December 15, 2012 · 1:41 am

Different Photographs in The Weekend Australian: Implications

Michael Roberts

I: A striking aspect of The Weekend Australian’s coverage of Sri Lanka and its asylum-seeker issue on 15/16 December 2012 is its deployment of two different photographs in its online and print versions. The online item by Bandula Jayasekara had this image from AFP: Tamil-tigers

The caption runs thus: “This 2009 photograph is said to be of troops walking among debris inside a Sri Lanka war zone during the conflict between government forces and the Tamil Tigers. Source: AFP.” Note that this image could easily be misread to indicate evidence of heavy shelling. The photograph is from a Ministry of Defence source and was part of their web imagery. The photo would have been taken on or around the 17/18th May 2009 when the Last redoubt of the LTTE had been overrun. What we see are the burning hulks of LTTE equipment which the Tigers, in the standard practice of armies worldwide, blew up as their backs were to the wall. This act of demolition was reported by news media in mid-May as it occurred and confirmed (to me anyway) by the Indian reporters Kanchan Prasad and Muralidhar Reddy who were at the rear of the battle lines and who entered the coastal strip every day from 14th to 18th May inclusively. Continue reading →

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December 14, 2012 · 11:27 pm

Tamil Tigers likely to dominate Sri Lankan asylum-seekers

Bandula Jayasekara, in The Weekend Australian, 15/16 December 2012 … see Editorial C0mment at end

THERE is a misconception among some Australians regarding the issue of Sri Lankan asylum-seekers because of a misinformation campaign carried out by parties with vested interests. I am given to understand that some Australians sympathise with the asylum-seekers without having a clear picture of the situation. However, their sympathy would be in the interest of only the minority of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supporters, who have a long-term agenda in Australia and other Western countries.There are many concerns about remnants of the LTTE (the terrorist group that tried to divide Sri Lanka through a violent struggle) still engaged in human smuggling. For a long time, these groups have operated beyond the shores of Sri Lanka, carrying out aggressive fundraising campaigns and engaged in human smuggling and transnational crimes. Continue reading →

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December 12, 2012 · 12:50 pm

Longitudinal UNICEF Survey of Nutrition in the IDP Camps in 2009

ppt for rob

Michael Roberts

In the course of presenting a seminar on the topic “Humanitarian Work obscured by the Fires of Propaganda War: The IDP Camps, 2009-12” at the premises of ICES on 7th November 2012, I was met by a hostile challenge from Mirak Raheem of the Centre for Policy Alternatives  who raised three points of criticism – one based on empirical material that I had presented about a few IDPs who were bussed in from Nandikadal and the Vanni Pocket – a four-five hour journey I believe – being dead on arrival. Information from the UTHR report , from such individuals as Narendran Rajasingham (who met escaped IDPs in March-April) and the doctors at Manik Farm (e.g. Safras, Woodyard) reveal that there were a few IDPs who could best be described as “walking dead” (and some kin reported the trauma of leaving grandparents behind because they were not fit to move).

CHA photo 2 5828587480_f139405626_s  phoca_thumb_l_Children waiting to get kanchchi at TRO center.. phoca_thumb_l_vanni12 Despite the evocative photographs presented re the abnormal conditions encountered for several months by the Tamil populace corralled together in a revolutionary act of blackmail by the LTTE, Raheem had clearly NOT comprehended the abnormal circumstances of that moment in April-May 2009 and the looming possibility of a humanitarian disaster among the large clusters of IDPs assembled (some 250,000 all told) in the Vavuniya locality in numerous temporary schools-used-as-camps as well as the Mänik Farm Zones. This outstanding failure was – and remains — a measure of the ideological blindness located in advocacy circles in Colombo. It marks an obduracy that is founded upon (1) enclosure within air-conditioned cocoons in Colombo; and (2) a visceral hostility to the Rajapaksa regime that cannot allow for any good emanating from a range of official (and unofficial)  agencies. One can even envision the advocacy circles in Colombo as a cluster that has created its very own siege bunker in the morally righteous cloister way up in the clouds. Continue reading →

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December 12, 2012 · 8:07 am

The Royal We: Sinhala Identity in the Dynastic State

Alan Strathern, reviewing Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period 1590s to 1815.By MICHAEL ROBERTS, Vijitha Yapa Publications, Sri Lanka, 2004. Pp.xx, 274.**

kANDYAN FIGHTERMichael Roberts’ writings have sometimes given the impression of a man who will write at the drop of a hat and at great speed: the subjects have been many and various; the approach as openly adversarial as many of the relationships he takes as his subject; the arguments occasionally advanced by death-defying conceptual leaps or obscure symbolic readings; the prose style quirky or impatient with the more conventional norms of academic prose. The latter is evident even in the present work, in fact the culmination of decades of reflection, where he refers openly to his own intellectual progress, to arguments with colleagues, even to his own ethnic category – Tuppahiyek, or ‘mongrel’ – and sees no cause for shame in routinely citing ‘personal communication’ or telephone conversations in is footnotes. Such considerations might induce the superficial reader to underestimate the importance of the arguments presented in this new monograph. In fact it deserves to be widely read by all those interested in the vigorous debates about ethnic sentiment, nationalism and the murky passage from one to the other. Continue reading →

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December 12, 2012 · 12:31 am

The Singer not the Song: Alston Koch

ALSTON 33Q and A with Ranga Chandrarathne

Alston Koch was known as Asia’s King of Pop, a title given him by the Australian and Asian music media critics being the only Asian singer-songwriter to be signed to an International Record Company (R.C.A) from the early 70’s to the late 90’s touring the world with concerts to perform and promote his songs when released to the international community. He migrated to Australia in 1969, but he had a vibrant musical career in Sri Lanka for over a decade before his Australianisation. He is a recipient of three ARIA (Australian Record Industry Award) awards and a special ‘best live performance’ award from the US Marines in 1983. With 1 Platinum and 2 Gold awards the Sri Lankan-born musician is probably best remembered for his 1976 hit ‘Disco Lady’ which was on the ‘International hit parade’ in Sri Lanka for six weeks at No 1 outdoing the legendary Bill Forbes. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2012 · 12:37 pm

