Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Chavuinism, Civil War, Francis Boyle, Genocide, IDPS, Internment camps, Iran Elections, Lebensraum, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Nation-State, Nationalism, Nazi, Nazism, Racism, Self-Determination, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Army, State Terror, Tamil Diaspora, Tamils
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30 June 2009
Source: Open Democracy
What kind of violence has the Sri Lankan state been committing against its Tamil civilian population as the island‘s civil war ended; on what scale and with what intentions? Martin Shaw explores the difficult terrain where war, atrocity and genocide meet.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his “victory speech”, told Sri Lanka’s parliament that “our heroic forces have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians”, and he took “personal responsibility” for protecting Tamils. Yet his government is now scandalously confining this huge population – who have already suffered not only from the LTTE but from Sri Lankan bombardments which caused probably tens of thousands of deaths and injuries – in squalid conditions. The government has officially backtracked, under international pressure, on plans to hold the displaced, while screening them for potential “terrorists”, for up to three years; it now says that 80% will be resettled by the end of (more…)
Filed under: Asia, Middle East | Tags: Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, aqazadeh, Azad, Azadi, Basij, Green Revolution, Iran, Iran Elections, Iranian Elections 2009, Iranian Revolution, Islamic Republic, Khodi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Hussein Mousavi, Mohamed Khatami, Nationalism, Revolutionary Guards
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25 June – 1 July 2009
Issue No. 953
Source: Al-Ahram Weekly Online
Western coverage of the political turmoil in Iran in the aftermath of the 12 June presidential election has for the most part presented a uniform image of the conflict: thousands of young, liberal, and defiant supporters of presidential challenger Mir-Hussein Mousavi have been protesting against what they see as massive fraud, a “coup” to re-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government, fearful of a popular uprising, has responded with massive use of force, killing and injuring protesters, arresting activists and politicians, and imposing an information blockade.
Analysts repeatedly ask themselves and others, “Is this a revolution?” And, more expectantly, “Are we witnessing the end of the Islamic Republic?” Whatever we are to make of the question of fraud (there apparently were some irregularities, but no evidence of widespread fraud), Ahmadinejad retains a huge popular base that is not prepared to forfeit its position. Rather than viewing the events of the past 12 days as signs of a revolution-in-the-making, we should be (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Chauvanism, Colombo, Colonial, Colonizer, Dictatorship, Fascism, Fascist, Genocide, Imperialism, Imperialist, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapakse, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, Racist, Sri Lanka, Tamils, United National Party, United Peoples Freedom Alliance
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23 June 2009
Source: World Socialist Website
In an extraordinary, anti-democratic move, the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka—the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)—has begun to sound out amending the constitution to allow President Mahinda Rajapakse to remain in office beyond his six-year term without facing a new election.
For weeks, the government has been whipping up a climate of communal triumphalism following the army’s victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Now it is seeking to exploit the atmosphere to entrench Rajapakse in the powerful post of executive president.
Under the present constitution, presidents can serve (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: AIADMK, Anti-Tamil Pogroms, Armed Resistance, Bandaranayaka-Chelvanaagam, Britain, British Colonialism, Buddhist Clergy, Chemical Weapons, Colombo, Colonization, Congress Party, DMK, Ethnic Cleansing, Freedom Struggle, Genocide, Imperialism, Indian Imperialism, Insurgents, Internally Displaced Persons, Jaffna LIbrary, Karunanidhi, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Liberation, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, PMK, Prabakaran, Racism, Resistance, Saddam, Self-Determination, Self-Governing Authority, Sinhala, Sinhala Chauvinism, Sinhalese Eelam, Sovereignty, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Sri Lankan Army, Sri Lankan Government, State Terror, Tamil Diaspora, Tamil Eelam, Tamil Nadu, Terrorism, United Nations, United States, War Criminal, War on Terror
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June 2009
Source: Liberation
On May 18 2009, the Sri Lankan Government declared its ‘final victory’ over the LTTE, by displaying the body of the slain LTTE chief Prabakaran. Since then, the Sri Lankan regime and its army have indulged in an obscene orgy of humiliation. The body of Prabakaran, an international icon for the Tamil movement for self-determination, was displayed by jeering soldiers as a trophy – reminiscent of the manner that Saddam’s capture and killing was displayed by the US. Not content with months of unremitting shelling and chemical assaults on thousands of Tamil civilians, nor with the extermination of the Tamil self-determination struggle’s leadership, the Sri Lankan government is determined now to humiliate the surviving Tamils and flaunt the victory of its racist war. Prabakaran is being slandered as a psychopath and a coward, and his body is being cast into a mass, unmarked grave – to obliterate and tarnish the very memory of the Tamil struggle. And the Sri Lankan State is sponsoring (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Anticolonial Nationalism, Azad, Bengal, Colonialism, Divide and Rule, Gandhi, Genocide, Hindu, Imperialism, Independence, India, Modernity, Muslim, Nation-State, National Liberation, Nationalism, Pakistan, Partition, Punjab, Racism, Self-Determination, Violence, White Supremacy
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Source: Sarai
Independence did not come to South Asia as a single, identifiable event in 1947, though that is way most South Asians like to remember it. The slow, painful process of dismantling British India began with the great Calcutta riots and ended with the genocide in Punjab.
I was (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Anticolonial Nationalism, Colonialism, Gandhi, Genocide, Hindu, Imperialism, Independence, India, Modernity, Muslim, Nation-State, National Liberation, Nationalism, Pakistan, Partition, Racism, Self-Determination, Violence, White Supremacy
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Source: Sanhati
A sketch of Ashis Nandy’s recent lecture at UC Berkeley. March 13, 2009
It was not hatred, but a strong undercurrent of humanity, that was the surprising finding of research on the traumatic bloodbath of the Partition, iconoclastic Indian researcher Ashis Nandy told an audience March 3 at the University of California.
Nandy made some unconventional points: Even in the terrible bloodbath that claimed the lives of millions, as many as one in four people among survivors said they were saved by the other community, and their fondest memories were still of (more…)
