Michael Roberts
As the Sri Lankan cricket team embarks on a short tour of Australia, I remind one and all of a sturdy supporter from within the ranks of the cricketing world in Australia whose premature death in December 2012 was a loss to one and all. A South African who played cricket for England, Tony became Kerry Packer’s right-hand man during the revolutionary World Series cricket[1] on the 1970s (which new generations must study) ….. and made Sydney his home.
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Chandre Dharmawardana, in Island, 29 October 2019, where the title is “The ITAK’s 13-Point Letter””
According to news reports in The Island of 18 Oct. 2019), the TNA has sent a 13-point to the presidential candidates, even though the prospective President has been shackled by the 19A crafted by the Jayampathy-Sumanthiran cabal. It should not be forgotten that parties constituting the TNA backed the LTTE in its heyday and were the political facades of Prabhakaran’s terror campaign, even though their very own colleagues like Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran had been murdered in cold blood by Prabhakaran. Those acts have never been condemned by the TNA.
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Rajeewa Jayaweera, in Sunday Island, 20 October 2019, with this title “Mendacious Presidential contenders”
A record number of 41 candidates have paid deposits to contest the November 16 presidential poll. It is a foregone conclusion; no more than five candidates will receive over 100,000 votes. The leading presidential contenders, Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR), Sajith Premadasa (SP), and Anura Kumara Dissanayaka (AKD), have kicked off their campaigns with rallies at Galle Face, Anuradhapura, and Thambuttegama respectively.
They spew the same old falsehoods, fabrications, and deceptions similar to those of their predecessors. The Sri Lankan born world’s first female Prime Minister in 1970 promised to bring rice even from the moon!
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L.C. Arulpragasam, in Sunday Observer, 13 October 2019, where the title is “The Veddas and the Gal Oya scheme: Ultimate resettlement at Bintenne”
In the Jungles of Bintenne: In 1950 I undertook a sociological survey along with Mr. Kuda Bibile, a University colleague, of the Veddas living in the jungles of Wellassa and Bintenne in the Badulla District of the Uva Province. The only authoritative study of the Veddas at that time had been done by Dr. C. Seligmann, a German anthropologist, in 1911. I carried his heavy tome around with me on my entire journey.
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CA Chandraprema in Sunday Observer 13/10/19
The TNA is facing an existential conundrum at this election. In 2015, they went all out to make the common candidate win and gave all kinds of unrealistic pledges to the Tamil people of the north and east as to what can be expected by making Maithripala Sirisena President. But after he was elected, the Tamil people got nothing of what was promised and instead lost even what they had in the form of all the work that the Rajapaksa government had done or were in the process of doing in the north and east. Understandably, the people of the area are holding the TNA responsible and between the parliamentary election of 2015 and the local government elections of 2018, the TNA’s votes in the Jaffna and Batticaloia districts went down drastically.
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SWR de Samarasinghe
The two major political parties, in the south, have had a long tradition of being managed more like private clubs belonging to a particular family cabal than vital public institutions in a democracy. Whoever happens to be the leader has had an iron grip on the party. There is little inner-party democracy in such a set up. The significance of Sajith Premadasa’s victory over Ranil Wickremesinghe in the fight for the UNF presidential candidacy has to be evaluated against such a background
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Rajasingham Narendran, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 19th May 2009, where the title is “A Response To The President’s Address On Victory Day”
I read with much interest the President’s ‘Victory Day’ speech at the Galle Face Green, yesterday [18th May 2009], reproduced in CT. While I agree with much of his recount of recent history, there are glaring gaps in the story he recalled. Further, he has failed to address the current concerns of the victims his forces liberated, at all. I have selected some sentences and sections from his address to express my concerns.
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Jayantha Somasundaram, in Island, 10 October 2019, with this title “Sri Lanka Army At Seventy: Recalling The First Decade”
Under the terms of the Defence Agreement, signed in November 1947, between London and Colombo, a British officer, the Earl of Caithness was seconded, in 1948, as military advisor to the Government of Ceylon. During World War II, Brigadier James Roderick Sinclair, 19th Earl of Caithness CBE DSO, had led his regiment the Gordon Highlanders, through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and into Germany.
Earl of Caithness
Brigadier Caithness proposed to the Ceylon Government, that the soon-to-be formed Army consist of an infantry battalion, an artillery regiment, signal, supply, ordnance, electrical and mechanical, and medical units; a works services engineering detachment to maintain buildings, a military police section and a training depot. Such a modest military establishment would only require one per cent of total government expenditure, and its personnel would, initially be drawn from the Ceylon Defence Force (CDF), the volunteer Army that had existed since 1910.
Anurudha Kodagoda in Sunday Observer, 6 October 2019, reviewing Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s TEARS IN PARADISE
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s latest documentary film, ‘Tears in Paradise’ (Paradisayaka Kadulu), consists of the political history of Sri Lanka from the assassination of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to the 1983 Black July, emphasizing the dark history of violence released by the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnicity of the country with the patronage of the Sri Lankan Government which was in power at that time.
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Press Release from the ICES at Kandy
The ceremonial launch of two publications of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES, Kandy) titled, respectively, as The Life of D. S. Senanayake (1884-1952): Sri Lanka’s First Prime Minister, by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and its Sinhala version, D.S: Sri Lankaway Prathama Agraamaathya, by Professor K. N. O. Dharmadasa, was held in Kandy on 3 October 2019 in the presence of a large gathering invited by Prof. Upul Dissanayake, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, who sponsored the event in collaboration with the staff of the ICES.
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thuppahi
see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_Tamil_Eelam 