RACISM & NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS | NEWS/COMMENTARY


Sri Lanka – camps, media…genocide? | Martin Shaw

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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…)

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Women’s Groups Condemn State Cover-up Over the Rape and Murder of Two Women in Shopian, Kashmir | Farida Khan, Jagori, Nirantar, Partners for Law in Development, Pratiksha Baxi, Saheli, Stree Adhikaar Sanghatana, Uma Chakravarti, Zubaan

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Source: South Asia Citizens Web

The news of the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian in Kashmir is deeply shocking. We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms.

We are also deeply disturbed by the reaction of the State. Instead of speaking out against this flagrant violation of human rights, and particularly the right of women to live safely and with dignity, instead of taking speedy and firm steps to bring the perpetrators to book, the State and the new administration first denied the rape of women and then attempted to justify it by (more…)

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Racism, Extermination, Genocide: Sri Lanka’s ‘Final Solution’ for the Tamils | Liberation

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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…)

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THE DEATH OF AN EMPIRE – Ashis Nandy

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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…)

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A psychological study of India’s Partition – A sketch of Ashis Nandy’s recent lecture at UC Berkeley

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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…)

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Somalis celebrate as U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces pull out – Eugene Puryear

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21 January 2009

Source: Party for Socialism and Liberation

Struggle for Self-Determination Not Over

The last Ethiopian troops in Somalia left Jan. 15, ending a two-year occupation. The hatred of the occupation was on full display when the pullout began just two days earlier, as hundreds of Somalis lined the route of the retreating military forces and cheered their departure.

Ethiopian troops invaded and occupied Somalia in 2007 at the behest of Washington. U.S. officials were alarmed that the government they backed, known as the Transitional Federal Government, was at risk of collapsing.

The TFG is a collection of various warlords who had been ripping Somalia apart since 1991, following the collapse of the (more…)

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“Exterminate all the Brutes”: Gaza 2009 – Noam Chomsky

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20 January 2009

Source: ZNet

On Saturday December 27, the latest U.S.-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.

That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were (more…)

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Land and Jail: Ipperwash, Official Racism and the Future of Ontario – Kim Petersen

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(Dated Piece) 23 September 2008

Source: The Dominion

On May 31, 2007, nearly 12 years after Dudley George was shot by an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer, Sidney Linden released the four-volume Ipperwash Report.

In his remarks when he released the report, Linden, the commissioner of the Ipperwash Inquiry, noted that George was the “First aboriginal person to be killed in a land-rights dispute in Canada since the 19th century,” and stated: “If the governments of Ontario and Canada want to avoid future confrontations, they will have to (more…)

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The Tamil struggle for national liberation – Sérgio Rodrigues

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On Nov. 26, the Tamil people of Sri Lanka celebrated Heroes Day. It is the day when the first fighter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lost his life in combat in 1982—a day dedicated to the memory of all Tamils who have died fighting for the right to self-determination.

During his annual Heroes Day speech, Velupillai Prabhakaran, LTTE founder and leader, declared (more…)

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