Category Archives: sri lankan society

January 14, 2014 · 1:23 pm

Dayan Jayatilleka reflects upon Sri Lanka’s past struggles and future security

Dayan Jayatilleka speaks to Sergei De Silva-Ranasinghe about the security situation in Sri Lanka … courtesy of POLICY,  Autumn 2013, vol. 29/1: 53-56 where the title reads “In the security of Sri Lanka”

DAYAN Jayatilleka

In Australia, Sri Lanka continues to dominate headlines about allegations of war crimes and the influx of asylum-seeking refugees, but comparatively little is known about Sri Lanka’s history and politics. Dr Dayan  Jayatilleka is among Sri Lanka’s leading and most respected political commentators. A prolific writer, he has published several books, including  The Travails of a Democracy: Unfinished War, Protracted Crisis (1995); Fidel’s Ethics of Violence: The Moral Dimension of the Political Thought of  Fidel Castro (2007), and Long War, Cold Peace: Conflict and Crisis in Sri Lanka (2013). In addition, and until recently, he was Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva (2007–09) and ambassador to France, Portugal and UNESCO (2011–13). In March, he spoke to defence analyst Sergei De Silva-Ranasinghe about Sri Lanka’s political future; the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); allegations of war crimes against the Sri Lankan state; the causal factors of Tamil secessionism; Sri Lanka’s evolving relations with the United States, India, Pakistan and China; and its future strategic options. Continue reading →

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January 14, 2014 · 1:14 am

Pathways to Reconciliation in Sri Lanka

Maha Hosain Aziz, Special to CNN, courtesy of CNN site, 13 January 2014, where the title is “Four steps to secure lasting peace in Sri Lanka“

Maha Hosain Aziz“While building the nation, we have set aside all differences and divisions.  As a result there is today a new political and development culture before the country,” Sri Lanka’s media reported President Mahinda Rajapaksa as saying in his New Year’s message. “Further consolidating this, we must forge ahead in the New Year. Having won freedom and peace for the people, we are committed to give them progress and happiness, too.”

mr-cut-colombotelegraphThe question many Tamils are no doubt left wondering, four years after the country’s brutal civil war ended, is whether this commitment includes their own happiness. And right now, many appear to have their doubts. Continue reading →

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January 13, 2014 · 12:30 pm

Walter Keller: A German with Lanka in his flesh and bones

I: “From people to places, the bond will always bring him back” – by Duvindi Illankoon in the Sunday Times

Walter-kellar-at-exhibition-pic-300x180 Walter Keller (in middle) at on of his photographic exhibitions

Back in 1977, Walter Keller-Kirchhoff was a 25-year-old Economics student fulfilling a young and carefree impulse to travel. He came to Sri Lanka on a little Volkswagen aboard a ferry, imagining it to be just another stop on his Asian tour. Life has a way of surprising us and Keller was no exception-almost four decades later he sits in an office down Jawatte Avenue on a sweltering Colombo morning, asking us if he can turn down the air conditioner because “it’s a little cold”.

_DSC0969 - CopyPerhaps some would recognize Walter more for his colourful photographs of the island, so often exhibited in its galleries. Most would draw the connection between the 62-year-old and his work with the GIZ (German Development Cooperation) in Sri Lanka. Yet there are those individuals who would simply remember him as the sudu mahattaya who helped them find a footing in the world. Whichever way you look at it and however you may know him, there’s no denying that Keller was a live spark within his circles. Continue reading →

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January 12, 2014 · 2:19 pm

Facing Disease & Famine in the British Colonial Era

Saman Kelegama, reviewing Meegama’s new book

FamineFeversAndFearThis book explores some aspects of the roots of modern Sri Lanka through the social history of health during the period when it was a British colony. The author charts out the impact of colonial policies on peasant agriculture, food availability, and the living conditions of the common people. Bringing together rarely documented facts, backed by data from surveys, government reports, and entries in diaries of officials, the author writes of the devastation wrought by famine, new diseases, and volatile epidemics and the consequent fear generated among the subject peoples. Continue reading →

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January 12, 2014 · 2:12 pm

Migrants All. Sri Lankan Diaspora

 

EncyclopediaHappy New Year and wish you the best for the year ahead. I am happy to inform you that The Encyclopedia of the Sri Lankan Diaspora was sucessfully launched on 21 November 2013 during the South Asian Diaspora Convention (SADC) hosted by the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS). The book was lauched by the President of Singapore, Dr. Tony Tan Keng Yam. The Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and Minister of Finance, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, was also present during the book lauch. For information and images pertaining to the SADC, kindly visit the following website: http://www.southasiandiaspora.org/sadc2013/photo-gallery.html   Continue reading →

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January 12, 2014 · 1:54 pm

Maritime Heritage of Lanka

Sudharshan Seneviratne, reviewing Sarala Fernando’s edited work: Maritime Heritage of Lanka

“We islanders are all children of the sea, travellers since ancient times, unafraid of outward migration and the search for new horizons….”(Sarala Fernando. Editor)

It is long since I sifted through pages of articles crafted by specialists and non specialists, an amalgam of history, archaeology, nautical traditions and technology, brilliant photographic images of ancient material, culture and nature, historical and modern cartography, ethnography, international trade and contacts among a wide range of searching topics covered in a single book. This also is the oceanic connectivity.

