In 1991, she was the last Indian journalist to interview Rajiv Gandhi and a few metres away from him when a female LTTE suicide bomber blew herself up and killed the former Indian Prime Minister. Twenty-five years later, Neena Gopal, the then young journalist, returns to the picture to tell a bigger story in her new book “The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi”, unearthing, among other matters, the role India’s intelligence arm, the Research and Analysis Wing, played in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict that dragged on for three decades. The Sunday Times today carries extracts from the book. Continue reading
Category Archives: LTTE
Tamils For Sri Lankan Unity speak out in Chennai
Special Correspondent, The Hindu, 20 August 2016
An atmosphere conducive to find a permanent political solution to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue is emerging now and it is the moral responsibility of the Tamil diaspora to join in reconstruction efforts, according to a group of Tamil MPs from the island nation. Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Sivagnanam Siritharan, Kilinochi MP, said that with the coming together of two major political parties and the efforts of several nations, including India, pointed to the emergence of an opportunity to find a permanent political solution to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue.
Making a case:(From left) Sri Lankan MPs Sivagnanam Siritharan, Charles Nirmalanathan and Velukumar —Photo: G. Moorthy
Filed under centre-periphery relations, democratic measures, ethnicity, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, patriotism, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, world affairs
Exposed: Action Contre La Faim’s Nakedness at Muttur in August 2006
Manoli Jinadasa, in The Island, 24 August 2016. where the title is “ACF cruelly abandoned its workers and compensation, too. Response to Action Contre La Faim (ACF)”…. Note: highlighting emphases is the imposition of the Editor,Thuppahi
I refer to your news item (First Page – Sunday Island – 17.08.2016) which reports that the French Charity Action Contre La Faim (ACF) has urged the Sri Lankan government to hold a credible investigation into the killing of 17 of its aid workers in Muttur a decade ago, expressing the view that previous investigations into the ACF attack have been “inconclusive”.
Mourning the ACF dead
ACF, the employer of the 17 deceased aid workers, have periodically issued press statements of this nature, in an effort to promulgate an absolute misconception that there had not been a credible inquiry into this incident. There was indeed a full scale inquiry by a panel of eminent persons, at which ACF was found to have been negligent in respect of the safety of its employees, a fact which the ACF is attempting to hide by conveniently ignoring the Commission of Inquiry that successfully conducted a full scale inquiry and tendered a comprehensive report concerning this incident.
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Incursions. Beginning of International War Crimes Probe?
The Island Editorial, Friday, 18th August 2016, with this title “Beginning of international war crimes probe?”
The Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is making the most of the increasing impotency of the state to run a parallel government of sorts in the northern parts of the country; it is also working overtime to annex the Eastern Province to the North. Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran and others of his ilk are all out to gain legitimacy for their political project with the help of foreign powers. Hardly a day passes without a foreign dignitary visiting the North and entertaining appeals from the NPC members and doing a Dixit.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, doctoring evidence, foreign policy, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, TNA, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes
Missing Persons: Institutionalization of Fact Finding via OMP
ONE. Mangala Samaraweera: “OMP, a mechanism to help truth finding,” http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=2016/08/12/local/90327
The Office on Missing Persons (OMP) is not a judicial process and it cannot punish anybody, Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera said. He was addressing a press conference at the Parliamentary Complex yesterday following the passage of the OMP Bill. He reiterated the OMP is just a mechanism to help the truth finding and that would in no way betray war heroes.
Samaraweera said in reality, the OMP would be helpful to find information on the missing persons in the tri-forces too. “We will in fact protect the war heroes and will reinforce their reputation internationally,” he said. The minister said as the next step, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be appointed, adding that its legal framework would be finished by September. He said the public opinion for the TRC are now being taken. Continue reading
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Chief Minister Wigneswaran in Outspoken Q and A with Daily Mirror
Northern Province Chief Minister and former Judge of the Supreme Court C.V. Vigneswaran spoke to the Dailymirror at his official residence in Jaffna. on the 27th July 2016. During the interview, he spoke of the recent clash at the Jaffna University, the personal and the political and much more. – See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/113285/……
Pic from www.adaderana.lk
Pic from www.adaderana.lkThis isn’t a question of tit-for tat — stresses Vigneswaran.
