Category Archives: war crimes

April 26, 2023 · 10:50 am

The LTTE and Their Sacrificial Devotion to Cause

Michael Roberts on his Essays on this Theme within the Global Context ………… https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/21/sacrificial-devotion-how-i-entered-this-terrain/…. JULY 21, 2017 · …………..“Sacrificial Devotion” — How I Entered This Terrain

 

 Tiger fighters relax in camp, late 1980s—Pic by Shyam Tekwani who was embedded with LTTE for a while.

With the benefit of a Teen Murti Fellowship I was collecting data on communal violence in India in 1995 when my readings of news archives indicated that the death of Mrs Indira Gandhi by assassination in Delhi induced a handful of individuals in southern India to commit sympathetic suicide. Since news reports did not indicate similar reactions in other parts of India, I began to reflect on the cultural foundations that promoted such expressions – acting, of course, in contexts that also could provide political and economic inspirations. This eventually led to my first essay on this topic: “Filial Devotion and the Tiger Cult of Suicide,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1996, 30: 245-72.

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March 24, 2023 · 10:48 pm

Keenie Meenie Mercenary Operations in Lanka in UK Gunsights

Phil Miller, in Declassified UK, March 14, 2023

A former SAS commander whose mercenary business in Sri Lanka is under investigation for war crimes has left millions of pounds in his will.

     Attached photo of Colonel Johnson leading an SAS parade in 1960. (Image: Imperial War Museum)

One of Britain’s most rapacious mercenaries amassed a fortune worth £4m before his death in 2008, an investigation by Declassified UK has found. The soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry ‘Jim’ Johnson, was once described by a senior British diplomat as having “political ideas [that] are probably to the right of Genghis Khan” – a reference to the infamously brutal Mongol emperor.

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March 23, 2023 · 4:28 am

Sri Lankan Military in Judicial Gunsights Over May 2009 Incidents

Groundviews, 14 March 2023, where the title reads “Military to Face a Day of Reckoning Over the Disappeared”

In a landmark case last month, the Vavuniya High Court ordered the army to produce three LTTE members who had surrendered to the military in May 2019 and have been missing ever since, in response to a habeas corpus case filed by their wives.

 

 

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March 18, 2023 · 4:35 am

Sri Lankan Armed Forces vs the Tamil Tigers: The Last Phase

Serge De Silva Ranasinghe, in The Diplomat, 20 May 2010,*** where the title runs thus “Reflections on the Tigers”

A year after the LTTE’s defeat, evidence shows criticism of Sri Lanka’s army is misplaced, says Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe.

Tamil civilians reach safety across Nandhikadal Lagoon —Pix by SL army

 

 

A year ago this week, the Sri Lankan government officially declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in one of the most extraordinary counter-insurgency campaigns in recent times.

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March 13, 2023 · 5:03 am

Confronting Sacrificial Devotion Worldwide, 2004-2012

Michael Roberts

Within the contemporary (2020) context of a few killings in European cities by Islamic jihadists on a journey to martyrdom at the feet of Allah, I happened to see Stephen Sackur’s grilling of a French politician in one of his “Hard Talk” presentations on Channel Four. I was critical of his narrow focus and my reflections led me on a comparative journey where I indicated that the cry of “Allahu Akbar” indicated a sense of self-fulfilment in this their final journey on earth for the perpetrators of such attacks.[1]

 

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March 1, 2023 · 12:38 am

Encirclement in Religious Practice & Deadly War Strike

Michael Roberts, inspired by interaction & dialogue with Douglas Farrer of the National University of Singapore in the years 2009 to 2014**

VISIT 2012 “Encompassing Empowerment in Ritual, War & Assassination: Tantric Principles in Tamil Tiger Instrumentalities,” in Social Analysis, sp. issue on War Magic ed. by D. S. Farrer, 2014 ……………………………… https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/social-analysis/58/1/sa580105.xml

a groom ties the THALI round the bride’s neck…. https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/862931978596501453/

ABSTRACT: This study highlights the Tantric threads within the transcendental religions of Asia that reveal the commanding role of encirclement as a mystical force. The cyanide capsule (kuppi) around the neck of every Tamil Tiger fighter was not only a tool of instrumental rationality as a binding force, but also a modality similar to a thāli (marriage bond necklace) and to participation in a velvi (religious animal sacrifice). It was thus embedded within Tamil cultural practice. Alongside the LTTE’s politics of homage to its māvīrar (dead heroes), the kuppi sits beside numerous incidents in LTTE acts of mobilization or military actions where key functionaries approached deities in thanks or in preparation for the kill. These practices highlight the inventive potential of liminal moments/spaces. We see this as modernized ‘war magic’—a hybrid re-enchantment energizing a specific religious worldview.

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January 30, 2023 · 11:57 pm

Protecting Women from Trafficking & Abuse: Here. There. Everywhere

Stephen Keim, reviewing Elaine Pearson’s “Chasing Wrongs and Rights” ….

 https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Chasing-Wrongs-and-Rights/Elaine-Pearson/97

Elaine Pearson was born in Sydney but grew up in Perth and completed her law degree at Murdoch University in November 1998.

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November 13, 2022 · 12:07 am

Engaging the Politics of Conflict in Sri Lanka: Padraig Michael Colman

Michael Roberts

Padraig Michael Colman is an experienced journalist and writer who pursued his trade in England and Europe before moving to Sri Lanka with his vivacious Sri Lankan wife Tiny and a coterie of dogs. They settled down awhile in Uva district; but have moved to the outskirts of Colombo in more recent times…. and have since moved back to Great Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 18, 2022 · 12:33 am

The Western Bloc’s Double Standards: “Human Rights” as Missiles

Kalinga Seneviratne, in Daily News, 15 October 2022, where the title runs thus: “Exposing Western Double Standards through Weaponizing Human Rights”

The recently concluded 51st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva exposed once again the double standards of the global human rights agenda.

West’s failure to get a resolution adopted at the UNHRC on October 6 on further investigation into the violation of human rights of the Muslim Uighurs in the North-Western region of Xinjiang Province in China reflects the international community’s scepticism of weaponizing human rights.

 

 

 

 

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September 7, 2022 · 9:51 pm

Tamil Civilians as Sandbags in 2008/09 & Blinding Ignorance in Geneva

Lucien Rajakarunanayake in An Article on 11th September 2014 entitled “Sandbags of Humans” in strategy to woo the West” …. with the highlighting being the present impositions of The Editor, Thuppahi

“I come across new evidence regularly in the midst of misinformation and dis-information that is a facet of the propaganda war that has been sharpening since the LTTE began to retreat in 2008. Since the volume of data is huge, a thorough investigation calls for assiduous work by a team which includes those who are culturally competent and able to discern manipulation.”

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