Under Fire: Pictorials of Sri Lanka’s Cricket Team facing Duress at Lahore, 3 March 2009

Michael Roberts …. aided by varied cameramen mostly unnamed

The stark reality of near-death and its trauma are reflected in the aftermath by Eranga Jayawardena’s image of Mahela and his wife at Katunayake Airport when the team arrived safely on 3rd March 2009 ….. What follows below is a sequence of dramatic images depicting the scenario in Lahore that preceded and precipitated this moment (several courtesy of AFP in Hong Kong)

Religious Zealots: Mashal Khan killed by Fellow-Uni Students for Blasphemy

Jibran Ahmed of  Reuters,  14 April 2017 with the title Pakistani student beaten to death by peers in latest ‘blasphemy killing’

The ransacked university hostel room of slain Pakistani student Mashal Khan has posters of Karl Marx and Che Guevara still hanging on the walls, along with scribbled quotes including one that reads: “Be curious, crazy and mad.” The day before, a heated debate over religion with fellow students broke out at the dorm and led to people accusing Khan of blasphemy against Islam. That attracted a crowd that grew to several hundred people, according to witnesses. The mob kicked in the door, dragged Khan from his room and beat him to death, witnesses and police said. The death in the northwestern city of Mardan is the latest violence linked to accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan.

Eelam War IV Images: Kanchan Prasad, A Times Stringer and Makkaal Padai

In my Flickr Web sites … Michael Roberts

• Tent City in the Last Redoubt of the LTTE = http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626826325831/with/5828587480/
• Tiger Dead & Vestments = http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626922473698/
• Aerial Images –– https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/pictorial-images/

Revisiting Jaffna and the LTTE in mid-1999 guided by Mark Corcoran and the ABC

Michael Roberts

 

In mid-year 1999 during the ongoing Eelam War III, Mark Corcoran of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) visited Sri Lanka and composed three film documentaries of fascinating breadth. They were

Sri Lanka. A Close Encounter with Arthur C. Clarke …. 6 June 1999
Sri Lanka Tigers at the Gate …… 29 June 1999

Sri Lanka. Extreme Surfing ……… 13 July 1999

I have yet to see the first and third of these film documentaries, but find the topics chosen very much in my line of interest. It so happened that I watched TIGERS AT THE GATE in Adelaide then.[1]  I then had the temerity to send a Letter to the ABC and Corcoran with some criticisms of the coverage — deploying an University of Adelaide letterhead so as to secure attention. This exercise had completely slipped my mind till I came across my typescript and Mark Corcoran’s reply (dated 5^th July) among my manuscripts when indulging in some archival sorting. In reproducing my Memo and placing this exchange within the inter-net ‘bar,’ I stress that my memories of the documentary NOW are zilch and that i have not been able to study it again. However, I suspect that it would be very useful for analysts to revisit this documentary.

Fire-Storm Images, IV: Tamil Commitment to Their Cause

A road junction memorial for Annai Poopathi in Batticaloa District, Annai Poopathi, a mother of ten  children and aged 55, fasted unto death in protest against the IPKF presence in Sri Lanka, breathing her last on 19th April 1988.  –thereby backing Thileepan’s fast-unto-death earlier in Jaffna in 1987. A permanent memorial in her homage was also constructed at Kiran … but the tsunami  destroyed it. Her memory is evoked to this day.  Her sacrifice is remembered and hallowed today among Tamils in many lands –Germany, Netherlands, UK et  cetera –see http://www.tamilguardian.com/content/annai-poopathy-remembered?articleid=4700.

“Api Yannadha Malli ” — A Poetic Reflection from July 1983

Niranjan Selvadurai, … a poem composed within a context derived from a personal experience in the streets Colombo, on Monday 25 July 1983

 Pic at Borella Junction 24 July 1983 –taken by Chnadragupta Amarasinghe **

May we pass brother?

But are you one of us!

Or someone other?

Roving eyes survey thus

Flood Disaster Aid. A Mother-and-Baby Pack Mission

Myrna Setunga

Hi Michael, Despite a few hiccups and delays at the start, the Mother and Baby Pack Mission was concluded very satisfactorily. With a lot of help from Dushy & Tanya Perera and Sonali & Niranjan (my niece and her husband) who provided their vehicles, we were able to load 45 packages including 45 basins into the two vehicles. On Monday, the 19^th June, we left at 6.30 a.m. and help from Dushy’s GPS we got to our first stop in Madurawela by 7.30 a.m. We had to wait till all 13 women turned up. They told us that all their houses got flooded right up to the roof. Yet they had happy faces as you will see in the photos. I think they were really pleased with their gifts.

 Myrna and some recipients of Packs at Bulathsinhala