Photo: Contributor/IRIN TNA leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan COLOMBO, 11 June 2013 (IRIN) – Ahead of Sri Lanka’s planned provincial election in a former war zone, the country’s main ethnic minority Tamil party is pushing to have as much power devolved from Colombo as possible. The island nation has grappled for decades with the question of the devolution… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2013
Lights, Camera, Election
by ‘The Economist,’ London, June 8, 2013 WHEN the film “Parasakthi” was released in Tamil Nadu in October 1952, it played for over 100 days to rapt audiences… During the past 50 years, five of Tamil Nadu’s eight chief ministers have been film stars or scriptwriters. To this day, power still ricochets between Mr Karunanidhi’s… Read more »
Kuttimani Files
Thirty years ago, the name Kuttimani made waves in Sri Lanka. His given name was Selvarajah Yogachandran, and he was one of the Tamil militant leaders in Sri Lanka in 1970s. On July 25th 1983, he was one of the Tamil prisoners who were killed inside the Welikade jail. As such, it may be appropriate… Read more »
Time for U.S. Pressure on Sri Lanka
Editor’s note: Karunyan Arulanantham is the executive director of the Tamil American Peace Initiative, an organization of Tamil Americans. The views expressed are the writer’s own. Amid the jungle and sandy beaches of northeast Sri Lanka’s Vanni region lie tragic truths the government has desperately sought to suppress in the four years since its civil… Read more »
Sri Lanka to Water Down Tamil Power-sharing Plan
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka plans to reduce the power of local councils before the first-ever provincial elections in the island’s former war zone, a leading politician said Thursday, in a bid to deny minority Tamils greater autonomy. The ruling coalition promised to share limited power with Tamils, pointing to elections to local councils, after the… Read more »
The Genocidal Imperative
By Ana Pararajasingham, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ June 6, 203 Preamble: Sri Lanka’s history since its independence from 1948 clearly demonstrates that all Sri Lankan governments were driven by the intent to destroy the distinct identity of the Tamils as a nation[1]. As these actions were underpinned by intent, they clearly fall within the definition of genocide as stipulated… Read more »
Getting Off the Sri Lankan Grid
The looming “great game” that will be played out in the in the Indian Ocean holds an important lesson for the Tamils of Eelam and TamilNadu. As I mentioned in the previous post, at the heart of the global and regional policy framework on the Indian Ocean is the stable, economic growth. It is essential that the Tamils… Read more »
Sri Lanka Christians Facing More Persecution
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (BP) — Christians in Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, are facing an increase in persecution at the hands of Buddhist fundamentalists who believe the country is a historic Buddhist land that should not be shared with anyone else, a watch group reported. Christianity is viewed in Sri Lanka as… Read more »
Sri Lanka Monk Self-immolation Highlights Anti-Muslim Sentiment
The suicide by a Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in Sri Lanka to protest the slaughter of cattle has been hailed as an act of great self-sacrifice and compared to acts of self-immolation by Tibetan Buddhist monks protesting China’s repression in Tibet. Nothing could be more ill-informed. In fact, it is one more… Read more »
Remembrance and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka
The ethnic divide in Sri Lanka is ingrained in all aspects of life, even mourning the dead. The conflict between Tamils and the Sri Lankan state has cost over 100,000 lives, the vast majority of which are Tamil. The 18th of May, the day the armed conflict ended, has become one of the most important… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Ugly Side
by ‘Bangkok Post,’ June 3, 2013 Sri Lanka celebrated the fourth anniversary of its military victory over Tamil separatists last month amid concerns over a venomous hate campaign and resultant attacks against Muslim and Christian minorities by some Buddhist monks, one of whom set himself on fire. Army tanks rolled onto the streets of Colombo to… Read more »
Buddha Buzz
Across the Bay of Bengal, a Therevada Sri Lankan monk—adopting what has become a common strategy among Tibetan Buddhist monks—self-immolated in the street. The monk, Ven. Indarathana, set himself on fire outside the Temple of the Tooth—the holiest Buddhist shrine in the country—in protest of the Muslim halal method of slaughtering animals.
Ven. Indarathana belonged to the Buddhist revivalist group Voice of Sinhala, a hardline Buddhist rights group. This could qualify the self-immolation as the first connected with an anti-Muslim organization. According to BBC correspondent Charles Haviland, Sinhalese ultranationalist government ministers are praising the incident as “an act of self-sacrifice for the good of the country.”
