30 September 2006 Tamil National Forum 29 September 2006 Festivals of the Tamils 
| Dr.S.Jayabarathi, Malaysia on Navarathi - Saraswathy Poosai: நவராத்தி - சரஸ்வதி பூசை "நாமகளை மனமுருகிப் பிரார்த்தனை செய்தால் போதும். பணத்தைக் கொட்டிப் படாடோபமாக நீட்டி முழக்கிச்செய்யும் பூஜைகளினால்தான் அம்பிகை மனமகிழ்வாள் என்ற எண்ணம் எப்படியோ ஆழமாக வேரூன்றிவிட்டது. தனக்கே சரியாகத் தெரியாமல் வாய்க்கு வந்ததைச் சொல்லிக்கொண்டு, ஆயிரக்கணக்கில் செலவழித்து, பட்டுப்புடவைகளை நெய்யில் முக்கியெடுத்து நெருப்பில் போட்டு எரிப்பதால் அம்பாள் ஏமாந்துவிடுவாளா, என்ன? அவளுக்கு வேண்டியது ஆழமான, எளிமையான பக்தி. அவ்வளவே!" more |
29 September 2006 International Relations in the Age of Empire | 1. China's Geostrategy: Playing a Waiting Game "..China's military education programs have given Beijing some tangible benefits with many of its graduates assuming senior positions in their respective countries...While most countries still send their very best, the chief of staff material, to Western academies, many officers reaching less senior positions such as one star and two star generals are increasingly being trained in China. All armies in Africa and a few in Latin America and Southeast Asia have N.D.U. graduates at the ranking of colonel or brigadier... China is also assuming a major role in regions where the U.S. presence has been curtailed by domestic politics, such as in the cases of South America and some parts of the Middle East. From Venezuela alone, an estimated 30 officers have graduated from various P.L.A. academies in recent years..." more 2.Venezuela President Hugo Chavez Speech to the United Nations "..The President of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom." Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him. The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up..." more |
28 September 2006 TamilNational Forum to include | 1. R.Cholan writes from USA about The Poor Man’s Air Force by Mike Davis "..The following is a 19-page article on the history of the Car-Bomb. I found this article quite fascinating for more reasons than one. Firstly the title of the article, as it appeared in the Harper’s Magazine [October 2006], reads: ‘The Poor Man’s Air Force’. Car-bombs - the equivalent of Air Force bombs! Many, who arrogate righteousness for themselves, however, like to make a distinction. They prefer the label ‘barbaric’ for car-bombings, and ‘virtuous’ for air-bombings, when in fact both have the same identical effects on their victims. They both blow human beings to bits...." more 2. Sara Ananthan from Australia - Globalization and Our Place Under the Sun "..It was said that the gun powder was invented by the Chinese but the gun was invented by the Europeans. Ever since, the geo politics of the world appears to have become hostage to the threat of gun diplomacy. Despite all the pep talk about globalization and bringing equality and prosperity to all by the spread of democracy, the balance of power is held by the threat of atomic annihilation. It makes a mockery of all the progress made by humanity in morality and ethics in all these centuries. In addition, in the United Nations (UN) – the august body of international affairs, the balance of power is wielded by the threat of the veto. So there is no democracy and fair play in international affairs. It is a law of the jungle – the survival of the fittest (military might is supreme) and the confirmation of the maxim that might is right in international affairs. There appears to be a nexus between the application of these amoral statecraft policies and the unscrupulous think tanks, corrupted policy advisors, lobby groups and media moguls in the age of Empire. These minions with highly decorative qualifications will not dare tell the Emperor that he has no moral clothes as they are paid servants serving their political masters in servitude..." more 3. Ana Pararajasingham from Australia - A Tribute to Adrian Wijemanne |
27 September 2006 Reflections 
| | Robert Greenleaf in Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness "...Who is the enemy? Who is holding back more rapid movement to the better society that is reasonable and possible with available resources? Who is responsible for the mediocre performance of so many of our institutions? Who is standing in the way of a larger consensus on the definition of the better society and the paths to reaching it? Not evil people. Not stupid people. Not apathetic people. Not the “system”. Not the protesters, the disrupters, the revolutionaries, the reactionaries…The real enemy is fuzzy thinking on the part of good, intelligent, vital people, and their failure to lead, and to follow servants as leaders..." more |
