தமிழ்த் தேசியம்

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."

- Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C 

Home

 Whats New

Trans State NationTamil EelamBeyond Tamil NationComments
Home > Tamil National Forum > Selected Writings - Brian Senewiratne

Tamil National Forum
TAMIL NATIONAL FORUM

Selected Writings
Brian Senewiratne, Australia

Brian Senewiratne is a Consultant Physician in Brisbane, Australia. His degrees include - MA (Cantab), MBBChir (Cantab), MBBS (Lond), MD (Lond), FRCP( Lond), FRACP. He is a Sinhalese. For many decades, Brian Senewiratne has stood up for the Tamil cause and has given expression to his own anguish at the suffering of the Tamil people. He has done so, despite death threats, physical attacks on his medical office in Australia, and vulgar abuse by Sinhala thugs. He has had the courage to openly stand up for that which he knows to be the truth and  he has been willing to suffer for that which he believes to be right. He wrote recently (May 2006)

 "There has been an unprecedented reaction by the Singhalese community by way of offensive e-mails and telephone calls. The verbal abuse is serious and disruptive. They have taken the form of telephone calls, both to my home phone and my mobile every half an hour throughout the night, ever since I published the Trinco bombing. The calls are disruptive not only of my sleep but, what is more serious, of my medical practice. I’m on call to several hospitals and it is impossible, and quite irresponsible in the interest of patient care, to knock off both my mobile and home phone. ....Although it does not bother us too much, it may be one reason why so few Singhalese (and others) have been reluctant to come forward and say what has to be said..." [see also Comments by Mariam Manuel Pillai, Leslie Kanthan and Usha Sriskandarajah and Daniel David]

June 2007You Tube Presentation: Sri Lanka the ethnic crisis what the world must know - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7
June 2007
You Tube Presentation: Sri Lanka: Survival of Tamil civilians at Stake - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5
21 May 2007An Open Letter to Rt Rev Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury on his Comments about  Sri Lanka's 'surgical military action'
6 April 2007President Rajapakse sends an emissary to Australia
10 November 2006The Future of Tamil Parliamentarians in Sri Lanka
October 2006You Tube Presentation: Brian Speaks! - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3  - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
26 October 2006 Sri Lanka's Nonsense 'Talks'
26 September 2006In the path of Adrian Wijemanne
21 August 2006The Bombing of Tamil School Children in Sri Lanka
28 July 2006Adrian Wijemanne – an appreciation by a fellow Sinhalese
23 July 2006Sri Lanka's Week of Shame - July 1983 Massacre: Long Term Consequences
21 May 2006An Appeal to Prime Minister Hon. John Howard and Hon. Members of Houses of Parliament, Australia
20 May 2006Letter to UK Prime Minister on the Critical Situation in Sri Lanka
12 May 2006The Situation in Muthur

"..The Sinhala Government is too stupid to realise that Eelam is not a creation of the Tamils or even of the LTTE. It is a creation of Sinhala ethno-religious chauvinism and State brutality. The division of the country is not going to come because the Tamils wanted it, but because it was forced on them by the abysmal stupidity of a succession of Sinhala Governments since Independence, especially since 1956. It is too late now to turn the clock back. Indeed, the events now unfolding in Trincomalee are turning the clock forward at a spectacular rate..."

27 April 2006Sri Lanka bombs its own People

This is not an Appeal, nor a Plea – humanitarian or otherwise. It is to apprise foreign Governments, the international media, religious leaders, NGOs, leaders of civic society and people outside Sri Lanka, of what is going on in that country. It is NOT a request for help or intervention. I am merely presenting the facts to the outside world and my sympathy to a devastated people in Trincomalee.

28 February 2006 Peace Talks that Have Gone Nowhere
14 November 2005One Party State in Sri Lanka:Political Ideology - Anti Tamil

"...Recent revelations have confirmed that there may be several political parties in the Sinhala South, but only one ideology – being anti-Tamil. There is the right wing United National Party (UNP), the supposedly socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the so-called “Marxist” Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Marxists of yester-year, the Lanka Sama Samaga Party (LSSP), the political party of not-so-clean-shaven men in yellow robes, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and many more of their ilk. In reality they are all different names for one party policy – anti-Tamil. .."

