by Tamil Guardian, London, August 13, 2005 Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot by a sniper outside his home in Colombo on Friday and died in hospital after emergency surgery, raising fears for the island’s increasingly shaky ceasefire. Kadirgamar, 73, died at the National Hospital in Colombo where he had been admitted in serious… Read more »
Posts Categorized: International
After 29 Years, an Aceh Peace Pact
The Aceh accord, to be signed on Monday, feels like a major gamble on the part of GAM, based on what we know from Sri Lanka. In return for giving up their quest for a separate state and disarming, GAM may or may not be able to form a local party and take part in… Read more »
Report to UN ECOSOC Subcommission on Human Rights
by Liberation, UK, August 4, 2005 UNITED NATIONS Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Fifty-seventh session 04-08-2005 Agenda item 4 – Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Liberation welcomes the preliminary report of Sub-Commission member Mr. Marc Bossuyt on the issue of non-discrimination in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. While still early in… Read more »
All the World’s a University
by Janadas Devan, The Straits Time, Singapore, December 2004 WHEN Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested by the British in 1942, he traipsed off to prison clutching, among other things, Plato’s Republic and Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (in the original French, of course). This Indian freedom fighter was nothing if not inward with high European culture. He… Read more »
Revisiting Rwanda’s Horrors
With an Ex-National Security Adviser By JOHN DARNTON, The New York Times, December 20, 2004 It was “shameful,” he added, that his administration refused to employ the term “genocide” for a period of six weeks. “It was based on the belief that if you used the word, then you’re required to take action,” he said…. Read more »
Human Rights Watch and Tamil Children
by S. Makenthiran, B.A., FCCA, Canada, December 19, 2004 There have been some reports by interested parties about the so-called seminar held on December 12, by Human Rights Watch in Toronto. It is made to appear that those who spoke out at the Seminar were Tamil Tigers. It was nothing like that. Many of us… Read more »
Talking with Tigers
Negotiations with suicide bombers can end violence, as Sri Lanka demonstrates Jonathan Steele in Kilinochchi, The Guardian, UK, Friday December 17, 2004 Come to Elephant Pass to witness a rarity: a place where the contradictions of the “war on terror” have not produced the usual regression. In most of the world the fight against “international… Read more »
India’s Sri Lanka Policy: Need for a Review
by Ana Pararajasingham, South Asia Analysis Group, Delhi, December 13, 2004 It is only natural that India, the regional power, should have an abiding interest in the manner in which the conflict in the Island of Sri Lanka is resolved. The Tamil National Alliance MP, Mr Gajendra kumar Ponnambalam’s declaration that the Tamil Nation has… Read more »
Child Soldiers and Sunny Beaches
by Ravi Gowribalan, December 16, 2004 Many Tamils once believed that the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play an important role in helping the people in the war-affected areas of Tamil Eelam. During the ceasefire, we have seen a dramatic upsurge in the number of international NGOs in Tamil areas and their interest in Tamil affairs… Read more »
The International Community & Tamils
The True Face of the International Community & a Rational Response from the Tamils of Eelam by Siva Muthulingasamy, UK, December 16, 2004 The International Community(IC) is all united by just one common objective, a World Trade monopoly. They work in partnership with the US, like “the good cop bad cop” duo in a Hollywood… Read more »
Seminar on The Indian Subcontinent: The Global Perspective
World Tamil Organization proudly presents a seminar loaded with much for serious and curious minds on Saturday, December 11th, 2004 All Day Event from 11:00 AM at Center Hall, Busch Campus Center Rutgers University 604 Bartholomew Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854 Participants: Keynote Address by Durai. Raja, New Delhi Mr. Raja is the current national (central)… Read more »
A Rigged Dialogue with Civil Society
by Charlemagne, The Economist, London, October 2004 Does any of this sound familiar from the NGOs that comment and try to influence ‘ethnic’ affairs in Sri Lanka? — Editor How independent are the civil-society organisations beloved by the European Commission? THE European Commission knows it has an image problem. To try to fix things, it… Read more »
America and Sri Lanka
by M. Nadarajan, December 4, 2004 Those of us who live in the United States of America, arguably the greatest country in the world and certainly the richest country, take a lot of things for granted. America also claims to be the most democratic country in the world, and preaches to the world about how… Read more »
Interview with Graham Allen MP
for Nottingham North Confluence: You led an all party Parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka recently. Can you give us a broad brush picture of the current state of play in the peace process in that country as you observed it? Graham Allen: We were pleased to see that most political parties are getting involved in the peace… Read more »
Sethusamuderam Project: Economic & Environmental Impact
Reasons for the Construction of the Canal and its Economic & Environmental Impact on Sri Lanka by Donald Jayantha Gnanakone, Los Angeles, December 2, 2004 The past three months has seen such a flurry of activity and controversy never seen before in Sri Lanka, since the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Pact by Rajiv Gandhi… Read more »
We Have to Live a Language to Use it
by Janadas Devan, The Straits Times, Singapore, November 29, 2004 ‘THO’ I call them Mine, I know that they are not Mine.’ The English critic F.R. Leavis liked to cite that remark of William Blake about his works to point to the essential impersonality of literature: Blake ‘meant that when the artist is creatively successful,… Read more »
Response to Reuters Article on Prabakaran Turning 50
Media Bias is hurting the peace process between Sri Lanka and Tamils by R Shanmugananthan, Australia, November 28, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/666.html Nowadays, when you read news supplied by international news wires, one automatically looks for the other side of the story. Such is the one-sided nature of news reports. The old adage that there are two sides… Read more »
Letter from Singapore
by Pranay Gupte, November 19, 2004 sangam.org/articles/view2/661.html Why am I sceptical that there isn’t exactly going to be an exodus from India to Singapore? Precisely because of what that Indian cabinet minister told me. Singapore can attract all the cheap coolie labour it might want, but the word has gotten around in the Indian professional… Read more »
Maya Arulpragasam’s World
Bingo in Swansea by SASHA FRERE-JONES, The New Yorker Issue of 2004-11-22, Posted 2004-11-15 sangam.org/articles/view2/651.html “World music” is a category that does nobody any favors. Entirely disparate performers, like the dapper Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso and the African blues guitarist Ali Farka Toure, get lumped together in American record stores simply because they don’t sing… Read more »
A Set of Killings in the East
To The Editor, Sangam.org — The TamilNet news website of 18th November reported two killings in the East within a space of 14 hours. The first was the killing of a political worker of the LTTE at 9.45 PM on Wednesday by gunmen suspected to be paramilitary operatives working with the Sri Lanka military intelligence… Read more »