The Opening Ceremony for the MURALI HARMONY CUP was launched on 7th September at the newly-built IODR Oval in the little northern town of Oddusuddan in Mullaitivu Province, an area that was in the thick of fighting in 2008/09 during Eelam War IV. This cricket ground and its facilities were constructed in just 33 days by the Sri Lanka Army. 
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Category Archives: life stories
Harshula’s Useful Blog Comment on the Stoush between Suvendrini Perera and Mark Davis of SBS
Harshula, 3 September 2012, courtesy of Groundviews **
Tamil asylum seekers–Pic by Chris Aria
Context: the SBS Dateline documentary on asylum seekers, Sunday night 26 August 2012
Mark Davis
1. I have asked Western journalists, including Australians, about their experiences covering Sri Lanka. The general feeling is regardless of what they write/say there will be someone that complains. The enthusiastic elements within the Tamil Eelam lobby and anti-Eelam groups shout quite loudly and frequently, sometimes irrationally and/or disingenuously. This is particularly true in Australia. One wonders whether Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka will reconcile before the Sri Lankans in Sydney!
2. The LTTE was never proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Australia even though two Australian Prime Ministers attempted it. In the first instance NGOs fought against it.
3. I have asked Australians about their level of interest in Sri Lanka. Most could not care less. Sri Lanka is a cricket team first and, now, a source of asylum seekers that arrive on boats.
4. The asylum seeker issue is heavily politicised and controversial in Australia. The arrival of asylum seekers by boat seems to create more anger than those arriving by plane. The Tamil Eelam lobby recently offered to pay for the journey of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers to Australia. (http://expertpanelonasylumseekers.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/public-submissions/TamilsAgainstGenocide.pdf) Continue reading
Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, historical interpretation, immigration, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, people smugglers, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, tolerance, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Betwixt Isles: The Story of the Kandyan Prisoners in Mauritius
Raja C. Bandaranayake
A combination of cunning interlopers, scheming aliens and factious in-fighting among the nobility brought about the downfall of the KandyanKingdom at the hands of the British, on 14th February 1815, after an uninterrupted history of over three centuries. The sense of bewilderment and resignation of the Kandyan peasantry soon gave way to one of frustration, as they observed their traditions being gradually eroded by the conquerors, and the lack of respect shown to their religious leaders and erstwhile chiefs. The time was ripe for the some of the nobility to assert their authority. The British lost no time in crushing the resulting rebellion of 1817-1818. Their troops ruthlessly and unashamedly devastated Kandyan villages. Rebel leaders were captured or surrendered. While many were executed, some had their sentences commuted to banishment. Continue reading
The White Australia Policy, Ceylonese Burghers and Alice Nona
Earl Forbes, courtesy of The Ceylankan, vol. 59/3 August 2012
World War II (the War) ended in August 1945. For nearly six years the world was thrown into hitherto unseen turmoil and carnage, culminating in decimation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States of America emerged from the War relatively unscathed. Other than the bombing of Pearl Harbour, the war was not fought in the United States or its Territories. Europe was badly battle scarred and had to redraw its boundaries and reconstruct as a first priority. But more so than anywhere else, the big picture was soon to change radically in Greater Asia. In 1947, India gained Independence from Britain. Very early in the next year, Sri Lanka followed attaining independent status on 4th February 1948. Singapore and Malaysia were now free of Japanese occupation and moving towards greater self-government and independence from Britain. Indonesia unilaterally declared independence after nearly 300 years of Dutch rule; and so history making events occurred, one after another.