1 November 2005C.J.Thamotheram -  the end of an era

 "This is not an obituary, since I am not qualified to write one. It is just a note of thanks from a Sinhalese to a great Tamil for all he has done for the Tamil cause over a very long time..." more

31 October 2005Mahinda Rajapakse - the Road to Disaster

"..The upcoming election is to elect a Sinhala President and that is a problem for the Sinhala people. It is not a problem for the Tamils. If the Sinhala people want crooks who have had their hand in the Tsunami till as their President, that is their problem. If they want hoodlums who have wrecked the South in armed uprisings (in 1971 and again in 1989) with the murder of thousands of civilians who included University professors, leading professionals and charismatic Sinhala leaders such as President Kumaratunga’s husband, and an extensive destruction of infrastructure which included much-needed agricultural equipment, which be described as “the vandalisation of a country”, that is a choice for the Sinhalese. If they want Buddhist “monks” who are more comfortable preaching violence than the doctrine of Buddha, that is a problem for the Buddhists..."

23 October 2005EU Credibility on the Line

"...The EU “calls on the LTTE not least to take immediate public steps to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process and the willingness to change”. For the record, it was the LTTE that initiated the Ceasefire even before the then Sri Lankan Government did so. The EU needs to check its facts. Would the EU call on the Sri Lankan government ”to demonstrate …. willingness to change” by abandoning its declared policy that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese Buddhist nation despite the fact that Sri Lanka is a multiethnic, multicultural and multi religious country, and repeal sections of the Constitution in which this is guaranteed? If not, why not?.."

22 May 2005Good wishes for Adrian Wijemanne’s 80th birthday

"..Adrian is one of very few Sinhalese (others being the late Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe and my uncle the late Edmund Samarakkody) to have freed themselves from the shackles of Sinhala chauvinism to campaign for the right of Thamil people to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. This is not a fight between the Sinhalese and the Thamils. It is a fight between injustice and justice. It is not a question of who wins the war between Sinhala chauvinism and justice for the Thamil people. What is important is where we stand..."

30 March 2005Solving the Ethnic Problem - Foreigners Have the Answer
18 February 2005Book Review of  Sri Lanka: Witness to History - A Journalist's Memoirs, 1930-2004 by Subramaniam Sivanayagam

"I am not a fast reader nor a consistent one. With mind cluttered with my medicine, human rights, the state of our public hospitals, the horrors in Africa etc, I cannot read a book from cover to cover. Siva’s “Witness to History” was the exception. I got it on Thursday, I read it all day and for most of the night till Sunday, covering the 683 pages, reading even the Index! So will you if you are fortunate enough to get this book. It is compulsory and addictive reading..."

10 January 2005Tsunami & Sri Lanka: Emerging Realities

"..Even in the face of a national disaster, ethnic and political considerations are never too far away in Sri Lankan thinking, in particular in the minds of the Sinhalese politicians of all parties. The best example of this is a recent statement by President Chandrika Kumaratunga that the Tamil Tigers had lost too many cadres in the tsunami disaster to resume the armed struggle. This is an outrageous comment from a national leader whose country has been decimated. Faced with a national crisis from an unavoidable natural disaster, all that the President could do was to focus on what ‘benefit’ it could be towards settling her political problems...

September 2003Peace cannot be abandoned in Sri Lanka
30 November 2001What can the Tamils expect from 2001 Elections
23 June 2001The abuse of democracy in Sri Lanka
10 March 2001A Tribute  to C.Jeyaratnam Eliezer

"It is said that no one is irreplaceable. I don't believe this. Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe, Bishop Leo Nanayakkaraya, Vijaya Kumaratunge and now, Professor Eliezer, are irreplaceable. There can be no fitting memorial to him than to carry forward the struggle to free the Tamil people from domination by a Sinhalese Government and Sinhalese extremists, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, hell-bent on crushing, not the LTTE, but the Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka..."

25 October 2000The massacre of Tamil youths in a detention centre
2 November 2000"Behind the Tamil Tigers" and SBS Television Program in Australia
30 April 1988Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinism & the Buddhist Clergy

" Sinhalese­Buddhist ethno­religious chauvinism and its strongest advocates, the Buddhist clergy, are the most important factors that prevent a solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict.... the Sinhalese majority have a deep rooted perception that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese­Buddhist nation which 'belongs' to the Sinhalese and is the custodian of Buddhism. The most powerful advocates of this ethno­religious chauvinism are the Buddhist clergy. "Even though non­Sinhalese and non­Buddhist have been living in this country for a long time, Sri Lanka is the country of the Sinhala Buddhist" writes the Venerable Madhie Pannaseeha, Mahanayake Thera of the Amarapura sect, one of the three major Buddhist sects in Sri Lanka..."

  
  
Mail Usup- truth is a pathless land -Home