Category Archives: war reportage

January 16, 2022 · 11:02 am

Paul McNamee steps into the Djokovic Courtside Drama

Paul McNamee in The Age, 15 January 2022, where the title reads “Djokovic an easy target in anti-vaxxer witch hunt”

Clearly, the outcome of the Federal Court case on Sunday has implications for Novak Djokovic. How about for the Australian Open?

The Australian Open is far and away Australia’s biggest international sporting event. Hosting all the world’s best tennis players in arguably the best sporting precinct in the world, it generates close to one billion dollars in economic impact for the state of Victoria. It puts Melbourne front and centre on the world stage for two weeks but, this year, for all the wrong reasons.

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December 30, 2021 · 4:53 pm

The Horrendous Record of Western Manipulations in Recent World History

Fair Dinkum, responding to the Global Times item in Thuppahi entitled “China on the World Stage: A Judicious Assessment,”….. https://thuppahis.com/2021/12/30/china-on-the-world-stage-a-judicuous-assessment/

We need to move to a new narrative about China, but also a new structure for the world, and not allow Western defence or military establishments to play language games over China, just because the rise of China doesn’t suit them. To take one example, in an article published in the US “Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy” journal this year titled “Cold war Redux: The West Loses Africa’s Horn” – just thinking about the title says much about colonialism. From the 18th to the 20th centuries, African nations were colonialised and carved up by the Britain, France, Portugal, Germany and Belgium for their own selfish gains. They did the same in Asia, the Middle East and South America. They were all Western powers.

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December 12, 2021 · 12:37 pm

Struggles in Geneva … with Yakku within the Rajapaksa Officialdom

Uditha Devapriya, in The  Island, 11 December 2021,reviewing Rajiva Wijesinha’s Representing Sri Lanka  (S. Godage & Brothers, 2021, 189 pp. Rs. 750) …. where the title is “Downhill All The Way”

I met Rajiva Wijesinha for the first time four years ago, at the Organisation of Professional Associations in Colombo. At a seminar on English language learning and teaching there, he handed me a book he had published a few days earlier. Titled Endgames and Excursions, it was an account of his official travels, friendships, and associations. I remember promising to review it, reading it, and then laying it aside. It was an unforgivable lapse, but one I now feel was justified: I was simply not qualified for the task.

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November 26, 2021 · 11:45 pm

World’s Leading Mass Killers? Who? Answer = US Military Machine

Michael Moore, in Information Clearing House, 23 November 2021, where the title reads thus: “A Memorial to the Terrorists – when the Terrorists are US!”

Eleven days ago on Veterans Day, while watching the cable news, I learned that our Congress, never missing a chance to ingratiate themselves with what they think Middle America wants — more money for the military, more flags flying everywhere, more fake patriotism and more pandering to the fake patriots — decided it was time to create a brand new national memorial on the already overcrowded National Mall in Washington, D.C., between the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol building. The memorial will be called “The Global War on Terrorism Memorial.” I’m not making this up.

And what patriotic politician or red-blooded American wouldn’t be in favor of that!

Well, me. I’m not in favor of it. And I hope you won’t be, either.

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November 26, 2021 · 1:12 pm

Exploring Sri Lanka’s Experiences with Democracy

Sarah Kabir and ROAR on “A Journey of a Demcracy: The Sri Lankan Story”

ROAR is embarking on the generation of a documentary thatseeks to create awareness and understanding of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history…… SEE INITIAL NOTICE: https://thuppahis.com/2021/11/19/imaginative-explorations-of-sri-lankas-history-on-the-cards/#more-56776

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Intervention

It has been over a decade since the end of Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict, but what we have today is ‘negative peace’ – which is the absence of overt violence. Limited understanding of Sri Lanka’s history, politics, democracy, ambition, intent, and the refusal to acknowledge acts of intolerance and discrimination that destroyed lives and led to bloodshed makes it increasingly difficult to avoid the recurrence of violence and we risk repeating the same mistakes. Today, we are confronted with choices that could lead to positive peace or a resumption of cycles of violence. Even now, the difficulties of dealing with COVID-19 and the resulting economic fallout could lead to social unrest that may morph into inter-communal violence if manipulated. Continue reading →

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November 23, 2021 · 12:51 pm

Continuation of Venom and Bias at the UNHRC

Malinda Seneviratne in his web-site MalindaWords where the title runs “Spit and venom in Geneva (same old, same old)”

 

 

 It’s Bachelet’s hour. That’s Michelle. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The second of her bi-annual Christmas-come-early party in Geneva. Time to get her kicks, probably. The grave countenance, deep tone and malice disguised as concern.  Yes, folks, it’s that time of year of regurgitating tired arguments based on tendentious claims made by unreliable sources with agendas that have little or nothing to do with human rights.

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November 18, 2021 · 11:56 pm

Kokkadicholai: An Outpost in Wartime Batticaloa

This Item appeared in Dilshy Banu’s Facebook post and I have borrowed it and its photographs for circulation via Thuppahi – in part because it marks a little “outpost activity” in the course of the war and largely because I have met Dilshy and respect her courageous career choices and her lines of philanthropic endeavour….. Michael Roberts, 18 November 2021

Dilshy Banu: “Kokkadicholai in Batticaloa: Traversing Tension during Eelam War IV”

 

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October 23, 2021 · 7:45 pm

Comparative Insights: USA’s Failures in Vietnam and Afghanistan

H.D.S Greenway, in Sri Lanka Guardian, 23 October 2021, … where the title runs thus  = Half century long American misadventures

A veteran war correspondent recalls the ignorance, poor judgement, exceptionalism, and hubris in all of [USA’s]  interventions.

Nearly half a century ago I watched the South Vietnamese army, an army that had been trained and equipped by the United States, simply melt away before a less well equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam. The South Vietnamese fled in panic before the North’s final offensive. I saw soldiers taking off their uniforms and fleeing in their underwear. Cities were falling before the North Vietnamese had time to get there.

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October 22, 2021 · 7:53 pm

LTTE Activists at Work in Britain, 2021 …. stirring both Labour and Tories

Maya Anthony, in Ceylon Today, 14 October 2021,where the title reads  “The LTTE Born Again; Second-Generation Terrorists”

The remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are regrouping in the UK. Like Osama bin Laden groomed Hamza bin Laden to succeed him, the LTTE leaders and members are grooming their own children. Prabhakaran too set an example by training and grooming his children; Charles Anthony, Dwarka and Balachandran. To radicalise their next generation, the separatists are promoting a false narrative. Using funds and votes, the terrorists are planning to penetrate both the Labour and Conservative Parties in the UK. 

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October 21, 2021 · 6:17 pm

The Modern Nation States’ Victims

Adam Henry Hughes, whose original title runs thus “Hiding the Body Bags: The Nation-State, Killing and Death”

During a lecture [in 2010], the famous news correspondent Robert Fisk told a story of the reaction of a Reuter’s news agency (London) to receiving graphic pictures of civilian death and destruction caused in Iraq by British forces. Reuter’s called the pictures “obscene” and therefore not fit to be shown back home.(1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learn about the abstract war, the war of nationalist or ideological sacrifice and endurance, the achievement of some military objective or another; the war that is remembered in one national cemetery or memorial museum. But we must not see the broken and mutilated bodies—the final state of the human being once steel, bomb, bullet or blade meets flesh.(2)

 

 

 

 

Many died in the Battle at LONE PINE

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