Post World War II — Australia’s population strategy: Australia had just come out of the War and, despite being on the winning side, there was an air of apprehension about. There was the realisation that a vast country, with a wealth of natural resources and a relatively small population, was an easy target for any predatory power. The Japanese had displayed their imperialistic ambitions during the War. They had been in Papua New Guinea; on Australia’s doorstep. Also, home soil, (viz. Darwin) had been under air attack. The Japanese were defeated but other predators in the region were about. The all important question was: “how was Australia to meet such a threat in the long term”? Continue reading
Dilemmas and Aspirations of Postcolonial Buddhists and Christians in Sri Lanka
FAITHING THE NATIVE SOIL: Dilemmas and Aspirations of Postcolonial Buddhists and Christians in Sri Lanka by Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi
Abstract: This book critically surveys the history of the Buddhist-Christian presence, its development, ecclesiastical repositioning and the socio-political arrangements within a staunch Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka’s post independence polity. My analysis includes Christian mission theories and strategies mobilised by the churches. These are central, because they were used as a prototype for contact with those outside the churches. The churches deployed such theories to define the ‘other’ in order to expand and determine their self-understanding both theologically and as structured institutions. Continue reading
“Sri Lanka Is Ripe For Reconciliation,” says Sri Lanka Unites
Chrishanthi Christopher, in the Sunday Leader, 5 Sept. 2012 … also see http://www.sikaram.lk/%E0%AE%86%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%81-%E0%AE%8E%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%A4/
Sri Lanka is ripe for reconciliation and the opportunity for a better future is in the hands of the youth of this country. They need to be told a different story from the one that has become so entrenched in the minds of the older generations, says Sri Lanka Unites (SLU), a reconciliation movement lead by a core team of young professionals drawn from all ethnic religious backgrounds. The group says old stereotypes must be shed and a new spirit of cooperation and understanding must be forged ahead in order to achieve permanent reconciliation among the ethnic groups of this country. Continue reading
Lankan Tamil refugees in India and their repatriation
IRIN News item, 30 August 2012
T
The Sri Lankan government is to step up efforts to repatriate more Sri Lankan refugees from India next year. “In 2013, we will address the repatriation of Sri Lankan refugees living in southern India,” Sri Lanka’s Minister of Resettlement Gunaratne Weerakoon told IRIN in Colombo. According to Indian government figures, there are more than 100,000 Sri Lankans in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, including 68,000 in 112 government-run camps and 32,000 outside the camps.
The government is keen to welcome thousands of ethnic Tamil Sri Lankan refugees home after two and a half decades, Weerakoon said, noting, however, that Colombo’s current priority is the resettlement of those who were internally displaced in the final stages of the decades-long civil war which ended in May 2009. Continue reading
The one and only family ….. The rise and rise of Basil Rajapaksa
Kath Noble, in The Island, 29 August 2012
The rise of Basil Rajapaksa has been rapid to say the least. Having spent years out of the country pursuing other interests, his return to support his brother’s presidential campaign was unexpected. Even more surprising was the popular backing he managed to acquire within a very short period in an unfamiliar district – he recorded the highest number of preferences in Gampaha in the 2010 parliamentary election, about as many as the next three candidates combined.
He is projected as a man who gets things done. The idea is that he will do for the economy what Gotabhaya did in terms of security, with Mahinda Rajapaksa being the figurehead who holds it all together. The family brand is now so strong that people either love them or hate them. It is perhaps understandable that Mahinda Rajapaksa is so obsessed with his family. Politicians adore power and want to hang onto it for as long as possible, and in this region in particular one means of extending their period of influence is to promote their relatives, lining them up for eventual succession. Continue reading
Channel Seven’s Documentary on Asylum-Seekers from Lanka exposes New Angles but blunders with Kamahl
Michael Roberts
“Boat after boat after boat …. Tim Noonan has just returned from Sri Lanka where thousands of people are still trying to get to Australia illegally…. As we go to air tonight more boatloads are readying themselves for the perilous journey.”[i]These are the dramatic opening lines in the video documentary presented by CHANNEL SEVEN in Australia on its primetime “Today Tonight” 6.30 show on Sunday 19th August – indelible words set against an initial backdrop provided by the massed drummers and elephants participating in the dramatic Äsēla Perahära in Kandy [which had absolutely nought to do with the topic]. Viewers are also told at an early stage that so far 49 boats with 2369 Sri Lankans have reached Australia this year.[ii]
Pic from Christian Science Monitor
Founded upon the film-work and investigations by Tim Noonan in Sri Lanka, Channel Seven’s documentary surpasses most of the previous media coverage in Australia in its relative comprehensiveness. Do watch the video on http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/. Continue reading
Taming the Tigers of Sri Lanka’s bloody past
Dinoo Kelleghan, in The Weekend Australian, 25 August 2012
Two former female Tigers prepare for a mass wedding ceremony in 2010 – Pic in The Australian
AT the next Olympics, one of the shooters selected to represent Sri Lanka could be a former sniper of the Tamil Tiger terrorists, once trained to kill Sri Lankans. A member of the swimming squad could be an ex-member of the Sea Tiger suicide cadre. Their rehabilitation into athletes training to represent the state they once tried to bring down is the culmination of an extraordinary journey of hope by both sides of the 30-year civil war that ended in 2009, although there remain deep-seated problems about the government’s reluctance to accede to calls for a political solution involving autonomy for Tamils. Critics, moreover, say the rehabilitation process – into which millions of dollars of foreign aid has been poured – is a poisoned well because the military is in charge. Continue reading
