CR de Silva’s Appraisal & Report on Amarasingam’s Study of Tamil Activists in Canada

Chandra R. de Silva:  “Report on Amarnath Amarasingam’s Pain, Pride and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada“ — being a Reader’s Confidential Review of a Book Mss sent in response toa request from the publishers …. a book that has since appeared in print as  under the imprint of the University of Georgia Press (2015)

Bishop Francis in Incisive Critique of Sri Lanka’s Poltical Leaders

A Note from a Sinhalese Friend in Canada: “Hello Michael, I have attached a video of a former Bishop of Kurunegala talking to a Adaderana TV interviewer- a Sinhala Broadcast.on March 12, 2019.The former Bishop is a Sri Lankan, by birth an ”Estate Tamil” Christian. He talks of a secret meeting with Ban Ki-Moon in 2011 and also about chats with another Lankan Leader who was very anti-Sri Lankan!! This interview is very, very interesting: apparently the Bishop resigned from his position as a Bishop due to the anti-SL stand taken by the church. The former Bishop is very pro SL in his views.”

Note 2:  Shantha Francis was appointed anAnglican Bishop in 2010 and then on 6 January 2015 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced that Francis had resigned as Bishop of Kurunegala. In a statement by Francis he advised that he had been threatened by Tamil diaspora groups opposing his stand for a unitary state and the sovereignty of the country” — from Wikipedia …. So my Canadian friend’s final note is in error.

Tangram’s Study of the Tamil Tigers enters our world

This book offers an accurate and easy to follow explanation of how the Tamil Tigers, who are officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was defeated. Who were the major players in this conflict? What were the critical strategic decisions that worked? What were the strategic mistakes and their consequences? What actually happened on the battlefield? How did Sri Lanka become the only nation in modern history to completely defeat a terrorist organization? The mind-blowing events of the Sri Lankan civil war are documented in this book to show the truth of how the LTTE terrorist organization was defeated. The defeat of a terrorist organization on the battlefield was so unprecedented that it has rewritten the narrative in the fight against terrorism.

THIS NOTE is from http://www.lulu.com/au/en/shop/damian-tangram/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-tamil-tigers/paperback/product-23830132.html

Tamil Tigers: Dead Body Politics and Sacrificial Devotion

Michael Roberts, reproducing here an article  entitled “Tamil Tigers:  Sacrificial symbolism and ‘dead body politics’,” that was first presented in  Anthropology Today, June 2008,  vol.  24/3: 22-23. The re-working of this article was seen to by Ms Nadeeka Paththuwaarachchi of Battaramulla.

Scholars and journalists often mistakenly treat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) as a ‘secular organization’ at a time when stereotypes of the Islamic ‘terrorist’ or ‘Hindu fundamentalist’ dominate popular thinking about political extremism. Political scientists devote space to the Tamil Tigers in their global surveys of what they term ‘suicide terrorism’.[1] Recently, Roland Buerk of the BBC presented a similar view: ‘They are not religious and believe that there is nothing after death. Their fanaticism is born of indoctrination from childhood.’[2]

Tiger fighters relax in camp but retain their kuppi with cyanide in chainsaround neck-Pic by Shyam Tekwani c.1989 whne embedded among the LTTE

An Ode in the Face of The Terrorist Liberation-Fighter

  Jane Russell

“[This poem was presented] a small pamphlet called “Ganga” published in Colombo in 1978: it was aimed at the boasting men of violence everywhere – the Warriors of Terror whom in the guise of Freedom Fighters were inflicting further violence on already violated communities:

To Aloysius-Ludovico (The Terrorist)

I am tired of hearing you sing
the anthems of Freedom and War…
How joyously you crack the whip
and bellow out the tune above the drums!
But the faces of my friends haunt me
in the mornings when I see Death’s Armada
With its pirate’s flag of torture trailing….
what does it matter, your Freedom?
They are dying, my friends and their children…

Nalliah Thayabharan, thank you for reminding me of this poem written in despair in Colombo 30+ years ago. A whole generation has grown up since then but the same (better) poem is probably being written today in Syria by some unknown idealist…..as the song goes “When will we ever learn?”

Sivatheeban charged as an LTTE Killer in Germany

ONE: News Item in Derana, 4 August 2o18, taken from Associated Press. …. entitled ”

German authorities have arrested a Sri Lankan man suspected of involvement in killing captured government soldiers as a member of the Tamil Tigers rebel group a decade ago. Federal prosecutors said a judge ordered Thursday the 36-year-old, identified only as Sivatheeban B. because of German privacy rules, detained pending a potential indictment.

ri Lankan-born German man Yogendran G. (C), seen on January 18, 2016 in Hamburg, raised more than 81,000 euros ($88,000) for combat and terrorist activities ©Christian Charisius (Pool/AFP/File) 

Pic in Derana

Taraki’s Strategic Assessments, 2004-05: Some Selections

ONE: “LTTE develops asymmetric deterrence to stall foreign intervention,” 22 May 2004, in http://tamilnation.co/forum/sivaram/040522.htm ….AND Daily Mirror, 22 May 2004

The LTTE’s scenario planning for negotiating the Internal Self Governing Authority (ISGA) with the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) would necessarily include, among other things, some clearly thought out exit strategies if talks were to drag on aimlessly beyond ‘a reasonable period of time’. This is only natural because President Kumaratunga’s chief coalition partner, the JVP, went on record this week that it does not agree with the basis on which she has agreed to restart and take forward the talks with the LTTE. (Wimal Weerawansa’s interview with The Island on Monday and Somawansa’s meeting with the Prime Minister on Thursday).