Category Archives: prabhakaran

June 19, 2019 · 8:58 am

Causes for the Failure of the LTTE Insurgency: A Capsule Statement

Peter S. Roberts: Abstract of Dissertation “The Sri Lankan Insurgency: A Rebalancing of the Orthodox Position” … being a D. Phil Thesis Brunel University April 2016 …. https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/13366

The insurgency in Sri Lanka between the early 1980s and 2009 is the topic of this study, one that is of great interest to scholars studying war in the modern era. It is an example of a revolutionary war in which the total defeat of the insurgents was a decisive conclusion, achieved without allowing them any form of political access to governance over the disputed territory after the conflict. Current literature on the conflict examines it from a single (government) viewpoint – deriving false conclusions as a result. This research integrates exciting new evidence from the Tamil (insurgent) side and as such is the first balanced, comprehensive account of the conflict. The resultant history allows readers to reframe the key variables that determined the outcome, concluding that the leadership and decision-making dynamic within the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had far greater impact than has previously been allowed for. The new evidence takes the form of interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict, Sri Lankan military documentation, foreign intelligence assessments and diplomatic communiqués between governments, referencing these against the current literature on counter-insurgency, notably the social-institutional study of insurgencies by Paul Staniland. It concludes that orthodox views of the conflict need to be reshaped into a new methodology that focuses on leadership performance and away from a timeline based on periods of major combat.

SOME PERTINENT STUDIES

Ask these questions: have Peter Roberts, Stephen Battle and Daniel Alphonsus  taken in most of these studies? Allowing for the difficulty of covering every essay, what are the implications arising from the lot missed?

IDAG [i.e. Citizen Silva] 2013 “The Numbers Game: Politics of Retributive Justice,” http://www.scribd.com/doc/132499266/The-Numbers-Game-Politics-of-Retributive-Justice OR http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/document/TheNG.pdf.

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2009b “The Battle for the Vanni Pocket,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, March 2009, Vol. 35/2, pp. 17-19.http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/aulimp/citations/gsa/ 2009157395/156554.html

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2010b “Downfall of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,” South Asia Defence and Strategic Review, May-June 2010, pp. 10-15.

Roberts, Michael 2013 “BBC-Blind: Misreading the Tamil Tiger Strategy of International Blackmail, 2008-13,” 8 December 2013, https://thuppahis.com/2013/12/08/bbc-blind-misreading-the-tamil-tiger-strategy-of-international-blackmail-2008-13/#more-1122

Jeyaraj, DBS 2011 “KP” speaks out. An Interview with Former Tiger Chief, Vavuniya: NERDO.

Roberts, Michael 2013 “Introducing “Numbers Game” – A Detailed Study of the Last Stages of Eelam War IV,” 30 April 2013, https://thuppahis.com/2013/04/30/introducing-numbers-game-a-detailed-study-of-the-last-stages-of-eelam-war-iv/

Roberts, Michael 2013 “Towards Citizenship in Thamiilam: The Tamil People of the North, 1983-2010,” South Asia Research vol. 33: 57-75.

Roberts, Michael 2014 Tamil Person and State. Essays, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications.

Roberts, Michael 2014 Tamil Person and State. Pictorial, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications.

Roberts, Michael 2014 “Generating Calamity, 2008-2014: An Overview of Tamil Nationalist Operations and Their Marvels,” 10 April 2014, http://groundviews.org/2014/04/10/generating-calamity-2008-2014-an-overview-of-tamil-nationalist-operations-and-their-marvels/

Roberts, Michael 2010d “Self-Annihilation for Political Cause: Cultural Premises in Tamil Tiger Selflessness,” in Roberts, Fire and Storm. Essays in Sri Lankan Politics, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, pp. 161-201.

Roberts, Michael 2012a “Inspirations: Hero Figures and Hitler in Young Pirapāharan’s Thinking,” Colombo Telegraph, 12 February 2012, http://thuppahi. wordpress.com/2012/11/26/velupillai-pirapaharan-veera-maranam/… rep. in TPS: Essays, 2014: 69-89.

 

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May 27, 2019 · 3:13 pm

Gota’s Role in Eelam War Victory: Peiris challenges Roberts

Gerald Peiris in Kandy to Michael Roberts in Adelaide, 20/21 May 2019

Here are my observations on two of your comments (reproduced below in brown) on Long’s article**

  1. So, Gotabaya was not the single decisive hand in shaping the outcome of Eelam War IV. But in support of some lines in the Stephen Long essay, I shall dwell on several of his special contributions within a separate essay. Moreover, the recent Easter Sunday attacks and subsequent tensions in Sri Lanka encourage me to endorse Stephen Long’s caustic account of the glaring shortcomings in the intelligence operations of the Yahapaalana government. That, ofcourse, is a conclusion that is widely shared.
  2. However, the Sri Lanka Army began to transform its infantry divisions from around 2001 with the development of the SIOT concept which encouraged operational planning from the frontline-upwards and sharpened soldier skills.[2] General Sarath Fonseka is one to whom this course of development can be attributed, but I speculate that there were others involved.

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April 27, 2019 · 10:26 am

Where End Goal and Zeal produce a Deadly Cocktail

  Chandre Dharmawardena, in Colombo Telegraph, 6 April 2019, where the title is “Why Do “Educated” Youth Join Extremist Terrorist Movements?”

