Marginal placeholders by Bart Klem & Thiruni Kelegama, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.47, Issue 2, 2020 ABSTRACT This study explores the political significance of peasant identities, rice cultivation and land struggles in the context of civil war. It comprises two agrarian settlements in Sri Lanka’s former war zone: a state-sponsored Sinhala settlement colony (Weli… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
ITJP: Gamini Silva Dossier
by International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, February 17, 2025 Gamini-Silva-Public-Dossier_final ITJP Dossiers Gamini Silva [Full legal name: Palliyaguruge Sarath Gamini Silva (a.k.a. Gamini de Silva)] Date of Birth: September 3, 1953 Career: • Member of the National Police Commission (May 2023 – April 2024);1 [Retired from police force in December 2013];2… Read more »
ITJP: Swiss Legal Claim for Tamil Sent Back to Torture in Sri Lanka
by International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, February 18, 2025 ITJP 18-February-2025-Swiss-case-press-release Geneva: Swiss Lawyers have filed a compensation case for a Tamil man rejected for asylum in Switzerland, who went back to Sri Lanka only to be tortured and sexually violated again in 2022. The case filed by Emma Lidén and… Read more »
ITJP: 60+ Sanctions Submissions for Human Rights and Economic Crimes
by International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, December 5, 2024 ITJP_Sanctions_60_Submissions_for_Sri_Lankan_Human_Rights_and_Economic_Crimes_English Press Release: 60+ Sanctions Submissions for Human Rights and Economic Crimes in Sri Lanka and multiple universal jurisdiction cases. Johannesburg: The International Truth and Justice Project has submitted more than 60 sanctions and visa ban requests against Sri Lankan public and… Read more »
Himal: Yasmin Sooka on Truth and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka
State of Southasia #18 Himal, Colombo, February 16, 2025 A conversation on the failed attempts at accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka and hopes from the country’s new political dispensation for movement towards transitional justice. The Editors In December, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), an international non-government organisation working to promote justice and… Read more »
NESoHR: Massacres of Tamils 1956 – 2008
by North East Secretariat for Human Rights, Vanni, 2010 This Book is dedicated to the thousands of Eelam Tamils who lost their life at the hands of the Sri Lankan and Indian State Armed Forces. NESoHR Massacres-of-Tamils-1956-2008 Originally posted on Sangam at Massacres of Tamil 1956 – 2008 Documented by North East Secretariat for Human… Read more »
Peasant Politics, Frontier Colonization and the Cunning State in Sri Lanka
The lure of land by Thiruni Kelegama & Benedikt Korf, Modern Asian Studies, Vol.57, Issue 6, UK, November, 2023 Abstract This paper studies the contradictions of peasant politics in Sri Lanka’s dry zone frontier in a highly militarized colonization scheme (‘System L’ of the Mahaweli Development Programme in Weli Oya in northern Sri Lanka). Through… Read more »
Krishna Vaikunthavasan at the UN 1978
from Tamil Guerrilla, a Tamil historical archive on Instagram & X, February 14, 2025 Krishna Vaikunthavasan was an Eelam Tamil lawyer and activist, known for his advocacy for Tamil Eelam. In August 1978, he gained international attention when he took to the podium at the UN, pretending to be the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka,… Read more »
TCHR: Sinhala Colonisation 2000
by K Sachithanandan, Tamil Centre for Human Rights, Paris, 2ooo Presented to the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, March/April 2000 The original text was produced in Tamil by the Author in 1980s TCHR Sinhala Colonisation 2000 K Sachithanandan SINHALA COLONISATION IN THE HEREDITARY TAMIL REGIONS OF THE ISLAND OF SRI LANKA An appeal to… Read more »
TG: This Land Belongs to Us
This week, Tamils took to streets to send the Sri Lankan state a message – just as they did in the 1950’s. Tamil Guardian editorial, London, February 16, 2025 The issue of Sinhala colonisation of the North-East is not new. It is one that has plagued the island for decades, as successive Sri Lankan governments… Read more »