27 September 2006 Indictment Against Sri Lanka: Genocide'83 to include N.Sanmugathasan, Leader of Maoist Ceylon Communist Party on Sri Lanka's Week of Shame 27 September 2006 Tamil National Forum | 1. Sanmugam Sabesan writes from Australia and asks பயங்கரவாதம் என்றால் என்ன? 2. Sachi Sri Kantha writes from Japan on Diplomatic Recognition for Tamil Eelam State "...I was hardly surprised by the text of what President Mahinda Rajapakse had spoken at the recently concluded Non Aligned Movement summit in Havana.. The Sri Lankan President’s address was packed with nothing but the routine claptrap cliches we have come to expect from the leading top dogs of the island. What can one expect from run-of-the mill Sri Lankan politicians who suffer from mind block and timidity to not read the history of valiant struggles for liberation, led by guys like Washington, Mao, Begin and Mandela?.." more 3. Brian Senewiratne writes from Australia - In the path of Adrian Wijemanne "...Adrian was, like me, a Sinhalese who has, for many years, campaigned for the cause of the Tamil people. There are some similarities between the two of us but also some enormous differences which will become apparent as we go along. In following “the Path of Adrian”, I am not referring to myself. I invite all of you, to follow the enlightened path blazed by Adrian.." more |
22 September 2006 Reflections | " First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi |
22 September 2006 Sathyam Commentary | | Tamils Rally in Tamil Eelam, September 2005 |
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21 September 2006 Tamil National Forum  Sachi Sri Kantha writes from Japan on The Mind of Mao and Its Relevance to Eelam "..It has been my view for long time that Eelam Tamils have been too much Indo-centric in their world view. Among Eelam Tamils, for three generations, we have had hundreds of arm chair experts and politicians who could talk for hours on the liberation ideology of Gandhi and Nehru. But, one could count in two palms, Tamil specialists who have read Mao in-depth (at least in English translation). While nothing is wrong in being comfortable with Indo-centric thinking, it would also help Tamils if we expand our world view beyond the boundaries of India and elicit some interest on India’s neighbor China and its politico-military history of the 20th century to comprehend what Mahatma Gandhi’s junior contemporary Mao Ze Dong contributed to China’s liberation from her oppressors..." more |
20 September 2006 Sri Lanka Accused at United Nations to include Briefing Paper on the Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka: the Rajapakse Era - International Law Project  18 September 2006 Strength of an Idea -Revolution in the Revolution? - Regis Debray "...The guerrilla force is independent of the civilian population, in action as well as in military organisation; consequently it need not assume the direct defence of the peasant population. The protection of the population depends on the progressive destruction of the enemy's military potential. It is relative to the overall balance of forces: the populace will be completely safe when the opposing forces are completely defeated....... By restricting itself to the task of protecting civilians or passive self-defence, the guerrilla unit ceases to be the vanguard of the people as a whole and deprives itself of a national perspective... By choosing to operate at this level, it may be able to provide protection for the population for a limited time. But in the long run the opposite is true: self-defence undermines the security of the civilian population.... limiting oneself to passive defence is to place oneself in the position of being unable to protect the population and to expose one's own forces to attrition. On the other hand, to seek for ways to attack the enemy is to put him on the permanent defensive to exhaust him and prevent him from expanding his activities, to wrest the initiative from him, and to impede his search operations...." more
 18 September 2006 Tamil National Forum - Sanmugam Sabesan writes from Australia தியாகத்தின் செய்தி "...பத்தொன்பது ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு நல்லூர்க் கந்தசாமி கோவில் வீதியில் ஓருயிர் தன்னைத்தானே சிலுவையில் அறைந்து கொண்டது. தனது மக்களின் விடிவுக்காக, தனது வாழ்வைத் தியாகம் செய்து, தனது சாவைச் சந்திப்பதற்காக அந்த உயிர் தன்கையில் எடுத்துக் கொண்ட ஆயுதம் அகிம்சை என்ற அழைக்கப்பட்ட கோட்பாடு ஆகும்!..." more [together with Translation in English: Sacrificial Message – 19 years On…]
15 September 2006 Tamils a Trans State Nation: Australia to include Kuruntokai Dance Drama Presented by Lingalayam Dance Company in Australia - Review by Parasakthy Sundharalingam 13 September 2006 Reflections | " Every adherent of the Congress, however noisy in declamations, however bitter in speech, is safe from burning bungalows and murdering Europeans and the like. His hopes are based upon the British nation and he will do nothing to invalidate these hopes and anger that nation." Retired British civil servant, A.O.Hume writing, not about writers on the world wide web, but about the Indian National Congress that he founded in 1885 |
