Category Archives: Sinhala-Tamil Relations

June 21, 2020 · 7:41 am

David Blacker on the SL Army’s Land Warfare Campaign in 2006-09

 The SL Army’s Land Warfare Campaign in 2006-09: Debating the Lines of Strategic Emphasis THREE: David Blacker’s Clarification

In a telephone conversation in June 2020 relating to the Sri Lankan armed forces successful military campaign on land against the formidable LTTE forces during Eelam War IV,[1] issues arose regarding the lines of strategic emphasis. As I was not familiar with one of the summary terms mentioned in this chat, I formulated a ‘QUESTION’ which I sent to several personnel with a military background.[2]


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June 19, 2020 · 5:27 pm

Smashing Statues: Issues of Sense and Sensibility … and Nonsence

Rihaab Mowlana, in Lifelk, 19 June 2020, where the title runs thus “Are We Erasing History?”

The statue of Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who also enslaved more than 600 people, was toppled in Oregon, while the statue of navigator and coloniser Christopher Columbus was ‘spray-painted, set on fire and thrown into a lake’. In England, the Statue of Edward Colston suffered a similar fate, resulting in ‘the boarding up of the Cenotaph in Whitehall and Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square’. In many parts of the world, the predicament will befall many such monuments.

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June 16, 2020 · 5:31 am

Battling the West. For Sri Lanka. Naseby at his Best

Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, in Island, 16 June 2020 where the title is “Lord Naseby’s Paradise”

It is a great joy to come across someone who loves this country passionately. In the case of Lord Naseby the joy is enhanced by the practical aspects of his devotion, his unceasing efforts to promote Sri Lanka’s interests and to combat what he sees as unremitting and vicious hostility to Sri Lanka on the part of successive governments.

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June 12, 2020 · 6:32 pm

Reading Roberts on Sri Lanka’s Socio-Political Ailments: A Letter to Roberts

Drawlight, 10 June 2020

Sir: I have read through and consider this an excellent summary of the key issues,[1] particularly for those who are not very knowledgeable about history and of the sort who are busier protesting matters that have no relevance to them (the current trend among especially the youth in Sri Lanka on social media bandwagoning on BLM issues in the US simultaneously ignoring the more immediate realities of fellow Sri Lankans engaged in modern day slavery in the Middle East and other countries).

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June 12, 2020 · 2:35 pm

Challenging Michael Roberts … with Straight Left and Right Hook

Gerald Peiris ... in the spirit of vigorous debate which we used to pursue in the Arts Faculty and the Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya University in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Gerry Peiris has responded with two sharply critical notes of some significance to my critical review of Sri Lankan society and politics, an essay that is directed by an optimistic eye …. Ha! Ha! … towards a major overhaul.

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June 12, 2020 · 1:32 pm

Honeycombed with Societal and Political Fissures: Sri Lanka Now & Ever Before

Michael Roberts, reiterating the original draft sent to a few on 10 June 2020

Recent forum discussions on the topic of “Reconciliation” and correspondence with concerned friends have prompted me to essay an analysis of Sri Lanka’s societal problems over the last 150 years. This is a tendentious quest.

This Map showing districts served by Regional Malaria Officers happens to suit the metaphor “Riddled” and/or “Honeycombed” in my title

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June 11, 2020 · 3:52 pm

Besetting Problems in the “Battle for Harmony” in Sri Lanka

“Battle for Harmony” in Sri Lanka was a Zoom Discussion organized by the Youth Rotary of Colombo East on the evening of 28th May 2020 … https://www.facebook.com/RotaractColomboEast

Opening Statement by Michael Roberts

  Let me begin with the closing statement voiced by Kumar Sangakkara in his Cowdrey Lecture at the MCC in 2011: “My loyalty will be to the ordinary Sri Lankan fan, their twenty million hearts beating collectively. They are my foundation. They are my family. I will play cricket for them….. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim,[1] Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am, today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.” Continue reading →

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June 8, 2020 · 7:44 am

Rama Somasunderam’s Administrative Career

Anonymous, in Island, 7 June 2020, with this title “The Last Mandarin”

This is the story of a professional civil servant who believes that he made a contribution to a society and an administrative service, that in the first instance made him what he is and enabled him to achieve his full potential as a person, a professional and a citizen. It is the autobiography of a vanishing coterie of bureaucrats who strived for excellence, believing that they had responded to a high calling.

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June 6, 2020 · 2:39 pm

Professor KM de Silva’s Publications

Born in 1931 — on 31st December no less — Kingsley Muthumuni de Silva, is still batting … with a pen. This compilation has been assembled by Iranga de Silva of ICES Kandy…. and is arranged in reverse chronological sequence.

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June 3, 2020 · 6:35 pm

The Web Site on “Sacrificial Devotion” …. Its Short Run

Recent Thuppahi entries have highlighted the Workshop on “Sacrificial Devotion” held in Adelaide University in late 2005, one framed within the concept fashioned by Michael Roberts to study and comprehend suicidal commitments to political cause. Note the ITEM

Thilipan on Fast unto death in 1987

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