by Press Trust of India on Shruti TV, May 10, 2018 Discussion of T. Ramakrishnan’s book ‘Or Inapprachinaiyum Or Oppandhamum,’ ‘An Ethnic Conflict and An Accord’ at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. With Prof. V Suryanarayan, & Chandrahasan. Moderated by Col. Hariharan. Most interesting is the Q & A starting at 1 hr. 12+ min…. Read more »
Posts Categorized: History
Tamil National Question & Tamil Insurgency in Sri Lanka
by Imtiyaz Razak, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ May 14, 2018 On May 17, 2009 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) admitted the defeat in the war against the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lanka security forces and vowed to silence guns. In May 18, Sri Lanka security forces announced that the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, who led the… Read more »
Saint Anthony’s Church and Cemetery
The ruins of this old church are slowing sinking into the sand. by Max Cortesi, Atlas Obscura, no date, accessed May 12, 2018 On the far northeastern beaches of Sri Lanka there is a tiny village called Manalkadu. It doesn’t see many tourists—and with only one battered unnamed road to get there, that’s not surprising. What… Read more »
1991: The Mothers Who Won’t Disappear
by Steve Coll, ‘The Washington Post,’ March 3, 1991 COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — The letter arrived by regular post in the afternoon. A mailman carried it up the walkway of a posh bungalow lined with palms and splashed with tropical light. The letter was handwritten in English, addressed to Manorani Saravanamuttu, a medical doctor and a child… Read more »
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 »
Recent Pieces by N. Malathy
December 14, 2017 1. This website, TamilTigerwomen.com is the byproduct of the project to record women’s history in the LTTE. A translation of some of their writing. The project itself is not complete yet. 2. Peopling an Island – the case of Sri Lanka (appeared in the telesur site, April 2017) 3. Rape: Sri Lanka’s Weapon of Genocide (appeared in… Read more »
Burying History
by Sanjana Hattotuwa,’ ‘The Island, Colombo, November 18, 2017 Over four years ago, I wrote an article on mass graves in Sri Lanka that could be seen using Google Earth imagery, serving as a solitary, virtual witness to what happened on the ground. The article focused in and around Nandikadal – the sliver of land… Read more »
JR: I was Forced into a Deal with India
Jayewardene told U.S. envoy by Amit Baruah, ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, February 5, 2017 Former Sri Lanka President claimed his troops refused to take Jaffna, reveal declassified papers Sri Lanka was forced into making a deal with India as its own armed forces had twice refused to “take Jaffna”, then President J.R. Jayewardene has been quoted… Read more »
A Hollow Attempt to Re-write History and Deny Justice
Lord Naseby’s ‘revelations’ by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, London, December 5, 2017 In October, a member of the House of Lords took to their feet in Parliament to argue that the UK Government, and other members of the international community, should abandon their long-standing and hard-fought push for accountability in Sri Lanka. Over half… Read more »
Early Inhabitants and the Rulers of the Island
By P. Sivakumar, November 8, 2017 During the early historic period (6th century BC to 3rd century AD), Lanka/ilankai (as first mentioned in the Ramayana) was a part of South India separated by a shallow sea and was only a walking distance before the sea levels rose. Even today, one of the ancient bridges that… Read more »
Origins of English Education in Sri Lanka
by Mandalam’s Note, source & date unknown It should be recalled that amongst the many Colebrooke Commission changes, English was made the Official Language of the country in 1833. For reasons that have not been researched, large sections of the Tamils ended up in the barren North with poor rainfall once a year during the… Read more »
From New Jersey to Pandatherippu
Dr. John Scudder and the First Western Medical Centre in South Asia By Dr. D.C. Ambalavanar, Visiting Lecturer in Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Jaffna, October 29, 2017 On October 18th a public function was held by the Church of the American Ceylon Mission in the village of Pandatherippu in Northern Sri Lanka. This was the… Read more »
The Legacy of Indian Migration to European Colonies
[Note that Indian Tamils brought by the British to work in the coffee, rubber & tea estates of Sri Lanka are not included in the discussion below. This community joined the indigenous Tamils already on the island for milennia. /Ed.] http://indianexpress.com/article/research/indian-tamils-and-sri-lankan-tamils-here-is-the-difference-4654435/ One hundred years since servitude by ‘The Economist,’ London, September 2, 2017 A century after India… Read more »
Mahaweli & Demographic Change
1. Sri Lankan president to issue 10,000 deeds to Mahaweli settlers by ‘TamilGuardian,’ London, August 10, 2017 Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena is to issue 10,000 deeds to settlers this week under the Mahaweli development project, a controversial scheme that Tamils have criticised as Sinhala colonisation. According to the official President’s Media Division, deeds are to… Read more »
TGTE: Remedial Justice for 1983 Massacre of Tamils
Would have averted 2009 Mullivaaikaal Genocide by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, July 23, 2017 Today Tamils across the globe are remembering 34th anniversary of massacre of Tamils – Black July 83. COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, July 24, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ — During the final days of July 1983, Sinhala racism unleashed a pogrom towards the Tamils… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Genocidal War as Seen by the World
By: Thambu Kanagasabai LLM [London], Former Lecturer in Law – University of Colombo, May 30, 2017 Though Sri Lanka unleashed its agenda of marginalization of Tamils starting in 1956 through a program of Budddhisisation and Sinhalisation and a hidden genocidal process, the climax was reached during the war against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from 2006… Read more »
‘Demons in Paradise’
SYNOPSIS Sri Lanka 1983, Jude Ratman is five years old. On a red train, he flees the massacre of the Tamils instigated by the Pro-Sinhalese majoritarian government. Now a filmmaker, he takes the same train from South to North. As he advances, the traces of the violence of the 26-year-old war and the one which… Read more »
A Look Through CIA Reports
‘Burn Jaffna to the ground’ by ‘Tamil Guardian,’ London, February 20, 2017 Declassified documents from the CIA show how despite regarding himself as “South Asia’s elder statesman and a political moderate” the Sri Lankan president “had twice ordered his forces to take Jaffna” as part of a massive military assault on the peninsula. A set… Read more »
Justice Denied to Survivors of the Kumarapuram Massacre
“His name is Kamaleswaran” by Marisa de Silva, ‘Groundviews,’ Colombo, February 11, 2017 [more information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumarapuram_massacre] “Shoot me but, please don’t kill my children,” pleaded Kanthappoody Kamaladevi with her arms outstretched over her head, just before she was shot dead outside her home in Kumarapuram, Killiveddy, by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). L-R (first row):… Read more »
What Nutmeg Can Tell Us About Nafta
by Amitav Ghosh, ‘The New York Times,’ December 30, 2016 GOA, India — For many years the word “globalization” was used as shorthand for a promised utopia of free trade powered by the world’s great centers of technological and financial innovation. But the celebratory note has worn thin. The word is now increasingly invoked to… Read more »