I reported in February the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka and its apparent attempt to white-wash or ignore completely the brutal civil war then taking place in the country. Now, as the government continues to imprison hundreds of thousands of Tamils, those wily cultural ambassadors are back at it: Sri Lanka will host the…
Showing all posts tagged Sri Lanka
The Tamil struggle in the face of Israeli-backed attack
No wonder Israel and the Palestinian Authority are backing Sri Lanka. This British eyewitness, who worked in the hospitals during the recent war helping the countless victims of government attack, talks about hell on earth. Israel and Sri Lanka share one key tactic: keep any independent media out of the conflict zone and humiliate and…
Why are the Palestinians romancing a rogue Sri Lanka?
Yet more evidence that the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is a) clueless about the true nature of the Sri Lankan regime (ie. barbarism against the Tamils) b) unaware that Israel helped arm the government in its recent war or c) desperate to appear close to a state that now loves Israel: Palestinian National Authority has decided…
Hold Israel to fair standards or pay the price
The justified outrage over the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) spotlighting Tel Aviv (and ignoring Israel’s occupation and abuses in the West Bank and Gaza) is rightly causing waves. Naomi Klein explains that critics who accuse us of demonising Israel are deliberately missing the point: Imagine that this year the Toronto International Film Festival had…
Tamils are the region’s Palestinians, locked up and ignored
Sri Lanka is now a post-conflict society, one still divided along racial and ethnic lines. But what about the Tamils now forced to live in concentration camps? The Observer reported yesterday: The camp, say former inhabitants, is packed, with two or three families sharing a tent or tin shack. There are complaints of stinking, overflowing…
Sri Lanka will pay a price for killing Tamils
The litany of abuses occurring in Sri Lanka are shocking. The Economist reports on one way the West can pressure the criminal state: Rarely has a government soiled its reputation as dramatically as Sri Lanka’s. In recent months President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime has won a war and lost the love of many allies. Its alleged…
One state, two state”¦who cares so long as there’s a solution?
My following article appears in today’s Crikey: US President Barack Obama has consistently stated that he imagines a two state solution in the Middle East, with viable Jewish and Palestinian nations alongside each other. Israel, in a clear sign of who runs the show, announced last week that it intended to continue building colonies in…
The rogue nation near our shores
With Sri Lanka dealing with dissent as robustly as its head teacher, Israel, this letter in today’s Melbourne Age perfectly captures the necessary sentiments: With the Sri Lankan military having recently perpetrated what Noam Chomsky has called a ”Rwanda-like atrocity” against its Tamil minority; with 300,000 Tamil civilians confined in concentration camps; with the sudden…
What the Sri Lankan war on terror really means
Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, praised by Barack Obama as a beacon of press bravery, has been jailed in Sri Lanka for 20 years. The trial and process was a sham, further condemning the country to the status of rogue state. Reporters Without Borders has issued the following statement: Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the…
When the official line is never the best perspective
Jake Lynch, head of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, on the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless: An eyewitness account from one of the [Sri Lankan government Tamil internment] camps is to be the centrepiece of an event we’re staging at the University of Sydney, titled, ”˜Sri Lanka’s human rights…