Category Archives: IDP camps

May 20, 2021 · 5:50 am

Lord Naseby on Global Britain and Its Sri Lanka Relations

House of Lords: The Rt Hon Lord Michael Naseby spoke in the Queen’s Speech Debate on Wednesday May 19, 2021 …. [with highlighting emphais here being the work of The Editor, Thuppahi]

My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech. My comments will be on global Britain, specifically the Indo-Pacific tilt. My own background is that I have lived and worked in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and I know the rest of ASEAN quite well. I will specifically address Sri Lanka, and I declare an interest as joint chair of the All-Party Group (on Sri Lanka).

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February 25, 2021 · 6:19 am

A German Scholar’s Incisive Review of the Western Powers’ Treatment of Sri Lanka, 2009-21

Mathias Keitle, a German scholar from Statalendorf ++

Sri Lanka eliminated a dreaded terrorist group, with intricate global links, but receives little credit for it! Unlike elsewhere in the world, Sri Lanka has succeeded in resettling 300,000 IDPs (Internal Displaced Persons). There are no starving children for the NGOs to feed but this gets ignored!

Sri Lanka has avoided mass misery, epidemics and starvation, but the West takes no notice of this. Sri Lanka has attained enviable socio-economic standards for a developing country while eliminating terrorism but gets no
acknowledgement.

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March 31, 2020 · 6:46 am

FOR Sri Lanka: Engaging Lord Naseby and His Journeys in Sri Lanka

Michael Roberts

Since I had been introduced to the British peer Lord Michael Naseby in the surrounds of the House of Lords in March 2018,[1] I assumed that he had been born into the aristocratic upper layer of British society. Wrong. It required his book Sri Lanka for me to learn that he was from the upper middle class and had contested parliamentary seats from the late-960s on behalf of the Conservative Party in what were Labour strongholds – with his peerage being of 1990s vintage. As vitally, his early career as a marketing executive had seen him working in Pakistan and Bengal in the early 1960s before he was stationed in Sri Lanka as a marketing manager for Reckitt and Colman in the period 1963-64.

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December 13, 2019 · 10:08 am

Gerald Peiris’s Review in 2014 of the Literature on the Death Counts during the Final Stage of Eelam War IV

  Gerald H Peiris, presenting a review article in February 2014, which is pertinent to claims TODAY. The original title runs as “Encountering ‘Death Counts’ in the Final Phase of the Eelam War” …. and appeared in both http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=97232 …. And also at https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/encountering-death-counts-in-the-final-phase-of-the-eelam-war/ …. where it drew 77 comments with the last violent chauvinist ‘gunshot’ being on 17th February 2014 (see below)

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October 4, 2019 · 10:57 am

Dr Susiri Weerasekera: A Man for All Seasons

Michael Roberts

A chance finding of an old article that I had written on “dedicated medical work” on both sides of the battlefront during the last stages of the war brought vibrant memories of Dr Susiri Weerasekera into my mind. Getting to know him well after I visited the Friend-in-Need Society opposite the Gangarama at Colpetty in mid-2010, I can assure all readers that he was a man to have alongside one in adversity. We became warm friends over the years.[1] My admiration for his dedication towards humankind, his industry, patriotism and sagacity is unbounded. He is alive still I believe; but I write in the past tense because he lapsed into a state non compos mentis about two years back and I find it distressing even to seek information on his state of body and mind.

This is a valedictory memorial in several parts.

Dr Weerasekera standing 2nd from right facing us with a visiting dignitary at the FINS buildng

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September 17, 2019 · 4:25 am

Narendran’s Evaluation of the IDP Camps in August 2009

Narendran Rajasingham, in TamilWeek, 30 August 2009** … where the title is “Internally displaced persons: The new front of an old war in Sri Lanka”

Since the defeat of the LTTE on 18th May’ 2009 at Nandikadal, the issue of the 300,000 ‘Internally Displaced persons (IDPs)’ has become the new front to fight an old war.  People who have not been to the IDP camps in Chettikulam have been very vociferous in condemning the conditions and the very existence of these camps.  Objective reports based on contextual realities by those who have visited these camps and talked to a cross section of the IDPs are dismissed as propaganda on behalf of the government. Other reports of those who visited these camps, but have highlighted problems that fit in with the agenda of those fighting in the new front, are gobbled up with glee. The reports of those who have not visited these camps and are relying on second hand information and photographs, are accepted as the gospel truth. The desire to condemn and use the situation as an opportunity to continue the old Eelam agenda under a new guise is overwhelmingly obvious.

