As discussions on how to deal with the findings of the UN investigation into Sri Lanka’s mass atrocities (OISL) reach fever pitch, the newly elected chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, James Berry, spoke to the Tamil Guardian last week. Speaking ahead of the release of the UN report into mass atrocities and after meeting the Chief Minister of the Northern Province, the APPG-T chair reiterated calls for normalcy in the North-East and stressed the need for any process to deal with the findings of the OISL to have the full confidence of the victims.
Sexual violence against Tamils ‘systematic’, ‘part of policy framework’: Interview with Yasmin Sooka
Photograph SL Campaign As the global summit on preventing sexual violence in conflict gets underway in London, the Tamil Guardian spoke on Tuesday to Yasmin Sooka, one of the three co-authors of the 2011 UN Panel of Experts report into wartime mass atrocities in Sri Lanka and co-author of the ' An Unfinished War: Torture and Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka 2009—2014 ' report on post-war Sri Lanka. In comments ahead of an event on Wednesday focused on sexual violence in Sri Lanka and hosted by the Canadian High Commission, Ms. Sooka, Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South...
Photograph:eKuruvi Tamil National Alliance (TNA) member of the Northern Provincial Council, MK Shivajilingam has said the people of the North-East have now demonstrated to the international community their demands for a international independent investigation, with the unanimous passing of a Northern Provincial Council (NPC) resolution. In an interview with Tamil Guardian earlier this week, Shivajilingam stated that any domestic investigation by Sri Lanka should be rejected and only an international investigation can bring progress and justice, a demand stated in a NPC resolution passed earlier this year.
Speaking to the Tamil Guardian, Indian film maker Maga Tamizh Prabhagaran condemned the procurement of Tamil land by the Sri Lankan government as part of a structural genocide, after the London screening of his film ‘This Land Belongs to the Army’. Prabhagaran, who was detained by Sri Lankan security forces whilst visiting the Tamil homeland in the North-East of the island, was eventually deported by Colombo. Upon arrival in London, Prabhagaran also described being held and interrogated for over 3 hours by British police, questioning him on the LTTE and on protests held by the Tamil diaspora. His film, detailing state procurement and Sinhalisation of the Tamil homeland, was screened at an international conference on land grabs earlier this month in London. Land grabs, the Sri Lankan state’s forcible and militarised procurement of Tamil owned land in the North-East, has seen international condemnation with a resolution having been presented to the US Senate this week outlining “ongoing concerns regarding landownership and property restitution”.
Tamil Guardian caught up with the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in My Country’, Dr N Malathy, to speak about experiences described in her book. Dr N Malathy, a Tamil diaspora activist, currently working as an analyst and programmer at the University of Cantebury , has lived in New Zealand for over 4 decades. She spent 4 years working for various human rights and social welfare institutions, within the Tamil de-facto state in Vanni from 2005 to 2009. ‘A Fleeting Moment In My Country’ describes, Malathy’s experience and reflections of the LTTE administered de-facto state after returning to the region to engage in social welfare work. See below for a summarised transcript of our interview with Malathy.
The Tamil Guardian caught up with the Tamil National Alliance's Batticaloa District Parliamentarian, P. Ariyanenthiran in a phone interview last month, and discussed issues such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Northern Provincial Council elections and the TNA's future plans. See full interview below.
As part of our series - ' Tamil Nadu activists speak out ' - on the growing activism in Tamil Nadu on the Eelam Tamil issue, Tamil Guardian caught up with leading activists across the state. This week, we publish our interview with students from Loyola College in Chennai. Students from Loyola College in Tamil Nadu remained steadfast in their call for a complete boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo by the international community, and continued to call for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Commonwealth. In an interview from Chennai, Joe Britto from Loyola College said to the Tamil Guardian, "We, the students of Tamil Nadu, we strictly condemn that - that conference shouldn't be happening in Sri Lanka, and we will protest on the streets, and we will raise our voice against the Sri Lankan Commonwealth conference."
As part of our series - 'Tamil Nadu activists speak out' - on the growing activism in Tamil Nadu on the Eelam Tamil issue, Tamil Guardian caught up with leading activists across the state.
As part of our series - 'Tamil Nadu activists speak out' - on the growing activism in Tamil Nadu on the Eelam Tamil issue, Tamil Guardian caught up with leading activists across the state. This week, we publish our interview with the 'Students Struggle for Tamil Eelam'.
Last week, three young Tamils from Toronto, Montreal and London, published a piece on the website Tumblr, listing the 'privileges' of being Sinhalese. Since then, the piece entitled ' Check your Sinhala privilege ', has sparked widespread praise, criticism and passionate debate online. Tamil Guardian caught up with the writers, Ram, Ahila and Sinthujan, via Facebook, to find out more.. Tamil Guardian: What inspired you to write this piece? Sinthujan : We were just speaking about the concept of privilege in general, unrelated to Sri Lanka, and som e of the problematic things some of our friends would say. Even though many of them are well-intentioned and well-educated, they often neglect to see the issues in some of their statements. Most of them similarly don't see the ways the social, political, and economic arrangements of any given society are what systematically produce existing inequalities between different social groups. Ram: This neglect is especially prominent in discussions of Sri Lanka, for instance, when civil conflict is simply explained in terms of “ethnic hatred” rather than through a close examination of the ways societal arrangements in Sri Lanka have benefited some ethnic groups relative to others.