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.

The Voices of Tiger and Army Infantrymen: Sarah Kabir’s Journey towards Reconciliation

Sarah Chatta in Daily News, 9 October 2018, where the chosen title reads thus “Faces of the war” …Stories from both sides of the barbed wire tell of the pain of ordinary lives

German native Nicolas Lamade leaned over and expressed his amazement. The auditorium of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute was packed with a mixed audience: army generals, clergymen, politicians, activists, journalists, and lawyers. Lamade, Deputy Program Director of the German reconciliation project GIZ, first came to Sri Lanka in the early 2000s when he said no one dared to question official versions of wartime events in public, let alone speak out about misconceptions of those events. A decade later, he marvelled at how far Sri Lanka had come.

Identity. Belonging, Dignity. Lessons from Francis Fukuyama for Sri Lanka Today

Sanjana Hattotuwa, in The Island, 29 September 2018, where the title is Ïdentity and Belonging”

Sixteen years ago, I met a child soldier. He had a T-56 and was cocky. The A9 had opened up a few months ago, and taking it to Jaffna with a group of journalists, we encountered a checkpoint manned by the LTTE, past Omanthai. The children at the checkpoint, with guns strung around their torso loosely, were in the LTTE’s signature fatigue. Hostile and demanding, they curtly instructed our driver to provide the documentation to enter the area, which at the time the LTTE provided. One clambered into the driver’s seat as I sat in the passenger seat, knowing that if they wanted to be difficult, we would be stuck here for a while. I smiled. He didn’t. He looked around slowly, T-56 placed on the dashboard.

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

DEMONS IN PARADISE renders filmmaker Ratnam as a Tamil Traitor

Item in MSN.COM, 17 September 2018, with this title  “I wanted ‘my side’ to lose the war”

By his own admission filmmaker Jude Ratnam is a “traitor”. A Tamil himself, he blames the Tamil Tigers for many of the atrocities carried out in Sri Lanka’s civil war. The director told the BBC’s Nalini Sivathasan why feels the way he does.”When the war was coming to an end, I wanted the [Tamil] Tigers to lose the fight. I wanted it to end, even if my own people had to be killed,” Ratnam says.

Warning: This story contains graphic details that some readers may find upsetting.

© Getty Images Formed in 1976, the Tamil Tigers said they were fighting for a separate state for Tamils in Sri Lanka

Is the Release of Rajiv Gandhi’s Killers Imminent? Modi Government’s Dilemma

P.K.Balachandran, in News-in-Asia, September 2018,

Following the Indian Supreme Court’s stand that it is up to the Governor of the State of Tamil Nadu to decide whether the seven life convicts in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case should be released or not, the Tamil Nadu cabinet on Sunday  recommended to the State Governor that the convicts be released forthwith.

 Tamil-Nadu-Governor-Banwarilal-Purohit-and-Prime-Minister-Narendra-Modi-will-have-to-take-the-decision-on-the-release.-Photo.Livemint

Given the grave issues involved, Governor Banwarilal Purohit is expected to go by the advice of the Central Government whose representative he is. But the political powers-that-be at New Delhi will be on the horns of a dilemma because the conflict is between Indian nationalism and Tamil Nadu sub-nationalism or Tamil nationalism for short.

Pirapāharan’s Thamilīlam, 1990-2009: Aspirations and Achievements

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Daily Mirror, 6 September 2018. where the title reads “The State of Tamil Eelam, 1990-2009″

This article is the second of those preparing the ground for a review of the new data on the last phase of Eelam War IV served up by access to the despatches of British Defence Attache Lt. Col. Gash (the first being my analysis of Pirapāharan’s strategy of assassinations). It concentrates on the character of the state of Thamilīlam­ throughout its period of existence, viz. from 1990-2009. It by-passes the pre-history when the Tamil New Tigers-become-LTTE was an incipient insurgent force competing with other Tamil militant organisations and with the GoSL and/or the IPKF for control of terrain.