KUMAR SANGAKKARA’S COWDREY LECTURE
Photo courtesy Cric When Kumar Chokshanada Sangakkara, Trinity Lion, Ryde Gold Medallist, and former captain of Sri Lanka, delivered what can only be called a magisterial oration at the 2011 MCC Spirit…
Reconciliation
The attack on TNA Parliamentarians in Jaffna: A timeline of outrageous denials (Updated)
TNA MPs at the assault location. Photo courtesy Transcurrents A comment left on left recently by a well-known commentator David Blacker, notes, “When you attempt to use terrorism to further your goals,…
Rambling in Jaffna: An ode to the past
Photo courtesy Dushiyanthini‘s The roads in Jaffna are long and unending. The day time is dusty and windy. If you listen to the air for a while, you will certainly hear some…
Resource book for historians, researchers and media: A year of tweeting from Groundviews
Visualisation of our Twitter followers. See larger version here. We used the web service Tweet Book to capture all our tweets over the past year in a single PDF. We’ve tweeted thousands of…
Sri Lanka’s Diplomatic Offensive Won’t Make Killing Fields Disappear
Screen grab from Channel 4’s (New York) – The Sri Lankan government continues its diplomatic offensive, denying and dismissing the growing evidence of war crimes during the final bloody battles between the…
The war that confronts us: Looking at Sri Lanka’s official responses to Channel 4 video
Image courtesy Channel 4 Channel 4’s is anything but understated. It is designed to shock, even if you are the most hardened of viewers. Images of blood-soaked bodies assail you from every…
Provoking, persecuting and pushing Sri Lanka: Enough!
Photo credit REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte: Special Forces Combat soldiers ride in a parade during a war victory ceremony in Colombo May 27, 2011. Sri Lanka holds a military parade and memorial for fallen…
Sri Lanka ‘Killing Fields’: Will there be progress and what does that mean?
‘Killing fields’ can be a phrase used to describe a most mundane fact known to humanity, or it could be a most provocative phrase to an ethnic majority or minority group. When…
Exclusive interview with Callum McCrae, Director of ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ produced by Channel 4
caught up with Callum McCrae, Director of the highly controversial and very disturbing film by Channel 4, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, in New York, a day before the film was due to…
The Story of the Hypocrite in a Tamil Man
Reaction to the recent programme by UK’s Channel 4, , has great variety, ranging from “Ah, didn’t we tell you all along, the Sinhalese and their army are nasty people,” from the…
Assessing the Validity of Legal Challenges to the UN Panel Report
Apologists for the Sri Lankan government have marshaled a number of arguments in response to the growing pressure on accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some are less clever than…
30 years ago: A time for reflection
Image taken from Jaffna Photo Gallery I write this as a response to Concerned Citizen’s comments on the public lecture and discussion on the Burning of the Jaffna Public Library led by…
The Global Context of Counterterrorism: Strategy, Ethics, and Sustainability in Sri Lanka’s COIN Experience
[Editors note: We were forwarded Dr. Kilcullen’s speech by someone present at the on-going “Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience” seminar in Colombo. The person who sent us the email noted that…
Is the war crimes video confirmed by UN as authentic “unrepresentative and irrelevant”?
The Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, presented at the 17th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva today found, after…
Finding the Middle Ground
Just over a week ago, a couple of my colleagues and I appeared on a prominent Canadian talk show discussing our attempts, as both individuals and organizing members of the Young Canadians’ Peace…