The Sri Lankan Army is Seizing Land that Could be Worth $2bn
If you own land in the north of Sri Lanka, or know anybody that does, please take a moment to look at this map and forward it on, the more people who are aware of what is taking place the better.
If you think you might be affected by any of these land seizures, or if you have any more precise information about the location of the land, photographs of the land, or who might own the land then please get in touch.
More land notices are being issued all the time and we will update the map as we get them. If you know of any more land seizures please do get in touch and pass on the details. If you can send us a copy of the notice (in any language) so much the better.
Celebrating A Victory That Has Lost Its Way
“Truth must be told. After all, it is the truth that will set everyone free. But, for truth to be told, there needs to be a change in attitude”, are words from my first speech in Parliament and three years later we have yet to see a change in attitude. We have seen instead, a… Read more »
Sampanthan MP’s Speech in Parliament
They never had before and do not have now a sense of economic or political empowerment. To put it in simple language, the Tamil people do not have the ability to take control of their lives. This is because their democratic verdict is not respected. They have to deal with masters and rulers. They cannot deal with persons whom they have elected as their representatives to attend to their needs and to exercise political power on their behalf; to whom they can talk freely; whom they can question and who are answerable to them. They can only deal with masters and rulers who can be merciful as they wish to be, can be rude and arrogant if they wish to be. Are not the Tamil people being treated grossly differently from the Sinhala people? Is it not the true position that the Tamil people have a price to pay because they are Tamils? Mr. Deputy Chairman of Committee, this cannot continue….
It must be understood that inclusiveness, tolerance, pluralism, egalitarianism and justice are the hallmarks of a truly democratic society. This is not to state that the wishes of the majority of the people are irrelevant, but it certainly means that the wishes of the majority of the people must be guided by these fundamental elements, and that the political leadership should have the wisdom to guide the people in this regard. Great democracies the world over have acquired unity in diversity, respectability, stability and prosperity by adopting this spirit. A State, which does not accept these principles, cannot be regarded as a truly democratic State. In today’s context, Sri Lanka’s democratic credentials do not stand the test of scrutiny. The Sri Lankan State regrettably stands out as a majoritarian State, which does not uphold the rule of law, particularly in regard to the minority peoples, that excludes legitimate minority rights and concerns, disregards the democratic verdicts of the Tamil people, and is strongly influenced in its governance, by sectarian nationalist thinking. This must change, and this is yet another lesson that must be learnt, if there is to be voluntary and genuine reconciliation, peace and harmony. A State, which claims to be democratic, but which distorts democracy, and practises majoritarian authoritarianism, will inexorably traverse the path of self destruction. To be truly democratic, is a lesson that a Sri Lankan State needs to learn early.
Videos of Recent Conferences
International Council on Eelam Tamils (ICET) – Tamils rights conference in Geneva, March 2-4, 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOY5KrLBqA http://youtu.be/uEOY5KrLBqA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHwah7gzduk http://youtu.be/lHwah7gzduk http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fvOIKXE_I8Q#! http://youtu.be/fvOIKXE_I8Q Transnational Government of Tamil… Read more »
Book Burning in 1933 and 1981
by Sachi Sri Kantha, May 30, 2013 To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Jaffna Public Library bibliocaust, seven years ago (in 2006), I contributed a four part series under the caption ‘Perversity of Pyromaniacs’ to this website. It could be accessed easily if you simply google the caption of this series. This year being… Read more »
Spot Fixing Sri Lanka Style
There are numerous reasons to be concerned about this survey. The timing of the survey – and the military’s heavy involvement – suggests that this was (and remains) an obvious effort to deflect international pressure at the HRC and other international fora. When and why did the DCS begin to work so closely with the Defence Ministry?
Burma [not so random] Connection
The similarities of the Myanmar and the Sri Lankan states are obvious. Majority of the people in both countries practice Theravada Buddhism. And both countries are plagued by ethnic conflicts.
Misplaced Honor
[The US is still trying to get over our Civil War. Can you imagine Sri Lankan army bases named after Tiger officers? – Ed/]
The practice of decorating the graves arose in many towns, north and south, some even before the war had ended. This humble idea quickly spread throughout the country, and the recognition of common loss helped reconcile North and South….
Equivalence of experience was stretched to impute an equivalence of legitimacy. The idea that “now, we are all Americans” served to whitewash the actions of the rebels. The most egregious example of this was the naming of United States Army bases after Confederate generals.