“Australia should add its voice to this call and put real pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to accept an international monitoring body. The conflict can only be resolved through dialogue, but peace talks won’t happen until there is effective and continued pressure applied by Australia and the international community to stop the human rights violations committed by all sides.”
Sam de Silva’s article Diaspora dilemmas: Australia and the Sri Lanka conflict, first published by the Nautlius Institute at RMIT in Australia, sketches the background of the conflict in Sri Lanka and the Australian government’s increasing concerns. The Tamil diaspora in Australia, de Silva argues,
“faces three main options: continue to promote their claim that the men were raising funds for humanitarian work and not the LTTE’s war machine; distance themselves from the arrests and remain silent; or to affirm the LTTE’s fight as a liberation struggle and argue that it is valid for Tamils in Australia to support that cause.”
Read the article in full here. Sam’s contributions to Groundviews can be found here and a review of his film on Sri Lanka, Circles of Violence, here.
780 have read this this article so far. You may also find these articles interesting:
- Diaspora ‘Wisdom’ - An interview with Lionel Bopage Groundviews | VOR Radio podcast Perhaps the word ‘wisdom’ is too strong when describing what the Sri Lankan diaspora can contribute to solving the problems on this small island, but there is a certain experience and understand the diaspora has, and with their unique connection to Sri Lanka, they can help provide useful ideas to repair... sam, July 13, 2007
- Double standards? A post here points to a powerful new report on the dangers on humanitarian aid work in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Reports in Groundviews, both from Citizen Journalists as well as news snippets from JNW featured on the site, clearly indicate growing concerns about the security and safety of aid workers, increasingly assaulting, vilified and killed... foobar, January 25, 2007
