Category Archives: atrocities

About Sharika Thiranagama ……. Today

Rohan Gunaratna  in  FACEBOOK, August 2025

Rohan Gunaratna

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Congratulations to Sri Lankan-born American Anthropologist, Prof. Sharika Thiranagama, on winning the Davidson Prize at Cambridge University, where she was appointed a Scholar of St Johns.

Winner of Stanford University’s “Lifetime award for Academic achievement in Archaeology and Anthropology”, Sharika wrote “In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka” published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2011.

Sharika

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In Memoriam: Vijaya Kumaratunga

DBS Jeyaraj in 2022 at https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=67620 where the title reads “Vijaya Kumaratunga: Charismatic Actor-Politician May Have Changed Nation’s Destiny” …… Posted by Administrator on 21 February 2022, 1:11 am

The political landscape of Sri Lanka seems gloomy and desolate. Most of the actors who strut about the political stage posing as visionaries and leaders are in actuality empty vessels devoid of substance. Proverbial wisdom tells us that empty vessels make most sound. This is most apparent in the cacophony of voices currently prevalent in the polity. In the words of William Butler Yeats “ The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” The positive dream of Sri Lanka evolving into an inclusive, plural nation is slowly turning into a numerical majoritarian hegemonic nightmare.

 Vijaya Kumaratunga in Jaffna

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Is Prabakaran NOT a Hitler! …. Goodness Gracious Me!

Shenali D. Waduge, whose slashing sarcastic essay is entitledLet’s Celebrate Prabakaran & the LTTE’s Glorious Achievements!”  ... with the highlighting being that in  the original item

A tribute to the world’s most misunderstood mass murderer and his liberation-through-terror campaign.

They say greatness demands sacrifice—and Velupillai Prabakaran understood this better than most. He wasn’t content with speeches; he offered the world a blueprint: to build a homeland, first destroy the present; to claim justice, first silence every voice—especially your own people’s; to prove your worth, leave no witness behind. For over three decades, he led with unmatched precision: dismantling democracy, eliminating dissent, recruiting children, and bleeding civilians dry—all while demanding the world call it liberation. Some build nations through unity; he built his with bunkers, landmines, cyanide, and the bones of the innocent. And still, they light candles for him. They hold commemorations in universities. UN officials attend. Foreign parliamentarians give speeches. So, in the spirit of glorifying terror, let’s not just mourn Velupillai Prabakaran—let’s celebrate the man who redefined cruelty and called it Eelam, by honoring every child stolen, every right violated, and every drop of blood shed in his name.

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Chemmani Graves: The Site Today

Map  and Photos supplied by a friend


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Chemmani Graves Site & OCHCR Finds

N. Sathiya Moorthy, in CEYLON TODAY, 1 August 2025,  with this  title “Hundred Not Out” **

For the uninitiated readers of the national media, and possibly the majority Sinhala media, Chemmani may yet to happen. But after weeks of digging up unmarked graves in Northern Jaffna town, Government officials under Court supervision have already taken out over a hundred human skeletons, including those of infants and grown-up children. The numbers are growing with each passing day of digging, which is at times halted for logistics reasons, one should assume.

Yes, only scientific studies would show if they are of recent origin, but the fact that they have been recovered from dig-outs six to eight metres deep may indicate that they are not ancient. Yet, they are historic in their own way, adding heft to the Tamils’ charges that the Armed Forces ruthlessly killed their civilians during the three-decade-long ethnic war – and are yet to be held accountable.

 

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Deciphering Patriotic Devotion: The Japanese in the 1940s & the Lankan Tamil People For the LTTE

Michael Roberts reproducing an article presented in a popular website during the final stages in Eelam War IV in 2008/09 within the context TODAY of a horrendous war-situation in Palestine and its environs — the website being GROUNDVIEWS: …………….. https://groundviews.org/2009/04/21/ltte-and-tamil-people-i-preamble/ ….. This article was just the first essay in a four-part enterprise.**

LTTE and Tamil people, I: preamble,” http://www.groundviews.org, 21 April 2009.

