Dinouk Columbage in the gunsights of Lake House
Amanda Hodge, in The Australian, 25 June 2014, under the title “Sri Lanka call to arrest reporter“
AS journalists around the world reel over lengthy prison sentences handed down to three Al Jazeera reporters in Egypt, a media freedom controversy has erupted in Sri Lanka after the editor of the Daily News called for the arrest of a local Al Jazeera journalist for reporting on inter-religious riots. In a series of Twitter rants, the state-owned newspaper’s editor, Rajpal Abeynayake, accused Al Jazeera’s Colombo stringer, Dinouk Colombage, of inciting religious tensions by reporting on Buddhist-Muslim clashes last week in southwest Aluthgama in which four people died and about 80 more were injured.
Ride on the High, Wild, Striking and Stalking Side with National Geographic
SEE https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/146d3d28aa7a127a?projector=1
Lions kill a buffalo at Masai Mara — Pix by Jonathan & Angela Scott/Getty Images/AWL Images RM
Filed under slanted reportage, travelogue, world affairs
Victimized Muslims of Aluthgama-Beruwela express Grief and Legitimate Resentment
Dharisha Bastians, courtesy of Daily FT, 19 June 2014 ……. http://www.ft.lk/2014/06/19/what-was-our-crime/
| Thousands of displaced people in the riot-rocked towns of Beruwala and Aluthgama are too afraid to go home again – and many of them have no homes to return to |
…..Pix by Ishara S. Kodikara (AFP) and Shilpa Samaratung
The watcher at the Al Humeisara Central College in China Fort is compulsive about keeping the tall gates padlocked at all times. He ushers authorised vehicles in and hurriedly shuts the gates behind them, casting furtive looks on the road outside. Inside the closely-guarded gates, schoolroom desks and chairs are stacked in corners. All the signs of mass displacement abound – large water tanks, truckloads of relief items and make-shift first aid centres. Infants and toddlers snooze in the stifling noon day heat on the floors of fly-infested classrooms. Some of them are only a few weeks old. The children seem to be the only ones removed from the anger and sorrow that is pervasive in the schoolyard. Thrilled to be skipping school and surrounded by dozens of playmates, they put the Al Humeisara swing sets and climbing frames to good use. It could be Vavuniya or Batticaloa five or six years ago. Except that the camp lies barely 60 kilometres from the capital Colombo and this is not a war zone. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, atrocities, Bodu Bala Sena, cultural transmission, economic processes, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, Muslims in Lanka, population, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, riots and pogroms, sri lankan society, tolerance, vengeance, violence of language, women in ethnic conflcits, zealotry
Moeen Ali for England … long live multi-cultural England
Piers Morgan in Tweet
Moeen Ali is a perfect example of the many decent, talented muslims who make England a better place. Great seeing him in an England shirt.
SEE http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/755351.html1,844 Retweets
Moeen Ali, 108 not out — Pix by Getty Images
Filed under cricket for amity, cultural transmission, tolerance
Undercover LTTE infiltration and operational activity within Sri Lanka 2014
from Udeshi Amarasinghe: at “Modus Operandi: Tamil Diaspora and LTTE Organisations” …. in http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Modus_Operandi_Tamil_Diaspora_and_LTTE_Organisations_20140605_05
Two suspects involved in LTTE propaganda activity was taken into custody while distributing posters in Jaffna in March 2014. Following investigations conducted by law enforcement officers, they trailed a known ex-LTTE cadre by the name of Gobi who had escaped the Vavuniya Welfare Centre after the end of the conflict. The suspect was hiding in a house in Kilinochchi and when the team went to arrest him, he opened fire on the team and an officer was injured. The house he was hiding in was searched and an F-3 type metal detector was found. Investigations further revealed that they were to use this metal detector to find arms and explosives dumped by the LTTE. This metal detector had been stolen from an NGO involved in demining operations in the east of Vavuniya. 
Thevihan, Gobi and Appan Continue reading
The Induction Oath of Tamil Tiger Fighters at their Passing-Out Ceremony
Michael Roberts
Adele Balasingham and a LTTE fighter — BBC, 1991
Apropos of the misleading interpretations of suicide attacks by Western commentators such as the political scientist, Robert Pape, it is important to note that the act of suicide was initially adopted by the LTTE as a defensive tool to protect the organisation from the leaking of information after capture. It was also a mark of their dedication to the Tamil liberation cause and thus a method of drawing popular admiration. It was not till 5 July 1987 that it was deployed as a low cost precision weapon when Miller (a nom de guerre) drove a truck bomb into an SL Army encampment at Nelliyadi. This was but one instance of uyirayutham — life as weapon.
As training was formalised, like all armies the LTTE had a passing out ceremony for their fighters. The induction of a batch of female fighters is graphically depicted in a BBC documentary filmed in the LTTE territories in 1991 where one sees/hears them chant in unison in response to their female commander’s initial prompt:
“Our revolutionary organisation’s purified aim
is for a free society to achieve Tamil Eelam
My life and soul and all this I sacrifice to
our organisation’s leader, our brother, Mr Prabhakaran
We fully accept that for him we will be very faithful and trustworthy
The aim of the Tigers – Tamils’ freedom.” Continue reading
Low Cost Precision Weapons: A Bibliography on Suicide Attacks
Courtesy of The Poor Man’s Smart Bomb at http://pmsmartbomb.wordpress.com/suicide-attacks%C2%A0bibliography/
I thought it might be useful to share this list of articles and books relating to suicide attacks. This is an ongoing effort and is by no means comprehensive and is fairly narrowly focused – I have no intention of trying to catalogue all materials related to terrorism and insurgency. I’ll be updating the bibliography as I go along. If you notice any glaring omissions or have suggestions for new material, please comment below or email me at pmsmartbomb at gmail dot com.
Black Tigers marching
