Just wanted to put down a few quick comments on the NPC election The difference in press coverage by the western media and the Indian media was in stark contrast. Indian Media was out on a limb trying to set up a different narrative than what the Tamil people were voting for Voter turn out… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Politics
Canadian Tamil Congress congratulates TNA
For Immediate Release September 22, 2013. Canadian Tamil Congress congratulates TNA and Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) congratulates the Tamil National Alliance and the Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran on the impressive election victory in the Northern Provincial Council elections. Despite the intimidation by the Sri Lankan… Read more »
Tamils Dominate Vote in Sri Lanka Province
But prominent opposition politicians fear those gains will evaporate without some efforts at political reconciliation with the Tamil population.
“Had we used the opportunity that came with the end of the war to reach out, one could argue the deaths were not in vain,” said Mangala Samaraweera, a member of Parliament representing the United National Party, an opposition party unaffiliated with the Tamil alliance. “But we’re back to the same old vicious circle. Are we going to kill 20,000 to 30,000 people every 25 years for the Sri Lankan state to survive? That’s what you have to ask.”
BBC: Election in 60 Seconds
On Saturday 21 September, the mainly Tamil people of the far north of Sri Lanka will get the chance to vote for an administration that was first promised to them a quarter of a century ago.The Northern Province is the only one among the island’s nine provinces that has never had its own council, and… Read more »
Tamil Voters Hope Provincial Election is Step toward Autonomy
by Associated Press in ‘The Washington Post’ Asia/Pacific section, September 20, 2013 JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka tried to gain autonomy in their northern heartland first through three decades of protests and strikes, then through three decades of civil war. Northern cities were reduced to rubble and at least 80,000… Read more »
State Facilitated Colonization of Northern Sri Lanka
by Watchdog, ‘Groundviews.org,’ Colombo, September 19, 2013 On 25th September 2012, the Menik Farm camp in Vavuniya, which at its peak, housed close to 300,000 internally displaced persons, was officially closed down when the Government of Sri Lanka relocated the last batch of IDPs. This formally marked the closure of all post-2009 IDP camps in the… Read more »
Protracted Displacement, Urgent Solutions
by Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, September 10, 2013 Significant changes have taken place in post-war Sri Lanka that have assisted the improvement in the lives of those affected by displacement and over 480,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have been able to return to their homes and communities. However, four years after the war displacement… Read more »
M Karunanidhi Bats for Referendum in Sri Lanka
M Karunanidhi bats for referendum in Sri Lanka to end woes of Tamils CHENNAI: A referendum under the aegis of the United Nations alone would give a fresh lease of life to “beleaguered” Tamils in Sri Lanka, DMK chief M Karunanidhi said here today. “Tamils all over the world earnestly expect that the UN would come forward for such… Read more »
The Northern Election And Historical Stumbling Blocks
“Why,” the monitor asked the crowd, “wouldn’t you rather vote for the party that gave you new roads and buildings, the party that could continue to develop this region?” The answer from a Tamil resident of the North was succinct. “What is the point of new roads without dignity?”
Sri Lanka Tamils Demand Army be Confined before Key Vote
The TNA said the military continued to engage in civilian activities and were clearly trying to influence the 714,000-strong mainly Tamil electorate, and support candidates of Rajapakse’s UPFA.
Establish a Syrian War Crimes Tribunal
Smith: Switch gears, Mr. President. Fight to establish Syrian war crimes court &hold both Assad and the rebels who commit egregious crimes accountable There is a non-lethal way to help ensure that Bashar al-Assad and other perpetrators of atrocities in Syria are held to account not someday far in the future but beginning now. The… Read more »
Why is Land a Fundamental Issue to the Tamils?
Image courtesy DBS Jeyaraj Introduction President Jayewardene did not like the word ‘colonisation’. Instead, he preferred the terms ‘land settlement’. But the Land Settlement Ordinance uses ‘settlement’ to mean a settlement on claims over ‘land’. Item 18 of the Provincial Councils List of the 13th Amendment, reads as follows: 18. Land, – Land, that is to say,… Read more »
A Visual History of Guerrilla Warfare From 1775 to 2012
The Invisible Armies Insurgency Tracker presents a database of insurgencies from 1775 to 2012. It supplements the comprehensive historical narrative in Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, by CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot. ‘Invisible Armies’ Insurgencies Tracker map & graphic http://www.cfr.org/wars-and-warfare/invisible-armies-insurgency-tracker/p29917# ————————————— … Read more »
Bad History Mars Indian Movie On Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination
Divyakant Solanki/European Pressphoto AgencyDemonstrators in Mumbai, Maharashtra, demanding a ban on the film “Madras Cafe” on Aug. 22. The movie “Madras Cafe,” which opened in India and elsewhere in the world recently, seeks to chronicle the Sri Lankan civil war through the events leading up to the assassination in 1991 of former Prime Minister Rajiv… Read more »
TNA 2013 Northern Provincial Council Election Manifesto
The Mandate Given To The Tamil National Alliance The Tamil People overwhelmingly gave the TNA a mandate at the General Election held in April 2010. The TNA has continued to act in accordance with that political mandate and is now facing the Northern Provincial Council Election as a necessary step in the fulfilment of that… Read more »
UN May Intercede as Sri Lanka Regime Strong-arms Elections Opponents
As de-militarization was a prerequisite for elections, two resolutions — in 2012 and 2013 — moved by the United States at the UN Human Rights Council included such measures… The need for the military to occupy private land is partly explained by a more fundamental problem: There are “150,000 soldiers encamped in the Northern Province,” claims Premachandran. “That makes it one soldier for every four or five civilians.”
A Way Forward?
A Government in Difficulties Sri Lanka suddenly finds itself in a rather sticky situation, having shown insufficient progress on its own commitments to alleviate the deterioration in the human rights situation in the country. UK has warned that it will look for a strong and unified response at the UN HRC in Geneva if it… Read more »
Some Notes On Moors Religious Exlusivism
Dr.Imtiyaz Razak I would like to sketch some points about Moors to help readers to understand the trend. Note that I am neither hired by external forces, as some alledged, to criticize Moors nor do I hate my own community so I criticize it. As I pointed on my facebook wall “We need to be critical of… Read more »
Land Issues in Northern and Eastern Provinces
Mr. Deputy Speaker, my Adjournment Motion that I have proposed to move today deals with nine situations pertaining to land both in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces. Land issues are a matter of grave concern to the Tamil-speaking people, both the Tamil people and the Muslim people in the North and the East. We… Read more »
Business of (Tamil) Politics
“I got arrested 40 times during the ’60s, beaten, bloodied and unconscious, I’m not tired, I’m not weary. I’m not prepared to sit down and give up. I am ready to fight and continue to fight, and you must fight.”
“You cannot stand by. You cannot sit down. You have to stand up, speak up, speak out and get in the way. Make some noise. The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It’s the most powerful non-violent tool…”