| Email Note from Gus Mathews in London to Rajeewa Jayaweera in Lanka, 14 March 2019
Rajeewa, Thank you for your analysis.[1] You are absolutely correct that the main objective of the coalition was to prevent a Mahinda Rajapakse return to being President. RW [Ranil Wickremasinghe] had tried numerous times to be President and failed abysmally. So with the aid of the Western countries he embarked on series of actions that would have a puppet President with him wielding executive power. He tried it with Sarath Fonseka with the understanding that once SF became President that he would surrender all his Presidential powers to RW. Unfortunately, it did not work that time despite the minorities voting for SF.
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UNHRC Resolution directed at Sri Lanka
Item in Daily Mirror, 12 March 2019, ….UK, Canada submit resolution on SL to UNHRC
A resolution on ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’ was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday by six main sponsors including the UK and Canada. The main sponsors are Canada, Germany, Montenegro, North Macedonia, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. In their resolution, the sponsors requested the Government of Sri Lanka to implement fully the measures identified by the UNHRC in its resolution 30/1 that are outstanding.
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Sri Lanka’s Laurel and Hardy Act in Geneva
Rajeewa Jayaweera, Island, 11 March 2019, where the title is “A Joke called Sri Lanka”
Sri Lanka has become a joke and is the laughing stock of the world. Four months ago, Sri Lanka had two Prime Ministers, then two Leaders of the Opposition. It is now fielding two teams to the 40th Session of the UNHRC with two contradictory messages.This is chiefly thanks to the falling out of Laurel and Hardy of current Sri Lankan politics, President Sirisena, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
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Cool Bravery under Gunfire — That was Dilshan at Lahore, 3 March 2009
News Item, Times Online, 11 March 2019, with title “Cricket: Paul Farbrace credit Dilshan for his bravery a decade after Lahore attack”
Ten years after Sri Lankan cricketers came under a terrorist attack in Lahore, Paul Farbrace–the team’s assistant coach at that time has credited former Sri Lanka opener TM Dilshan for saving their lives. Six police officers and a driver were killed and seven members of the Sri Lanka contingent wounded in Lahore on March 3, 2009 when more than a dozen heavily armed gunmen ambushed the team convoy en route to a match against Pakistan.
“The driver was given huge credit, and his skills in getting us out of the situation were incredible, but to this day I think Dilshan’s bravery saved our lives,” Farbrace was quoted as saying by BBC, “Sticking his head up and talking the driver through it, telling him where to turn, that probably saved us.” Continue reading
Mythic Fantasies: Rāvana displaces Vijaya in the Sinhala Chauvinist Lexicon
Lakshman Gunasekara, courtesy of HORIZONS, 10 March 2019, where the title reads “From Vijaya to Ravana: Sinhala geo-politics as new cosmic war” … with highlighting emphasis added by the Editor, Thuppahi
The trend in Sinhala ultra-nationalist discourse in the past decade clearly indicates a shift in mythic inspirational fundamentals – a fading of the ‘Arya’ Vijaya persona and a slow but vociferous (and already violent) rising of a Ravana persona. Is this an ideological shift that was required by the intensity of Sinhala supremacist war effort?
Readers of my ‘Horizons’ column last week may have sought an answer to the question in my title last week, ‘Was Ravana a Sinhalese?’ and been disappointed with the lack of one. Since my column last week discussed the rise of Ravana symbolism in terms of pure myth, the question of Ravana’s ‘ethnicity’ is clearly in the realm of myth as well – modern myth, that is. Continue reading
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Finger-lickin’ Good: USA’s Assessment of Mangala Samaraweera
Hassina Leelarathna, …. with her original title being “Mangala’s 30th Anniversary Bash & the Price of Power” …. Visit www.srilankaexpress.org
A Colombo-based media outlet publicizing “Khema’s Kolla” – Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s 30th anniversary in politics – mentions this in the laudatory piece: “It is believed that Mangala is particularly skillful in promoting foreign relations.”
The not-uncommon practice in Sri Lankan journalism of ignoring the basic 5 W’s rule is noteworthy here: who really believes Samaraweera has skillfully promoted his nation’s foreign relations?
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Citizen Perera in Incisive Thoughts on China’s Global Outreach amidst USA’s Overwhelming World Machinations
A NOTE from Michael Roberts
With the wide sweep of social media today Ordinary Joes and Ordinary Sandras have been encouraged to express their views in ways that can sometimes be (A) incendiary or (B) silly or (C) meaningless. I happen to receive two sets of ongoing debates among Sri Lankans (some resident abroad and some at home) which are vibrant …. But also include views which seem to be off-course if not ridiculous in my estimation.
However, I was stimulated by the sagacity and common-sense embodied in a recent exchange arising from US pressure on Venezuela – which exchange brought to my notice an item on China’s role in constructing a railway between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in Peru. In the context of China’s One Belt policy in Asia and the hullabaloo about Hambantota port raised by American, Sri Lankan and others, this commentary was refreshing. Well -it IS refreshing and worth airing in Thuppahi.
Take a bow Gus, Rajeewa and Brendan.
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Tamil Tales in UK: Melange of Truths and Lies via Gullible Brits
This article in a web site in 2016 reveals the mix of dissimulation. half-truths, truths and lies amongst well-meaning, but gullible British do-gooders and reporters that are perpetrated by some members of the diaspora including new British-born generations who have absorbed a variety of tales, inclusive of half-truths and concoctions, related by their parents (all this apart from but not unrelated to active LTTE network activity throughout UK and Europe) … Michael Roberts
Flora Hastings, “Defunding the Diaspora: Sri Lankan Tamil Communities at the Forefront of Government Cuts,” https://novaramedia.com/2016/11/06/defunding-the-diaspora-londons-sri-lankan-tamils-at-the-forefront-of-government-cuts/
The end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, and the ongoing oppression of the Tamil community by the Sri Lankan government should make it harder for the UK to ignore the needs of London’s Sri Lankan refugees and incoming asylum seekers. But community spaces that support London’s Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora are struggling in the face of ongoing cuts to local governments.
The Sangam center, founded in 1936, is one of the oldest Tamil organisations in London
“I want to show you a cemetery”. This was an unexpected endnote to an interview about teaching the Tamil language in the borough of Newham. Lashani pushes open the door of a disused room, three flights up. Light enters from a window yawning over a communal space, encased by a block of houses. Our viewpoint is through the back of the London Tamil Sangam of which Lashani is the head teacher. Continue reading
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Digana: Tales and Reflections One Year after Disastrous Riots
Rajitha Jagoda Arachchi, in Sunday Observer, 3 March 2019, where the title runs “Digana: Ground Zero one year on“
A year ago, the peaceful village was an unrecognisable hotbed of hate and violence and this street on which Samsudeen’s home now stands reconstructed, was filled with concrete and glass, debris from the attacks on Muslim-owned homes and businesses around town. The shoe merchant Samsudeen lives in a newly built house in the middle of town. The man in his 60s invited us into the bedroom cum living room of his modest home, and motioned to his wife to bring refreshments for his guests.
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Samantha Power and Mangala Samaraweera on the Same Wagon Train
News Item in OnLanka, 1 March 2019, entitled “Power pays Glowing Tribute to Mangala”
Ambassador Samantha Power, yesterday, said that last year’s political crisis in Sri Lanka had raised alarm bells all around the world. “But critically, while our respective institutions have bent, they are not breaking in the US, and they are not breaking in Sri Lanka,” Ambassador Power said. The former top member of the Obama administration said so, delivering the key note address at an event at the BMICH to mark Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s completion of 30 years in politics. Among those present were President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Opposition Leader President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