12 September 2006 Sathyam Commentary Nadesan Satyendra - Black Pebbles & White Pebbles "...Sometimes, the Tamil response to the international community, takes on the characteristics of the teen age girl's response in the pebble story. It seems that we avoid confronting the international community for fear of provoking its ire. We avoid seeking an open dialogue with the international community on its strategic imperatives and the true rationale for its actions. We resort to subterfuge. We say that our way is the 'anuku murai' - the diplomatic way to 'approach' issues. We claim that this is the effective way. But has this 'anuku murai' succeeded? Again the result of not calling a spade a spade is that we confuse our own people. We confuse our people by leading them to believe that the international community is without sufficient 'cleverness' to respond to our subterfuge with its own subterfuge and advance its own agenda. We confuse our people by leading them to believe that all that needs to be done is to wake up the international community to the facts and the justice of our cause and all will be well. This is the limitation of our discourse. It is a limitation that we need to transcend. Diplomacy may be the art of lying without getting caught but a struggle for freedom is not..." more |
12 September 2006 Tamil National Forum 9 September 2006 Reflections | 1. "...We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way..." Viktor Emil Frankl in Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning 2."...We each have a wide range of concern - our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a "Circle of Concern." As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them within a smaller Circle of Influence. 
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By determining which of these two circles is the focus of most of our time and energy, we can discover much about the degree of our proactivity. Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink." Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People |
8 September 2006 Tamil National Forum to include | An Exchange of Letters between an Uncle & a Nephew "..I would not place too much faith in 'Only God and a Miracle' can help us. Neither would I lose sleep, pondering over 'what the LTTE's plans are for the future'. Much can be done by us 'to stop these atrocities'. Every bit counts, and little drops can make it all flow. 'REACH Out' should be the motto. 'Knock and it shall open' phenomenon will certainly work for all of us. Look out and find 3 to 4 persons around you in whom you have confidence, who think alike, those you can work with, and those who care for the Tamil people in the North-East. Follow your friends or become their leader/guide in this divine effort. You now have the Miracle in your hands..." more |
7 September 2006 Media & the Tamil Struggle 
BBC Reporter
Dumeetha Luthra
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6 September 2006 Conflict Resolution: Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam | 1. International Federation of Tamils: Sri Lanka's Military Annexation Of Sampur A Complete Collapse Of CFA? 2. Statement from Mr.Phillip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions on proposed International Human Rights Monitoring Commission "...Another factor suggesting the value of international monitoring is that the conflict between the Government and the LTTE is ultimately a struggle for legitimacy, not territory. The conflict has no military solution, and mere adjustment of the facts on the ground will not fundamentally change either party's position in future negotiations. The LTTE's hopes for autonomy or independence rest on persuading the domestic and international communities that this would be the best solution in human rights terms ..." together with comments by tamilnation.org "...if the international community is truly concerned to play a Good Samaritan role and is intent on securing the 'best solution in human rights terms', the question that Tamils may rightly ask Mr.Alston is to explain why it is that the international community has not been persuaded by the delaration made by the Gandhian Tamil leader S.J.V.Chelvanyagam in 1975 that the 'best solution in human rights terms' to the conflict in the island is to secure the freedom of the Tamil people from alien Sinhala rule. ...The Tamils are a reasonable people and they will welcome a reasoned response from Mr.Alston so that they may be persuaded of the 'neutrality' of the views that he has expressed. There is ofcourse one other matter. Mr. Alston is perhaps, understandably silent on the strategic interests that the 'international community' seek to secure in Indian region... is the international community truly concerned about securing the 'best solution in human rights terms' as Mr.Alston would have us believe or are the trilaterals (US, the European Union and Japan) and India (and now China) concerned to prevent a resolution of the conflict except on terms which secure each of their own differing strategic interests in the Indian region..." more |
