Category Archives: sri lankan society

July 4, 2018 · 7:30 am

Profound Flaws in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Victory Speech in May, 2009

Michael Roberts

 This article was penned in Sri Lanka in late May 2009 on invitation from Muralidhar Reddy and appeared in FRONTLINE as lead article on Volume 26 – Issue 12 :: Jun. 06-19, 2009  with the title “Some Pillars for Lanka’s Future” and with a significant guideline photograph of the Ceylonese gentleman of varied ethnicity who pressed for constitutional reform in the 1900s and 1910son the foundations of all island thinking – albeit with an elitist upper-class bias. Note the radical proposal at the end of the article –which has  died without any takers …so there is no thinking outside the box.

Frontline also inserted this comment at the start: “Rajapaksa should match his sweet words with political reforms that institutionalise devolution and reach out to Tamil minds.”

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July 3, 2018 · 12:53 pm

USA’s Threatening Interventions during the Eelam War in 2009

Michael Roberts

This essay is an effort to unravel the whispers about an American military team’s secret mission to Sri Lanka at the height of the SL armed forces successful squeeze on the LTTE in 2009. The political significance of such a mission is profound and there are numerous tangential issues that are also significant.

The opening to this inquiry in 2018 was provided by Chandre Dharma-wardana’s welcome initiative in making an ethnographic notation about information mentioned by Foreign Minister Bogollagama in 2012. This item led me (earlier this year) to link it with other ‘mórsels’ of information and to explore the pressures mounted on the GoSL by the Western powers during the last phase of Eelam War IV in 2009. These inquiries have now produced additional information – morsels once again, but enough to take further steps in unravelling the interventions of USA and its allies. I will mark them in point form as A, B, C et cetera.

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July 2, 2018 · 5:03 pm

How Mahinda Rajapaksa rebuffed David Miliband

Michael Roberts

In 2008/09 Professor GL PEIRIS was Minister of International Trade in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and I interviewed him on 2 July 2018 with the intention of securing more details re USA’s pressures on the government then in 2009.[1] GL Peiris did not have any details about one of my particular pursuits, namely, the PACOM’s recce visit to the island, but in response to my initial query he focused upon the pressures mounted by the EU team of David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner[2] [which was in late April 2009 after the SL Army had penetrated the LTTE’s Last Redoubt and released over 110,000 Tamil civilians and Tiger deserters].

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June 28, 2018 · 5:27 pm

Hambantota Port: Dirty Economics from the New York Times

Michael Roberts

The New York Times “distinguished itself” in 2009 by participating in the campaign to intervene in the Sri Lankan government’s campaign to end the LTTE military states’ control of parts of Sri Lanka. It was also partial to the Western powers’ successful efforts to oust Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Presidential Election in 2015 via the formation of what is known as the Yahapaalana Consortium.

The Hambantota Port gets only a small percentage of Sri Lanka’s port business, overshadowed by the main complex in the capital.CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

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June 27, 2018 · 6:16 pm

Creeping Neo-liberal Stranglehold on Sri Lanka

Tamara Kunanayakam, from Island, in Three Parts with title “Sri LankJune 2018, an sovereignty, non-negotiable!”

Sri Lankan sovereignty – its supremacy in domestic policy and its independence in foreign policy – is under a two-pronged attack. In Sri Lanka, the neoliberals seek physical appropriation of territory and all that it contains, targeting the very substance of sovereignty and independence – the inalienable right of the people to full and permanent sovereignty, including possession, use and disposal, over all their wealth, natural resources and economic activities. Without permanent sovereignty, there can be no independent domestic or foreign policy; without it, independence and sovereignty are but empty shells.

 

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June 27, 2018 · 6:58 am

A Guardian Hitler: Gotabhaya! Really!

Sasanka Perera. in Island, 25 June 2018, where the title is “Pining for Hitler”

Ven. Endaruwe Upali, Deputy Chief Priest of the Asgiriya Chapter in the Buddhist ecclesiastical order, is in the news. But it is not for his knowledge of the Dhamma or for the erudite delivery of a sermon worthy of Buddhism’s timeless appeal or for his strict adherence to vinaya, the set of disciplinary rules, which is expected to embellish the moral and ethical character of the Buddhist clergy. In fact, he is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

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June 25, 2018 · 2:10 pm

Fr. S G Perera: A Pioneer Historian in Modern Times

Chryshane Mendis, in the 20th Century Historian Series …… https://www.archaeology.lk/6055

The student of the colonial history of Sri Lanka has undoubtedly come upon the name of S. G. Perera in their studies. Fr. S. G. Perera, a Catholic Priest of the Society of Jesus was an exemplary scholar of the last century and whose parallels are unheard of. Publishing over a dozen books and over 300 articles in journals, his contributions to the history of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and the history of the Portuguese, Dutch and British periods of the island have aided the development of historical knowledge to a great extent in Sri Lanka; what could be called his magnum opus, the translation of the ‘Conquista’ of the 17th century Portuguese historian Fr. Queyroz, is the single most important Portuguese literary work which is the basis for any historical study on the Portuguese period. His proficiency of the Portuguese language gave him access to numerous original sources which he has translated and made available to the public is part of the wonderful legacy of this great historian of Lanka.

 Fr. S. G. Perera (image from The Aloysian 1946-1950, Volume 06, No. 03)

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June 22, 2018 · 1:51 pm

Hambantota Port City Prospects Burgeoning

Editor, NewsinAsia, 22 June 2018,  where the title reads ” Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port aiming to attract $500 mn worth of investments

Colombo, June 22 (Daily FT) – As China Merchant Port Holdings Ltd. (CM Port) completes the final tranche of payment for the Hambantota Port joint venture, the public-private partnership is now aiming to attract as much as $ 500 million worth of investments to set up plants inside the port as well as general operation expansion.

Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG), the joint venture company formed by the Sri Lankan Government and CM Port, has already received 15 proposals to set up plants inside the port, Ports Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the media yesterday at a press conference held at his ministry.

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June 22, 2018 · 5:09 am

The Calistorites Association of Moratuwa and the Sellaperumage Fernando Lineage

I P C Mendis, in Daily News, Archives from 2004, where the title is “Calistorites Association – over the waves to the 70s”

The Moratuwa-based Calistorites Association completes the biblical three score years and ten this year and will celebrate the occasion with a dinner-dance on 27th March 2004 at the stadium in Moratuwa. The Association comprises the descendants of Mr. and Mrs. S. Calistoru Fernando of Moratuwa fame, those who have joined the family through wedlock and the progeny.

on the way to the hills in the 19th century

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June 19, 2018 · 3:11 pm

Life and Death for SL Army Infantrymen on the Vanni Battlefront

Sinha-Raja Tammita Delgoda[1]

As a layman who blundered into a war of his own volition and someone who has lived in and worked in the Weli Oya border region for 6 months,[2] I think you are absolutely right in your stress on the difficulties encountered by infantry soldiers and the critical relevance of specific landscapes. Let me quote relevant segments from one of the Manekshaw papers published by India’s Centre For Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).

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