As we draw closer to next month’s parliamentary elections, Sri Lanka’s security forces have stepped up their activities in the Tamil North-East. There have been dozens of arrests, including that of a child for allegedly attempting to ‘regroup the LTTE’ , alongside several incidents of state violence. A growing number of checkpoints have been set up with armed soldiers patrolling in greater numbers than before. And as violence continues, the harassment of Tamil journalists has also ramped up. Our Mullaitivu correspondent Shanmugam Thavaseelan was summoned for questioning by the Sri Lankan...
Writing on Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan’s (aka Karuna Amman) recent boast, that under the LTTE he had killed “2,000 – 3,000 soldiers” during the attack on elephant pass, Tissainayagam notes that this statement “shattered an alternate reality Sri Lanka has tried to create about the country’s civil war” and its post-war order. For this constructed reality, Karuna had served two purposes, argues Tissainayagam; “As a symbol of purported national reconciliation, with a covert intention of promoting Sinhala interests, and to help build an alternate narrative about the civil war favourable to the...
On July 5, Eelam Tamils across the world remember and mourn the sacrifices made by the LTTE's elite women and men, the Black Tigers. “Karumpuli Naal” marks the sacrifice made by the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller, or Vallipuram Vasanthan, 33 years ago.
Over a decade on since the end of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict in 2009, the occupying Sri Lankan state police and military forces in the North-East continue to carry out ongoing human rights violations, surveillance, intimidation, police brutality and extensive militarisation against Tamils and Muslims, under the semblance of national security concerns.
This month, Sri Lankan government-backed paramilitary leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (alias Karuna Amman) caused a stir when he boasted of killing “2,000 to 3,000 Sri Lankan Army personnel in one night at Elephant Pass” during the armed conflict. Karuna, a close ally of the ruling Rajapaksa regime, is accused of a litany of crimes including kidnappings, extortion, and executions, many of which took place with government complicity after he defected from the LTTE. His comments sparked outrage amongst Sinhala politicians, who have demanded he be held accountable for the killing of the...
On Wednesday evening, the Peel District School Board in Canada made a welcome reversal. It retracted a tweet that was sent out ‘clarifying’ their position on the Tamil genocide, following pressure from Sri Lanka’s foreign office. Peel has now acknowledged that it was wrong to do so and accepted that its actions “resulted in pain to Tamil students, their families and the Tamil staff,” whilst pledging to recognise and support efforts around Tamil genocide education going forward. The move is a promising gesture and marks a victory for activists in Canada, in the Tamil homeland and around the world in their fight for accountability and justice.
Once upon a time, a common man made history. Nelson Mandela, alongside the thousands of Black South Africans that fought against Apartheid by his side, changed the course of history. In fact, he built the foundation upon which many liberation struggles around the world stand on today. Without this man’s perseverance and determination, South Africa and the world could be very different as we know it. However, he did not make history for his name to be tarnished as an accompaniment to modern-day politics and oppression. This is in the context of reports emerging last month that a statue of Nelson Mandela will be hoisted in Sri Lanka. The statue of a freedom fighter in a land where Tamils still have no freedom.
A few weeks ago, Tamil news cycles were dominated by coverage of an interview given by the Tamil National Alliance Spokesperson M.A. Sumanthiran to a Sinhala media site. During the course of the interview, he made several comments which created controversy and outrage amongst Tamils. The resulting conversation in Sri Lanka’s English-language spaces however failed to discern the actual issues. Instead, commentators opposed to the idea of Tamil nationalism, both Tamil and Sinhala, focused on the “traitorisation” phenomenon in Tamil politics, which predates the war and resulted in the killing of Tamil “moderates” by the LTTE and others. One writer, a relative of Sumanthiran, even spuriously claimed “traitorisation is running amok again,” comparing the current verbal attacks to a time when so-called “traitors” were hung from lamp-posts and assassinated. The trivialisation of this “traitorisation” issue by many throws doubt on whether they were made due to a genuine desire for Tamil introspection about these issues. Rather the intention appeared to be to use it to attack Tamil nationalism and to paint Sumanthiran as a victim of these “Tamil extremists”.
Writing in The Wire India, Harini Amarasuriya, highlights how Sri Lanka’s response to the coronavirus demonises minority communities and imposes a demand to submit to “the benevolent control of the majority community”. Rising Islamophobia Amarasuriya writes that since 2009, there has been rising Islamophobia in Sri Lanka which has resulted in pogroms against Muslims. These acts of ethnic and religious violence could not have “taken place without the complicity of the political party in power – at the very least, by turning a blind eye or delaying taking action”. Sri Lankan officials have...
This week has seen a series of political leaders congratulate Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, alleged war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa, for his 50 years in parliament. His political career is marked by the entrenchment of a corrupt military establishment; virulent Sinhala Buddhist nationalism; and a genocidal campaign against the Tamil people. Yet, these feats are not solely due to one man’s political aspiration but rather the results of an entire system which has consistently failed the Tamil people. The international community turned a blind eye to the genocide at Mullivaikkal; Sri Lankan parties...