The massacre of 32 Tamils in Othiyamalai, Mullaitivu by the Sri Lankan army in 1984 was remembered this week. 

On December 2, 1984, men in the village were rounded up by Sri Lankan soldiers, dragged to the village community centre where they were stripped naked and tied up by their clothes. 

Sri Lanka Podjuana Peramuna (SLPP) parliamentarian Mahinda Samarasinghe, a staunch defender of the Rajapaksa regime, will take up the ambassadorial position in the United States following a request from Sri Lanka's president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, according to reports.

Mahinda Samarasinghe who resigned from parliament on November 25, is expected to fly to the United States next week and assume his duties as ambassador in Washington DC.

We take a look back through Samarasinghe’s history and how he has denied war crimes, rejected claims of media suppression and been a firm supporter of the Rajapaksas.

The Chairman and Ranking Member of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken today, calling on him to prioritise “the importance of a substantive and durable political solution” in the US engagement with Sri Lanka.

The letter by Representatives Gregory W. Meeks and Michael McCaul, states “Sri Lanka faces several challenges – from an impending financial crisis to an unresolved ethnic conflict – that could affect long-term stability”.

It goes on to state,

Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, has claimed that Sri Lanka will be able to pay off the country’s debt “seamlessly”, as inflation on the island has reached an all-time high for the past 12 years in November.

“The repayments will go through seamlessly; we are confident we’ll be making those payments on time. There is absolutely no worry about that” Cabraal claimed.

Responding to a meeting between British South Asia Minister, Lord Ahmad, and Tamil National Alliance spokesman, M.A. Sumanthiran, C.V Wigneswaran has called on the British Minister to recognise Tamils as a sovereign nation.

“The Indo-Sri Lanka Accords of 1987 has recognised the North & East as places of historic habitation of the Tamil speakers. They are the majority in their areas” he stated on Twitter.

Sri Lanka’s Bar Association (BASL) launched an Anti-Torture unit focused on tackling issues of police brutality, torture, and deaths in police custody.

During the launch of the new unit President of BASL’s Counsel, Saliya Pieris, affirmed BASL’s commitment to ending “torture and custodial violence”.

In a letter addressed to Sri Lanka’s Health Minister, Sri Lanka’s Medical Association and the Intercollegiate Committee have called for the banning of flights from 6 South African countries and to strengthen quarantine laws.  However the virus has already been detected in the country.

M.A. Sumanthiran, a parliamentarian from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), condemned the recent attack by the army on a Tamil journalist in Mullivaikkal. Vishvalingam Vishvachandran was physically assaulted when he was in the area as a reporter to take pictures. 

In a statement he put out, Sumanthiran said the incident was “highly condemnable” and called for justice to be delivered to Vishvachandran. 

Sri Lanka's inflation hits 12-year high at 9.9% in November, as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) issued a high alert warning for the country as food prices soar.

Marking Maaveerar Naal, Australian MP, Hugh McDermott, expressed his solidarity with the Tamil community as those in the North East faced a brutal crackdown on memorialisation events.