06/24/2011
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The Island
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.
02/28/2011
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Groundviews
What we have seen for a long time within Tamil politics is two dichotomously opposed discourses – a discourse that supported the LTTE, come what may and its reflection, die hard criticism of the LTTE, come what may. Both sides have been exhausted now. We were told repeatedly that cross-ethnic, progressive, mass based movements is the alternative and we need to know how we are doing on this front. We need to hear more nuanced criticism of the powers that haunt the Tamil community and broadly minorities in this country today, for the power that was born in response to the ‘initial source of power’ and oppression is no more. The initial source of power remains, and has become even more oppressive, in a nuanced and sophisticated way. As much as we need the pro-LTTE discourses and groups to rethink their options we also need the anti-LTTE discourses and groups to rethink their ways. We need UTHR (J) reporting more than before now. More SLDF activism on the ground now.
07/25/2010
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Express Buzz
COLOMBO: P Ariyanethiran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for the Eastern Sri Lankan district of Batticaloa, has written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa asking him to release 765 Tamil young men and women who are kept in various prisons in the island for suspected links with the LTTE.