Category Archives: Tamil migration

June 20, 2021 · 2:18 pm

Basil Fernando’s Searing Protest against Violence in All Its Forms

Basil Fernando: A Short Abstract re the book Body, Mind, Soul, Society: An Autobiographical Account

 This book (176 pages) is an attempt to contribute towards an understanding of the impact of violence on human persons and the society. It is based on the direct experience of living and working in Sri Lanka and Cambodia. However, references are also made to several more developing countries in Asia with which I have been engaged in working after the experiences in Sri Lanka and Cambodia. The book is written from the perspective of a victim who is also an observer.

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June 17, 2021 · 8:58 pm

The Wikipedia Tale of the Murugappans of Biloela … Today, Mid-2021

Murugappan family asylum claims  .… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murugappan_family_asylum_claims

Kokilapathmapriya Nadesalingam (Priya) and Nadesalingam Murugappan (Nades)[1] are two Sri Lankan Tamils seeking asylum in Australia. The couple married in Australia and have two Australian-born children. Until their detention by Australian Border Force in March 2018, the family was resident in the central Queensland town of Biloela, and consequently referred to as the Biloela family by some media.[2][3] The cause of the couple and their children has been supported by some residents of Biloela as well as asylum-seeker advocates.[4]

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June 17, 2021 · 8:42 pm

High Noon in Mid-Air, August 2019: For the Murugappans of Biloela

ABC Account on 30 August 2019, with this title “Who are the Tamil family from Biloela and why are they being deported?” ……  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-30/who-are-tamil-family-from-biloela-why-are-they-being-deported/11463276

Last-minute injunctions have stalled the deportation of a Tamil family who have spent years fighting to stay in Australia. The plane carrying the Sri Lankan couple and their Australian-born daughters had already left the tarmac at Melbourne Airport when a judge granted a reprieve over the phone. Here’s what we know about the family’s case:

Dozens of people rushed to Melbourne Airport in a bid to stop the family being deported on Thursday night..   … Supplied: @HometoBilo)

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June 9, 2021 · 2:54 pm

Admiral Zheng’s Imprint in Galle: Its Implications

 Dr. Nirmala Chandrahasan, in The Island, 9 June 2021, where the title runs: “Mandarin and Tamil — A Historical Perspective.”

The recent discovery of name-boards in public institutions which have omitted one of the national languages, namely Tamil, only to replace it with Mandarin Chinese has caused a furor with Tamil members of Parliament and other politicians voicing their protests. Certainly, this is most unfortunate but rather than blame the Chinese it is the government Authorities in charge of the implementation of the Official Languages policy who should be blamed. That they have been remiss in this instance is only a small part of the general malaise in respect of the implementation of the official languages policy.

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May 19, 2021 · 1:40 pm

Sri Lankan Tamil Rally in London: Protest in Commemoration

Tamil Guardian News Item, 18 May 2021

British Tamils rallied in London today to commemorate the tens of thousands of lives lost in Mullivaikkal in 2009. Protesters demonstrated at Parliament Square, demanding justice for the atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state in Mullivaikkal 12 years ago.

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May 18, 2021 · 10:47 am

Whitewashing LTTE Genocide and Horrendous Partisanship in Canadian Protest Marches in May

Sudharshan Seneviratne, in Sunday Observer, 16 May 2021, where the title reads “Whitewashing LTTE genocide”

A recent announcement featuring the news, Tamil Genocide Education Week by Scarborough MPP Vijay Thanigasalam’s Bill 104, received third reading at Queen’s Park on May 6th. Let us look at the “messenger” first and his credibility and secondly, the nature of the Canadian State i.e. hidden political agenda Canada has for the dependent Diaspora as a cat’s paw. The man himself has a dubious history and was a one-time LTTE sympathiser even after the Elaam war ended in 2009.

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May 14, 2021 · 8:21 am

Peradeniya Practices: Face-to-Face in Debate

Michael Roberts

Both Kingsley de Silva and this writer were nourished as undergraduates, and then as teachers, in the History Department at Peradeniya University in the 1950s and 1960s. This atmosphere fostered vigorous debate. The epitome of debate was deepened in the cross-disciplinary setting of the Ceylon Studies Seminar inaugurated on the 10th November 1968[1] and held within the premises of the Sociology Department (then headed by Gananath Obeyesekere – an initiative in which I was one of the hands and a tradition sustained into the 1980s via the exertions of CR de Silva and SWR De (Sam) Samarasinghe.[2]

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May 10, 2021 · 10:25 am

The Hegemony of Colombo from Way Back

Michael Roberts

After discovering the Lorenz letters in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in the 1980s I worked on the history of the island in the ninetenth cenury-and-thereafter with aid from Percy Colin-Thome and Ismeth Raheem in a book which apeared as People Inbetween under the imprint of Sarvodaya Book Publishing Services in 1989. One of its central themes is embodied in a chapter entitled “Colonial Transitions: The Development of Colombo’s Hegemonic Power.”

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April 2, 2021 · 2:14 am

Debating Human Rights in Warring Contexts

Chandre Dharmawardana, 30 March 2021, in Email Memo entitled “Alleged Human Rights Abuses of the Sri Lankan Army” ………..  a memo commenting on responses to his previous Essay[i] … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Ramesh Somasundaram, (commenting on the Thuppahi website) is absolutely right in saying “that the Sri Lankan governments and the Sri Lankan military personal have been correctly accused of human rights abuses. “Sri Lankan Soldiers have been accused of grave crimes, and they should be investigated and brought to trial. Many of the soldiers were simply carrying out orders, and so the high command must bear the final responsibility except in cases where the soldiers exceeded their acts as soldiers and acted even more inhumanely than needed.

Situation Map 2 February 2009 — an excellent work by, I think?, the Daily Mirror

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March 25, 2021 · 8:40 am

Today’s Geneva Vote in Historical Overview: Dias and Peiris

ONE -A: Jeewaka Dias, 23 March 2021   …. with coloured emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi, whereas ‘black’ is the authors

Cuba is one of the most admired countries in the Global South. Cuba stood up for Sri Lanka at UNHRC, with a speech calling for defiance and resistance. These are the hallmark attributes of Cuba which have won global admiration. 

Sri Lanka is on the right side of history. With China as an ally and support of the rest of Asia (bar one – South Korea) which did not vote in favour of the Resolution against Sri Lanka, the signs are clear of the Global Split. Between the rapacious Colonial countries of the Global North and ex-colonies of the Global South. 

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