Category Archives: truth as casualty of war

Chemmani Graves Site & OCHCR Finds

N. Sathiya Moorthy, in CEYLON TODAY, 1 August 2025,  with this  title “Hundred Not Out” **

For the uninitiated readers of the national media, and possibly the majority Sinhala media, Chemmani may yet to happen. But after weeks of digging up unmarked graves in Northern Jaffna town, Government officials under Court supervision have already taken out over a hundred human skeletons, including those of infants and grown-up children. The numbers are growing with each passing day of digging, which is at times halted for logistics reasons, one should assume.

Yes, only scientific studies would show if they are of recent origin, but the fact that they have been recovered from dig-outs six to eight metres deep may indicate that they are not ancient. Yet, they are historic in their own way, adding heft to the Tamils’ charges that the Armed Forces ruthlessly killed their civilians during the three-decade-long ethnic war – and are yet to be held accountable.

 

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FIRE AND STORM analyses Sinhala-Tamil Confrontations Over the Decades

Neil Jayasekera introduces FIRE AND STORM by Michael Roberts … printed by Vijitha Yapa Publications in 2010 …. ISBN 978955-665-14-8  ….presenting 28 articles & an Amalgamated Bibliography …. Posted by  Feb 28, 2023 

Unique JewelsAnonymous Reviewer in Sunday Times, 21 July 2013 where the title runs Important contribution towards a dialogue on Lankan polity. Book facts”

When Michael Roberts left Peradeniya in the late seventies, he was part of an exodus of intellectuals from the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, arguably one of the best universities at that time. The exodus of academics at that time was compelled by the economic difficulties faced by university dons. It was the second wave of such emigration that diminished the intellectual life of the university and country.

Unique Jewels

Pirapāharan and leading Tiger Commanders at the Indian sponsored training camp at Sirimalai in 1984

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Cold War Proxies in Conflict: Ceylon & Palestine

Darini Rajasingham Senanayake,** at IDN-InDepthNews,… 24 July 2025, …. being Part II of an extended article with this title “From Ceylon to Palestine: Ethnic Conflict and Its Role in Cold War Proxy Dynamics” …. This is the second of a two-part series. Click here to read part one  .. .. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

There are remarkable patterns of history, organised violence, and disinformation between events leading to the pogrom and forced population displacements in Sri Lanka in 1983, and British occupied Palestine 35 years earlier as the Nakba unfolded amid Cold War escalating in Europe between the Allies and Soviet Union or Axis Powers.

Map indicating locations of Palestine and Sri Lanka. CC BY-SA 4.0 – Photo: 2025

 

 

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A Pathway to History: Biographical ‘Hits’ in Thuppahi, 22 July 2025

Michael Roberts

Biographical tales and investigations serve as one pathway to historical enquiry.  Because they resonate with readers interest in their own personal journeys this fascination seems to evoke continuous appeal. The WORD PRESS record of readers hits on items in THUPPAHI confirm this fact. Let me, therefore, provide TPS readers with a list of some of the items that drew at least one reader …. that is one HIT …. today/yesterday.

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The Killing of Fr. Saverimuttu Selvarajah in 1990

Ruki Fernando in Groundviews,  11 July 2025, where the title reads “Getting Rid of A Troublesome Priest” ... with the highlighting emphasis being the workd of The Editor, Thuppahi

 

July 11, 2025 marks 35 years since the disappearance of Fr. Saverimuttu Selvarajah, a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Batticaloa. Known as Fr. Selva, he was 30 years at that time and serving as the parish priest and administrator of Holy Cross Shrine in the remote village of Sorikalmunai in the Ampara district.

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THE GUARDIAN in UK seeks reader-support

“From Minute Hands can an Ongoig  ‘Edifice’ be built”– Thupphiyaaa

AN APPEAL ON EMAIL from THE GUARDIAN

 

 

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Dynamite at the Heights! The Elon Musk-Trump World

Presenting an You-tube item sent to me by my Aloysian compatriot in Canada, Sarri Junaid — formerly from the Fort of Galle ….

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Fermenting Divisions, Favouring the Mighty … in the North & the East of Lanka

Tisaranee Gunasekara in Financial Times 2 April 2025 …. where the title reads “Cauldron-stirring time, again?” … while the highlighting is the work of The Editor, Thuppahi [with a caveat noted at the end of this presentation]

 “Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble…

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.” – Shakespeare in Macbeth

In the run up to the 2019 Presidential election, there was Muhudu Maha Viharaya. While Candidate Gotabaya, reassuring in his moderate mask, did the kovil and mosque rounds, his official and unofficial surrogates busied themselves stirring the extremist cauldron. In the Pottuvil Muhudu Maha Viharaya, Muslim extremists are destroying statues depicting the Buddha’s eighty great disciples, social media posts claimed. These statues, built by the Rajapaksa administration in 2013, are being razed to the ground under the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration in 2019. If that Government is re-elected, the same horrendous fate will befall the Samadhi statue, the Tholuwila statue and the statues in Gal Viharaya.

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Slaughter of Palestinians …. Again

A Sri Lankan American, in an Item entitled “Slaughter of Palestinians”

As the world wakes up to the harrowing images of children slain by Israeli bombs across the entire Gaza Strip AGAIN, we cannot bear witness to global leaders JUST… DOING…. NOTHING. This is an acceleration of the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people as a whole. We already failed to prevent it and our Governments have an even greater obligation to stop it now.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) – March 18, 2025

https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1901964025950310842

   

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ALSO SEE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/23/senior-hamas-leader-among-23-killed-in-israeli-strikes-in-southern-gaza

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Revisiting ‘Noble Death’ via the Tamil Tigers

Michael Roberts 

An ‘outfit’ named ACADEMIA.COM has sent me digital links to old articles from my ‘pen’ on web that have attracted HITS. This is a flattering nudge to my weakening memory bank. As new generations of ‘students’ of the Sri Lankan scene may be interested in these old engagements, I place the A1 generated summaries here.

ONE …. “Empowering the Body and Noble Death,” By Michael W Roberts  in Social Analysis, 2006

AI-generated Abstract: The paper “Empowering the Body and ‘Noble Death'” explores how specific cultural practices in Asia, particularly those associated with martial arts, facilitate a sense of empowerment in the face of death. It discusses the interplay of mind and body in rituals and practices that foster a unity with cosmic forces, enabling practitioners to confront death fearlessly. Through a comparative analysis of various contributions in this domain, the authors reflect on the complexity of participant observation in ethnographic studies and the challenges faced by researchers in fully engaging with the cultural contexts they study.

TPS Pictorial — Thuppahi

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