It is often asked  why educated youth “coming from good homes” join extremist organizations. Simple  references to “brain washing”, or the stupidity of the young are no explanations. There is no scientifically recognized   process called “brain washing”. It is also  naive to assume that  educated youth  join the IS (Islamic state)  to go to heaven and get their 21 virgins! Many youth radicalized in British Universities ended up fighting for the ISIS. At least one of the Sri Lankan Muslim Kamikazi had a British training, had four children, a flourishing business and lived in a million dollar home in Colombo. A British education in a narrow subject like “information technology” not touching any  broad scientific or cultural subjects, given in a British “red Brick” university can have no effect on already acquired belief systems. Don’t our “most educated” ministers go to Tirupathi, India,at the drop of a pin?

https://www.doneeractie.nl/moskee-madrassa-in-sri-lanka/-28538

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April 21, 2019 · 4:50 am

Amarasingham’s Study of Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada

 

Pain, Pride, and Politics: Social Movement Activism and the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora in Canada …. As a product of Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Series) Paperback – September 15, 2015

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April 21, 2019 · 3:47 am

CR de Silva’s Appraisal & Report on Amarasingam’s Study of Tamil Activists in Canada

Chandra R. de Silva:  “Report on Amarnath Amarasingam’s Pain, Pride and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada“ — being a Reader’s Confidential Review of a Book Mss sent in response toa request from the publishers …. a book that has since appeared in print as  under the imprint of the University of Georgia Press (2015)

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April 14, 2019 · 12:15 pm

A Cry for Sri Lanka — Jane Russell in London

When I sent Sampanthan’s recent “Statement” in Colombo Telegraph[1] to Jane Russell in England, her Immediate Response by Email, dated 13th April 2019, was an impassioned Cry from the Heart

There are no sensible replies to this kind of rhetoric…. perhaps a novel such as Gogol’s ‘Dead Souls’ might challenge such hyperbole? But we are in an era when the ‘Leader of the Free World’ can lie, exaggerate, fantasise, stereotype and throw unsubstantiated accusations and abuse on opponents with happy abandon.

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April 8, 2019 · 12:02 am

Facing Charles Sarvan: Mark His Obliteration of Context

Michael Roberts

Charles Sarvan’s recent essay in Colombo Telegraph “On ‘Reading’ A Picture” presents reflections with a dispassionate air that conveys an impression of philosophical weight above the tumult of a propaganda war in which all of us are willy-nilly involved.[1] He distances himself at the outset from the identities of the victors in the picture as Sinhalese and the vanquished as Tamil by terming that differentiation “accidental”. But, in concentrating on the horrendous assaults on women perpetrated by men, he proceeds to a presentation of the contemporary Tamil litany about the horrendous acts inflicted on the Tamils in the last stages of Eelam War IV. He does this without any historical, political and cartographic contextualization of the events that unfolded from mid-2006 to May 2009.

 Map I = The Situation in late December 2008

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March 27, 2019 · 4:52 pm

Inhumane: Ruminations from A Pictorial Tale

  Charles Sarvan, courtesy of  Colombo Telegraph,  19 March 2019, where the title is “ On ‘Reading’ A Picture” …. Note that I have taken the liberty of inserting emphasis in colour and  introducing more paragraph divisions in Charlie Sarvan aka Ponnadurai’s  presentation in order to assist readability and analytical work –though this act may well distort his philosophical bent…… Bio-data is at the end of the article Editor, Thuppahi

“The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single picture.” This particular picture appeared in ‘Colombo Telegraph’ on 12 Feb. 2019; I shared my reaction privately with some of my contacts including, as a courtesy, Colombo Telegraph Editor who suggested that I rework the material with the possibility of it being uploaded. Unsatisfactory health has hindered an earlier response. In philosophy, an ‘essential’ is a quality that something must have for it to be what it is, while an ‘accidental’ is one that it happens to have but could lack. In what follows, that the men in uniform are Sinhalese and the prisoners Tamil is accidental. In other words, what I attempt here is a modest, general investigation and reflection.

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March 24, 2019 · 5:20 pm

Happy Heathen’s Insights on the Raging Debate on Eelam War IV in the Year 2012

Christopher Hitchens and the Pic accompanying his article on the Sri Lankan situaiton in late May 2009 … Sri Lankan soldiers with the remains of what’s said to be Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran

PREAMBLE from Michael Roberts:

On the 25th May 2012 I presented a long article embodying my criticisms of some of the literature on Eelam War IV in its final phase – see …………………………….. https://thuppahis.com/2012/05/25/misreading-and-distorting-the-sri-lankan-war-2009-2012/.

While my studies progressed as I absorbed more of the substantial literature on the war and though my study in 2012 has been surpassed by my subsequent work, I remain convinced that this essay was moving in the right direction in circumstances where Western power interests and radical humanist overkill has instilled dogmatic stances laced with deceit. But on coming across this old effort because some reader had looked at it, I also came across a revealing a set of comments on the article by someone who wrote anonymously as HAPPY HEATHEN.

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March 1, 2019 · 12:38 am

Arrogance, Ignorance, Deceit: The Many Faces of Taylor Dibbert

Michael Roberts

Taylor Dibbert is an example of one stream in American academia: armed with a liberal arts degree, peace corps experience and links with the Pacific Forum, HR agencies[1] and such personnel as Frances Harrison,[2] he has now taken on Michael the Lord Naseby (Dibbert 2019). His essay is a shining example of intellectual arrogance and contention by ASSERTION. His assertions on the details of Eelam War IV in its last phase are typical of many writings from an educated bourgeoisie lacking experience in battle theatres. This major deficiency applies to many Sri Lankans as well as Yasmin Sooka, Marzuki Darusman, Ban-Ki-Moon,[3] Alan Keenan[4] and Charu Lata Hogg.[5]

Sooka Keenan Hogg

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