Category Archives: insurrections

November 27, 2023 · 7:05 pm

DIG Jingle Dissanayake’s Report on the JVP in Lanka, 4th November 1974

A NOTE from Michael Roberts, 27 November 2023

This file is among the documentary material under my name in the Special Collections, Barr Smith Library, Adelaide University and Samantha Farnsworth, its chief, sent me a pdf copy  I cannot recall how the original Mss came into my hands. Its pdf format has been converted to Word File by my friend KKS Perera in Lanka. The spacing is erratic and difficult to change. I have resisted the temptation to highlight important details because I do not have adequate background knowledge of the situation in 1972 to 1974 (even though I conducted one or two lectures to JVPers held in the prison camp at Katugastota …… including Gamini Keerawella …… one of my previous History Honours students).

The photographs are my insertions …. and perhaps hit ‘n miss in character .

Wijeweera in rousing flow on platform … & on way to court with his lawyer

 

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October 18, 2023 · 8:23 pm

Scott Ritter at the Coalface of the Catastrophe Unfolding in Gaza and Israel

Michael Roberts …  summarizing some of the points made inan extended interview

Do spend time and digest the video presentation by Scott Ritter in a Q and A SESSION, …. It is a MUST-SEE event….. which also essays home-turuths about the war in Ukraine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6mWeUPj84E

 

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October 2, 2023 · 1:23 pm

The Netherworld of International Espionage: Then … and ???

Fair Dinkum reflecting upon ……………………………………………….. https://thuppahis.com/2023/10/02/international-espionage-of-a-jihadist-flavour/   ………… with the highlights being the Editor, Thuppahi’s insertions

A = I knew about this history, but was aware of the curious perspective taken here with regard to a nexus between global Islam,  India and the Russian revolution. Nonetheless, it is a perspective worth considering as one theory (of many) on  the matter. It’s about Maulana , a founding member of  the Ghadar Party. Not sure if he had much influence on world affairs but….  the tale is interesting in the light of other nationalists such as  Bose and Gandhi. 

Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah …  ubhas Chandra Bose

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September 26, 2023 · 12:37 pm

A Riotous Reading of the India-Sri Lanka World Cup Encounter at Eden Gardens in 1996

John De Silva

I am very surprised to hear people talk about the near riot that occurred at the end of the World Cup Semi Final match between India and Sri Lanka, 13 March 1996. Why are people so quick to jump to conclusions? Why are people not more understanding? Here is what ACTUALLY happened.

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September 18, 2023 · 7:08 pm

USA’s “Global War on Terror” Following 9/11

Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd]: “A global counter-terrorism military campaign initiated by the U.S. in 2001”  ……….. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror, https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/on-the-front-lines-cia-in-afghanistan/, ChatGPT, and Google Images … [with only some photographs 

Introduction:  ……  The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism”” (GWOT), is a global counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is also the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist and Salafi jihadist armed organisations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their international affiliates, which were waging military insurgencies to overthrow governments of various Muslim-majority countries. Other major targets included the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed during an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency

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August 28, 2023 · 7:24 pm

Sinhalese & Tamils Locked in Prejudice?

Michael Roberts 

An interesting chat with Mark LaBrooy in Melbourne on the phoe today induced me to re-visit my old SIGNATURE PIECE on “The Sinhala Mindset” in my Thuppahi site ….. Some of the commentary is as enlightening today as refreshing. That inserted by Jane Russell on 1 March 2012 and Chandre Dharmawardena’s  response  should continue to stimulate our thinking TODAY.

The problems of YESTERDAY still persist today.

Note that Jane is an Oxford graduate who secured her Ph.D in History at Peradeniya under KM de Silva’s supervision in Peradeniya in the 1970s. She has lived for lengthy spells in Sri Lanka since then because of her deep commitment to individuals and places within the land.

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May 19, 2023 · 5:28 pm

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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April 26, 2023 · 10:50 am

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 1980s—Pic 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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April 8, 2023 · 10:25 pm

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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April 8, 2023 · 5:47 pm

The Bumbling-Rambling JVP Insurgency of 1971

Janaka Perera, in The Daily News, 5 April 2023, entitled “Oh What A Lovely War for the Colonels of Ceylon – Remembering the April 1971 insurgency – a reporter’s experience,”   …. With this qualifying Note: “This however is not meant to be a reflection on JVP’s present-day politics but only a brief recording of history.”

April 5th marks the 52nd anniversary of JVP’s April insurgency of 1971. It saw the first armed insurrection in post-independence Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). All legally recognized political parties at the time cooperated with the then Government in suppressing the insurgency since they did not consider it a people’s uprising.

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