Sujit Suvisundaram = Director of The Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge University

Sujit Sivasundaram is the Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, Reader in the Faculty of History and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He works on the Indo-Pacific world, with a deep commitment to South and Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. His last book was ‘Islanded’, on the makings of Sri Lanka. He is co-editor of ‘The Historical Journal’ and a Councillor of the Royal Historical Society.

The Western World’s Cumulous Clouds of Deception: Blanketing the Sharp Realities of Eelam War IV

Michael Roberts, Courtesy of Colombo Telegraph , October 2018

 

This is a provocative piece on the last stages of Eelam War IV in 2008/09 and on its aftermath of Reports and You Tube cut-and-thrust. It makes specific claims in assertive style. These assertions are founded on lengthier articles with their supporting evidence. So, it is by assertion that I proceed.

Ehaaa. Mehaa. Presidential Manouevres in Sri Lanka

Rajan Philips, in The Island, 13 October 2018 where the title reads “Checkmate Politics II: Diminishing Options for MS, MR and RW

There is no presidential checkmate after all as many of us were alerted to last week. President Sirisena is in no position to checkmate anyone. No surprise there. He has burnt his boats with the UNP, and even Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot rally everyone in the JO to support a new political arrangement with the old defector. It is now reported that Maithripala Sirisena first approached the UNP to canvass for a second term as President with UNP support, and only after being rebuffed by the UNP that he sought an alliance with the Rajapaksas. It is also known that there were quite a few meetings between Maithripala Sirisena and Mahinda Rajapaksa, which would only confirm that the former President has been quite serious about pursuing a deal with the current incumbent. And obviously because a second term Sirisena presidency is the only way to secure a path for the now underage Namal Rajapaksa to become president in 2024. That the former President could not get others on board for this scheme shows how tenuous and tentative are the loyalties within the Joint Opposition. Be that as it may.

Diego Garcia and the Fate of Its Its Indigenized Chagossian People

 

ONE = A Summary Report

Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Atoll, a “group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean” (Jayaweera 2018). Though discovered in 1512 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Mascarenhas, it was uninhabited till the French moved in and took over in 1783. The atoll passed to the British after the Napoleonic wars in 1814/15. Thereafter the atoll was administered from Mauritius and was considered part of its domain. Over the years the overseers and workers imported to work the plantations and settlements on the islands became indigenized as “Chagossians” and by the 1960s are said to have been around 1500 in number (note the imprecision).

British Minister stresses Importance of Reconciliation

Mark Field, in Daily Mirror,  where the title is “Why does reconciliation in Sri Lanka matter to the UK?”

Next year Sri Lanka will have enjoyed 10 uninterrupted years free from the misery of armed conflict. Whatever your view on how Sri Lanka has progressed since, that very fact alone is one to cherish. I know how deep the scars from decades of conflict run. When I visited last year I heard first-hand from the families of disappeared persons. It was a stark reminder of how much all communities in Sri Lanka have suffered.

Nationalist Studies and the Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya, 1968-1970s

Michael Roberts

The years 1966 to 1975 were heady days in Ceylon. Especially so for some of us in Peradeniya Univeristy where the CEYLON STUDIES SEMINAR was launched in November 1968 by a few members of the Arts Faculty assisted by the facilities provided by Professor Gananath Obeyesekera at the Sociology Department – located then on Lower Hantane Road away from the centre of teaching. Not least among these facilities was the service provided by the Sociology Department peon Sathiah[i] who cyclostyled the written seminar papers beforehand for circulation so that those who were keen could read any presentation beforehand if they so wished – a procedure that also maximized discussion time. This background service was seconded by the typing services of Mrs Hettiarachchi in the History Department and Mr Kumaraswamy in the Sociology Department.

A . Jeyaratnam Wilson  Gananath Obeyesekera

Vicious Politics from CRICKET AGE targets Chandika Hathurusingha in Chauvinist Style

 Michael Roberts

I recall a recent article by reporter Krishnamurthy in Cricket Age which was marked by its mud-slinging character [as well as its poor command of the English language – jarring but not a major issue]. But his venal essay on Chandika Hathurusingha’s religious preferences is beyond the pale. It must be challenged and undermined.

     Chaminda Vaas (a Catholic) and Sanath Jayasuriya (a Buddhist) in intense mood as they proceed towards a propitiatory vow at St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade  on 28th June 2000

  Arjuna Ranatunga receives a pirit nula from Bellanwila Wimalaratna Thero 1997

For one, it neglects the fact that Sumathipala was among those who brought Hathuru into the fold. … and that Sumathipala himself has been an arch conspirator throughout his many years in the BCCSL and then in Sri Lanka Cricket.