An interesting interview. Sri Lanka has a long way to go to settle down as one Nation according to the Chief Minister of Northern Province retired Supreme Court Judge Vigneswaran. This video is 37 minutes long.
Challenging Ratnawalli’s Imperial Sinhala Position
Michael Roberts
In a recent article I took issue with Robert S. Perinpanayagam for his short sharp comment on one of my essays on the Elephant Pass debacle of the year 2000. Embittered Tamilness has appeared in Colombo Telegraph as well as Thuppahi. Darshanie Ratnawalli recently entered a long comment in CT in ways that seem to support my work. However, her reading confuses the concept of “nation” with “nation state,” while also providing a distilled historical interpretation that overweights the past record in ways that suggest a measure of Sinhala exclusivism that leans towards the chauvinist camp. My presentation of this set of criticisms here is intended to supersede the hurried memo I placed in CT in opposition to her claims.
Chelvanayakam campaigning 
Bandaranaike on the SLFP Sinhala Only ‘road train’
Embittered Tamilness as a Problem for Reconciliation in Sri Lanka
Michael Roberts[1] … courtesy of the Colombo Telegraph, where the title is “Embittered Tamilness on Display. The cCase of Robert Perinpanayagam”
Robert Sidharthan Perinbanayagam[2] was a senior at Ramanathan Hall when I walked through its portals at Peradeniya Campus in 1957. He pursued an Honours Degree in Sociology and went on to secure his Ph. D. in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Minnesota. He taught at Hunter College in New York and has a clutch of books with respected publishers on symbolic interaction and the sociology of knowledge, with The Karmic Theater: Self, Society and Astrology in Jaffna, Sri Lanka (1982) serving as the principal work relating to his home ground.
Robert’s father was Handy Perinpanayagam, an erudite and respected teacher in Jaffna, who was a moving spirit behind the Jaffna Youth Congress in the 1930s (see Russell 1982 & Rajan Philips 2012). Perinpanayagam Senior was a Leftist whose activism placed him outside the reaches associated with GG Ponnambalam and the Tamil Congress and also at some distance from the Federal Freedom Party led by SJV Chelvanayakam. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, australian media, authoritarian regimes, disparagement, Eelam, gordon weiss, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, modernity & modernization, nationalism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes
Where Majoritarian Part subsumes the Whole: The Ideological Foundation of Sinhala Extremism
Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph
It is a commonplace in reviews of the ethnic conflict at the popular level of web comment for the blame to be heaped on our politicians in the past, and any perusal of web-commentary would turn up criticisms of politician A or politician B, or particular temporal moments/events. This is over-simplistic. Such processes are complex and demand a multi-factorial analysis.
Scenes from the mid-1950s depicting Sinhala activists at ‘work’ — see Roberts: Potency , Power & People in Groups, Colombo, Marga, 2011.
Besides such singular criticisms tend to obscure or downplay the critical influence of two fundamental causes, the one structural, the other ideological. Let me begin with A the structural before proceeding to B, the ideological. Continue reading
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Post-War Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: A Reality Check
Jayadeva Uyangoda, being text of his talk at a Seminar in Colombo (see below)
I share the basic premise on which the theme of this seminar seems to have been constructed, that is, “peace and reconciliation are a prerequisite for nation-building in Sri Lanka.” I am also aware that there is a strong argument in political theory that war, conflict and violence are more important in nation building than peace and reconciliation. There is indeed no shortage of theorists in Sri Lanka who advocate this particular argument with passion and conviction. I don’t intend to take issue with that approach in my presentation today.
Filed under accountability, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, discrimination, education, governance, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, power sharing, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war
