August 8, 2019 · 5:14 pm

Clobbering Rajiv Gandhi as Chastisement in 1987: A Guti Dheema

Michael Roberts

When Vijithamuni Rohana de Silva upended military discipline and attempted to clobber the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on the head as the latter was inspecting a guard of honour on 30th July 1987, he was indulging in an act of chastisement – a guti dheema in Sinhala parlance. As such, in my tendentious elaboration, Rohana de Silva was administering a medicinal pill in the vocabulary of archaic Sinhala – a vocabulary that has resonances within the term beheth guliya. [1]

The emphasis on guti dheema was a conjecture I presented way back in 2002.[2] In my reading now, one that Retd Commodore Somasiri Devendra does not share, the intricate details provided recently by Retd Lt KH Perera confirm this set of musings.

 Indo-Lanka Accord about to be signed on 29th July 1987

Continue reading →

8 Comments

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, Eelam, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, riots and pogroms, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes

August 6, 2019 · 4:10 am

A Naval Rating’s Assault on Rajiv Gandhi, 30 July 1987: Detailed Account

Retd. Lt. KH Perera’s Account of the Background, Circumstances and Immediate Aftermath of the Assault on Rajiv Gandhi, on 30th July 1987

Preamble:  Via mediation by Rtd Commodore Somasiri Devendra,[1] Michael Roberts visited Retd Lt. KH Perera’s house at Boralasgamuwa on Thursday 25th July 2019 in the company of Devendra.  Retd Lt Perera responded readily to the questions presented about the attempt to clobber the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when he was inspecting a naval guard of honour gathered in front of the President’s House outside the Post Office in the Fort of Colombo on 30th July 1987. As Master Chief Petty Officer, KH Perera was in command of the naval ratings mustered for this important state occasion. The details elicited during our discussion and compiled here with aid from Somasiri Devendra are of considerable importance and cannot be overestimated. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under accountability, Eelam, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, meditations, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics

August 5, 2019 · 6:29 pm

Naayakayo Koheydha! Rudderless Drift in Sri Lanka

Rajeewa Jayaweera, in Island, 5 August 2019, with this title “Leadership vacuum in Sri Lanka”

Imran Khan (IK), 67 years old Prime Minister of Pakistan, hails from an upper-middle-class Pashtun family in Lahore and is a graduate of Keble College, Oxford. He captained the national cricket team on the single occasion his country won the Cricket World Cup in 1992. Aged 39, IK took the winning last wicket. A philanthropist, he raised funds for two state of the art hospitals in Lahore and Peshawar. He also served as Chancellor of the University of Bradford from 2004 to 2014. Pakistan Threek-e-Insaf (PTI or Pakistan Movement for Justice) was founded by IK in April 1996. He led PTI to victory in the 2018 general election and was elected as Prime Minister on August 17, 2018.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, democratic measures, economic processes, foreign policy, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes

August 4, 2019 · 5:17 pm

2000-Year Old Buddhist Scroll from Gandhara Now in Public Domain

Allen Kim of CNN, in https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/29/world/gandhara-scroll-buddhism-trnd/index.html

The Library of Congress made public a rare 2,000-year-old text of early Buddhism on Monday, and it offers a glimpse into early Buddhist history during its formative years.  The scroll originated in Gandhara, an ancient Buddhist region in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only a few hundred Gandharan manuscripts are known to scholars worldwide, and each is vital to understanding the early development of Buddhist literature. For instance, using linguistic analysis, scholars study these manuscripts to chart the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, travelogue, world events & processes

August 4, 2019 · 4:25 pm

Lake House trains its Guns on Gota

Political Editor in Sunday Observer, 4 August 2019, where the title is “The Problem with ‘Candidate Gota’,”

Exactly a week from today, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is set to hold a huge rally in the central city of Kandy, where expectations are that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa will formally take over the reins of the fledgling political party that swept the February 2018 local authorities election. August 11 is also when the SLPP rank and file strongly believe the former President will finally anoint the party’s presidential hopeful. Most of the party believes this candidate should be the man who functioned as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence throughout his brother’s decade-long presidency, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

August 4, 2019 · 3:58 pm

Lapses, Holes and Bumbling Officers in Sri Lanka’s Security Organisations

Sandun Jayawardana, in Sunday Times, 4 August 2019, where the title reads “Witnesses expose lack of coordination in counter-terror moves”

Officers from the Attorney General’s Department appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) investigating the Easter Sunday attacks this week to defend the department’s position. They said they came to clear a wrong impression created in society over the department’s role with regard to a file related to the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ). The documents in the file had been forwarded to the AG’s Department by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in 2017 and 2018.

Giving evidence on behalf of the AG’s Department were Deputy Solicitors General (DSG) Dileepa Peiris and Azad Navavi.Army Commander Lt. General Mahesh Senanayake also testified this week, appearing before the commission for the second time. Others who gave evidence this week were former Defence Secretary Kapila Waidyaratne and Acting TID Director Superintendent of Police Jagath Vishantha. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, disparagement, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people

August 3, 2019 · 7:09 am

Harvesting the Talents of the Sri Lankan Diaspora

Jeevan Thiagarajah, in Daily News, 29 July 2019, where the title is “Implementing Brain gain initiative. Our diaspora”

There is sheer waste of rich resource and benefit to Sri Lanka by our failure to tap into the rich resource available in the Sri Lankan Overseas Communities. There is no co-ordinated effort to tap into this rich willing resource. In the end what most do is undertake personal initiatives. This is what a lot of people do.There are two ways to implement the brain gain: either through the return of the expatriates to the country of origin (Return Option) or through their remote mobilization and association to its development (Diaspora Option).

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under anton balasingham, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, governance, heritage, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tourism, transport and communications, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

August 3, 2019 · 5:43 am

Machinations and Incompetence that assisted Zahran and His Killers

Editorial in The Island, 3 August 2019 = “Who prevented Zahran’s Arrest”,  http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=news-section&page=news-section&code_title=60

The UNP may have thought that it would be able to mount a political blitzkrieg, by way of a parliamentary probe into the Easter Sunday carnage, and lay the blame for the tragedy entirely at the feet of President Maithripala Sirisena, who is the Minister of Defence. Its plan to discredit him and absolve itself of the blame for the government’s failure to prevent the terror attacks has gone awry to all intents and purposes.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, communal relations, conspiracies, disparagement, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, sri lankan society, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, violence of language, world events & processes

August 3, 2019 · 4:46 am

Seeking Religio-Political Coexistence in Sri Lanka

Muditha Dias of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2 June 2019, where the title is “The search for religious harmony in Sri Lanka after the Easter Sunday attacks”

“Who exactly is the NTJ?” I asked our cameraman. We were filming at the Temple of the Tooth Relic, or the Dalada Maligawa, the holiest Buddhist temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Religion and Ethics Report journalist Muditha Dias filming in Sri Lanka… RN

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, australian media, Buddhism, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, life stories, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, religiosity, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, trauma, travelogue, violence of language, world events & processes

August 2, 2019 · 6:33 pm

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Cricketing Aura … Yesteryear

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, charitable outreach, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people