Australia frets: Bob Carr will visit Sri Lanka this week

Foreign Minister Bob Carr Foreign Minister Bob Carr will travel to Sri Lanka this week for talks on people smuggling. Source: AAP

THE AUSTRALIAN, 11 DECEMBER 2012: FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr will travel to Sri Lanka on Friday to discuss trade ties, tourism and efforts to disrupt people smuggling.  The three-day trip will be Senator Carr’s first visit to the south Asian nation as a minister and will include discussions on Australia’s aid assistance to Sri Lanka, a spokesman for the minister told AAP on Tuesday. People smuggling will also be on the agenda. Sri Lankan authorities have in the past 12 months disrupted 69 people smuggling operations involving 2900 people who were intending to come to Australia, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, HMAS Larrakia intercepted a boat carrying 57 suspected asylum seekers and two crew on Monday night, north of Ashmore Islands. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2012 · 9:42 am

Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Problem Today

IRIN News

Prospects to improve relations between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-dominated  government and ethnic Tamils remain grim more than three years after the end of a civil war fought along ethnic lines, according to activists, law makers and the UN. The country’s balance of power and ethnic polarization look increasingly similar to the situation pre-dating Tamil rebels’ protracted separatist struggle, stoking concern about a return to conflict if the country does not manage its ethnic relations differently this time around. As examples of divisive ethnic nationalism, experts point to government efforts to repeal a constitutional amendment that allows power sharing;  heavy-handed governance; the lack of widespread recognition of the Tamil language [http://www.irinnews.org/report/95931/Analysis-Bridging-the-language-divide-in-Sri-Lanka ]; and a breakdown in rule of law. These were all past triggers for violence. Continue reading →

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December 11, 2012 · 8:54 am

A “Fun Game.” Illuminating Tales of Tamil Asylum-Seekers from Sri Lanka, Today… late 2012

Michael Roberts

boat people-Ch science monitor Pic from Christian Science Monitor

TALE ONE: A Sinhala friend working among fishing and farming families on the eastern coast had an assistant and got to know the latter’s sister’s history. The sister, PDA, had a degree and had worked for an NGO at one time. But her husband was an asylum-seeker in Australia, having left by boat in 2008. Since then, he has been in limbo, still awaiting permanent status. The circumstances under which he left four years ago remain unclear. PDA had tried to get to Australia by boat and failed because the boat was apprehended. Notwithstanding this failure, she had left her NGO job and tried once again, this time from Puttalam. She also refrained from making her plans known to family and friends, particularly those she most confided in.  Eventually, her second attempt too had come a cropper. At present, she holds a government job but is still focused on getting to Australia. Continue reading →

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December 7, 2012 · 6:25 pm

“Towards One World” – Elmo reviews Weeramantry’s new book

Elmo Jayawardena

Weeramantry“My country is the world and my religion is to do good” quotes the author from Thomas Paine. Words are often empty when spoken from high pedestals. Fancy rhetoric and meaningless metaphor rules speeches of most celebrities; often written by experts or coined by the speakers themselves to delude the masses. It is almost a norm across most gilded podiums where pseudo-opulence reigns. The audience sin in silence, accepting words spoken in masquerade. This sure is a norm of the elegiac expressions that spout out from the mouths of the high and the mighty.

But at times we do have the privilege to listen to someone quoting what he believes and then seeing in front of our own eyes how he practises simple virtues that separate the villains from the venerated Judge Weeramantry is a shining example of honesty, integrity and simplicity. The book I review here is a gem, a reflection of the man and his odyssey into a new world. I have no knowledge to evaluate the heights he climbed in the international legal fraternity. It is way beyond me to comprehend. But logic and the words I read in this book clearly dawn on me that the narration is elegant and ecumenical. The names, the institutions and the places that fill the Judge’s stage are luminary. Nothing strange, as the author himself is someone who stands in the highest peak of respectability and recognition in a wide-spread international circle. Continue reading →

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December 7, 2012 · 1:44 pm

It’s Murali v Warne in Big Bash spin-off

From The Australian, 7 December 2012

murali warne-the aus  Muttiah Muralidaran, Shane Warne, Aaron Finch and David Hussey meet before tonight’s Big Bash League opener between the Melbourne Stars and Renegades at Etihd Stadium. Picture: Stuart Walmsley Source: The Australian

SRI Lanka spin wizard Muttiah Muralidaran says he’s not seeking revenge against Melbourne Stars’ recruit Brad Hodge despite Hodge helping to lure Murali to rival Melbourne Renegades.  Test wicket world-record holder Murali, 40, has signed to play for the Renegades in the BBL Twenty20 at Etihad Stadium tonight as the Renegades host cross-town rivals and tournament favourites the Stars. T20 batting great Hodge has crossed to the Stars this summer and another ex-Renegade, Andrew McDonald, has joined the Adelaide Strikers.

“Hodge and McDonald convinced me to come and play Renegades,” Murali said yesterday. “At the time they were in the Renegades. Unfortunately they’re not there but still we have a good side.” Murali said he phoned Hodge recently to ask what happened to their plans to play together for the Renegades. “Yeah, he convinced me to come and play and after that he was gone to the Stars. So then I asked him, just a friendly call,” Murali said. “No revenge as such because we want to play a good game. We want to compete with them and see how it goes.” Continue reading →

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