by P.J., October 31, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/629.html I became interested in the armed struggle of our people in the eighth grade. It all started with my friend telling me about a band called “Rage Against The Machine.” Rage Against The Machine fascinated me with the idea of revolution. I tried to learn about the issues they… Read more »
Posts Categorized: International
Power to the Minority
by Mafoot Simon, Straits Times, Singapore, October 29, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/627.html Dear Ehsan, It’s been many years since you migrated to the United States. Quite a long way from Jalan Ismail to Los Angeles, isn’t it? Your accountancy business doing OK? I’ve been following the presidential contest, and it strikes me that it truly is the… Read more »
A Kerry Win: Implications for Sri Lanka
by Dayan Jayatilleka, [source not recorded], October 17, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/622.html The Sangam makes no endorsement in the American election campaign. This is an interesting article speculating on the implications of one outcome of the election. Jayatilleka is a voice crying in the wilderness for a a non-sectarian, pluralistic, federal state on the island. If that… Read more »
Hindi-English Bhai-Bhai
The Hindu editorial, Chennai, October 14, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/603.html IT IS BY now accepted wisdom that the diversity of India is best represented by a government that is itself an alliance of divergent political, cultural, and linguistic currents. The advent of coalition governance has done much to bring together elements previously thought to be irreconcilably inimical…. Read more »
PICAR Sri Lanka Problem-Solving Project
by Donna Hicks and William Weisberg, US Institute for Peace, Washington, DC, date unclear sangam.org/articles/view2/598.html Has anything changed in the past 10 years or are we right back where we started? Note iPostn particular points boldfaced below — Editor Since 1994, Harvard University’s Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR) has been working to… Read more »
Why We Needn’t Feel Insulted
By that insult Eelam Tamils should realise their potential and continue to work as a cohesive and united people to achieve their goals. No need to worry about our size! — Editor Janadas Devan, Straits Times, Singapore, October 10, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/597.html JEAN-JACQUES Rousseau in his Essay On The Origin Of Language cited this parable to illustrate the… Read more »
by a former child soldier – a Poem
by Peter P. sangam.org/articles/view2/583.html We are the people We are the leaders And they They say it’s their rights We say it’s their rights They say release We say releasing them They say don’t recruit We say stop recruiting them They say protect We say protecting them They say education We see ruined schools They… Read more »
President Chandrika’s Address to the Asia Society
in New York by Nadodi, October 6, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/581.html http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/kumaratunga04.html The caption given to the news item about President’s speech at the Asia Society on September 20 in the Yahoo India news was “LTTE must give up Tamil Eelam demand: Kumaratunga.” This statement of the President is totally out of place and indicates how Kumaratunge… Read more »
Response to President Kumaratunga’s UN Address
by M. Nadarajan, October 4, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/576.html The headline in the Daily News reporting the President’s speech quoted her as saying “My government has got a clear mandate for peace.” She said that at numerous elections her government had obtained that mandate. She did not say whether that included the last elections of April 2004, when her… Read more »
TNA’s Press Release on President’s Speech at UN General Assembly
24 September 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/572.html The Parliamentary Group of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) met on September 23 2004 to consider the statements made by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge relating to “Peace Negotiations” in Sri Lanka during the course of her address to the 59th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The President has stated… Read more »
Tide? Or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire
by Arundhati Roy August 24, 2004 Transcript of full speech by Arundhati Roy in San Francisco, California on August 16th, 2004. The editor and the Sangam do not agree with everything in this article, but it is a powerful alternative view, with a global persective not found in many other places. I’ve been asked to… Read more »
The Persecuted, in Chains
The New York Times editorial, September 25, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/567.html In jails and prisons across the United States, thousands of people are detained who have never been accused of crimes. The guards treat them like criminals, and the criminals they bunk with often abuse them. They are held for months, sometimes even years, but unlike the criminals,… Read more »
Elagupillai’s Pongu Tamil Speech
Full Script of Speech By Prof. Elagu . V. Elagupillai at Pongu Thamil in Queen’s Park, Toronto, September 25, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/566.html Members of the Tamil Students Association, Vicar General Fr. Emmanuel, Special Guests, Federal Provincial and Local Government authorities, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am honoured to be with you this evening at this historic Pongu… Read more »
American Policy of Disengagement from Sri Lanka
The American Policy of Ostensible Disengagement from Sri Lanka by Wakeley Paul, Esq., September 24, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/565.html American leaders and the American media have a tendency to distance themselves from ‘third world’ concerns. America’s daily worries probably sound like trivial squabbles to third world occupants. The heated debates over abortion and the right to life;… Read more »
International Community Can Help Forge Peace
by Ana Pararajasingham, September 23, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/562.html According to Satchithananthan Sathananthan (“International community sharpens its knives against Tamils“ published in sangam. org-), the primary aim of the international community is ‘to undercut the Tamils’ political support for the LTTE and emasculate the military power of the Tamil national movement’. In support of this argument he cites several… Read more »
Endless Struggle against Terrorism
Hallmark of new world disorder by Tom Plate / Syndicated columnist, Seattle Times, September 17, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/555.html The dialectic — who’s a terrorist? who’s a freedom-fighter? — is not merely academic. Some of the world’s hot spots may be susceptible to cooling down if we break away from straitjacketed thinking. A perfect example, in fact,… Read more »
US Blasts Sri Lanka on Religious Freedom
Just like the US State Dept.’s annual Human Rights Report, the Report on International Religious Freedom is a summary of events this government department has heard about from its embassy in Sri Lanka and other sources. Sri Lanka has been put on the list because of concern by Christians in the US for the well-being… Read more »
Mishandling Suicide ‘Terrorism’
Aside from an amusing ignorance about Sri Lanka, Scott Atran gives a level headed look at ‘suicide terrorism’ in an article in the Summer 2004 issue of The Washington Quarterly put out by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The gist of his argument is that, in order for community support for suicide attacks… Read more »
US Assistance to Lanka Against ‘Terrorism’
A Second Look by Taraki [aka D. Sivaram], The Daily Mirror, Colombo, September 15, 2004 Sinhala Buddhist nationalists do not count their blessings. They keep complaining that the world is not helping them in any concrete way to crush the LTTE. One of them recently asked the US, “Where’s the beef?” (Though it is unbecoming… Read more »
Build a State First, a Nation comes Later
This review of Fukuyama’s book shows the distinction between the concepts of state and nation. What Fukuyama does not deal with are the problems of imposing a state on top of two existing nations as in the case of Sri Lanka. — Editor by Janadas Devan, The Straits Times, Singapore, September 8, 2004 A nation… Read more »