Michael Roberts
While we are still groping in the dark when interpreting the culprits and motivations behind the attack on the cricketing entourage heading for Gaddafi Stadium on 3rd March 2009, it is not out of place to highlight some of the heroes of that event, a few recognised THEN …. but there are, in my view, two more to add to that list.
Khalil 
Chris Broad 
Dilshan 
Ahsan Raza
Thamel
On the 3rd March 2019 the BBC took the heady step of interviewing the longstanding management team of Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace about their nightmare-experiences at the roundabout approaching Gaddafi Stadium in Karachi from 8.39 am on 3rd March 2009.
On 3 March 2009, the Sri Lanka cricket team were in Lahore, Pakistan. It was the third morning of another Test match. Shortly before 09:00 local time, just outside the Gaddafi Stadium, 12 gunmen ambushed them. Six policemen and a driver escorting match officials were killed. The attackers were armed with assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers. England coach Trevor Bayliss and his assistant Paul Farbrace, both then working with Sri Lanka, were on the team bus. Here, 10 years on, they explain how they survived.
03 Mar 2009, LAHORE, Pakistan — epa01653633 Pakistani Police commandoes guard Gadaffi Cricket Stadium, where Sri Lankan cricketers were taken following an attack in Lahore Pakistan on 03 March 2009. Unidentified gunmen attacked Sri Lanka’s cricket team 03 March when it was being escorted to a local stadium in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, leaving six policemen and two civilians dead and four Sri Lankan players injured, media reports and officials said. EPA/STRINGER — Image by © STRINGER/epa/Corbis
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, trauma, unusual people, world events & processes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia …. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_attack_on_the_Sri_Lanka_national_cricket_team … with underlining in RED by The Editor, Thuppahi, to isolate central poitnts or suggestions
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| Coordinates | 31°30′38″N 74°20′25″ECoordinates: 31°30′38″N 74°20′25″E |
| Date | 3 March 2009 08:40 PKT[1] (UTC+5:00) |
| Attack type | Ambush |
| Weapons | AK-47s, 6–7 RPGs and 22–70 hand grenades |
| Deaths | 6 Pakistani police officers 2 civilians  |
| Injuries | 6 Sri Lankan cricketers and 2 staff and 1 reserve umpire |
| No. of participants | 14–15[2][3] |
| Defenders | Punjab Police/Elite Police[4] |
Anurudha Kodagoda in Sunday Observer, 6 October 2019, reviewing Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s TEARS IN PARADISE
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s latest documentary film, ‘Tears in Paradise’ (Paradisayaka Kadulu), consists of the political history of Sri Lanka from the assassination of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to the 1983 Black July, emphasizing the dark history of violence released by the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnicity of the country with the patronage of the Sri Lankan Government which was in power at that time.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, Buddhism, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, devolution, discrimination, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, plural society, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
A chance finding of an old article that I had written on “dedicated medical work” on both sides of the battlefront during the last stages of the war brought vibrant memories of Dr Susiri Weerasekera into my mind. Getting to know him well after I visited the Friend-in-Need Society opposite the Gangarama at Colpetty in mid-2010, I can assure all readers that he was a man to have alongside one in adversity. We became warm friends over the years.[1] My admiration for his dedication towards humankind, his industry, patriotism and sagacity is unbounded. He is alive still I believe; but I write in the past tense because he lapsed into a state non compos mentis about two years back and I find it distressing even to seek information on his state of body and mind.
This is a valedictory memorial in several parts.
Dr Weerasekera standing 2nd from right facing us with a visiting dignitary at the FINS buildng
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Press Release from the ICES at Kandy
The ceremonial launch of two publications of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES, Kandy) titled, respectively, as The Life of D. S. Senanayake (1884-1952): Sri Lanka’s First Prime Minister, by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and its Sinhala version, D.S: Sri Lankaway Prathama Agraamaathya, by Professor K. N. O. Dharmadasa, was held in Kandy on 3 October 2019 in the presence of a large gathering invited by Prof. Upul Dissanayake, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, who sponsored the event in collaboration with the staff of the ICES.
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, plural society, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes, World War II
Pictorial display courtesy of Ozlanka.com …. http://www.ozlanka.com/2019-albums/sep2019-pics/lal-1/index.html
Lal Wickramatunga was a Benedictine cricketer who could mix it with or best in his halcyon days and thereafter served as a police officer. He was a servant of the Board of Control for Sri Lanka Cricket in the 1990s. He helped run The Sunday Leader after his elder brother Lasantha was assassinated in January 2009. He moved to Australia in diplomatic and consular capacities in recent times. His popularity among the Sri Lankans in Sydney is indelibly etched in the pictorial illustrations presented in OZLANKA. May he bat on …… and on …. wherever he plants his feet.
Fare thee well Lal.
S W R de A Samarasinghe, in Island, 1 October 2019, where the title reads ” Democracy at the Crossroads”
There is little to choose between the two principal presidential candidates Sajith Premadasa (UNF) and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (SLPP) when it comes to election rhetoric. Both talk a lot about national unity, security, national sovereignty, economic prosperity, and social equity. These are very reasonable and highly desirable goals that nobody will challenge.
But there is one key issue on which the two sides appear to differ. Rajapaksa and his supporters stress the importance of a ‘strong’ government. They do not clearly define the term. However, the 2006-2014 record of the Rajapaksa administration where the rule of law was disregarded with impunity and white vans were used to intimidate opponents, suggests that the term ‘strong’ was not exactly benign in that era.
Filed under authoritarian regimes, communal relations, constitutional amendments, democratic measures, economic processes, electoral structures, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
The perpetrators of the attack on the cricket entourage heading for Gaddafi Stadium on 3rd March 2009 have never been identified in a sure-fire manner. Nor have any Pakistani analysts clarified the motivations and politics behind this horrendous assault on a sport that meant so much to Pakistanis themselves. Were the personnel who mounted the assault jihadists who did not wish the cricket bat to sustain more appeal than the scimitar that stands as a symbol for a Islamic resurgence?
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thuppahi
