July 15, 2011 · 1:36 pm

Tamil Returnees struggle in post-war zone

Courtesy of IRIN,

THUNUKKAI, 5 July 2011 (IRIN) – More than two years after Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war officially ended, returnees to remote villages face tough times and uncertain futures, despite governmental and international efforts at reconstruction. “Everything that we had earned in 50 years, we lost in months,” Supiah Arumugam, 52, and a father of two, told IRIN. Arumugam returned to his home villageof Thunukkai, deep in Mullaitivu District in the island’s north and once under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in March 2010. He and his family had fled the violence two years previously. Continue reading →

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July 14, 2011 · 10:41 am

Troubled legacy of civil war in Sri Lanka

James Jupp, reviewing The Cage and Tamil Tigress  in the Australian Literary Review, July 2011, taken from http://aap.newscentre.com.au/acci/110706/library/education_3/26050902.html

This controversial review of two controversial books is presented here for the benefit of Lankan aficianados. For some brief comments, see the end of article. Web Editor Roberts.

THE island of Sri Lanka is the same size as Tasmania and has the same population as Australia. As the dominion of Ceylon it gained full independence from Britain on February 4, 1948. It retained the monarchy until 1972, when it became a republic. Hailed by its elected leaders as “the Switzerland of Asia”, it enjoyed a degree of self-government with universal suffrage from 1931. Women gained the vote on the same basis as men only three years after Britain.  The island’s economy, based on plantation exports of tea and rubber, prospered with rising prices throughout the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. No former colonial society had a happier start. It was soon talking of itself as “the Singapore of the future”.  Everything started to go wrong a few years later. The society described in these two gripping books suffered 30 years of civil war, ending with a massacre of countless civilians, according to Gordon Weiss, who is an experienced journalist. He has written an accurate and depressing picture of the final slaughter that ended the struggle for an independent state by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, just as it ended the life of Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in May 2009.
The climax of the military conflict makes for disturbing reading. Weiss concludes, after an assessment of ”multiple confirmations from different army sources, senior and Continue reading →

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July 13, 2011 · 1:05 pm

Bicycles as lifeline for returning Tamil IDPs

Courtesy of IRIN http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93217

THUNUKKAI, 13 July 2011 (IRIN) – Some 40,000 bicycles abandoned in Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war have been distributed for free to returnees in the north, say government officials.  “We knew the bicycles were going to play a vital role. This was one of the first things we did when people started to return to their villages,” Rupavthi Keetheswaran, the government agent for Kilinochchi District, told IRIN. At the end of the war on 18 May 2009, the bicycles, many in poor condition, were found abandoned along a narrow strip of coastal area in Mullaitivu District. Thousands of Tamil civilians, many with little more than the clothes on their back, fled to the so-called “no-fire zone” to escape fighting between government forces and the now defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland since 1983. According to aid workers at the time, an estimated 200,000 civilians were trapped in the 12km-long area. Continue reading →

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July 13, 2011 · 3:19 am

Kumar Sangakkara’s sentiments as an ecumenical Asokan Lankan

Michael Roberts, 13 May 2011, courtesy of groundviews, where the essay will probably draw some comments

Kumar Sangakkara’s Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture for the MCC this summer was the antithesis of that presented within the same portals in 2006 by Martin Crowe.[1] Where Crowe returned to the medieval archaic within the field of cricket and displayed the sentiments of a caveman, Sangakkara was forward-looking and stepped boldly beyond the confines of cricket to the socio-political dispensation in Sri Lanka.  In doing so Sangakkara broke the code of conduct enjoined on him by his contract with Sri Lanka Cricket. He was therefore intrepid. This was boldness in a good cause, the greater cause of the cricketing order inSri Lanka (and beyond) on the one hand and, on the other, the vital cause of reconciliation across the fractured political formation in Sri Lanka.

There are missing dimensions and some sweeping comments in his survey ofSri Lanka’s cricketing history in the last twenty years that call for caveats, issues that I will address separately elsewhere. The focus here is directed towards his erudite and passionate venture into the field of Sri Lankan politics and his insistence that the cricketing arena provides one path towards ethnic reconciliation Continue reading →

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July 12, 2011 · 3:14 pm

Potency, Power & People in Groups

by Michael Roberts has just appeared in print under the masthead of Marga Publications and bearing the ISBN code 978-955-582-129-2, selling at Rs. 800 over the counter at Marga 941/1 Jayanthi Mawatha, Kotte Road, Ethul Kotte, Sri Lanka (tel. 94-11- 2888 8790). It will be available at the bookshops from Thursday 14th July. Credit Card orders are accepted by Vijitha Yapa Bookshops via www.vijithayapa.com OR www.srilankanbooks.com.

