by, Vincent Bevins, The New York Review of Books, May 18, 2020 Suspected communists under armed guard, Jakarta, Indonesia, December 1, 1965 In May 1962, a girl named Ing Giok Tan got on a rusty old boat in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her country, one of the largest in the world, had been pulled into the global… Read more »
Posts Categorized: History
U.K. Conservation Society Details Links to Colonialism and Slavery
The National Trust said a third of the properties it manages had direct links to colonialism or slavery. Some have a “hugely uncomfortable” history, it said. by Elian Peltier, The New York Times, September 22, 2020 LONDON — The country house of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, an ardent imperialist; an estate in northern England… Read more »
Remembering Thileepan’s Sacrifice 33 Years On
by Tamil Guardian, London, September 26, 2020 Today marks 33 years since the death of Lt Col Thileepan, a political wing leader of the LTTE who fasted to death, in a protest appealing to the Indian government to honour pledges made to the Tamil people. Thileepan began his fast on the September 15, 1987, with 100,000 people… Read more »
Joint Statement by United Nations Secretary-General, Government of Sri Lanka May 2009
by UN Department of Public Information, News and Media Division, New York, May 26, 2009 SG/2151 Following is the joint statement by the Government of Sri Lanka and the United Nations at the conclusion of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s visit to Sri Lanka on 23 May: At the invitation of Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri… Read more »
Tale of a Tiger
Facets of LTTE Chief Prabhakaran’s life by DBS Jeyaraj, Daily FT, Colombo, May 13, 2020 The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed 11 years ago in combat with the armed forces of Sri Lanka on 19 May 2009. The longest war in South Asia came to an end after the… Read more »
A Trilingual Slab Installed in Sri Lanka by Admiral Zheng He
by R Shanmugananthan, August 28, 2020 TRILINGUAL-INSCRIPTION Admiral Zheng He made seven expeditions in the Indian Ocean. In Sri Lanka he set up a Trilingual slab (stele) with inscriptions in Devinuwara in circa 1409 CE. It was found in Galle in 1911 by a British Engineer. The Asian Voyage: In the Wake of… Read more »
Space & Movement in the Sri Lankan Conflict
by Oivind Fuglerud, 2004 Space_and_movement_in_the_Sri_Lankan_conflict Concluding Remarks In approaching the different responses to the engulfing violence above I avoided framing this question in terms of ‘migration choice’. From an anthropologist’s point of view the application of choice models in migration research has provided limited insights. We should, I believe, in analyses of displacement and migration… Read more »
US State Dept. Reports to Congress on Sri Lanka 2009, 2010 & 2012
by US Department of State Report to Congress on Incidents during the Recent Conflict in Sri Lanka 2009 Report to Congress by State Measures Taken by GoSL Apr 2012 Factual Supplement to the Report to Congress by State on Measures Taken by the GoSL April 4 2012 Report To Congress on Measures Taken by the… Read more »
July 1983 Anti-Tamil Violence
by Canadian Tamil Congress, July 2013
The Vaddukoddai Resolution of the Tamil Nation of Sri Lanka
An Appraisal on the Legal Dimensions of the Resolution by Dr. Sandrasegaram Paramalingam, June 11, 2020 [On 22 May 1972, the first native Constitution of Sri Lanka was adopted and enacted by the Constituent Assembly. It proclaimed Ceylon as Republic of Sri Lanka. Though this Constitution survived only for six and a half years, the… Read more »
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 »
G. G. Ponnambalam (1902-1977): His Power and Plight as a Tamil Leader
by Sachi Sri Kantha, May 8, 2020 Front Note: My father Siva Sachithanantham (1923-2003) was a fan of G.G. Ponnambalam’s theatrics in the political platforms and legal arena. He developed this fascination during the 1930s (when he was a teenager, and ‘Ponnan’ was his first local political hero), when Ponnambalam first contested the Point Pedro… Read more »
Still Searching for Stephen Sunthararaj
by Tamil Guardian, London, May 7, 2020 On this day 11 years ago, Stephen Sunthararaj, an activist who had exposed the trafficking of Tamil children into international prostitution rings, was abducted and forcibly disappeared in Colombo by armed men in military uniforms. Sunthararaj, was the Project Manager of the Centre for Human Rights and Development… Read more »
Tamil Prisoners’ Massacre 1983 Revisited by M. Nithyanandan
by Asian Tribune, Malaysia, July 26, 2004 Reliving the Welikade Prison massacres of 25 & 27 July 1983, is ‘horror revisited’ said M. Nithyanandan (54 yrs), a former Lecturer of the University of Jaffna and at present Head of the news and events divison of Deepam Television – a Tamil Language TV channel based in… Read more »
P. Sathiyaseelan Recalls Eelam Liberation Struggle
Posted in Tamil Diplomat, London, December 31, 2014 – February 25, 2017 Ponnadurai Sathiyaseelan formed the Tamil Manavar Peravai, or Tamil Students League/Union/Federation/Organization in 1970 in reaction to PM Bandaranaike’s ‘standardization’ of university entrance to which priviledged Sinhalese students over Tamil students. In November 1970 this movement held a protest in the North which drew… Read more »
Tamil Militancy in Sri Lanka and the Role of Religion
by Iselin Frydenlund, pre-publication version for Oxford Research Encyclopedias, UK, September 26, 2018 Tamil Militancy in Sri Lanka and the Role of Religion …Fundamentally, the conflict in Sri Lanka is about failed nation-building in the postcolonial state, demographic politics, access to resources, and political influence, and it follows ethnic and linguistic lines. Religion—that is, Buddhism—has… Read more »
Sri Lanka’s Sixth Amendment
a Violation of UN Charter and Fundamental Human Rights by Thambu Kanagasabai, PRESIDENT, The Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization Late President JR Jayewardene of Sri Lanka after allowing and being complicit in the massacres of Tamils in the 1977, 1983 pogroms and justifying them as a normal reaction of Sinhalese to take revenge… Read more »
A Qualitative Analysis on Historicizing Nationalist Discourse
of the Origins of the Communities of Sri Lanka among the Contemporary Sinhalese by Jeyaseelan Gnanaseelan, University of Vavuniya, Melbourne Australia Nov 29-30, 2017, 19 (11) Part XIV A_Qualitative_Analysis_on_Historicizing Abstract— In the post-war reconciliation context, the Sri Lankans need to develop constructive discourse on political harmony, cohesion and co-habitation to make a positive impact on… Read more »
Post-Tsunami Reconstruction Needs Assessment for the NorthEast
by Planning & Development Secretariat, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Kilinochchi, January 2005 Post-Tsunami Needs Assessment for the NE Jan 2005
Building the Tamil Eelam State
Emerging State Institutions and Forms of Governance in LTTE-controlled Areas in Sri Lanka by Kristian Stokke, Third World Quarterly, Vol.27, No.6, pages 1021-1040, 2006 Abstract Sri Lanka’s civil war has created a political–territorial division between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), where LTTE is engaged in a process… Read more »