Rajasingham et al with General Gunaratne  young IDPs at school –Pic deployed in TamilWeek

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September 16, 2019 · 2:28 pm

A Tamil Diaspora Delegation Evaluates the Situation faced by the Northern Tamils in early April 2009

This tiny cluster of Tamil personnel came from Australia, Germany, UK and Dubai and were clearly not enmeshed in the tales predominant in the LTTE networks abroad.  Though Dr Narendran Rajasingham was working in Saudi Arabia at this point of time, note that he had a house in Colombo and stronger roots in the island than the others (as far as I can work out). This report, it seems, appeared first in German in ”LTTE watch” (see the Google reference —  https://lttewatch.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/ltte-ist-immun-gegen-internationalen-druck/). To stress this flavour’, the last section is also repeated in Deutsch.

Internally displaced people reach the camps in the hope of returning to their villages and homes soon. Photos from Rukmal Gamage

Manjula Fernando in April 13, 2009• lttewatch

Most issues that have plagued Tamils ​​thirty years ago have become irrelevant. Security, law and justice are the most important issues now. The people of the north are ready for political change. If you talk to people in Jaffna, they will tell you that they no longer want the LTTE in their vicinity.

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September 13, 2019 · 10:10 am

Dr Narendran Rajasingham: A Tamil Sri Lankan Indomitable and Sincere

 Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 13  September 2019, where it has a different title

This NOTE is a felicitation of Dr Rajasingham Narendran – a presentation that is long overdue. Narendran was a graduate from Peradeniya University’s Agriculture Faculty, a food scientist with international expertise who was also a fearless advocate for the Sri Lankan Tamil peoples circumscribed within a firm Sri Lankan perspective. He stood for truth in reportage and brought a clinical mind to the appraisal of horrendous circumstances – among them the decomposition of dead bodies in war-torn locales. Continue reading →

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August 20, 2019 · 5:34 pm

UN Aid Workers in the Crucible of War, 1989-92: William Clarance’s Fascinating Account

Michael Roberts, in SOUTH ASIA¸ Sept 2008, 31: 394-96 reviewing Ethnic Warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis (London: Pluto Press, and Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2007), 296 pp.

This is an unusual book and essential reading for those interested in the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. William Clarance was head of UNHCR’s relief mission in Sri Lanka from 1989 to 1992. He kept a diary and has waited until he had left the arena of international administration before recounting his riveting experiences in the field. 

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April 2, 2019 · 3:22 pm

A Bibliography from TAMIL PERSON and STATE

Michael Roberts

TAMIL PERSON and STATE. PICTORIAL appeared in 2014 in Colombo under the imprint of Vijitha Yapa Publications. …. ISBN  978-955-665-231-4. The biliography probably covers most of the articles in the companion piece, TAMIL PERSON and STATE. ESSAYS; but it is possible that there are other bibliographical items listed at the end of each article in ESSAYS. Though new material on Eelam War IV continues to turn up all the time, my present research led me to consult the works listed in these volumes and reminded me of material I had forgotten about. I believe that assiduous readers and investigators will find it useful to have the listing at their digital fingertips: hence its reproduction here.

ALSO SEE

* http://thuppahis.com/2014/09/15/tamil-person-and-state-pictorial-images-listed/

* http://thuppahis.com/2014/09/14/tamil-person-and-state-essays/

LRTTE Pic 50 in TPS. Pictorial –presenting senior LTTE commanders –probably circa 2003/05. Continue reading →

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