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 »
Posts Categorized: Politics
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 »
ISGA : Dead-end or Historic Opportunity?
No author given, The Sunday Observer, Colombo, September 12, 2004 The Interim Self-Governing Authority – ISGA – proposals of the LTTE present a challenge as well as a historic opportunity to advance towards a genuine democratic settlement to the national crisis. They represent the first and only proposals the LTTE has officially presented as a… 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 »
Arumugam Thondaman Supports the Government
Ever since parliament was suspended this summer ordinary people on the island had no doubt that Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress would throw their support behind the UPFA to give them a working majority. The questions seemed to be only when and what the price would be. Now we know one version of the story. Thondaman… Read more »
The Sinhala Nation and Foreign Military Involvement
by Taraki [aka D. Sivaram], Virakesari and TamilNatham, Sri Lanka, September 5, 2004 An important question arises when we look at the military balance in SriLanka. Though the LTTE maintains its military strength on par with Sri Lankan Army (SLA), any military intervention by a foreign country which does not sympathise with the Tamils, can… Read more »
The International Community Sharpens its Knives Against Tamils
by Sachithanandam Sathananthan*, New Delhi, September 3, 2004 Sri Lankan Tamils took note of a newspaper article titled “Ending the regional drift,” published in India recently. Its author, Dr Raja Mohan, is a foreign policy analyst who is close to the Indian establishment, and he accurately reflects its thinking. He lauded “the muscular message” New… Read more »
Give the Chechens a Land of Their Own
by Richard Pipes, The New York Times op-ed, September 9, 2004 Does this call to give Chechens independence and America’s appeal to consider what is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan genocide – which legally obligates the international community to intervene – have anything to do with the actual situation in these countries or… Read more »
LTTE Critics Argue Against Continuing with Ceasefire
by Taraki, [aka D. Sivaram], Daily Mirror, Colombo, September 9, 2004 Heckles and jeers are sure to greet one if one were to say that the Tigers too face criticism and political pressure from a cross section of their supporters here and abroad for “futilely sticking to the peace process”. The hecklers and jeerers on… Read more »
Top-aide Says LTTE May Not Have Killed President Premadasa
by P K Balachandran, Hindustan Times, September 8, 2004 Bradman Weerakoon, International Affairs Advisor to former Sri Lankan President, R Premadasa, has cast doubts on the popular notion that it was the LTTE which assassinated the President In his racy book entitled “Rendering Unto Caesar” (Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 2004) Weerakoon says that there are… Read more »
A Global War: Many Fronts, Little Unity
Terror is not an enemy, but a method, used in different ways by different movements…But it is also a label that has been seized on by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and, in various shades, by leaders from Italy to Pakistan to set their own agendas. It… Read more »
Countering Terror
by Rajeev Dhavan, The Hindu, Chennai, September 3, 2004 Where counter-terrorism violates human rights, it produces state terrorism directed against a nation’s own people. Both collectively and individually, nations across the world are obsessed with policies of counter-terrorism. This obsession is subversive of peace and good governance in ways that are beginning to dwarf the… Read more »
Self-Righteous Democracies
by Phar Kim Beng, Straits Times, September 2, 2004 Mr. Bill Clinton made the promotion of democracy the centrepiece of his foreign policy when he was president of the United States. President George W. Bush, especially after Sept 11, did the same, looking to democracy as a means of reforming Arab/Muslim societies and awakening them… Read more »
I Got Trapped in the Secret ‘No Fly List’ of the Transportation Security Administration
by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 1, 2004 I neither have the charisma of a Kennedy nor the celebrity status of Massachusetts’ senior Senator Edward ‘Teddy’ Kennedy. However, for the past 25 years, I have subscribed to the liberal democratic ideals for which the youngest males of the Kennedy clan (John F., Robert and Edward) have… Read more »
Diaspora Circulation and Transnationalism
As Agents for Change in the Post-Conflict Zones of Sri Lanka R. Cheran of the Dept. of Sociology and Refugee Studies of York University, Toronto has written a paper entitled “Diaspora Circulation and Transnationalism as Agents for Change in the Post Conflict Zones of Sri Lanka” which does exactly what sociology is supposed to: observe… Read more »
Collective Rights and the ISGA
by Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, LTTE Peace Secretariat, September 1, 2004 In looking at peace and development we need to recognize that peace is not the absence of war. In a wider perspective of peace we have to look at several dimensions of violence. The Ceasefire Agreement ensures an absence of direct violence between the two… Read more »
Is the XIII Amendment the Roadblock to Peace?
Sinhalese Myths and Fallacies Challenged by Wakeley Paul, Esq., September 1, 2004 Several recent articles reveal once more the cherished myths under which the Sinhala press continues to delude itself. These Sinhalese myths need to be punctured once and for all, since they are founded on three fundamental misconceptions. 1. That Sinhalese supremacy is the… Read more »
Tamils Alone in Hostile World
Tamils Should Realise They Stand Alone in a Hostile World An Editorial from Northeastern Monthly Every few months or so, accusations of human rights violations are flung at the LTTE by various local and international actors whose concern for human suffering knows no bounds when it gives them an opportunity to cause the Tiger rebels discomfiture…. Read more »
Won’t the Sri Lankan Leadership Reform?
Centre for Peace and Human Rights Culture Director Rev.Fr. A.I. Bernard has underlined an urgent and necessary remedy for the ailment Sri Lanka is undergoing on account of the ethnic conflict that grips the island state. On behalf of the Jaffna-based Centre Rev.Fr. A.I. Bernard says, in a letter addressed to the Sri Lanka’s Peace… Read more »
Good Government: You Can Put a Value to It
By Janadas Devan, Straits Times, Singapore, August 2004 WHY did Singapore succeed and so many other post-colonial states didn’t? The answer to that question often takes the form of a litany: Singapore got the fundamentals right – political stability, meritocracy, an incorruptible administration. It instituted the rule of law, ensuring the sanctity of contracts and… Read more »