Category Archives: life stories

August 14, 2012 · 1:36 am

Nanda Godage, Envoy to Malaysia, recalled — an appalling act

From the New Straits Times, where the title is different: http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/sri-lanka-recalls-its-envoy-to-kl-1.124368

SRI Lankan High Commissioner to Malaysia K. Godage has been recalled to Colombo after falling afoul of his External Affairs Ministry over a seemingly sympathetic ear to pro-Tamil Sri Lankan groups here. The 76-year-old veteran diplomat is expected to leave for home at the end of the month, just eight months after being called out of a 15-year retirement to be posted here. He has sent a strongly-worded letter of appeal to External Affairs Minister Prof G.L. Peiris, who is seen to be the prime mover behind his sacking by raising the matter with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In his letter published on a blog called dbsjeyaraj.com, Godage said he “cannot quite believe it that you, of all people, had me ‘recalled’. Continue reading →

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August 12, 2012 · 5:10 am

Mohammed Farah STRIDES and STRIKES – for Muslims & for Multi-Culturalism in Britain … and the world

Michael Roberts, 12 August 2012

As Mohamed Farah was about to breast the tape as winner during the pulsating 5000-metres finish at the London Olympics, he gave thanks to Allah in Muslim fashion. Here then was a humble Somali Briton who had embraced his new country and gained from its openness, but one who remained attached to his heritage.

His victory was an unprecedented moment in world athletic history: no man had won the gruelling 10,000-metre and 5,000-metre races back to back at any Olympics. The momentous battle for victory over the last 150 metres of the 5,000 metres was a stirring moment in itself as IGuider of Morocco ran out of puff and faded but Gebremeskel of Ethiopia strode strong and looked set to overtake Mo farah who somehow found the reserves to maintain his loping stride and reach the tape a clear winner if two yards can be that. Continue reading →

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Filed under cultural transmission, ethnicity, life stories, patriotism, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes

August 12, 2012 · 3:16 am

Rohan Gunaratna on people smuggling networks and migration impulses

Rohan Gunaratna in Q and A with Manjula Fernando, Sunday Observer, 12 August 2012

Q: You were the first to raise alarm bells of a secret ship loaded with hundreds of Lankan illegal immigrants heading to Canada from Thailand in 2009. After a couple of ships the flow of sea migrants to Canada stopped but Australia is facing a bigger issue now. Hundreds of people are arrested every month by the Sri Lankan Navy while trying to set sail. Nothing has proved successful so far in discouraging these perilous sea voyages. Why?

A: The LTTE operated MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea arrived in Canada with 76 and 492 Sri Lankans in 2009 and 2010. Launched from Thailand, both these ventures were organised by the LTTE leadership in Canada and the UK. The earned several million dollars from these two ventures. Since then the LTTE human smuggling networks operating out of Thailand have been disrupted by the Thai, Canadian and Australian authorities. The initial waves of human smuggling ventures were guided by the LTTE operatives in the West. Today, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lankan criminals are directing human smuggling ventures. With human smugglers charging Rs. 700,000 to Rs. 1.2 million, a boat with 50 passengers will generate US $ 500,000. Continue reading →

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August 11, 2012 · 2:42 pm

UN praises resettlement work in Lanka, but laments donor funding shortages

Courtesy of Daily Mirror, August 2012

 John Ging, UNOCHA

A top UN official yesterday praised the progress made by the Sri Lankan Government in resettling over 440,000 people since the end of the civil war three years ago, and called for continued donor support for the country, where many people still lack basic services. “The scale of what Sri Lanka has accomplished over the past three years – the pace of resettlement and the development of infrastructure – is remarkable and very clearly visible,” the UN News Center said quoting the Director of Operations of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, who just finished a three-day visit to the country. Continue reading →

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Filed under life stories, population, rehabilitation, Tamil civilians, UN reports, welfare & philanthophy, world affairs

August 11, 2012 · 11:36 am

Deported from Britain: back to ‘duress’ or ordinariness in Sri Lanka?

Michael Roberts, 11 August 2012 .. This essay supercedes all other versions of this article in other sites.

When the crisis story of Dayan Anthony’s deportation to Sri Lanka by the Australian federal authorities hit the headlines in late July the so-called FACTS retailed by the reporters of the Australian and Ian Rintoul, as spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, were riddled with discrepancies.[i]They also believed his relatives’ claim that Anthony had been tortured when originally arrested in 2009.[ii]Rintoul added that “other Sri Lankans who have been forcibly sent back to Sri Lanka have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned” (Amanda Hodge & Stuart Rintoul 2012).

