The Sri Lankan government may have won the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the country, but another protracted struggle is looming on the horizon, that of winning democracy and development back from the clutches of militarisation. In the meantime, for those in the north (and the east) struggling to recover socially, economically and[Read More...]
Tamil nationalism is the ideology which asserts that the Tamil people constitute a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Tamil people. Sri Lankan state violence, persecution, and discrimination from the 1940s to 70s pushed Eelam Tamil leadership to answer the Tamil national question, manoeuvring through a maze of democratic and diplomatic methods in an attempt to achieve only a[Read More...]
Most counts estimate that over 100,000 civilians died during the conflict, though accounts of the final stages of the war, when the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers militia in 2009, vary significantly, with the United Nations estimating the total casualties to be somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 over a five-month period. Apart from that the death toll during[Read More...]
On 9th July 1995, the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the St Peter’s Church in Navaly and the nearby Sri Kathirgama Murugan Kovil, which were both sheltering displaced Tamils from army bombardment. A total of 13 bombs were dropped on the sheltering shrines, killing 147 on the spot with many more succumbing to injuries later. The victims included men, women[Read More...]
On 14th of August 2006, the government forces deliberately bombed a girl’s orphanage killing 60 girls and wounding 120 who were between the ages of 15 and 18 In the Cenchcholai complex in Vallipunam in the Mullaithivu district hundreds of female students in the age group of 17-20 were gathered on 10 August 2006 for a weeklong training in leadership[Read More...]
The incident occurred in two different series of actions: the first on 25 July 1983 when 35 Tamil prisoners were attacked and killed by Sinhalese inmates. The second massacre was two days later when Sinhalese inmates killed another 18 Tamil detainees and 3 prison deputies. ‘It is the massacres in the Welikade gaol which are attracting the most attention. There[Read More...]
This July marks the 39th anniversary of what became known as Black July. The riots of July 1983 in Sri Lanka would forever alter the course of ethnic tensions in the country, and would lead to the movement of Tamils out of Sri Lanka and into countries like Canada in increasingly dramatic numbers. The riots also marked a decisive shift[Read More...]
The mothers, fathers, relatives of the missing are on the streets for more than 1950 days in a sit-in protest demanding to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. They are holding EU, US & UN Flags and the pictures of their loved ones missing Since the end of the armed conflict, the families of the disappeared have participated in[Read More...]
The opening statements of Human Rights Commissioner and Core Members (UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Malawi) sum up Sri Lanka’s hollow and dismal performance and the disappointing compliance of Human Right Council’s Resolutions and Recommendations issued against Sri Lanka since October 2015. The Commissioner of Human Rights “called on Sri Lanka to focus on deeper institutional reforms to[Read More...]
The Tamil homeland has been subjected to decades of Sinhalisation but since the end of the armed conflict, there has been a rise in the establishment of Buddhist temples and Sinhala settlements through the appropriation of Tamil land. The government has used it’s departments such as the archaeological and land survey departments to alter the demographics of the North-East. Rise[Read More...]
