Serge De Silva-Ranasinghe, in Asia-Pacific Defence News, Vol.5/5, May 15-June14, 2010, where the title is “Defeat Of The LTTE And Its Significance” …. with the difficult & painstaking task of conversion being handled by Darshanie Ratnawalli in Sri Lanka ... whilethe highlighting emphasis in the article is the work of The Editor, Thuppahi
The month of May 2010 marks the first anniversary of the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE), which was widely considered to be among the most formidable insurgent-terrorist organisations in the world. In what was universally thought to be an unwinnable war, Sri Lanka emerged victorious in one of the most remarkable counter insurgency campaigns in the history of modern counter-insurgency(COIN) warfare, says Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe
Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications” …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **
Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.
Michael Roberts in the DEDICATION presented on the first page of the bookTamil Person and State: Essays, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2014, … ISBN 978-955- 665-230-7
The essays that make up this anthology would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous individuals who provided me with information during face-to-face conversations, Skype and telephone chats or through responses by email. This will be only too evident if readers take note of my citations and footnotes.For this reason, it is entirely appropriate that I dedicate this work to all those who have assisted me in my researches over the last few years. Not all of them will agree with my thrusts. Indeed, there are a few of them in Colombo, such as Ananda Chittambalam, who have disputed some of my arguments, while yet encouraging me in my researches and publication programmes.
Ana Chittambalam: ex-Royal College, raconteur, promoter of causes and a staunch ally and dangerous foe
This little presentation is a DEDICATION. It illustrates the potency and power of friends in producing an academic booklet in 2011. As it happens, the booklet bears the title Potency, Power & People in Groups and was financed by the good friends Godfrey & Amar Gunatilleke of the Marga Institute.
The “Acknowledgements” and the “Foreword” taken together spell out the names of those friends who assisted this project. But let me single out Anura Hettiarachchifor his aid in this project and in the endeavours leading to my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period (Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2004) because he was struck down by heart failure recently.
To Anura, then, in gratitude I place this item in my website.
Features presented in the book VOLUNTEERS fROM CEYLON (2022) … supplemented by additional tit-bits from Richard Dickie Hermon of Trinity College who is now resident in Melbourne, Australia
HITLER: “If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without regret over the spilling of precious German blood, then I naturally also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin.” …..
Adolf Hitler raises a defiant, clenched fist during a speech.
circa 1933: German Dictator, Adolf Hitler addressing a rally in Germany. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Michael Patrick O’Leary, aka Padraig Colman, presenting an essay that did not make the top grade
To help me through these troubled times, this sordid age, I have been bingeing on the oeuvre of the Divine Plum, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.
The Age of Aquarius has long departed. We are now living in the Age of Ukridge, a time of fact-free posturing. This is the Age of Systemic Deceit, the post-truth era. Once a lie finds a sympathetic ear, rebuttals, facts, will not persuade people that it is not true. To believe anything else would create a sense of cognitive dissonance. Memories of corrections fade rapidly, but the memory of the original lie remains. Goebbels had something to say on this subject. Media scholar Caroline Jack coined the phrase “unintentional amplification”, which in turn leads to another phenomenon which she identifies as “inadvertent legitimisation” – the act of giving credibility to “strategic lies” simply by repeating them. In Truth and Truthfulness, his last published book, philosopher Bernard Williams focused on what he identified as the “virtues” of truthfulness, Accuracy and Sincerity. We can’t get along without trust (human flourishing creates a “need for cooperation” (b) but trust requires truthfulness, and (c) truthfulness presupposes that there are (at least some) truths. For Williams, lies are pernicious for at least two reasons: (1) the liar betrays the trust of the dupe; and (2) the liar exerts power over the dupe, manipulating his or her beliefs and thus (potentially) his or her choices. Today, all citizens are taken for dupes and patsies, marks in the great political confidence trick.
HOUSE OF LORDS:Sri Lanka Truth & Reconciliation Commission
A topical question on Sri Lanka was raised by Conservative peer Lord Daniel Moylan in the House of Lords on Thursday, December 1stwhich was followed by additional supplementary questions that were answered by Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office (Middle East, North Africa, South Asia & the UN).
