FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME The visionary life and legacy of Dr. Samuel Fisk Green by Dr. Thayalan Ambalavanar, October 15, 2022 Dear friends and colleagues, October 10th 2022 marked the 200th birth anniversary of Dr.Samuel Fisk Green, the American missionary who founded the first medical school in Ceylon in 1848. A successful commemoration… Read more »
Posts Categorized: History
MP Sampanthan Letter re Thirukkoneshwaram Temple
by TNA leader MP Sampanthan to Pres. Ranil Wickremesinghe, September 14, 2022 THIRUKONESHWARAM – “DAKSHANA KAILASH” RENOWNED HINDU TEMPLE IN TRINCOMALEE AND TRINCOMALEE HARBOUR I am informed that in recent times certain meetings have been held in Trincomalee wherein activities relating to the above two institutions Thirukoneshwaram – Dakshana Kailash and Trincomalee Harbour have been… Read more »
Remembering 2nd Lt. Maalathy
by Tamil Guardian, London, October 10, 2022 Today marks thirty-five years since the death of 2nd Lt. Maalathy, the first female fighter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to lose her life in the Tamil armed struggle. Across the world, the day is being commemorated as Tamil Women’s Day, an opportunity to honour women’s involvement in the… Read more »
Photos of Menik Farm Detainees 2009
From the files of Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam. Ph.D. (Cornell) Do we know where all these detainees are? Can UNHCR confirm they were all released? Photo_FemaleYouthDetainees_MenikfarmMovie6 Photo_MaleYouth Detainees_Menikfarm_Movie7 Where are the pictures of all the other detainees? From Dr. Ethirveerasingam: These photos were sent to me by a UN Refugee official monitoring the Vavuniya camp. I think… Read more »
Interview with an IDP 2009
by Manisat blogspot posted on YouTube, 2009 Figuratively translated from Tamil to English in 2009 by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam. Ph.D. (Cornell) The host warned the young people who are not strong enough to see tragic scenes not to watch. She said that what you are about to see is what the Tamil brothers and sisters suffered…. Read more »
A Poisoned Chalice
How international aid bolstered Sri Lankan despots by Viruben Nandakumar, Tamil Guardian, London, September 7, 2022 “I was born into a debt-free nation”, claimed Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe as he accepted yet another loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on behalf of the island. This will be the seventeenth time since independence that… Read more »
An Overview of Sangam Literature சங்க இலக்கியம்
by R Shanmugananthan, Sydney, September 2, 2022 Flags of Cheras Cholas and Pandyas When I was reading about Arumuganavalar and C W Thomotharam Pillai, I found that they have done pioneering work in rediscovering Sangam Poetry even before U Ve Saminatha Iyer. Their work appears not to have been given credit. That led me write… Read more »
The First Thamil Eelam Sports Festival – July 2004
by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Ph.D., July 31, 2022 The First Thamil Sports Festival was held in the Kilinochchi Playgrounds in July 2004. The one-week of sports festival was organized under the guidance of the Sports Unit of the Thamil Eelam administration. Participants from the 8 Districts in the North-East took part in the Week-long competitions in Soccer,… Read more »
Why the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord Failed
Rebutting the Biased View of Journalist Jeyaraj by Sachi Sri Kantha, August 7, 2022 Recently, a review by D.B.S. Jeyaraj on the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (appropriately tagged as the Rajiv – Jayewardane Accord) was published in the Daily Mirror (Colombo) on July 30, 2022, under the caption ‘Indo-Lanka Accord 35th Anniversary: How the Tamils Messed… Read more »
Black July
by Sanjana Hattotuwa, Groundviews, Colombo, August 17, 2013 Black July compressed from/derived from Remembering, to never again repeat: Launch of 30 Years Ago site The culmination of months of dedicated research, travel, challenging production work and curation, I am very pleased to launch 30 Years Ago. The project is an attempt to remember and probe Sri… Read more »
Federalism: Myths and Realities
by Rohan Edrisinha – Faculty of Law, University of Colombo and Centre for Policy Alternatives, The Sunday Observer, Colombo, January 18, 2004 Excerpts of a speech delivered at the Executive Seminar on Human Rights for senior officers of armed forces on Saturday, January 10. The agreement reached between the Government of Sri Lanka and the… Read more »
The Black Week That Impacted Sri Lanka Forever
July 1983 Pogrom by Lionel Bopage, Groundviews, Colombo, July 24, 2022 The political leadership of Sri Lanka has yet again demonstrated that even in the midst of the worst socio economic and political crisis the country has faced since independence, they do not wish to follow a path of honesty and fairness to end the… Read more »
JR Jayewardene, the Kanatte Mass Funeral and the July 1983 Anti-Tamil Pogrom
by D.B.S.Jeyaraj on his blog, July 22, 2022 (This article was published last year and is being re-posted without any changes to denote the 39th anniversary of “Black July”) July 24th 1983 was the day on which a destructive spree of anti-Tamil violence commenced in Jaffna in the early hours of the morning and began… Read more »
Black July: The Unspoken and the Unspeakable
by Ambika Satkunanathan, Groundviews, Colombo, July 29, 2020 Photo courtesy of Sangam July. Referred to as Black July to mark the pogrom against Tamils in 1983 carried out by Sinhala mobs. Pogrom is a Russian word meaning ‘to wreak havoc, to demolish violently’, that has come to mean organized, state sanctioned violence that targets a certain… Read more »
TMVP Informant Spills the Beans
by Easwaran Rutnam, Daily Mirror, Colombo, June 24, 2022 Flees Sri Lanka fearing for his safety Reveals information on murders to UN Writes to key diplomatic missions Shares details on Easter Sunday attacks UN officials had recorded statements from the informant over a period of approximately 5 days An informant of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai… Read more »
Avanka Lanka: An Apology
[Apologies of this sort are a long time coming. Pledges to help the marginalized are always welcome. However, where does this rather capitalist & imperialist statement originate? — “we believe that the Northern province nor the Eastern province cannot develop in isolation but needs to link up with the South and the rest of the… Read more »
U.S. State Dept Letter Leaked by 2009 Hillary Clinton Emails re IMF
IMF Supported War Crimes and Genocide in Sri Lanka by Tamils for Biden, EINPresswire, June 9, 2022 The IMF and World Bank desired that the Tamils be “completely defeated,” regardless of “any collateral damage inflicted” by the Sri Lankan government. EINPresswire.com/ — The IMF and World Bank desired that the Tamils be “completely defeated,” regardless… Read more »
May 31-June 4, 1981: Five Days of State Terror in Jaffna
by Santaseelan Kadirgamar, Transcurrents, June 4, 2011, also posted in Colombo Telegraph, February 3, 2013 Two years after the end of the war in Lanka*, without a political solution in sight, it may be appropriate to look back at events that occurred 30 years ago. 31 May to 4 June 2011 marks the 30th anniversary… Read more »
The Library Which Sparked a Civil War in Sri Lanka
by Victor Rajalingam, May 30, 2022 The Jaffna Library after it was burnt down. The burning of the Jaffna Public Library took place on the 31st of May, 1981, when an organized mob of Sinhalese individuals went on a rampage, burning the library. It was one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th… Read more »
Behind the Lyrics of Rathna Sri Wijesinghe
by Yamu, Colombo, July 21, 2021 It was the early 80s. Born into a Sinhala, Buddhist family in the South, Vineetha Samarasinghe Gunasekara fell in love with Balasingham Nadesan, a handsome, young Tamil man from the North. https://youtu.be/y8gyYsgRpdw Poets are not always born, nor are lyricists. Therefore, it’s quite rare to come across someone who is a poet and a… Read more »