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 »
Jaffna Monitor: A Mother’s Endless Wait
by Dr. Nalayini Jegathesan, Jaffna Monitor, 2019 A Mother’s Endless Wait Jaffna Monitor 2019
Adayaalam: A Phantom that is Real
Persisting culture of surveillance and intimidation in the North-East by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, Jaffna, February 2025 Adayaalam A-Phantom-that-is-Real_-Persisting-Culture-or-Surveilance-and-Intimidation-in-the-NorthEast This report sheds light on the prevailing patterns of surveillance, intimidation, and arrests that activists, civil society members, and journalists face in the North-East of Sri Lanka, and is one of the recent studies exploring… Read more »
MGR Remembered – Part 82
Tripartite charisma rivalry among MGR, Karunanidhi and Indira by Sachi Sri Kantha, June 19, 2025 Regarding the contents in Part 81, I received the thoughts R. Kannan on May 12th. These were as follows: “Thank you for Part 81—a meticulous compilation of the events of the 1980 general elections in Tamil Nadu, including the alliances… Read more »
Adaptation of Archaeological Techniques in Forensic Mass Grave Exhumation: Chemmani
The experience of ‘Chemmani’ excavation in northern Sri Lanka by PR Ruwanpura, UCP Perera, HTK Wijeyaweera and N Chandrasiri, Ceylon Medical Journal, 2006 Sep;51(3):98-102 1251-1-4695-1-10-20091023 Abstract There have been several mass grave excavations in Sri Lanka during the period of 1995 to 1998. Excavation of mass graves in the Chemmani area of northern peninsula of… Read more »
Have You Read Zahid Rafiq?
by Ajaz Asaf, Mid-Day, Mumbai, June 9, 2025 The Srinagar native’s short story collection, The World With Its Mouth Open, stirs readers’ conscience while vividly depicting the lives of characters who appear broken in a world unhinged by a bloody past Security personnel stand guard outside Eidgah ground as people arrive to offer prayers at… Read more »
James T Rutnam (1905-1988), Part 2
Noted Bibliophile and a Valued Mentor by Sachi Sri Kantha, June 7, 2025 Part 1 Introduction My destiny to meet and interact with James T Rutnam came in the aftermath of the August 1977 anti-Tamil riots. Previously, I had written a little about the anti-Tamil riots that engulfed the island then, and my initial attempts… Read more »
Pew: Facts about Sri Lankans in the U.S.
by Carolyn Im, Pew Research Center, Washington, DC, May 1, 2025 (based on U.S. Census Bureau tabulations of the 2023 American Community Survey) [Note: based on those who reported their identity as Sri Lankan ONLY, so probably excludes who identified as Sri Lankan Tamil, etc. Hopefully, another demographer can tease out these numbers from the… Read more »
Letter re Repeal of PTA from Civil Society
Letter re PTA May 2025 English Letter re PTA May 2025 Tamil Letter re PTA May 2025 Sinhalese 29th May, 2025 Secretary, Ministry of Justice and National Integration, Colombo 10 Re: The Repeal of the PTA – Do not replace with a new terror law We, as concerned peoples of Sri Lanka, respond to the… Read more »
TG: Sri Lanka’s Genocide Blueprint
Tamil Guardian editorial, June 2, 2025 There was a marked shift in global politics last week as states around the world, including staunch allies of Israel, began to criticise its ongoing military offensive in Gaza. It comes as a senior United Nations humanitarian official repeatedly issued a stark reminder of the international community’s failure to… Read more »