Category Archives: life stories

April 10, 2017 · 8:16 am

The Games that the Almighty Play: Syria Now, Sri Lanka Then

Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka, from The Island, 10 April 2017, where the title is “Watching Syria, seeing Sri Lanka” … highlighting in this presentation being my workas Editor …. and with further Commentary and Bibliographic References at the end

It was not easy to watch the proceedings on Friday April 7 that the UN Security Council’s emergency ‘open session’ on Syria without thinking of Sri Lanka, although the actual circumstances of the UN’s engagement with the two countries are very different. Only one thing seemed alarmingly similar. It seemed like a set up. US Ambassador Nikki Haley’s dramatic gesture of holding up photographs of chemical-gassed children only served to bring to mind the now famous theatrical display of a vial of anthrax by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the same venue to warn the Council of the imminent danger that lay before the world from WMDs in Iraq.

Image #: 24024242 Pigeons lie on the ground after dying from what activists say is the use of chemical weapons by forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad in the Damascus suburbs of Arbeen August 24, 2013. Picture taken August 24, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Dar (SYRIA – Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT ANIMALS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) REUTERS /STRINGER /LANDOV

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April 9, 2017 · 4:22 am

Remembering Ravi Jayewardene as Man and Founder of the STF

Item in Sunday Observer, 9 April 2017

Today, Sri Lanka  pays her solemn condolences to the late Ravi Jayewardene. He was a pilot, and later went on to make significant contributions in the corporate sector. Perhaps, the greatest legacy he leaves behind is the Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka Police. He was the daring visionary who used his prudent mind to foresee the need for a specialized unit within the Police Department at that time, in order to engage in counter terrorism operations and mitigate threats to national security.

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April 8, 2017 · 11:04 am

A Moderate Tamil Voice of Reason in London 2013 — Pertinent Today

Rob Pinney from London, United Kingdom. May 18th, 2013…. http://tropicaltopix.tumblr.com/post/50977301878/read-the-entire-post-here-robpinney-london … With sections and highlighting inserted by Editor, Thuppahi

It really bothers me that the protest of ‘Tamils… gathered around photographs of those killed during the Sri Lankan civil war’ is being symbolized by people carrying the LTTE flag. Anyone who protests that massacres of Tamils in 2009 should by no means do so under the Tiger flag. In 2009, the Tigers forced innocent Tamil civilians to remain in the Vanni – under pain of death. When I was working in the Vanni, I began to truly sympathize with the Tamils who stayed behind in Sri Lanka. They lost EVERYTHING under the Tigers and the GoSL.Tamil protesters gather around photographs of those killed during the Sri Lankan civil war.

 Thousands of Tamils march through central London to commemorate those killed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war and to call on Prime Minister David Cameron to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, to be held on Colombo in November 2013…..(© Rob Pinney / www.robpinney.com) Continue reading →

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April 8, 2017 · 1:38 am

Mangala’s Testicles in a Selfie-Twist

Lasanda Kurrukulasuriya, courtesy of Daily Mirror, 5 April 2017 where her chosen title is “Geneva resolution is about prosecutions, not reconciliation”… so the Thuppahi title is an Editorial Imposition.

After the UN Human Rights Council 34th session ended in Geneva, the US said it introduced three resolutions that were adopted with ‘broad cross regional support.’ The list included Resolution 34/1 on Sri Lanka.  The statement says that ‘Sri Lanka was one of the 47 co-sponsors’ of Resolution 34/1. This assertion is extremely disingenuous, if it is made on the basis that the resolution was adopted without a vote in the 47-member HRC. How could any member state of the HRC or friend of Sri Lanka be expected to raise its voice against the resolution when Sri Lanka itself had submitted to co-sponsoring it?

  SNAIL AS TESTESMANGALA

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April 6, 2017 · 1:40 pm

The War Dead in Sri Lanka: Deceit and Ignorance Rule the Air Waves

      Both these images are from TamilNet and were part of the extensive stock sent to me in 2009/10 by “Citizen Silva” aka IDAG. The first is dated 6 April 2009 and the second 28 April 2009

ONE = Michael Roberts: “Introduction”

When I presented an essay on  “Missing Persons” in Groundviews in March 2013 the reactions were, as usual, mixed and included a derisive dismissal from one “Velu Balendran”.[1] However, one individual named Nathan inserted a dose of common sense and also introduced readers – as well as myself – to a pertinent article by two Indians, Ajay Sahni & S. Binodkumar Singh in the Indian magazine Outlook.

I do not know Nathan and where he resides, but am deeply grateful to him. As I am now returning to this topic, I believe that readers should be introduced to his brief thoughts and be led to the article he recommended. I will thereafter insert key bibliographic references on the topic from my original essay and its companion piece; while also embellishing this ‘compendium’ with images that provide a glimpse of the context and assorted outcomes in indelible ways beyond words.

