‘The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle’ review: Surviving war by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, Chennai, India, April 24, 2021 Meena Kandasamy records the gruesome first-person experiences of two women of the Tamil Eelam struggle The picture of a woman with cropped hair, attired in camouflage shirt and trousers, and… Read more »
Rathika Pathmanathan’s Northern Memoir
Light to shed darkness on Southern war-myths by Lanka Associate blog, December 19, 2019 Rathika’s narrative builds through her experiences as a trainee in an LTTE camp, her brief war experiences, and the last days of battle after which she enters military-held ground as a maimed combatant. The spirit that echoes through these words is… Read more »
Home Is Elsewhere
One of Sri Lanka’s most compelling voices plays with ideas of displacement by Shahnaz Habib, OpentheMagazine.com, February 15, 2015 In an airplane from Frankfurt to Colombo, as the seat belt sign flickers alive, warning passengers of turbulence, two men sitting next to each other wonder where they have seen each other before. Sitting in the… Read more »
Getting Away with War Crimes
by Phil Miller, Tribune, Dagenham, UK, June 23, 2020 For decades, former British soldiers with friends in high places ran a mercenary enterprise from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua – leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake… Behind this respectable facade, the company took on much riskier contracts, that would see it exert… Read more »
Can the Sri Lanka Army be Described as a Counterinsurgency Force?
by Rob Pinney, Small Wars Journal, Virginia, USA, June 23, 2014 SL military counterinsurgency force or not As potentially the ‘first counterinsurgency victory of the twenty-first century’, the Sri Lankan experienceturns much of this conventional wisdom on its head. The ‘Sri Lankan model’, as it has become known,demonstrated a new way of conducting counterinsurgency operations – one… Read more »
P2P Demands & Pledge
by North East Civil Society Forum, February 7, 2021 P2P Demands and Pledge Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) – Demands and Pledge 1) We Tamils have been fighting for over seventy years for self Determination. We are a nation of people living in the merged North and East in the island of Ceylon. We have our… Read more »
K. Thavamani Devi (1924-2001)
A pioneer Eelam Tamil actress, dancer and singer by Sachi Sri Kantha, April 19, 2021 As of now, I had profiled the careers of five Eelam Tamil women on this website. Dr. Grace Rajamalar Barr Kumarakulasinghe (1908-2013) https://sangam.org/dr-grace-rajamalar-barr-kumarakulasinghe-1908-2013/ Dr. Siva Chinnatamby (1923-2000), https://sangam.org/dr-siva-chinnatamby-20-years-after-her-death/ Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu (1930-2001), https://sangam.org/dr-manorani-saravanamuttu/ Prof. Mano Sabaratnam (1931-2014), https://sangam.org/professor-mano-sabaratnam-1931-2014/ and Dr…. Read more »
The Valvettithurai Massacre
Remembering India’s crimes against Tamils by People for Equality & Relief in Lanka, August 2, 2019 The information on this page was largely compiled from information put together by Nadarajah Anantharajah, the then-secretary of the Citizen Committee Valvettithurai and a survivor of the IPKF massacre. He was detained for two days and severely beaten by… Read more »
India’s My Lai
Published by Hind Mazdoor Kissan Panchayat, 204, Rajaram Roy Road, Bombay 400 004, India. (Courtesy TamilNation.org, accessed 04/19/21) “The IPKF were given strict instructions not to use tactics or weapons that could cause major casualties among the civilian population of Jaffna, who were hostages to the LTTE. The Indian Army have carried out these instructions… Read more »
UN Security Council Remains Paralyzed Battling a New Cold War
UN’s Most Powerful Political Body Remains Paralyzed Battling a New Cold War by Thalif Deen, IPS News, April 14, 2021 UNITED NATIONS, Apr 14 2021 (IPS) – A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are… Read more »
TGTE Mourns Passing of Former US Attorney General Mr. Ramsey Clark
by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, EINPresswire, April 14, 2021 He was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the TGTE & served as TGTE’s New York Election Commissioner for its first parliamentary elections in 2010 Mr. Clark served as lead counsel in representing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in its… Read more »
Marco Polo’s Visit to Medieval Eelam
by Sachi Sri Kantha, April 9, 2021 Front Note in April 2021 The following solicited essay was originally written in 2000, for publication in the 80th Birthday Felicitation volume of Eelam Tamil activist and barrister at law, Krishna Vaikunthavasan (1920-2005). Using the record left by Marco Polo’s of 13th century, I challenged the ‘Prof. K…. Read more »
Evident Truths
American women at war by Nimmi Gowrinathan, Los Angeles Review of Books, April 2, 2021 IN ONE OF CHINUA ACHEBE’s lesser-known short stories, “Girls at War,” an elder government official, Mr. Nwankwo, is shocked when he’s stopped at a checkpoint by Gladys, a young Nigerian woman holding an AK-47. “He simply could not sneer at the girls… Read more »
ITJP: Time for the UK to Sanction Sri Lanka’s Army Commander
by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, April 12, 2021 Johannesburg: The International Truth and Justice Project has compiled a 50-page dossier which it has submitted to the Sanctions Department of the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office on General Shavendra Silva. The Submission argues why Silva, who is Sri Lanka’s current Army Commander,… Read more »
Arrest Of Jaffna Mayor Manivannan
Attorney At Law by C.V. Wigneswaran, Colombo Telegraph, April 10, 2021 – C.V. Wigneswaran The arrest of Mayor Viswalingam Manivannan gives food for thought. Few days ago a “B” Report is said to have been filed in the Chief Magistrate’s Court against me. I still do not know what the contents of the B report are. An arrest… Read more »
Mayor of Jaffna Released on Bail
After arrest by Sri Lanka’s TID by TamilGuardian, London, April 9, 2021 UPDATED 1730 GMT The Mayor of Jaffna, Viswalingam Manivannan, who was arrested by Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) at around 2.30am on Friday morning, was released on bail. Manivannan, was issued bail at the Jaffna Magistrates Court on Friday evening after paying a Rs. 2… Read more »
Arrest of TubeTamil Journalists
by TubeTamil, Jaffna, early April, 2021 Two TubeTamil journalists arrested March 29 2021 “Following the decision against Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council, the Sri Lankan government has started intimidating and arresting innocent Tamil journalists with fabricated false cases.”
USTAG: Celebrating Bishop Rayappu
by US Tamil Action Group, April 3, 2021 Press release Bishop Rayappu Joseph FINAL For immediate release USTAG and Tamil Americans Commemorate Life of Bishop Rayappu Joseph While Tamils all over the world mourn the passing of the former Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Sri Lanka, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, Tamils in the homeland… Read more »
Mannar Bishop Rayappu Joseph and the Madhu Church crisis
The Sri Lankan Tamil people in general and Catholics in particular were deeply saddened by the loss of Bishop Rayappu Joseph. The words of St. Paul (2.Timothy 4.7) – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” – serve as a fitting epitaph to Most Rev. Rayappu… Read more »
US State Dept. 2020 Human Rights Report on Sri Lanka
by US Department of State, Washington, DC, March 30, 2021 SRI-LANKA-2020-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ANNOUNCEMENT: The Department of State will release an addendum to this report in mid 2021 that expands the subsection on Women in Section 6 to include a broader range of issues related to reproductive rights. Sri Lanka is a constitutional, multiparty democratic republic… Read more »