Category Archives: atrocities

Incisive Strategy & Tactics behind the Defeat of the LTTE in 2006-09

Serge De Silva Ranasinghe …  This article was first available online at jir. janes.com on 11 November 2009, where it carries this title: “Good Education: Sri Lankan military learns insurgency lessons”*++*

A SUMMARY: In May 2009, the Sri Lankan government declared victory in the country’s brutal civil war. Sergei De  Silva-Ranasinghe examines the effectiveness of the military tactics that helped defeat the LTTE. … While The Editor Thuppahi has imposed highlighting to stress some key aspects

Sri Lanka’s victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 offers insights and lessons in confronting an intractable and formidable insurgency. To achieve victory, Sri Lanka expanded its army and adopted new tactics for the largest military campaign in the country’s history. Determined leadership and superior manpower were ultimately decisive in a war that killed as many as 22,000 rebels and over 5,000 soldiers.

 

The maps indicate the Sri Lankan military’s advance through the country, the various operations that led to the capture of insurgents and the LTTE’s gradual downfall over the past four years.

 

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The Anzac Story: Rushing into the Fields of Slaughter?

Binoy Kampmark, in Countercurrents, 26 April 2023, where the title reads “Politicians and the Anzac Tradition: A Story of Manipulation and Mythology”

While the mass slaughtering of, and slaughter by, soldiers, is always a touchy subject of commemoration, a tension has existed between those who did the fighting, and those who ordered it.  Comfortably secure in furnished rooms and battle props, planners would, as they still do, draw up the blueprints, concoct the strategy, and give the orders.

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The Tale of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, 1987–1990  

Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd] …. from ………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Peace_Keeping_Force and Google Images

Introduction

The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military.

The main task of the IPKF was to disarm the different militant groups, not just the LTTE. It was to be quickly followed by the formation of an Interim Administrative Council. These were the tasks as per the terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, signed at the behest of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Given the escalation of the conflict in Sri Lanka, and with the pouring of refugees into India, Rajiv Gandhi took the decisive step to push this accord through. The IPKF was inducted into Sri Lanka on the request of Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene under the terms of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

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In Appreciation of Des Kelly: Many A Voice …. Quite A Chorus

ONE: Jude Goonewardane – Appreciating Sri Lankan Musicians,” 28 April 2023

Rest in peace Des! It is with a heavy heart I announce the passing of my dear friend Des Kelly in Dandenong, Melbourne Australia.

Desmond Kelly is a Ceylonese musician who has entertained in Sri Lanka and in Australia. He was born in Colombo in 1936. Kelly was one of a group of musicians who was discovered by Radio Ceylon, now the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Radio Ceylon gave him a platform for his songs and announcers Vernon Corea and Christopher Greet played his compositions on their music programs.

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USA’s Double Standards: A Payback Today for Sri Lanka’s Refusal to Kow-Tow in 2009

Item in the DAILY MIRROR, 28 April 2023… with this title “Designating Karannagoda; Russia hits back at US: Says West should not interfere in other countries affairs”

 The United States has designated former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda, for his alleged involvement in gross violations of human rights. The US State Department said that Karannagoda has been designated pursuant to Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2023, due to his involvement in a gross violation of human rights during his tenure as a Naval Commander. As a result of today’s action, Karannagoda and his wife, Srimathi Ashoka Karannagoda, are ineligible for entry into the United States.

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The LTTE and Their Sacrificial Devotion to Cause

Michael Roberts on his Essays on this Theme within the Global Context ………… https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/21/sacrificial-devotion-how-i-entered-this-terrain/…. JULY 21, 2017 · …………..“Sacrificial Devotion” — How I Entered This Terrain

 

 Tiger fighters relax in camp, late 1980sPic by Shyam Tekwani who was embedded with LTTE for a while.

With the benefit of a Teen Murti Fellowship I was collecting data on communal violence in India in 1995 when my readings of news archives indicated that the death of Mrs Indira Gandhi by assassination in Delhi induced a handful of individuals in southern India to commit sympathetic suicide. Since news reports did not indicate similar reactions in other parts of India, I began to reflect on the cultural foundations that promoted such expressions – acting, of course, in contexts that also could provide political and economic inspirations. This eventually led to my first essay on this topic: “Filial Devotion and the Tiger Cult of Suicide,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1996, 30: 245-72.

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Escalation of Attacks on Hindu Shrines in Northern Lanka

Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu, 23 April 2023, whee the title reads thus: Tamils flag escalating attacks on temples in northern Sri Lanka” … with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi

Several Tamil parties have called for a protest on April 25 against the recent Temple attacksTamils in Sri Lanka have witnessed an escalation in the attack on Hindu temples in recent weeks, a trend that they note is part of the State’s “ongoing Sinhalisation project” in the island’s north.

 

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Revisiting FIRE & STORM

Michael Roberts

In presenting a Zoom Lecture relating to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka in April 2021 for Dr. Geethika Dharmasinghe’s class at Colgate University in USA a month or so back,  I deplyed the work that went into one of books: that entitled FIRE & STORM.

I now atempt to schock people around the world with pictorial illustrations of some — note “Some” (with all its partialities) — photographs of the political and Eelam War scenarios in Sri Lanka displayed in Fire & Storm.

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Right Royal Pillage in British India! Now on Display!

David Page & Manisha Ganguly, in The Guardian, 6 April 2023, with this title “India archive reveals extent of ‘colonial loot’ in royal jewellery collection”

File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquest. Five years ago, Buckingham Palace marked its summer opening with an exhibition celebrating the then Prince Charles’s 70th birthday with a display of his favourite pieces from the royal collection, Britain’s official trove of items connected to the monarchy. “The prince had a very, very strong hand in the selection,” the senior curator said.

Among the sculptures, paintings and other exhibits was a long gold girdle inlaid with 19 large emeralds once used by an Indian maharajah to decorate his horses. It was a curious choice to put into the exhibition in light of the violent means by which it had come into the hands of the royal family.

Emerald girdle of Maharaja Sher Singh, c 1840. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

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Keenie Meenie Mercenary Operations in Lanka in UK Gunsights

Phil Miller, in Declassified UK, March 14, 2023

A former SAS commander whose mercenary business in Sri Lanka is under investigation for war crimes has left millions of pounds in his will.

     Attached photo of Colonel Johnson leading an SAS parade in 1960. (Image: Imperial War Museum)

One of Britain’s most rapacious mercenaries amassed a fortune worth £4m before his death in 2008, an investigation by Declassified UK has found. The soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry ‘Jim’ Johnson, was once described by a senior British diplomat as having “political ideas [that] are probably to the right of Genghis Khan” – a reference to the infamously brutal Mongol emperor.

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