Posts Categorized: Politics

A Legacy for Generations

Twenty-five years ago today, the Tamil nation’s day of remembrance – Maaveerar Naal, was first commemorated at an event in the Vanni. Today, the commemoration of the nation’s fallen heroes has spread across the world, taken by those who were forced to flee their homeland in the North-East. This year also marks a significant anniversary… Read more »

Pirapaharan at Sixty

by Karthik RM, November 21, 2014 Is Pirapaharan dead? Ten years back, TamilNet senior editor and military analyst Taraki Sivaram wrote a brilliant piece on the political legacy of Pirapaharan at fifty.  Come 26 November this year, the founder-leader of the LTTE and one of the most brilliant military minds of South Asia will turn… Read more »

CM Wigneswaran Speech in India

Wigneswaran Kannabiran Memorial Lecture Nov 2014 After brief intro in Tamil, CM – Justice CW Wigneswaran’s speech is in English.    

These Are My Humble Requests To Gotabaya

*Speech made by R. Sampanthan on the 4th of November 2014 in parliament We are discussing today the Votes of the Ministry of Defence, the Minister of Defence being His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Secretary to the Ministry being his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who rumour has it will probably be a Member of… Read more »

Cosmetic Fixes

by Taylor Dibbert, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, October 31, 2014 SOUTH ASIA Sri Lanka’s twenty-six-year civil war was a brutal conflict that pitted the Sri Lankan government forces against the Tamil Tigers, a group that fought for a separate state in the country’s northern and eastern provinces. Though the government defeated the Tamil Tigers in… Read more »

CBK Waged ‘Mother of All Wars’ – Rev. Dr. Emmanuel

Last week, The Island partly dealt with Rev. Dr. S. J Emmanuel’s thoughts on the collapse of talks between the government of the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in April 1995. The priest blamed Mrs. Kumaratunga for the breakdown of talks. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel’s views, on the conflict, are relevant,… Read more »

Rev. Dr Emmanuel on Collapse of CBK-Prabhakaran talks

Rev. Dr. Emmanuel, who had occasionally provided to the writer valuable perception, as regards significant conflict-related events, made available to The Island his presentation at a conference organized by the International Alert, way back in July, 1997. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel dealt extensively with the Kumaratunga-Prabhakaran talks during 1994-1995 period…

“The government did not understand the LTTE as representatives of an aggrieved and oppressed people. Nor did they recognize the LTTE’s demands as the demands of the people.”

On The Rajapaksa Budget

By R. Sampanthan – ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ November 1, 2014 We tabled a Position Paper in January 2011 setting out our position. I table that Position Paper and kindly request that it be included at the end of my speech. The Position Paper defined the position of the TNA in regard to a political solution at the… Read more »

Tamils Were Not Fooled

By M. A. Sumanthiran – ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ November 3, 2014 You stop people of this country going to meet their very near relatives by placing travel restrictions. Is that not treating the North differently? This is also an attempt to pull wool over the eyes of people, not of the people of the North. If the… Read more »

Media Freedom in Sri Lanka

Watch this powerful talk by Lukshmee Saravanapavan on media freedom in Sri Lanka at  the Amnesty International USA conference in St. Louis, Missouri on Oct. 25. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152822022459948&set=vb.682819947&type=2&theater or  http://youtu.be/a72EU396Z_I —————- For more information on Amnesty’s concerns in Sri Lanka, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/srilanka

Tamil National Resistance and the Limits of Sinhala Liberal Intelligentsia

Since the conclusion of genocidal massacres in Mullivaaykkaal and the annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sinhala chauvinist Sri Lankan state has taken unparalleled measures to criminalize the commemoration of national resistance and to destroy its symbols in a bid to eradicate the spirit of national resistance among the beleaguered Eelam… Read more »

Deadly Alliances Against Muslims

On his 79th birthday in July, the Dalai Lama appealed to Buddhist extremist groups in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to stop instigating attacks against Muslim minorities that have killed scores. Instead, in an affront to Buddhism’s core message of compassion, leaders of those groups announced an alliance to make common cause against Muslims. “The time… Read more »

The Indo-Lanka 13A

There is an uptick on the TNA pronouncements lately about India and her role in the 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution.  A series of events perhaps contributed this: TNA delegation’s meeting with the new Indian prime minister and now the NPC Chief Minister’s letter to the Sri Lankan President invoking India’s role as a… Read more »

Amnesty Briefing on Sri Lanka for ICCPR Review

Amnesty UN INT_CCPR_CSS_LKA_18252_E Amnesty International has submitted a 40-page briefing on Sri Lanka to the U.N. Human Rights Committee in connection with the Committee’s review during this month of Sri Lanka’s fifth periodic report on its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  The briefing can be found at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/LKA/INT_CCPR_CSS_LKA_18252_E.pdf   INTRODUCTION Amnesty… Read more »