News: Bavinck

NOTEBOOK OF A NOBODY<br /> by Shanie A group of people who shared the vision and thinking of Thiranagama and the UTHR formed the Rajani Thiranagama Memorial Committee to remember the twentieth anniversary of Thiranagama’s assassination. The Committee continues to function and has taken the initiative in publishing, in collaboration with Vijitha Yapa Publications, the diaries of Ben Bavinck, a Dutch church worker, who was both a teacher of Thiranagama and a close friend of the founders and leaders of the UTHR. The diaries are published under the title ‘Of Tamils and Tigers - a journey through Sri Lanka’s war years’. The book was launched in London recently and the quotation at the head of this column is from the Introduction to the Diaries written by the Rajani Thiranagama Memorial Committee. Whereas the UTHR bulletins were based on investigative reporting by the authors, Bavinck’s dairies are personal reflections by the author during the period covered which is from 1988-1994. (A second volume covering the years 1994-2004 is under preparation.) The bulletins and the diaries therefore complement each other in providing the only accurate and independent recording of the events of that period in our country’s troubled past.