TGTE: Thaiyiddy Buddhist Temple, Symbol of Sinhala Occupation, Should be Removed
Tamil Cultural Genocide for Assimilation into Sinhala Buddhism by Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, February 11, 2025 Following the 2009 Mullivaikkal genocide of the Tamils, the Sri Lankan State capitalized on Eelam Tamils’ relatively weak position domestically to brazenly engage in cultural and heritage genocide—forcing the assimilation (“Sinhalization”) of the Tamils and Muslims into the… Read more »
Navigating the Complex Terrain of Accountability in Sri Lanka
by PKI Global Justice Journal, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, Winter 2025 Table of Contents Malliha Wilson, Janakan Muthukumar, and Ashwini Vasanthakumar, Introduction: Navigating the Complex Terrain of Accountability in Sri Lanka Malliha Wilson, Enhancing Justice for Sub-National Groups: The Role of Universal Jurisdiction in Sri Lanka Maxwin Paul Rayen, The Politics of… Read more »
NESoHR Archives
by NorthEast Secretariat for Human Rights, Kilinochchi, Vanni 2004-2017 NESoHR-Compilation-of Human Rights Reports With-Page-Numbers 2005 to 2009 NESoHR Massacres-of-Tamils-1956-2008 English Originally posted: Massacres of Tamil 1956 – 2008 Documented by North East Secretariat for Human Rights Manitham January 2010 NESoHR’s Publication about Massacres on Tamils in German 2004 Opening of NESoHR July 9 2004 TamilNet… Read more »
The Quandary of the National Policy on Land
Reinventing The Wheel? by Austin Fernando, Colombo Telegraph, January 12, 2025 Last week, news appeared titled ‘Inter-linked mechanism mooted for lands.’ The Deputy Minister of Lands and Irrigation Dr. Susil Ranasinghe was quoted in it. Ranasinghe rightly lamented the absence of a proper land policy that creates disorganization of institutions involved in land use, i.e.,… Read more »
No, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Question Has Not Been Resolved
by Mario Arulthas, AlJazeera, Qatar, January 9, 2025 “They’re trampling on our graves with their boots,” said Kavitha, a Tamil woman, as the torrential rain lashing our faces washed away her tears. Standing barefoot and ankle-deep in mud at the site of a former cemetery in Visuvamadu, Sri Lanka, she was lamenting the adjacent military… Read more »
All Roads Run through Tamil Eelam
New Delhi must remember that any form of connectivity with Sri Lanka inherently involves the Tamil North-East. Tamil Guardian editorial, December 21, 2024 Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s visit to India saw him receive the grandest of receptions, in a sign that New Delhi is firmly pressing ahead with its plans to increase its footprint… Read more »
Tamil Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Brutal Civil War Live in Fear
— and disempowerment, 15 years on by Krishnan Francis, Associated Press, New York, May 31, 2024 MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka (AP) — At the site of a bloody battlefield that marked the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, Singaram Soosaimuthu fishes every day with his son, casting nets and reeling them in. It is a skill… Read more »
Dead or Alive?
Parents of children gone in Sri Lanka’s civil war have spent 15 years seeking answers By Krishnan Francis, Associated Press, May 18, 2024 MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka (AP) — For 15 years, Rasalingam Thilakawathi has been trying to find out what happened to her daughter at the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. Or… Read more »
Locating Sri Lanka in Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy 2023
by Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, August 14, 2023 Introduction Since the establishment of their diplomatic relations in 1948,[1] Sri Lanka and the United States (US) have had a tumultuous relationship broadly spanning the following phases: From the 1950s to 1970s, the US viewed Sri Lanka through the lens of the Cold War;… Read more »
A Magic Wand
by Tisaranee Gunasekara, Colombo Telegraph, November 17, 2024 “Wishes come true, Not free.” Stephen Sondheim – In to the Woods The Grimm version is known wider but the Turkish one cuts deeper. In both tales, the boy goes in search of fear and finds a crown. In the Grimm version, fear comes when a pail of cold… Read more »