Posts Categorized: Diaspora

Tamils Remember Genocide of Thousands on May 18

Tamils all over the World Remember the Genocide of Thousands on May 18, 2020 by Kumar Rasingam, May 12, 2020 Marking 11 years since the Sri Lankan military onslaught that massacred tens of thousands of Tamils, we revisit the final days leading up to the 18th of May 2009 – a date remembered around the world as ‘Tamil… Read more »

The Dark Face of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka

by Thambu Kanagasabai – LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 8, 2020 The pandemic Covid-19 which originated in Wuhan province, China sometime in December 2019 made its cruel impact as a globally deadly disease in January 2020 and was declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. It then… Read more »

Mr. Sri Pathe Thillaiampalam

April 21, 2020 Dear  Sangam members, With deepest regrets, we inform you that Mr. Sri Thillaiampalam of Boston, MA passed away today peacefully due to natural causes. He was a founding member of the Eelam Tamil Association (ETA) in the late seventies,  which pushed the passage of a resolution urging the US President and Congress to… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Dismal Political Achievements

by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 23, 2020 The Sri Lankan Government is claiming credit as the first country in the world to have successfully controlled the Corvid-19 virus spreading world-wide.  However, it is to be noted that this claim is premature and has to be… Read more »

Sinhalization of the North-East: Seruwila-Verugal

by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), March 12, 2020 Sinhalization of the North-East: Seruwila – Verugal – People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (pearlaction.org) PEARL is launching the 3rd installment of its “Sinhalization of the North-East” series, this time focusing on Seruwila-Verugal. This series examines the scope and impact of the… Read more »

Pres. Gotabaya’s Twisted Accountability & Justice

By: Thambu Kanagasabai – LLM {London} Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and PRESIDENT, The Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization. President Gotabaya Rajapaksha’s pardon and release of former Army Sergeant Ratnayake who was sentenced to death in 2015 for the brutal murder of 8 Tamil civilians including children in December… Read more »

Arbitrary Release of a Convicted Military Officer Calls for a Rethink

On international strategies on Sri Lanka by Global Tamil Forum, March 28, 2020 PRESS STATEMENT 28 March 2020, London  Arbitrary release of a convicted military officer calls for a rethink on international strategies on Sri Lanka The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) strongly condemns Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa’s decision to pardon and release Sunil Ratnayake, an… Read more »

TGTE: Sri Lanka Pardons a Soldier Sentenced to Death for Killing Tamil Civilians

by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, New York, March 27, 2020 Sri Lanka is the first country to take advantage of Coronavirus crisis to persecute a community.” — Visivanathan Rudrakumaran NEW YORK, USA, March 27, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ — While the World Reels from the Coronavirus, Sri Lankan President Instead Focuses on Perpetuating Immunity for Int’l… Read more »

The Securitization of Fear in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka

[This article is very relevant to the current crisis. – Ed] The production of crises, including the fear and xenophobia they instill, remains a pressing concern because they legitimate grounds for exceptional interventions (Agamben 1998; Mountz 2004). States produce crisis and fear to obtain consent for securitization measures. Probing the ways in which fear is… Read more »

Banning of Silva is a Small Victory for Tamils

by Visvajit Sriramranjan, The Hofstra Chronicle, NY, February 25, 2020 Last week, Shavendra Silva, the chief of the Sri Lankan Army, was banned from entering the United States. Silva is a known war criminal who spearheaded the genocide of the Tamil people, an ethnic minority group native to southern India as well as northern and… Read more »

From Being Tortured in Sri Lanka to the U.S. Supreme Court

by Ashoka Mukpo, American Civil Liberties Union, February 24, 2020 On a frigid day in early February, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam stands under an awning on a street corner in lower Manhattan along with one of his attorneys, Celso Perez of the ACLU. Both are bundled in heavy winter jackets. Perez is holding his phone up and… Read more »

PEARL welcomes US sanctions against Sri Lankan army chief

by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, Washington, D.C., February 14, 2020 Today, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo banned Sri Lanka’s army chief Shavendra Silva from entering the US due to “credible information of his involvement, through command responsibility, in gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings, by the 58th Division of… Read more »

Question of Genocide in Sri Lanka

Justifying a Referral to International Court of Justice by Thambu Kanagasabai LLM [Lond.] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 27, 2020 The International Court of Justice [ICJ] is the principal organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations. This Court is located… Read more »

PEARL Applauds World Court Decision Order to Prevent Rohingya Genocide

by People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka (PEARL) (Washington, D.C., January 23, 2020) Today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered  Myanmar to enact measures to halt the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya in a case filed by The Gambia pursuant to the Genocide Convention. PEARL welcomes this legally binding ruling, which is… Read more »

Shouldering of Responsibility to Save Desperate Tamils in Sri Lanka

by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [Lond.] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 11, 2020 There is no denying of the fact that Tamils in Sri Lanka  have been at the receiving end since 1949, when power was transferred to the majority Sinhala Government. Successive Sinhala Governments continued and still continue the marginalisation… Read more »