Maritime heritage 11It is a story how this island came to evolve its unique personality due to the convergence of multiple streams of people, cultures, languages, religions, ethnicities and technologies. The historical saga of Sri Lanka, an island situated in a pivotal position in the Indian Ocean rim, could not be inscribed otherwise in the annals of history and most certainly not without the story of the sea – a story of nurtured reciprocity as one of the most valued “ports of call” in antiquity. The title, Maritime Heritage of Lanka: Ancient Ports and Harbours, is indeed a reflection of that historical reality. Continue reading →

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January 8, 2014 · 3:16 pm

Dedicated Medical Work Amidst the Heat of War, Death and Propaganda: In the Vanni Pocket, 2009

Michael Roberts, …… courtesy of Groundviews where the essay carried a different title. In presenting the article here I have embellished it with images, maps.  It also has a few more hyperlinks.

Amidst the obfuscations and cumulus clouds of propaganda that have subsumed reviews of the last stages of Eelam War IV, it has taken time for some remarkable feats to emerge. The affidavit provided by Dr. Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah on 10th May 2012 with assistance from a British solicitor reveals astounding medical relief work by a body of doctors, nurses, attendants and administrative aides during the Tamil peoples’ enforced retreat and crucible of battle in 2009. This statement has been deployed by a collective named ENGAGE SRI LANKA in the course of its criticism of Channel Four’s video reportage and the claims of “Vany Kumar” (Gnanakumar Thamilvani in name,[i] who also presented herself under such aliases as “Damilvany” and “Vany Kumar”). As such, it is an element in the ongoing propaganda war – one which no public document can rise beyond. Continue reading →

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January 5, 2014 · 1:16 pm

Dr. Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah’s Affidavit Description of Conditions in the Vanni Pocket in Refutation of Channel Four

Dr.-V.-Shanmugarajah-s - times[1]This item is taken from Engage Sri Lanka: Corrupted Journalism,  2013, Appendix 2, pp. 203-14. The pictorial illustrations are the Editor’s additions.

I, Dr. Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah, Medical Superintendent , Mullaitivu General Hospital, being a Hindu, honestly , sincerely and solemnly swear and MAKE OATH as follows:

1. I  am Dr.Veerakanthipillai Shanmugarajah, presently Medical Superintendent ,Mullaitivu.  I was born on 11 June 1968 and am presently 44 years old. I am a graduate of Jaffna University’s faculty of Medicine, and hold the qualification of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. I have had additional training in obstetrics and gynaecology and anaesthesia. I have worked as a Medical Officer at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the District General Hospital in Killinochi and the Mullaitivu General Hospital. I was the Medical Superintendent at Mullaitivu General Hospital and the acting Medical Superintendent in charge of the obstetrics ward at the hospital. I am married, and have three children aged 13, 10 and 4. Continue reading →

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January 5, 2014 · 9:47 am

Recognising Victor Melder, an Extraordinary Sri Lankan

Archivist and Sri Lankan Patriot  and  a Railwayman Extraordinary

VICTOR MELDER + ESTHER Victor Melder and ESTHER — who has sustained him through hard times and good and without whom his labours would not have been feasible. … an appreciation by lovers of Ceylonese and Sri Lankan lore … Victor’s ‘travels’ began with the Rhythm of the Wheels and he is still on the move –with benefits to so many of us.

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December 30, 2013 · 1:48 pm

Witnesses to “the War without Witnesses” … Voiceless? Buried Foreign Reporters?

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, where there will be interesting blog-commentary

I commence here with the whole lot of close-up images snapped by Kanchan Prasad of Prasar Bharati at the Last Redoubt in mid-May and passed on to me at some point in 2010 or so. Picture 103--Survivor 1 Picture 106

Picture 105--Survivor 2  Picture 104 Picture 107--Survivor 3

Survivors: There may be others but these are the close-ups in my stock – where they are part of other photographs with more sweeping views of the flotsam and jetsam of the Last Redoubt between Nandikadal Lagoon and the sea. As far as I can work out the women and children photographed above Continue reading →

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