TWO = Nathan, 1 April 2013, extract from http://groundviews.org/2013/03/28/a-missing-person-in-sri-lanka-heartfelt-issues-ground-realities/

It’s a shame that people have failed to read and grasp the thrust of Dr Michael Robert’s article . Continue reading →

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April 5, 2017 · 2:50 pm

The JVP and Rajapaksa in Vidyodaya Politics, 1970s: Recollections

Chandre Dharmawardana …. [1] … [2]

Some of what I remember from the period that Mahinda Rajapaksa was at Vidyodaya University as a library assistant is as follows.  S. B. Dissanayake[3] was the leader of the Communist Party in the Campus at Vidyodaya University, now known as Jayawardenapura University. He asserted his power as soon as he became the student leader by launching a strike at the Hostel on a food issue. It was just a show of power because in fact the food was quite up to par.  Mahinda Wijesekera,[4] his brother and a Buddhist Monk were JVP leaders who were trying to flex their muscles. Mahinda Wijesekera was in the science faculty while S. B. Dissanayake was a student in the Business Administration Department.

Mahinda in his Vidyodaya days with friend Anura Dias B  at a pirit ceremony Continue reading →

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April 5, 2017 · 1:56 pm

Bloody Memories: The JVP Insurrection 1971

Zahrah Imtiaz,  courtesy of Daily News, 5 April 2017, where the title reads “Sanguinary Memories: JVP Insurgence of 1971”

“The decision taken by the nine senior members of the JVP when they met at the Sangaramaya Temple of the Vidyodaya University on April 2, 1971, was to capture State power by attacking all the police stations in the country on the night of April 5, 1971.”– “Rohan Gunaratna: Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? The Inside story of the JVP”

 From Prasad Premarathne… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKN82MSCutg

The plan was simple, the orders had come and all they had to do was to execute it. Rohana Wijeweera, the charismatic leader of the JVP was in prison in Jaffna, and via a message sent through Lal Somasiri, he had asked that, “Posters should be published and leaflets distributed calling for his release, and in the case of an attack, 500 comrades should be sent to Jaffna to secure his release.” He had also stated, “If you cannot obtain my release legally, you may create an island-wide struggle throughout the country and then send 500 men”. Continue reading →

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April 4, 2017 · 2:37 pm

Rendering Sinhala Poetry Fertile — Ranjini Obeyesekere

Laleen Jayamanne, in a review article, Sunday Island, 2 April 2017, where the title is “Sinhala Poetry Translated by Ranjini Obeyesekere”

Ranjini Obeyesekere has brought together a wide-ranging translation of Sinhala poetry making it accessible to an English-speaking readership. This in itself is an admirable achievement. While the book includes a cluster of poems from the older folk tradition, the majority of poems span the 20th century. The volume is attractive in that the layout, with its generous spacing of the stanzas, allows the poems to breathe with great amplitude. Poetry, as the art of suggestion and in direction, which abandons the functional, instrumental, rationalist use of language, is allowed the silences and pacing (spacing) that are so important to it. Vijitha Yapa Publishing should be commended for its sensitivity to form and for the quality of this volume of poetry – it feels good to hold this book and turn its pages. Continue reading →

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April 3, 2017 · 2:41 am

Point Pedro Institute of Development: Its Academic Ouput

SELECTED PAST PEER REVIEWED SCHOLARLY KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS OF THE PPID

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Jeyapraba Suresh & Anushani Alagarajah, 2017, “Feminism, nationalism, and labour in post-civil war Northern Province of Sri Lanka”, Development in Practice, 27:1, 122-128.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2017.1283785
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2017.1257566

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, 2016, “Elusive Economic Peace Dividend: all that glitters is not gold”, GeoJournal, 81:4, 571-596. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, 2015, “Impediments to Women in Post-Civil War Economic Growth in Sri Lanka”, South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management, Special Issue on Gender (in)equalities in South Asia, 2:1, 12-36. http://hrm.sagepub.com/content/2/1/12?etoc

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April 2, 2017 · 11:46 am

The Historian’s Craft via Lakshman Perera’s Deciphering of Lanka’s Ancient Inscriptions

Sudharshan Seneviratne, reviewing Lakshman S. Perera: The Institutions of Ancient Ceylon from Inscriptions, (from 3rd Century BC to 830 AD) Volume I ….. with Introduction and supplementary notes by Sirima Kiribamunne and Piyatissa Senanayake, ICES, Kandy 2001, … 322 pages … reviewed in http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/cult/45.htm

 

The Antecedents: My first encounter with the historian was in 1974 when I visited the University library at Peradeniya as a postgraduate student. It was never a formal introduction – not even a personal meeting. Yet, it was close enough for me to admire the man and his work. The silent space afforded by the Ceylon Room at Peradeniya was ideally suited for a dialogue with the past. I reached out to the past through the volumes of a doctoral thesis – so immaculately completed a year before I was born! Page after page three volumes of information unfolded a dimension hitherto less known in the history of Sri Lanka. This study I thought, will always remain as a testimony to the ‘historian’s craft’ (apologies to Marc Bloch) so purposefully executed by a scholar with a sober perception to the study of history. Continue reading →

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