for sufficient funds to rebuild the shattered region. Sri Lanka’s Tamil heartland has finally regained its political voice, four years after a brutal civil war that tore apart… Read more »
Oral Update of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Delivered in Geneva by Deputy High Commissioner Flavia Pansieri, September 25, 2013 1. On behalf of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, I am pleased to provide this oral update on implementation of Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/22/L.1/Rev.1 on promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka. This draws on input from relevant Special Procedures mandate holders and the High… Read more »
UN Failed during Final Days of Lankan Ethnic War
New York: In a rare admission of “systemic failure” of the UN, its chief has said the world body had failed during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s ethnic war in 2009 that saw military defeat of the LTTE. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also blamed member countries for not providing the UN with support to… Read more »
Pasumai Thaayagam UNHRC Statement
24th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council 24 September 2013 Geneva Item 9: General Debate Organization: Pasumai Thaayagam Presenter: Dr. Anpumani Ramadoss Pasumai Thaayagam condemns all forms of racism and related intolerance. There are many repercussions of racism, ranging from the daily oppression of an intolerant society, to outright genocide. Unfortunately, the latter is… Read more »
USTPAC Hails Tamils’ Landslide Victory in Sri Lanka’s Provincial Vote
USTPAC press release _NPC election_092413 In Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council vote held on Saturday, the Tamil National Alliance defeated the Sri Lanka government alliance securing firm control of the Council. Despite violence and voter intimidation with suffocating military presence, Tamils signal to chart their own destiny. WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — United States… Read more »
Ethirveerasingam on his Hopes for Reconciliation
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep/21/sri-lanka-reconciliation-video Sri Lankan Olympian Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam on his hopes for reconciliation — video Diaspora communities can inspire peace in their country of origin, according to US resident Dr Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, a former Olympian of Tamil heritage who coaches young athletes in Sri Lanka. Though he is sceptical of the government’s reconciliation programme, he says sport… Read more »
TNA’s Victory Statement
The democratic verdict of the people is clear. Within the framework of a united, undivided country, they want to live in security, safeguarding their self respect and dignity with adequate self-rule, to be able to fulfill their legitimate political, economic, social and cultural aspirations. The Tamil National Alliance is committed to the achievement of the… Read more »
Welcoming the Verdict of the Tamil People
Rather, the problem is more about nationalism and nationhood, about the Tamil people’s aspirations, about their need to be recognized as an equal nationality on the basis of equality and self-determination. It is a question that has to do with a deeply polarized polity, or deeply polarized polities. In broader terms, it is a question about how peoples with contrasting views about their nationhood, about their histories, can still co-exist peacefully.
Secondly, another related point that this election drives home, and one which should be openly acknowledged, is that whatever the historical facts one may adduce for or against the ‘traditional homeland’ argument of the Tamil people, the verdict of the Tamil people shows that for all practical purposes, the North, at least, is an entity which the Tamil people can consider to be their ‘traditional homeland’. There’s another phrase for that (which the TNA uses, as well as the Indo-Lanka Accord): ‘historical habitation’.
Can the TNA Scream ?
Just wanted to put down a few quick comments on the NPC election The difference in press coverage by the western media and the Indian media was in stark contrast. Indian Media was out on a limb trying to set up a different narrative than what the Tamil people were voting for Voter turn out… Read more »
Canadian Tamil Congress congratulates TNA
For Immediate Release September 22, 2013. Canadian Tamil Congress congratulates TNA and Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) congratulates the Tamil National Alliance and the Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on the impressive election victory in the Northern Provincial Council elections. Despite the intimidation by the Sri Lankan… Read more »
Anna (1909-1969)
by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 12, 2013 Book in Review Anna: The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai, by R.Kannan, Penguin Books India Pvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 2010, 423 pp. September 15th marks the 104th birth anniversary of Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai, who was popularly known to all Tamils by the dimunitive prefix ‘Anna’. When he died… Read more »
Tamils Dominate Vote in Sri Lanka Province
But prominent opposition politicians fear those gains will evaporate without some efforts at political reconciliation with the Tamil population.
“Had we used the opportunity that came with the end of the war to reach out, one could argue the deaths were not in vain,” said Mangala Samaraweera, a member of Parliament representing the United National Party, an opposition party unaffiliated with the Tamil alliance. “But we’re back to the same old vicious circle. Are we going to kill 20,000 to 30,000 people every 25 years for the Sri Lankan state to survive? That’s what you have to ask.”
BBC: Election in 60 Seconds
On Saturday 21 September, the mainly Tamil people of the far north of Sri Lanka will get the chance to vote for an administration that was first promised to them a quarter of a century ago.The Northern Province is the only one among the island’s nine provinces that has never had its own council, and… Read more »
Tamil Voters Hope Provincial Election is Step toward Autonomy
by Associated Press in ‘The Washington Post’ Asia/Pacific section, September 20, 2013 JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka tried to gain autonomy in their northern heartland first through three decades of protests and strikes, then through three decades of civil war. Northern cities were reduced to rubble and at least 80,000… Read more »
State Facilitated Colonization of Northern Sri Lanka
by Watchdog, ‘Groundviews.org,’ Colombo, September 19, 2013 On 25th September 2012, the Menik Farm camp in Vavuniya, which at its peak, housed close to 300,000 internally displaced persons, was officially closed down when the Government of Sri Lanka relocated the last batch of IDPs. This formally marked the closure of all post-2009 IDP camps in the… Read more »