Mohottivatte Gunananda mural at Kotahena Temple, courtesy of Richard Young

Potency is a booklet of 128 pages inclusive of 78 pages of photographs, several of which contain descriptive notes that embellish the analysis in the main text. This venture is a spin-off from the endeavours that produced People Inbetween (Ratmalana, Sarvodaya, 1989) and Images of British Ceylon (Singapore, Times Editions, 2000), the former being mostly the handiwork of Michael Roberts and the latter a work c0mposed by Ismeth Raheem. While the photographic emphasis follows the modalities of Images of British Ceylon, financial constraints did not permit the coffee-table finish secured in that product. Unlike images however, the temporal scope embraced by Potency spans the nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. There is, therefore, a contemporary ‘bite’ furnished by such images as a virulent Tamil protest in Toronto and a LTTE-sponsored demonstration at a cricket match, besides images of the LTTE platform at the sudumalai Amman Temple grounds on 4th August 1987 and other political gatherings courtesy of Victor Ivan’s amazing collection and my own findings at Lake House. Continue reading →

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July 11, 2011 · 3:53 am

In Appreciation of Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby, Man of Letters

Chelvathamby Maniccavasagar,  in Daily News, 11 July 2011

Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby who passed away inColomboat the age of 79 was an internationally renowned intellectual and Man of Letters. He was a towering figure whose name will be written large in the annals of Sri Lanka’s literary, religious, social and cultural history. His profound scholarship, his brilliant record as Professor of Tamil Language and his significant service in the fields of Tamil Language, Tamil Literature, social, cultural and customs of Tamils and above all his high moral character marked him out as one of the greatest Sri Lankans of modern times. Professor Sivathamby was in every sense of the term a Himalayan personality, lofty serene and unshakable. He was capable of withstanding storms and blizzards with total and natural equanimity.

Professor Sivathamby was born on May 10th, 1932 at Karaveddy inJaffnainto an orthodox and conservative family who were very much involved in the promotion, propagation and development of Hindu religion, Hindu culture, Tamil Language and Tamil Literature. His father, late T P Karthigesu was a Tamil Pandit, Saiva Pulavar and a great Tamil scholar who was held in high esteem by the people of Vadamarachchy.

Research Scholar: Professor Sivathamby received his primary education atVigneswaraCollege, Karaveddy and his secondary education at Zahira College, Colombo and for a short period he was a teacher at Zahira. Thereafter, he entered the University of Peradeniya and obtained his Bachelor of Arts Degree (BA) Honours and Masters Degree specializing in Tamil language. Continue reading →

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July 11, 2011 · 3:43 am

New Vistas for Gallileans with Modern Bus Stand

Dharman Wickremaratne, in Daily News, 11 July 2011

Pic by Sunday Times

Located between Bentara and Ginganga, the Galle District belongs to the South-Western Wet Zone. On its Western border is the Ocean. The district experiences heavy rainfall during the South-Western monsoon and consequently its wide rivers never run dry throughout the year. Ancient Arab travel records identify Galle as Klah while Chinese travellers called it Lolay. It believed Galle earned its name either from massive rocks and mountains like Roomassala in the vicinity or a parking lot for ox carts in the area centuries ago. Many are the historical sources relating to Galle. These include records of the Greek traveller Cosmas (545 AD), Arab travellers Al Masoodi (1000 AD) and Ibn Batuta (1344 AD), Chinese seafarer Deng Ho (1410 AD) and Portuguese adventurer Lorenzo De Almeida (1505 AD). The first reference to Galle by the crew of a British ship was made in 1592. The Dutch traveller Coster wrote on Galle in 1640.

UNESCO Heritage site: After the 14th Century, the Portuguese, thereafter the Dutch and finally the British occupied Galle, resulting in the area coming under different European cultural, religious and architectural influences and lifestyles.By the third and fourth centuries Galle became an important centre of East-West trade, according to Chinese and Arab records. Sinhala chronicles such as Mahawansa, Bodhiwansa and Poojawaliya and folk tales too provide an insight to the area in ancient times. During the British period the district was divided into seven administrative units – Kadawathsathara, Gangabadawatta, Wellabadawatta, Walallavita Korale, Talpepattu, Hinidum Pattuwa and Galle Town.

