It’s been ages since we’ve discussed Sri Lanka, one of our pet topics dating back to this blog’s earliest days. And so it pains us to revisit the island nation under such disturbing circumstances—namely, today’s news that Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for violating the sweeping Prevention of […]
Tags:human rights·J.S. Tissainayagam·journalism·Sri Lanka·Tamil Tigers
As the great Jack Shafer has noted time and again, British-style obituaries are a zillion times more entertaining than ours. And that’s primarily because the Brits aren’t afraid of speaking ill of the dead when such treatment is warranted. Such is the case with The Economist‘s recent farewell to Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers’ slain leader. […]
Tags:obituaries·Prabhakaran·Sri Lanka·Tamil Tigers·The Economist
Try as it might, the Sri Lankan government can’t quite convince everyone that its soldiers did, indeed, gun down Velupillai Prabhakaran. So a DNA test may be necessary to quell the few remaining naysayers. But how might such a test work, especially considering that Tiger 001‘s wife and daughters are nowhere to be found? Several […]
The Sri Lankan government is sadly adept at squelching journalism, which makes the crowdsourced Groundviews a truly precious gem. Proudly calling itself “Sri Lanka’s first and only citizens journalism website,” Groundviews provides a rare English-language peek at the mood on Colombo’s streets. The site has been in peak form as the nation’s civil war has […]
When we went to bed last night, we were all set to kick off the week’s blogging with a “Where’s Prabhakaran?” post. But during our all-too-fleeting stay with the Sandman, the Tamil Tigers leader’s fate became widely known. Contrary to expectations, Prabhakaran did not end it all with a bite of cyanide, but rather (at […]
Tags:Mahinda Rajapaksa·politics·Prabhakaran·Sri Lanka·Tamil Tigers
With the 26-year-old Sri Lankan civil war continuing to wind down—or, at the very least, enter a decidedly less conventional phase—the Colombo government faces a big challenge: How do they bring the Jaffna Peninsula back into the national fold? The region has been dominated by the Tamil Tigers for years now, and the insurgents managed […]
Given my curious fascination with Sri Lanka and its long-running ethnic conflict, I thought it wise to provide some context. The island nation’s 34-year civil war is pretty baffling, and the partisan journalism on both sides doesn’t make it easy to parse the details. That’s why I heartily recommend Sri Lanka: History and the Roots […]
From Foreign Policy, a list of insurgencies that refuse to die. They forgot a biggie, though: The New People’s Army, the military branch of the Communist Party of the Philippines. They’ve been waging their futile war since 1969, which makes the group older than the Tamil Tigers (1975) or Peru’s Shining Path (1980). This sad […]
Tags:insurgencies·Peru·Philippines·Shinging Path·Sri Lanka·Tamil Tigers
How do you know when you’ve finally stumbled across the jungle mansion of V. Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tigers? Peek in his closet: The suspicion that Prabhakaran was frequenting the place was further confirmed by the fact that the troops came across an expensive Marks & Spencer shirt of 42 1/2 cm size, which […]
