by M.K. Eelaventhan, July 27, 2019 Riots against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka have been a recurring event since 1956, commencing from our protests against the Sinhala Only Act. The year 1958 was on a larger scale covering the entire island. The keynote event was the burning of the chief priest of the Panandura… Read more »
Posts Categorized: First Person
Nine Decisions that Helped Lanka Beat LTTE
by V K Shashikumar, Indian Defence Review, October 2009 Not available in 2019 on Indian Defence Review website, but copied at http://www.sify.com/news/nine-decisions-that-helped-lanka-beat-ltte-imagegallery-0-international-kexv2Lbdede.html , accessed June 19, 2019 What we don’t see Will a good number of soldiers, tanks and artillery ensure victory in a war? These are outward aspects of a war which alone are… Read more »
Losing Santhia, Part Four
Tiger power by Ben Hiller, ‘Red Flag,’ Australia, March 28, 2019 Santhia of died of kidney failure in a Jakarta hospital in October 2017. She was only 42. Years earlier, she and her infant son fled Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. They tried to reach Australia, but were stranded in… Read more »
After War’s End, a Long Struggle to Patch Invisible Wounds
by Mujib Mashal, ‘The New York Times,’ December 4, 2018 A government psychiatrist in Sri Lanka goes door to door in an area scarred by civil war, doing whatever he can to meet a staggering need for help. KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — One by one the villagers arrive, each carrying a little blue book that… Read more »
“In 1983, As Our Ship Left Colombo Port, I Saw Pettah Burning”
by Dimuthu Attanayake, ‘The Sunday Observer,’ Colombo, July 22, 2018 TNA Legislator M.A. Sumanthiran, recalls being 19 years old when communal violence rocked the capital city in July 1983. Packed off to Jaffna where the Government thought Tamil families residing in Colombo and other parts of the south would be safer, he recalls an arduous… Read more »
The United States’ Role in Sri Lanka’s Peace Process: 2002-2006
by Jeffrey Lunstead, Asia Foundation, 2007 A Supplementary Study to the Sri Lanka Strategic Conflict Assessment 2005 Lunstead US Role in SL Peace Process 2002-2006 Contents Acknowledgements About the Author Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. U.S. Interests and Engagement in Sri Lanka 3. Enhanced U.S. Engagement 3.1 Enhanced U.S. Interest 3.2 U.S. Relations with the… Read more »
ITJP: Families of the Disappeared
by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, accessed June 6, 2018 English translation of interviews with families of the disappeared. http://www.itjpsl.com/reports/disappear-site
The Anti-Tamil Gal Oya Riots of 1956
by Prof. Stanley J. Tambiah, posted in Thuppahi’s Blog, February 2, 2017 My own first hand and indelible experience of ethnic riots happened in June 1956, when as a twenty-seven-year-old social scientist, recently returned from graduate studies in the United States, I took a team of thirty three students (twenty-six Sinhalese and seven Tamils) to conduct… Read more »
Tamil Refugee Still Says Nandri
Tortured by police, separated from his family for years, but Tamil refugee still says nandri – thank you Rescued after 22 hours in freezing water, Para Paheer applied for asylum in Australia. An extraordinary friendship with a Victorian woman helped ease the pain of waiting eight years to see his wife and son by Ben… Read more »
One-eyed ex-Tiger Rebel Sees a Future through Social Work
by ‘Daily Mirror,’ Colombo, August 9, 2017 Memories of the gruesome ethnic conflict would never fade away. While two ethnicities fought for their own freedom, there were those who viewed the conflict with much vengeance and some who supported it. But the stories of those who supported it are seldom heard of. This is… Read more »
How to Achieve a Ceasefire
by Daniel Spector, ‘Simon-Evertt.com,’ July 22, 2016 For nearly two years, Simon Everett has been designing and coordinating area studies courses at the Department of State for diplomats who are heading to their next assignments overseas. We’re fortunate to have an exceptional cadre of regional experts leading those courses. They have lived and traveled all… Read more »
Why Facebook Won’t Help Heal War Torn Sri Lanka’s Wounds
by Senel Wanniarachchi, ‘The Sunday Leader,’ Colombo, November 6, 2016 Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, one of the world’s most protracted and destructive conflicts of our time was brought to a bloody, military end in May of 2009. Seven years have passed since, but the communities in the country remain divided along narrow ethno-religious lines. In… Read more »
Oral History: ‘Through the Generations’
by Race on the Agenda, London, 2012 In January 2012, Race on the Agenda (ROTA) was awarded a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to collect oral histories of Sri Lankan Tamils in London. Book available for download at http://tamilgenerations.rota.org.uk/book/
Nothing Can Be Done
V. V. Ganeshananthan interviews Anuk Arudpragasam, ‘LA Review of Books,’ October 6, 2016 IN HIS DEBUT NOVEL, The Story of a Brief Marriage, Anuk Arudpragasam achieves something remarkable: he shows us a consciousness reshaped by the possibility of imminent death. How do we inhabit the body when we think we may be leaving it behind?… Read more »
What Have You Done with My Husband?
By Ananthi Sasitharan as told to and with additional reporting by Melissa Petro | Comic by Danielle Chenette, ‘Narratively,’ August 12, 2016 As Sri Lanka’s bitter civil war ground to a bloody end, many rebel leaders disappeared, never to be seen again. Seven years later, one wife wants answers. In October 2015, the United Nations… Read more »
Ex-LTTE ‘Doctor’ Reveals Horrifying Last Two Days in Mulliwaikkal
By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan, ‘Ceylon Today,’ May 8, 2016 The 30-year war and the gory events of it ended on 18 May 2009 but they are unforgettable and unforgivable. The Tamils who fled the island, the like-minded civil societies and the human rights activists started documenting each event in phases and tabled them at the… Read more »
My First Night in the USA
by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, 1969. First published in November 2000 in www.tamilnation.org, now at http://tamilnation.co/forum/ethir/index.htm It was past midnight. The plane circled over Los Angeles on a clear summer night. The lighted city sprawled endlessly. It was the first time I had seen Los Angeles. From the air Los Angeles looked like a fairyland. All I knew… Read more »
An Ode to My Village
by N. Ethirveerasingam, August 15, 2000…originally posted in TamilNation at http://tamilnation.co/forum/ethir/ode.htm Originally written in 1969 for a class at Cornell University. From the mango tree I can see the people going to the St Anthony’s church. In an hour or two I have to be ready with enough mangos to sell for that day. We have… Read more »
The Tiger Lawyer
by Sarah Stodder, ‘Souciant,’ April 12, 2016 When I step out of the rain and into the restaurant, Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran is already waiting for me. Though I’m seven minutes early, I arrive to find the exiled Sri Lankan lawyer, known to his compatriots as Rudra, sitting at a corner table and peacefully watching the deluge outside…. Read more »
Sri Lanka: Why There’s Always a Next Time
Before I know it we’re wheels up at Dulles International Airport and I’m looking forward to visiting the Middle East (airport style) yet again. One day, I will actually travel to Doha or Abu Dhabi or Dubai or Amman and see something besides an airport. Maybe I’ll do that on my 100th visit to a… Read more »