Monthly Archives: July 2025

SSA: July 1983

by Civil Society Movement in Social Scientists Association’s ‘Polity,’ Colombo, July/August 2003 polity-vol-1.3-july-1983 Also: polity-vol-1.3-july-1983.pdf

Maison: Mass Graves of Silence

by Maison du Tamil Eelam, Paris, June 17, 2025 Maison du Tamil Eelam Mass Graves of Silence June 17 2025 Press release Sri Lanka: Mass Graves of Silence Since gaining independence, Sri Lanka has been the scene of serious, systematic human rights violations, particularly targeting a segment of its population. These abuses have left deep… Read more »

The Alfred Duraiappah Dossier – Part 3

by Sachi Sri Kantha, July 9, 2025 Prologue While in his thirties, Alfred Duraiappah (1926-1975) served as an Independent elected MP for Jaffna, from March 1960 to December 1964. A Christian Tamil by birth, in a majority Hindu constituency, Duraiappah was able to squeak through with victory margins of less than 900 votes, in multi-pronged… Read more »

From Chemmani to Geneva

Will Sri Lanka Face Its Truth? by Wimal Navaratnam, Canada, June 30, 2025 From Chemmani to Geneva Next Steps and Future Outlook With Volker Türk’s mission now completed, attention shifts to what comes next. All parties – the UN, the Sri Lankan government, Tamil representatives, and international actors – are looking ahead to ensure that… Read more »

Justice for Sri Lanka’s Genocide Against Tamils

by [unclear, although some analysis is provided by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) and the document is supported by the Ottawa Tamil Association. the Tamil Genocide Memorial, Tamil American United PAC, the Federation of Global Tamil Organizations, the Ilankai Tamil Sangam, and the  Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA)], 2024 Justice… Read more »

Data from Presidential Truth Commission Report on Black July 1983

by Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence 1981-1984, September 2002 Evidence provided to the 2002 Commission by victims who requested compensation for primarily property damage during the violence of the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983’s Black July. truth-commission-list_from presidential_commission_report on ethnic violence 1981-1984 [Excel file] Data is from the report of the Presidential Commission and is… Read more »

Chemmani, Batalanda and Beyond

by Kishali Pinto-Jayawardene, Sunday Times, Colombo, July 6, 2025 In a global arena where the United Nations is desperately struggling to cope with a pronounced irrelevance as the world’s ‘superpowers’ continue to pound the Gaza Strip with all its might and main, of what use are symbolic visits and symbolic messages by the champions of… Read more »

Facing the Truth of July 1983

by Kumar Rupesinghe, Sunday Observer, Colombo, July 17, 2003 See: Report of the Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence 1981-1984 – Ilankai Tamil Sangam Before I begin an assessment of the final report of the Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence from 1981-1984, I would like to recollect some encounters I had with former President… Read more »

How New DNA Science Could Help More Families of the Missing

Emerging methods are improving the ability to identify even highly degraded human remains by Damien Cave, The New York Times, July 4, 2025 The world is facing an abundance of tragic events that produce large numbers of the dead and missing people, including wars in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan and the Middle East, as well as… Read more »

The Story of Chemmani and the Graves That Refuse to Stay Buried

by Roy Fernando (SJ), Groundviews, Colombo, June 30, 2025 Some truths are not uncovered by force. They rise slowly, persistently, from the ground because the dead cannot remain forgotten forever. In the quiet village of Chemmani, nestled within the war scarred terrain of the Jaffna peninsula, a patch of soil became the unlikely custodian of… Read more »

TG Explainer – Krishanthi Kumaraswamy and the Chemmani Mass Graves

by Tamil Guardian, London, July 2, 2025 Krishanthi Kumaraswamy was an 18-year-old Tamil schoolgirl from Jaffna whose brutal rape and murder in 1996, along with the killing of her mother, younger brother, and a neighbour, became one of the most notorious atrocities of Sri Lanka’s genocide of Tamils. Her case exposed a grisly network of… Read more »

TG Explainer – What are the Chemmani Mass Graves?

by Tamil Guardian, London, June 25, 2025 Chemmani, a village on the outskirts of Jaffna, is a serene and beautiful town that has come to take on a notorious reputation. It is the site of mass graves, where potentially, hundreds of Tamils who were murdered by the Sri Lankan military lie buried. These graves date… Read more »

Türk: ‘The Haunting Past Becomes Visible’

UN human rights chief reflects on Chemmani visit by Tamil Guardian, London, June 25, 2025 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk reflected on his visit to the Chemmani mass grave site near Jaffna on Wednesday, reiterating the importance of ensuring “independent experts with forensic expertise” are allowed to be used to excavate… Read more »