This set of essays on “LTTE and Tamil People” submitted to Groundviews is a sequel to the four articles on “Suicidal Political Action” reproduced in http://www.transcurrents.com from 2 April onwards. Both sets of essays are interconnected and involve a measure of repetition because they are set out as separate articles. All of them are a product of a comparative survey that I embarked on about five years ago: namely, reviewing the cultural ingredients which have motivated the projects of the jihadists (holy warriors) and mujahideen (fighters for cause) on the one hand and, on the other, the

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FIRE AND STORM analyses Sinhala-Tamil Confrontations Over the Decades

Neil Jayasekera introduces FIRE AND STORM by Michael Roberts … printed by Vijitha Yapa Publications in 2010 …. ISBN 978955-665-14-8  ….presenting 28 articles & an Amalgamated Bibliography …. Posted by  Feb 28, 2023 

Unique JewelsAnonymous Reviewer in Sunday Times, 21 July 2013 where the title runs Important contribution towards a dialogue on Lankan polity. Book facts”

When Michael Roberts left Peradeniya in the late seventies, he was part of an exodus of intellectuals from the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, arguably one of the best universities at that time. The exodus of academics at that time was compelled by the economic difficulties faced by university dons. It was the second wave of such emigration that diminished the intellectual life of the university and country.

Unique Jewels

Pirapāharan and leading Tiger Commanders at the Indian sponsored training camp at Sirimalai in 1984

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Cold War Proxies in Conflict: Ceylon & Palestine

Darini Rajasingham Senanayake,** at IDN-InDepthNews,… 24 July 2025, …. being Part II of an extended article with this title “From Ceylon to Palestine: Ethnic Conflict and Its Role in Cold War Proxy Dynamics” …. This is the second of a two-part series. Click here to read part one  .. .. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

There are remarkable patterns of history, organised violence, and disinformation between events leading to the pogrom and forced population displacements in Sri Lanka in 1983, and British occupied Palestine 35 years earlier as the Nakba unfolded amid Cold War escalating in Europe between the Allies and Soviet Union or Axis Powers.

Map indicating locations of Palestine and Sri Lanka. CC BY-SA 4.0 – Photo: 2025

 

 

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Political Complexities in Jaffna & the Killing of Rajani Thiranagama

BEING Chapter 3 of Palmyra Fallen, from Rajani to War’s End, by Rajan Hoole ….. Published 2015 …. a book printed and bound by Global Printing Works, 5 Stork Place, Colombo 10 …. a chapter entitled Some Crucial Pieces of the Jigsaw” … [with the highlights here –– except for those in black — being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi]

 “To everything there is a season…A time to be born and a time to die…A time to weep and a time to laugh: a time to mourn and a time to dance…I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it”- The Book of Ecclesiastes

Dayapala & Rajani Thiranagama in 1984 .. . well before her assassination in late 1989

Dayapala in later years

 

3.1 The Sands Run Out

More recently, we have been able to put together more detailed information about Rajani’s killing. Given that much water has since flowed under the bridge, we felt that while placing the truth about her murder on a record that adequately traces its manner, purpose and the parties involved, it would also be appropriate to bring out a publication that allows today’s reader to see her relevance to the present. As is evident from our account, Rajani’s killing was well planned, mobilising a network of LTTE contacts and agents. Here in Chapter 3, we detail the cold-blooded murder and cover-up by the LTTE and the names of those who were involved at the time. In Chapter 4, we discuss who within the LTTE was involved.

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The Killing of Fr. Saverimuttu Selvarajah in 1990

Ruki Fernando in Groundviews,  11 July 2025, where the title reads “Getting Rid of A Troublesome Priest” ... with the highlighting emphasis being the workd of The Editor, Thuppahi

 

July 11, 2025 marks 35 years since the disappearance of Fr. Saverimuttu Selvarajah, a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Batticaloa. Known as Fr. Selva, he was 30 years at that time and serving as the parish priest and administrator of Holy Cross Shrine in the remote village of Sorikalmunai in the Ampara district.

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