In a propaganda blitz, the military portrays itself as the guardian of Buddhism and stokes fear of a Muslim takeover. by Billy Ford, Zarchi Oo, US Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, December 16, 2021 Ten months have passed since Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s elected government, and by now it’s apparent that arrests, executions, torture… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Military
TG: Getting Serious on Sri Lanka
Tamil Guardian editorial, London, December 15, 2021 Last week, the United States announced long-overdue travel restrictions on two more accused Sri Lankan war criminals. The move is a step in the right direction and will be welcomed across the globe by those who seek justice on the island. It serves as a reminder to the Sri Lankan… Read more »
PEARL: Renewed U.S. Focus on Sri Lanka
Culminates in Targeted Sanctions for Human Rights Violations by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, December 15, 2021 Washington D.C.; December 15, 2021 — PEARL welcomes the sanctions of Chandana Hettiarachchi and Sunil Ratnayake by the United States under section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for their… Read more »
Interview by an IDP in 2009
Interview of an IDP by MANISATNEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM (originally on YouTube) in Tamil in 2009 Figurative translation into English by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Ph.D. (Cornell) in November 2021 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… Read more »
Management of the Tamil Diaspora 2006
LTTE’s Primary Function Abroad by Vipula Wanigasekera, Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria Virginia, March 2006 Building a CATR Research Agenda, Proceedings of the Third Bi-Annual International Symposium of the Center for Asian Terrorism Research (CATR) March 1-3, 2006, Colombo, Sri Lanka Proceedings_of_Center_for_Asian_Terrorism Research 2006 Management of the Tamil Diaspora–LTTE’s Primary Function Abroad … III-52 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… Read more »
The Quad was Born in Crisis
An exclusive interview with U.S Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina B.Teplitz by A. Jathindra, Centre for Strategic Studies, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, September 25, 2021 Ambassador Alaina B.Teplitz has served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives since 2018. Prior to this, she was the U.S. Ambassador to Nepal. A career member of… Read more »
Counterterrorism Legislation in Sri Lanka 2006
Evaluating Efficacy by N. Manoharan, East West Center, Hawaii, 2006 N. Manoharan Counterterrorism Legislation in Sri Lanka 2006 The study advances two arguments. First, it posits that the process of enactment and enforcement undermined the legitimacy and effectiveness of counterterrorism legislation. Second, it argues that the insurgency rooted in the discriminated minority community was able… Read more »
An Exclusive Interview with India’s Commodore R. S. Vasan
by A. Jathindra, Centre for Strategic Studies, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, August 24, 2021 Commodore (Ret) R. S. Vasan, Former Regional Commander Coast Guard Region East, Indian Navy is currently, Director Chennai Centre for China Studies and Regional Director National Maritime Foundation Tamil Nadu. China’s influence in Sri Lanka has grown remarkably in recent years. It… Read more »
The Taliban Has Seized More Cities, Despite U.S. Efforts to Build a Strong Afghan Military
What happened? Persuading partners to emulate the U.S. military approach doesn’t necessarily work, new research finds by Rachel Tecott, The Washington Post, August 9, 2021 On Sunday, the Taliban claimed the northern city of Kunduz, freeing dozens of Taliban fighters from the city prison. As U.S. troops continue to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban is seizing regional… Read more »
Indifference and Impunity Continue 15 years after Muttur Massacre
by Action Contre le Faim, France, August 4, 2021 Action Against Hunger honors the memory of humanitarian aid workers assassinated in Sri Lanka in 2006 and continues to demand justice for the murders of our staff. On August 4, 2006, 17 of our colleagues were executed in Muttur, Sri Lanka. These men and women –… Read more »
US Continues to Vet Sri Lankan Soldiers
– But are war criminals being let in? by Tamil Guardian, London, August 2, 2021 The United States says that all Sri Lankan soldiers continue to be fully vetted for involvement in human rights abuses before being allowed to train in the country. Recent appointments however point to holes in the vetting process and raise… Read more »
AI: Authorities Falter on Accountability in ‘Navy 11’ Case
by Amnesty International, London, August 4, 2021 The Sri Lankan Attorney General’s Department today decided not to proceed with charges against Wasantha Karannagoda, a former Navy commander, over his alleged role in the abduction of 11 Tamil youth in 2008 and 2009. The Sri Lankan Navy is alleged to have been behind the forcible disappearance of… Read more »
In Sri Lanka, The COVID Response is Exacerbating Religious & Ethnic Tensions
by Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch in cooperation with Stanley Center for Peace & Security, June 22, 2021 Podcast interview with J.S. Tissainayagam at In Sri Lanka, The COVID Response is Exacerbating Religious and Ethnic Tensions | UN Dispatch In May 2009, the long running civil war in Sri Lanka ended with the defeat of… Read more »
Atrocities Cast Shadow on Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Response
by J.S. Tissainayagam, Stanley Center for Peace & Security, Iowa, USA, May 17, 2021 Ranjini,* a housewife, lives in Kilinochchi, a town in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province. Earlier this year, the government began vaccinating the public against COVID-19. But this has made her fearful: she is not sure if she will be injected with… Read more »
Amnesty: Sri Lanka Struggles to Respond Effectively to COVID-19 Third Wave
by Amnesty International, London, June 10, 2021 Index number ASA 37/4262/2021 Amnesty Sri Lanka Struggles to Respond to Covid 3rd Wave ASA3742622021ENGLISH [pdf] As several countries with access to vaccines lift restrictions and seem to be coming out of the pandemic, Covid-19 continues to pose significant challenges in South Asia and beyond, and Sri Lanka… Read more »
Fears over Sri Lanka’s Rising Coronavirus cases and its Militarised response
‘We are bracing ourselves’ by Thusiyan Nandakumar, Tamil Guardian, London, May 4, 2021 Amidst a devastating wave of coronavirus in India, across the Palk Strait in Sri Lanka infections have also been rapidly rising, with newly diagnosed cases breaking records every day. Clusters are now appearing across the island, sparking fears not only of a… Read more »
India Today 1986: ‘Profile of a Tiger
by India Today, 1986
Inside Camps, Outside Battlefields
Security and Survival for Tamil Women by Nimmi Gowrinathan, St Antony’s International Review, 9, no. 1 (2013): 11-32, Oxford, UK Gowrinathan Inside Camps Outside Battlefields 2013 Abstract In May of 2009, images of displaced Tamil people trapped behind the barbed wireof internment camps flashed across the world. “Everybody wanted to get out of those camps, but they… Read more »
Myanmar’s Ethnic Divisions Soften After Coup
‘Now We Are United’ Very much wishful thinking going on in this article!! — Editor by Hannah Beech, The New York Times, April 30, 2021 Amid the resistance to military rule, some are saying that democracy can’t flourish without respecting the minorities that have been persecuted for decades. The Myanmar military’s disinformation was crude but effective…. Read more »
Can the Sri Lanka Army be Described as a Counterinsurgency Force?
by Rob Pinney, Small Wars Journal, Virginia, USA, June 23, 2014 SL military counterinsurgency force or not As potentially the ‘first counterinsurgency victory of the twenty-first century’, the Sri Lankan experienceturns much of this conventional wisdom on its head. The ‘Sri Lankan model’, as it has become known,demonstrated a new way of conducting counterinsurgency operations – one… Read more »