5 September 2006 Tamil National Forum Sachi Sri Kantha writes from Japan on Tamil Mind and Tiger Mind: A 1994 Debate between S.Sivanayagam and Ketheesh Loganathan " In late 1994, the Sunday Observer of Colombo published three features (two by distinguished journalist S.Sivanayagam and one by the then EPRLF theoretician Ketheesh Loganathan) on the theme of ‘Tamil Mind and Tiger Mind’. Shortly afterwards, I received copies of these three articles from Sivanayagam himself, and I reproduce these below for their topical interest... Loganathan’s pet peeve for nearly two decades (from 1983 to 2006) has been, whether LTTE deserves the ‘sole, legitimate representative’ status for Eelam Tamils... After listing the alphabet soup of Eelam Tamil entities which have ‘Liberation’ in their names (TULF, PLOTE, TELO, ENDLF and EPRLF), Sivanayagam’s smashing return was, “Tamil people have never been short of liberators. What seems to be the difference between the ‘self-proclaimed liberators’ in the LTTE and other self-proclaimed liberators is that the former is at least in the liberation business!” more
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3 September 2006 Sri Lanka's War Crimes to include  Eight Months after Sri Lanka Para militaries abducted 7 Staff Members of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation and 5 days after TRO Jaffna Office was destroyed by Sri Lanka Army - Sinhala Sri Lanka government freezes bank accounts of the Registered Charity "Humanitarian assistance to the recently displaced people of the NorthEast by local NGOs, INGOs and even UN agencies has now been effectively shut down by the actions of members of the Sri Lankan security forces. Currently, due to the pullout of most international agencies from the NorthEast, TRO is one of a handful of organizations assisting those recently displaced by war. TRO wishes to categorically state that the current humanitarian situation in the NorthEast of Sri Lanka is reaching a critical stage. There is a desperate need, recognized by all who are involved in humanitarian work, which the international community is being prevented from responding to effectively. The timing of this action by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka with callous disregard to its consequences truly shocks not only the TRO staff but also the Tamil Diaspora community." more |
3 September 2006 Reflections | “..Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.” - Blaine Lee author of The Power Principle : Influence With Honor |
2 September 2006 Sathyam Commentary  The Charge is Genocide, the Struggle is for Freedom... - Nadesan Satyendra "...And to those in the international community who continue to speak of their willingness to recognise the 'legitimate aspirations' of the Tamil people (but who refrain from spelling out what in their view is 'legitimate') the time has come to reiterate that which Gandhian leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam declared 32 years ago and say that that it is the legitimate aspiration of the Tamil people to be free from alien Sinhala rule... Does the international community agree that the aspiration of the Tamil people to be free from alien Sinhala rule is a legitimate aspiration? Or does it take the view that Gandhian leader S.J.V. Chelvanayagam was wrong and that the aspiration of the people of Tamil Eelam to be free from alien Sinhala rule is not a 'legitimate' aspiration? If the latter be the case, has not the time come for the international community to explain to the people of Tamil Eelam its reasons for insisting that the Tamil people be ruled by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of a single state? Perhaps, the time has also come for the Tamil people to engage in a dialogue with the international community and tell them that they may ban the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam but they cannot ban the cry of a people for freedom from alien rule. And here let us be clear. The struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam to be free from alien Sinhala rule is not about what the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam may have done or may not have done. The armed resistance of the people of Tamil Eelam (warts and all) arose as the inevitable response to decades of efforts by successive Sinhala governments to conquer and assimilate the Tamil people and the enactment of the 6th Amendment to the Sri Lanka constitution set the seal by criminalising all non violent means of struggle for an independent Tamil Eelam state.." more |
1 September 2006 Sri Lanka's War on Eelam Tamils - in the Shadow of a Ceasefire to include | Sri Lanka's military conducting slow pogrom - Tamil Guardian on Race War "The deliberate displacement of over 160,000 Tamils by Sri Lankan military offensives and attacks this year combined with the purposeful blocking of food, medicine and relief supplies amounts to a 'slow pogrom' of the Tamils... Whilst trotting out the tired counter-insurgency rhetoric of 'hearts and minds' and a glib insistence that Tigers, not Tamils, are the target, Sri Lanka's military has always been ready to punish the Tamils for the LTTE's violence" ...more |
1 September 2006 Media & the Tamil Struggle: Censorship, Disinformation & Murder of Journalists to include Maharaja TV employee abducted in Colombo |
