The Agony and Ecstasy of a Pogrom: July 1983
Two Survivors Not all Tamils in Sri Lanka are Tamils. A few who have been born and bred in the South-Western parts of the island have been de-Tamilicised. They know very little…
Author: Michael Roberts
Targeting Lanka: Playing Ball with Tamil Extremism 2008-14
The emergence and sharpening of Tamil nationalism from the 1940s to the 1980s is a complex tale which cannot be easily summarized in a few strokes. It is a tale of Sinhala…
Review of ‘Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka’
Photo courtesy Ingulfed Review of by Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne , Rouledge, London, 2014, ISBN 978-0-415-46266-2,250pp ### This treatise encompasses a vast span of time and straddles both the pre-modern and modern…
The war in Sri Lanka and propaganda debates: An analysis for the OHCHR in Geneva
Photography courtesy Worldvision Dear Sandra Beidas and OISL Team As a Sri Lankan Australian and academic I have been collecting and analysing the material on the last phase of the war in…
Where In-fighting generates Fervour & Power: ISIS Today, LTTE yesterday
Image courtesy NBC News “Division and in-fighting will sap and weaken any organisation or ideological current.” This formulation (mine) may seem a common-sense dictum. Let me challenge this notion with another dictum:…
Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe: Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte via Channel 4 Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965)…
The lover of books and ecumenical Sri Lankan patriot: Ananda Chittambalam
Photo courtesy Foreign Correspondents Association Sri Lanka Way back in the 1980s when I was on research work in Sri Lankan and based at my sister’s place in Wellawatte I received a phone…
Generating Calamity, 2008-2014: An Overview of Tamil Nationalist Operations and Their Marvels
Summarising previous essays (see bibliography below) this article proceeds in point-form with an eye on greater impact via succinctness. A. During the last phase of Eelam War IV in 2008/09 the LTTE…
Medical Administration and Relief within the Vanni Pocket, January to mid-May 2009
Image from author’s blog Beyond Imagination in Service to Humankind: Medical Administration and Relief within the Vanni Pocket, January to mid-May 2009 Amidst the obfuscations and cumulus clouds of propaganda that have…
ABC, Gordon Weiss and authoress Niromi de Soyza
Like many people I used to think that such agencies as the BBC and ABC provided balanced reviews and were relatively unbiased. No more. Further confirmation: a recent panel presentation by ABC…
A Missing Person in Sri Lanka: Heartfelt Issues & Ground Realities
Image courtesy Salon / AP Photo by Eranga Jayawardena When I was in Sri Lanka from mid-April to early June 2009 I was on holiday with my wife and not able to…
Mixed Messages and Bland Oversimplification in President Rajapaksa’s Independence Day Speech
In a significant act of outreach the Independence Day ceremonies were held in Trincomalee, a provincial city with a pronounced ethnic mix; while President Rajapaksa presented one part of his message in…
Swimming against the tide: Australia’s new asylum-seeker package
Photo courtesy Sydney Morning Herald Though launched with much fanfare and media acclaim, Australia’s new raft of proposals embodied in the Houston package to handle the surge in asylum-seekers is simply treading…
Where brevity cripples and distorts reportage
Image courtesy eHow Once upon a time, after I presented a public talk in Oslo courtesy of Kumar Rupesinghe, a Norwegian journalist provided me with a refreshing insight into the difference between…
The Disappeared in Sri Lanka’s War in the Recent Past: What is missing in those “Missing”?
IRIN has recently highlighted the fact that “thousands of people are still missing” in Sri Lanka and presented an UNOHCR report that states that there are “5,671 reported cases of wartime-related disappearance…