Category Archives: atrocities

The Sinhala-Tamil Conflict, 1983-2009: A Brief Overview

“Double Eagle” responding to a Query that I sent re the Assassination of Retd Major-General Janaka Perera in 2008.[i]

He was assassinated by the LTTE in their calculated political-military strategy directed towards selectively eliminating potential Sri Lanka Sinhalese leaders whom the Tamils considered a threat to their Eelam ambition. I am inclined to believe that the Tamil grand strategy to selectively take out strong Sinhala leaders was not of LTTE making. The LTTE were fighters and not strategists. The strategy may have evolved at a higher level from the pro-Eelam Tamil community within the country and abroad.[ii]

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The JVP Movement Revisited

Mick Moore, reproducing an article he has sent — one placed in POLITY on the 20th September 2021…. http://ssalanka.org/insurrectionary-jvp-sri-lankan-state-mick-moore/. His prefered title is “The Insurrectionary JVP and the Sri Lankan State” …. The highlighting in the essay below are the impositions of the Editor, Thuppahi

Much has been written about the insurrectionary Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP—Peoples Liberation Front). The main focus has been on the character of the organisation itself, why it emerged, and how it was defeated in 1971, and again in 1989. This paper deals with a different set of issues: the ways in which the Sri Lankan state and the insurrectionary JVP interacted and shaped one another. This reflects a broader interest in the question of why the quality of national governance in Sri Lanka has deteriorated so much in the 50 years since the first JVP insurrection of 1971. I suggest that JVP-state interactions can help explain that deterioration. But only so far. There is much more to that story – which is far too big and complex to explore further here.

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Indelible. Unforgetable. 9/11 in Pictures

We Shall Remember.

Fire and smoke billows from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/David Karp)

 A person falls from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center as another clings to the outside, left, while smoke and fire billow from the building, Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

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Auckland Atrocities: Grounded Appraisals from Sri Lankans

I present several comments from Sri Lankans in New Zealand and Sri Lanka

A NOTE from SM in Colombo, 7 Sept 2021

It is high time for countries to cut hard on organisations promoting and practicing extremist ideologies whether they be religious, ethnic, separatist, or nationalist.  The UK extended its ban on the LTTE a few days back which is a welcome development.  Canada should practice what they preach. With an election round the corner, the Liberal Trudeau govt soft peddles the LTTE issue in order to garner Canadian Tamil votes.  The Canadian government’s sponsorship of TGWA is a case in point.
Countries that ignore, or aid and abet violent extremism will reap what they sow.

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Revealing Headlines & Videos from Afghanistan

  • Anthony Loyd  in The Weekend Australian, 3 September 2021:  Battle is joined for Afghanistan’s never-conquered guerrilla heartland,”

  • Rodger Shanahan: in The Weekend Australian, 3 September 2021: “Impacts on Western security of Afghanistan withdrawal far from settled”

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Turmoil & Transformation in Afghanistan: A Sri Lankan Writer’s Assessment of the situation NOW

Lynn Ockersz, in The Island, 2 September 2021, where the title is  “Power and sovereignty issues come to the fore in Afghanistan”

“More and more strength to those women and other vulnerable groups that are mustering for their rights in Afghanistan right now.” This is likely to be the wish of progressives everywhere. The enormity of their courage could be gauged from the fact that they are in direct confrontation with the Taliban who are no champions of fundamental rights. Now more than ever before, women’s organizations the world over and international progressive opinion need to rally round these protesting sections in Afghanistan.

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USA’s Bungling-Programmes in Afghanistan

“Double Eagle’s” Serial Commentary 

ONE

Even as the Vice-President with Obama, Biden was opposed to keeping US troops in Afghanistan. When Obama supported the Army’s request for a troop surge in 2009, VP Biden strongly opposed it. It is also known that most Americans did not want their soldiers and airmen to remain in that country after Bin Laden was taken out.

Biden made the announcement in May this year, that he will pull out all US troops by the end of August. His desire was to complete the withdrawal before Sep 2021 (the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 attacks on the USA).

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Taliban Ban? No More Music in Afghanistan?

ONE = A Celebrated Afghan School Fears the Taliban Will Stop the Music

“The Afghanistan National Institute of Music became …”

Item in NY Times [whihc demands payment for access !]

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Qadri Ismail’s Challenging Essay: An Iconoclastic Hurrah!

Qadri Ismail, in Groundviews in 2015 with this title “The Import Of Sri Lankan Muslim Names”

My name is Mohamed Qadri Ismail. Mohamed Qadri Ismail is not my name.

The statements may prompt a wtf. (The acronym, btw, of the World Taekwondo Federation.) Surely one cannot affirm a position and its contradiction. Yet I do.  The second sentence doesn’t necessarily negate the first.

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A Death-Bed Declamation in Grief from Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe in September 1983

Text of the final Pastoral Letter written by the Anglican Bishop of Kurunegala, Rt. Rev. L Wickremasinghe, in September 1983 after the July 1983 Violence ……  [Bishop Lakshman passed away some weeks after this on October 23rd 1983] ………….. from http://dbsjeyaraj.com 28 July 2021, 9:28 pm

“The Tragedy is that it is Becoming Harder in 1983 for Sinhala Christians to Acknowledge that what was done is a GREATER Moral Crime than in 1958” …………….. Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe

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