The Australian the media men and women seemed unaware that (a) a number of Tamil refugees who had been in southern India for decades had been returning to Sri Lanka in the last three years;[iii]and (b) that Britain had deported a considerable number between 2009 and 2011, normally using chartered planes for the purpose. Such a horrendous lapse highlights the insular world in which the majority of Australian journalists seem to repose. Continue reading →

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August 10, 2012 · 12:50 am

Ex-LTTE conscripts to benefit from new programme of CDF recruitment

Pradeep Seneviratne for Khabar South Asia in Colombo

 A former member of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) looks back during a reintegration ceremony last fall in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government has invested Rs 300 million ($2.3 million) in rehabilitation career training and trade programmes for ex-LTTE cadres. [Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters]

In 2006, as he prepared to complete his high school education, Kanthasami Sathikumaran was abducted from Mullaitivu, his home town in Northern Province, and forced into conscription by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) during their desperate fight against advancing government troops. Sathikumaran was lucky enough to survive the onslaught. Along with his remaining LTTE cadres, he surrendered to security forces in 2009 at war’s end. He was rehabilitated at a centre in Vavuniya and reunited with his father, mother and two younger sisters in 2010.  Finding employment, however, has not been easy.  “We must get proper work. We did not intend to join the LTTE and waste our youthful lives,” Sathikumaran, now 22, told Khabar South Asia. “We were forced to join the organisation.” Continue reading →

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August 9, 2012 · 9:19 am

Duncan White: Trinitian, Olympian, Ceylonese

Anonymous Author **

This is the third occasion the Olympic Games will be held in the City of London. The first was in 1908 and the second was in 1948. The 1948 Games of the XIXth Olympiad was of significant importance to Sri Lanka as it was the year that Ceylon, as it was known then, obtained Independence from the British Empire. At this Games Ceylon was blessed with an Olympic Silver medal by Duncan White as a reward for this accomplishment of gaining Independence to the country.

 

Duncan had his early education at Trinity College, Kandy, where he received Trinity’s coveted ‘Lion’ even before gaining his school ‘colours’ for Duncan’s record breaking performances at the Public Schools Championships. He left Trinity College in 1937 and was commissioned to the Ceylon Light Infantry in 1942. Continue reading →

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August 7, 2012 · 4:54 am

To Italy! To Italy! Once upon a Time!

Bernardo Brown, courtesy of Groundviews, where it was posted on 2nd August with the title: “Undocumented Sri Lankan Migration to Italy: Its Rise and Fall”

While Australia is currently the preferred destination of these smuggled migrants, Italy was one of the major destinations in the past. While the points of departure of these boats also seem to be different today, there are some useful lessons to be learned from incidents of human smuggling in recent Sri Lankan history. Allow me to briefly sketch out the origins of Sri Lankan mass illegal migration to Italy. Towards the late-1990s, people from across the island and of all ethnic backgrounds considered Italy as a potential destination for labor migration. However, this transnational migratory flow to Italy had initially been almost monopolized by Catholic youth from the western seaboard. Virtually all of these young men who sought to relocate to Italian cities as an alternative to working with their families in the fishing industry came from smaller towns like Negombo, Wennappuwa and Chilaw, all located to the north of Colombo. Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 3:52 pm

Analysing Mathusa Sivajalingham’s testimony as Tamil asylum seeker

Michael Roberts

Dinouk Columbage of the Sunday Leader revealed commendable initiative on an earlier occasion in meeting and interviewing a Lankan involved in people smuggling. He has recently met and interviewed a Tamil woman, Mathusah Sivajalingham who had been among those on a trawler with asylum-seekers which had been impounded by the SL Navy. Her testimony, supported by the concerns of another Tamil lady whose son had reached Christmas Island, provides invaluable information on facets of the migration process and particularly about the motivations of Tamil Lankans seeking greener pastures today in 2012. Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 10:31 am

Mathusha Sivajalingham: a failed boat person

Dinouk Columbage, in The Sunday Leader, 5 August 2012, where the title reads “Post War – The Cries Of The Desperate And Destitute”

 “Overcrowded and often unseaworthy vessels are the only options for the hundreds looking to flee the poverty in Sri Lanka ‘ –caption and Pic from Sunday Leader  … but note that this boat appears to be a multi-day trawler with capability of the sort exemplified in the article by Bernardo Brown and in the details surrounding my presentation of the saga of Mahesh Pushpakumara; Web Editor

Mathusha Sivajalingham, a 36-year-old mother of two boys (aged 5 and 8), is a victim of the three decade long war. The conflict saw her husband killed, her shop and home destroyed and for two years she and her children lived in several different IDP camps. In the face of abject poverty and a bleak future, Sivajalingham took her children and attempted to migrate to Australia aboard one of the growing number of illegal boats. Her attempt was a failure and she is now working in Colombo as a street cleaner. Continue reading →

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