by Kate Cronin-Furman, The Los Angeles Review of Books, May 16, 2018 BY THE TIME I got there, the bones were gone. But eight years out from the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, everything else was still there, carpeting the beach where the final battle was fought. Suitcases half-buried in sand, battered metal… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2018
The Rohingya Crisis and the Meaning of Genocide
Despite evidence of systematic violence against the Rohingya, countries remain reluctant to classify the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as genocide. Interview by Camilla Siazon, Kate Cronin-Furman, Interviewee, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, May 8, 2018 Human rights groups and UN leaders have condemned the violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic minority as bearing the “hallmarks of… Read more »
New ITJP Website Lists 280 Names of Enforced Disappearance in Sri Lanka
All in one day by International Truth and Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, May 15, 2018 ITJP Press-release-Disappearance-15-May-2018-english Johannesburg: Sri Lanka’s Office of Missing Persons is duty bound to question war-time military leaders over hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance that took place on the final day of the civil war in 2009 if… Read more »
280 Lankan Tamils, including 29 Children, Disappeared in One Day
The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) website has listed 280 names of enforced disappearances of people in Sri Lanka which included at least 29 children, a release from the ITJP said. by Press Trust of India in ‘Indian Express,’ Mumbai, May 16, 2018 About 280 Tamils, including 29 children, who had surrendered before the… Read more »
SL’s OMP Urged to Probe Star Generals
by Athula Vithanage, ‘Jounalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, Europe, May 15, 2018 Sri Lanka has been urged to probe two of its highly decorated commanders for the inauguration of the much delayed Office of the Missing Persons (OMP). The OMP that plans to “address the suffering” of a multitude of disappeared commenced meeting victims on… Read more »
NYT: At Least 29 Children Disappeared in Sri Lanka
Rights Group: At Least 29 Children Disappeared in Sri Lanka by The Associated Press in ‘The New York Times,’ May 15, 2018 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — At least 29 children disappeared in the custody of Sri Lanka’s military after surrendering with their ethnic rebel parents at the end of the island nation’s civil war, a human rights… Read more »
PEARL: ‘Delayed or Denied?
Sri Lanka’s Failing Transitional Justice Process by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, Washington, DC, May 14, 2018 PEARL’s new report, “Delayed or Denied? Sri Lanka’s Failing Transitional Justice Process”documents Sri Lanka’s failure to fulfill its transitional justice commitments and the complacency with which its intransigence has been received by members of the international community…. Read more »
An Ethnic Conflict & an Accord
by Press Trust of India on Shruti TV, May 10, 2018 Discussion of T. Ramakrishnan’s book ‘Or Inapprachinaiyum Or Oppandhamum,’ ‘An Ethnic Conflict and An Accord’ at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. With Prof. V Suryanarayan, & Chandrahasan. Moderated by Col. Hariharan. Most interesting is the Q & A starting at 1 hr. 12+ min…. Read more »
Did the GoSL Win the War of the Tigers Lose?
A review of Peter Stafford Roberts’ “The Sri Lankan Insurgency: Rebalancing the Orthodox Position” and Stephen Battle’s “Lessons In Legitimacy: The LTTE End-Game Of 2007–2009” by Peter Alphonsus, ‘The Sunday Observer,’ Colombo, May 13, 2018 It is a truth universally acknowledged that in May 2009 the Government of Sri Lanka won the war. This extraordinary… Read more »
Tamil National Question & Tamil Insurgency in Sri Lanka
by Imtiyaz Razak, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ May 14, 2018 On May 17, 2009 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) admitted the defeat in the war against the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lanka security forces and vowed to silence guns. In May 18, Sri Lanka security forces announced that the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, who led the… Read more »
Economic History Chart of Major Powers
by Matthew Bey, Stratfor, Austin, TX, USA, May 10, 2018 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/us-and-china-economic-fight-century-begins?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article
Saint Anthony’s Church and Cemetery
The ruins of this old church are slowing sinking into the sand. by Max Cortesi, Atlas Obscura, no date, accessed May 12, 2018 On the far northeastern beaches of Sri Lanka there is a tiny village called Manalkadu. It doesn’t see many tourists—and with only one battered unnamed road to get there, that’s not surprising. What… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 44
Father’s Lineage and Work in Ceylon by Sachi Sri Kantha, May 11, 2018 I wish to express my thanks for the correction note that I received from fellow MGR biographer and friend Mr. R. Kannan, related to previous Part 43 item on M. Karunanidhi’s alleged role in expelling prominent rankers from the DMK party. Kannan… Read more »
Reckoning and Reform Loom for Sri Lanka
Pressure mounts to account for past actions in nation where even truth and reconciliation commission is lacking by Kingsley Karunaratne, ‘UCA News,’ May 10, 2018 Though the political turmoil in Sri Lanka has subsided the government has been weakened by a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, raised by a faction from his own… Read more »
Sri Lanka: Abduction Island
by Al Jazeera, May 10, 2018 Once a weapon of war, abductions are still happening in Sri Lanka. Is there justice for the nation’s disappeared? Video at https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2018/05/sri-lanka-abduction-island-180510041107399.html Sri Lanka has used abductions as a way to instill fear since the days of civil war. In the last three decades, 60,000 people have gone missing. Many… Read more »
1991: The Mothers Who Won’t Disappear
by Steve Coll, ‘The Washington Post,’ March 3, 1991 COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — The letter arrived by regular post in the afternoon. A mailman carried it up the walkway of a posh bungalow lined with palms and splashed with tropical light. The letter was handwritten in English, addressed to Manorani Saravanamuttu, a medical doctor and a child… Read more »
Is China a Colonial Power?
by James A. Millward, ‘The New York Times,’ May 4, 2018 Mr. Millward is a China scholar and historian of the Silk Road In a lesser-known novel, “Claudius Bombarnac,” Jules Verne describes the adventures of the titular foreign correspondent as he rides the “Grand Transasiatic Railway” from the “European frontier” to “the capital of the Celestial… Read more »
The Island Story: A Short History Of Sri Lanka
by Charles Sarvan, ‘The Island,’ Colombo, May 5, 2018 Book Review: K. M de Silva, The Island Story: A Short History of Sri Lanka, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 2017. EPIGRAPH: Sri Lanka in the first few centuries after the early settlement was a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society: a conception which emphasises harmony and a… Read more »
Half Gods
by Akil Kumarasamy, to be released June 5, 2018 A startlingly beautiful debut, Half Gods brings together the exiled, the disappeared, the seekers. Following the fractured origins and destines of two brothers named after demigods from the ancient epic the Mahabharata, we meet a family struggling with the reverberations of the past in their lives. These ten… Read more »
Can the Application of Universal Jurisdiction Foster Accountability in Sri Lanka?
A closer look at an important question by Ana Pararajasingham, ‘The Diplomat,’ May 3, 2018 At the 37th session of the Human Rights Council, which met in Geneva in February and March 2018, the High Commissioner for United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein urged member states to explore other avenues to foster… Read more »