The Galle Fort – spread over 92 acres and facing the sea on three sides – was first built by the Portuguese in 1619 after capturing the area in 1505. At the time the fort was home to 26 Portuguese families. After the Dutch seized it on March 13, 1640 the moat was repaired. Following the British occupation the fort was renovated in 1873 and opened to the public. Since 1974 it has been an archaeological reserve and today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Colombo-Galle horse-drawn coach service began in 1838. In 1894 the railway was extended from Colombo to Galle and the following year to Matara. The first proper bus stand in Galle was erected in 1978 on the instructions of Albert Silva, the then MP for the area, according to senior businessman and Director, Galle Commercial and Industrial Council, S. A. Chandrasiri. Continue reading →

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July 10, 2011 · 9:02 am

The Vocabulary of “Nation” in English in the Early Modern Period

Michael Roberts,

Rohana Wasala’s essay[1] on the Sinhala vocabulary of “nation-ness,” set beside Kumar Sangakkara’s heart-warming emphasis on the multiethnic and multi-religious character of his sentiments[2] within the background provided by the island’s mosaic tapestry, together provide the rationale for this excursion on my part. It is an old journey. I place before you the results of my previous investigation into the use of such concepts as “kin,” “tribe” and “nation” in the practices of the English speaking peoples of Great Britain in the centuries sixteen to eighteen, stretching on to the early nineteenth century. These usages occurred in the temporal context involving wars in Europe and all over the world as England/Britain expanded its possessions in the era of imperial expansion and conflict.
    My researches in this field developed out of my interest in the forms of Sinhalaness in the era preceding the final conquest of the Kingdom of Sīhalē (also Sinhalē) by the British in two steps, the first in 1815 and the second involving the crushing of a sweeping rebellion in 1817/18. These findings were incorporated in a sub-section within a chapter on “Sinhalē, Sinhala consciousness and the British, 1795-1815,” the sixth chapter in my book on Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s to 1815 (Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2004). The exercise was directed towards deciphering the possible influences of English-language usages around the concept “nation” that impacted on vocabulary denoting collective sentiments utilized by the local headmen and others who interacted with British in the period 1795-1818. Continue reading →

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July 10, 2011 · 3:05 am

Jaffna in Limbo: A Muslim Journalist’s Visit

Abdul H. Azeez, in the Sunday Leader, 10 July 2010

Travelling to the North last week, I noticed many changes. Roads are being developed at a rate. And the stretch of tar from Vavuniya to Killinochchi is steadily becoming more motor-able. The increase in traffic and tourists has also been beneficial to the local economy, and small towns have popped up where previously there was only empty stretches of road.

Pic by Roberts in June 2010  These towns are not new, however, and most of them claim to have been reborn after disappearing during the war. Central to these towns are the hotels and small kades that cater to travellers. We stopped at one town called Periyakulam that ostensibly did a disappearing act during the war. It is still only a town by a large stretch of the word.
But the hotel that we stopped at seems to be doing pretty well. It employs 38 staff and has built its own mosque so that they can pray in it. Its owner Dawud (if the hotel’s name is anything to go by) tells me that most of his business comes from people who ply the A9. His priority now is to build toilets. Toilets, he says, are ‘the main thing’. He has budgeted over Rs. 1 million, and is quietly confident of growing business.

The road networks in Jaffna have shown fast improvement, though they are still a far cry from what you may find in other developed towns. Development in Jaffna is just starting in earnest. And even though the town was still under government rule during the war, it seems to be only now that it is being given anything more than step-motherly treatment. I’ve always heard stories about the prosperous land of Jaffna, but have only seen little more than sparse greenery in its arid landscape on my visit. Now, however, the results of some Continue reading →

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July 10, 2011 · 2:59 am

Rajiva Wijesinha’s Q and A with Sunday Leader

Janith Aranze, in Sunday Leader, 10 July 2010

Last week Presidential advisor, Rajiva Wijesinha, embarked on a journey to Britainand other parts of Europeto defend the Sri Lankan government against increasing international pressure regarding war crimes committed during the last stages of the war. Below are excerpts of an interview he gave The Sunday Leader regarding his visit and how the government is responding to international pressure.

Q: You are in the UK currently to defend serious war crimes charges against the Sri Lankan government. How successful has your visit been?
A: It has been very successful; both in terms of the diaspora reactions, especially the moderate Tamils, and talks with officials and politicians in London andBrussels, apart from the very generous coverage the BBC gave.

Q:  40 MP’s attended an event facilitated by the Global Tamil Forum in Parliament this week, where they called for ‘truth, accountability and justice’ in Sri Lanka. How does the government respond to such support?
A: We must bear in mind that people believe what they want to believe. The attacks will continue from people who refuse to look at evidence. If a report commissioned by the Secretary Continue reading →

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