by many Tamil political parties & civil society groups in Sri Lanka, January 15, 2021 UNHRC Final Letter Call for decisive action at the 46th Session of the UNHRC We, the elected representatives of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, leaders of Tamil national political parties, members of the Tamil victim communities and Tamil civil… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
President Rajapaksa and His 13A Dilemmas
by Rajan Philips, Nakkeran, January 3, 2021 It was said of Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike that “it was a grim irony that he should be called upon, at the moment of his greatest political triumph, to articulate the strong opposition of the Sinhalese to any attempt to establish a federal constitution.” Sixty-five years later, it… Read more »
Jaffna University Students Appeal
by University Students’ Union, University of Jaffna, courtesy Tamil Guardian, London, January 11, 2021
Resisting Erasure
Tamil Guardian editorial, London, January 10, 2021 Art by Sagi Thilipkumar A new wave of protest has erupted in the Tamil homeland as a monument dedicated to the tens of thousands massacred in Mullivaikkal was razed from the Jaffna University campus under the cover of night. Students and locals gathered outside the campus gates while Sri Lankan Special… Read more »
The Tamil Proscriptions
Identities, Legitimacies, and Situated Practices by Suthaharan Nadarajah in ‘Terrorism and Political Violence,’ 2018, 30:2, 278-297 ABSTRACT Conventional analyses of terrorism proscription rely on conceptions of policy in terms of bureaucratic institutions and processes functioning according to means-end rationality, and law as an institutionalised body of rules expressive of sovereign power. By contrast, this article argues that… Read more »
‘Ethnic Conflict and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka’
by Chelvadurai Manogaran, University of Hawaii Press, 1987 ISBN 0-8248-1116-X Manogaran Ethnic Conflict & Reconciliation in Sri Lanka 1987 Introduction 1 CHAPTER I Sinhalese-Tamil Ethnic Differences and the Beginnings of Conflict 19 CHAPTER 2- Problems of National Integration 41 CHAPTER 3 Tamil Districts: Conflict over Traditional Homelands, Colonization, and Agricultural Development 78 CHAPTER 4 Education,… Read more »
TNA Constitutional Proposal
by Tamil National Alliance, December 20, 2020 TNA constitutional proposal Dec 20 2020 …It is in this background that we assert that the following principles be adhered to, and realised, in a new Sri Lankan constitution. 1. Nature of the State: (1) Sri Lanka (Ceylon) shall be recognised as a free, sovereign, independent and united… Read more »
UNHRC 46TH Session in February/March 2021
Judgement day for Sri Lanka and its War Victims by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM London, Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, December 25, 2020 The forthcoming 46th UNHRC Sessions in February/March 2021 holds the key to uphold accountability, justice and human rights in Sri Lanka while halting Sri Lanka’s history of evasions and… Read more »
China’s Influence on Conflict Dynamics in South Asia
by US Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, December 16, 2020 The United States and China both see South Asia as important, although neither considers the region its top geopolitical priority. They consider other areas, such as East Asia, more central to advancing their interests. Still, they recognize that South Asia’s strategic geography and growing population, along… Read more »
Tamil War Victims Demand Remedial Justice
UN’s failure to protect Tamil civilians by Kumarathasan Rasingam – Secretary, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Org., December 29, 2020 The UNHRC Resolutions 30/1 of 2015, 34/1 of 2017 and 40/1 of 2019 after so much hard work, negotiations and after extension for six years have now produced zero achievement and the endless suffering… Read more »
MP Gajen Ponnambalam’s Speech in Parliament on Defence Budget
by MP Gajen Ponnambalam, Sri Lankan Parliament, December 3, 2020 2021 வரவு செலவு திட்டத்தில் பாதுகாப்பு… – கஜேந்திரகுமாரின் நண்பர்கள் (facebook.com) https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=580756212763661 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1316233665388400&id=100010053368465&sfnsn=mo
When Big Powers Clash, the UN’s Most Powerful Body Disappears
by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, New York, December 4, 2020 UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2020 (IPS) – At the height of the Cold War back in the 1960s, a Peruvian diplomat, Dr. Victor Andres Belaunde, characterized the United Nations as a politically wobbly institution that survives only at the will– and pleasure– of the five… Read more »
Rajapaksas Seek Sinhalese Supremacy in Sri Lanka
by Salman Rafi Sheikh, Asia Times, Hong Kong, December 3, 2020 Ruling clan is pushing new form of ethnic majoritarianism to marginalize and dominate historically restive Tamil minority With Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa clan back in power, the island nation is by any measure firmly back on a path to elected authoritarianism. But the Rajapaksas aspire… Read more »
ITJP & JDS: Dossier on Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara
by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka & International Truth & Justice Project, Europe & South Africa, November 2020 rear-admiral-sarath-weerasekera August 2020: State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Affairs November 2020: Appointed as Minister of Public Security1 (with control over the Police department, Civil Security department, Police Training College and the Multi-Purpose Development… Read more »
Rajapaksa Lied to ‘Powerful Ambassador’
Over evacuation of Tamils in 2009 – Sri Lankan MP by Tamil Guardian, London, November 24, 2020 File photograph: Mahinda Rajapaksa meets with former US Ambassador Robert O’Blake A Sri Lankan parliamentarian revealed how Mahinda Rajapaksa lied to “an ambassador of the most powerful country” about the evacuation of trapped Tamil civilians in 2009, in… Read more »
TG: Righting Wrongs
Tamil Guardian editorial, London, November 13, 2020 13 November 2020 The prospect of a Biden-Harris administration at the White House has brought both hope and trepidation around the world. In Sri Lanka, some in Colombo’s polity are nervous. Amongst the Tamils, there is both wariness and tempered optimism about what the new administration may bring…. Read more »
Padma Lakshmi: VP-Elect Kamala Harris Moved Me to Tears
Imagine how wide the ripples of impact can be when a woman of color is vice president. By Padma Lakshmi, The New York Times, Nov.13, 2020 Ms. Lakshmi is the host and executive producer of “Taste the Nation” and “Top Chef.” I was on a hike in Garrison, N.Y., when I heard the news of Kamala… Read more »
Betrayals After Betrayals by Sinhalese Leaders
by Kumarathasan Rasingam, November 10, 2020 Sinhalese leaders betrayed the Tamil leaders who fought shoulder to shoulder to gain independence from the British. On February 4th 1048 two million Tamils of Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] exchanged their white masters British for the brown master {Sinhalese] it was like jumping from a frying pan into fire…. Read more »
Discussion with Anton Balasingam and Thamilchelvam of the LTTE
April 17, 1997 at Puthukudierruppu, Mullaithivu (In the presence of Adele Balasingam and Lawrence Thilagar.) by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam. Ph.D. (Cornell), Consultant in Education and Sports, Olympian 1952 and 1956, October 22, 2020 In April 1996, Harvard University’s Program for International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR) convened a consultation process with the Sinhala and Tamil Diaspora living… Read more »
Sri Lanka Turns to China Rather than IMF
To avoid default Relations with US-led multilateral lender strained by past misadventures by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Nikkei Asia, October 12, 2020 Sri Lanka’s government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa desperately needs cash to service over $15 billion in foreign debt. (Source photos by Reuters) COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s ultranationalist government looks set to receive a financial lifeline from China… Read more »