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Present situation in Jaffna: A video interview in English and Sinhala

December 27, 2007 at 7:36 pm · Categories: English, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by groundviews

A video interview on the present situation in the embattled city of Jaffna in the North of Sri Lanka with Ruki Fernando from the Law and Society Trust. Ruki recently wrote to Groundviews on his experiences from a trip to Jaffna (read Jaffna: Tears, blood and terror).

For a Sinhala version of this video, please click here. For more videos, please visit the Vikalpa YouTube Channel.


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  • Claymore attack against bus in Katubadda: Video and interviews For more videos, please visit the Vikalpa YouTube Video Channel. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.groundviews.org%2F2007%2F12%2F27%2Fpresent-situation-in-jaffna-a-video-interview%2F'; addthis_title = 'Present+situation+in+Jaffna%3A+A+video+interview+in+English+and+Sinhala'; addthis_pub = 'yajitha'; ... groundviews, June 6, 2008

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Bala said,

December 28, 2007 @ 2:20 am

All the people who thinks Tamils don’t have a problem or Tamils are not treated different than Sinhalese in srilanka, I would like you to watch this video.

Plain Truth said,

December 28, 2007 @ 9:21 am

The report is for the current situation. It would be nice if the background was given and mention why it has been isolated. The reporter also failed to mention the situation of Sinhalese in Jaffna.

The lesson to be learned: Any time a group go after a government in the developing world, the repercussions can be unimaginable.

Should the correct call be pressuring government to make things normal in Jaffna or asking LTTE to surrender?

Bala said,

December 28, 2007 @ 7:06 pm

Hi Plain Truth, What kind of background information you would like to mentioned.You want the whole history from 1948. There is no reason in the world for justifying this kind of atrocity in Jaffna, whether is committed by LTTE or SL.Think for a second, in Manalarru when SL start the war, the reason given was LTTE blocked water supply for farming and livelihood of the Sinhalese farmers at risk, and here we have the whole Jaffna being held as hostage and human cover without any basic rights, now if you call LTTE a terrorist I don’t know what you call SL.
The lesson to be learned from this is, why Tamils are so naïve and distrust at Sinhalese is because what they have done to Tamils since 1948. International community is making a historical blunder by sitting idol and some countries for their own self interest even helping the SL government while SL systematically cleaning up Tamils in SL. I hope the history will repeat it self like how the Jews still going after the people who committed atrocity’s to their people during the world warII, Tamils will go after these people once they get their independence. I know some of you are saying “ Yeah Right “. Well, When Hitler was doing all this evil things he was justifying and felt he was doing the right thing and never in wildest dream had he thought he will be wiped out.

groundviews said,

December 29, 2007 @ 10:18 am

Bala / Plain Truth,

Please refrain from using this forum as a platform for the exchange of personal insults at each other.

Should you wish to continue writing in a manner that does not engage with the content herein in any meaningful and civil way, please do so via email and in private.

I assume you have read the submission guidelines of this site. As I have repeatedly noted on this site and as you can clearly see above this text box, comments that are not in line with these guidelines will simply be deleted.

Sanjana

Plain Truth said,

December 29, 2007 @ 10:52 am

Dear Sanjana

My last post has been removed and I did not keep a copy. Please email me one if you have a copy of it.

I don’t personally insult people. It is possible you misunderstood my response.
I don’t believe Mr. Bala personally insulted me from his last post.

I understand the guidelines very much and appreciate if you can tell me how I insulted Mr. Bala so that I can apologize to him.

Readers can learn a great deal from our discussions and I am very sorry you only decided to remove my post and not Mr. Bala’s post.

Here is my challenge to you. If you can prove that I insulted Mr. Bala, I will refrain from writing here. Otherwise, this forum will become one that doesn’t respect freedom of expression and thought provoking discussions. I hope you will do everything to make this forum present balance views from either side of the conflict, not just LTTE side.

Cheers to you too.

Plain Truth said,

December 29, 2007 @ 11:20 am

Mr. Bala
You said: “SL systematically cleaning up Tamils in SL”
Do you have any evidence to back up this very serious claim?
Do you believe this systematically cleaning up (if true) only limited to Tamils? What about ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese and Muslims from certain regions of NE Sri Lanka?

Quote Mr. Bala: “I hope the history will repeat it self like how the Jews still going after the people who committed atrocity’s to their people during the world warII, Tamils will go after these people once they get their independence.”
Isn’t this spreading and advocating hate using this forum? I am surprised comments like this are allowed on this forum.

groundviews said,

December 29, 2007 @ 11:35 am

Dear Plain Truth,

I can email you a copy of your comment if you wish, but being perennially, since the inception of this site, accused of censorship, your “challenge” holds no interest. The note was to BOTH Bala and you, as you both have in the past few comments gone on lengthy tirades that obfuscate the content with personal observations that debase the tone of debate I seek to see here.

If it is not to your liking, or if you unable / unwilling to ascribe to the submission guidelines, then please feel free, as many other aggrieved parties have done, to air your views as you see fit elsewhere on the web.

Sanjana

Veedhur said,

December 29, 2007 @ 11:54 am

Hi,

I think we are already veering away from the point under discussion - Do we already have two states in Sri Lanka as Ruki mentions? Are the security measures proportional to the threat or is it going beyond civilized norms? If people go to prisons for protection what is the responsibility of the state in curbing impunity? Why is there so little coverage in south about this - given that we are said to support the war against the LTTE despite its cost and the violations it entails - do you think south would change its stance if the plight of the tamils are brought into the calculus? What is LTTE’s culpability in this, that they are refusing mitigatory measures like alternative sea routes?

(sigh!) I seem to have only questions….

Plain Truth said,

December 29, 2007 @ 12:06 pm

Dear Sanjana
Let me go back to what you said:
“Please refrain from using this forum as a platform for the exchange of personal insults at each other.”

I don’t believe Mr. Bala insulted me. Since I am not an angry, unreasonable, quick-judging person, I hardly deliver personal insults. Since you have not shown me how I insulted Mr. Bala, I kindly ask you to withdraw this statement and re-post my original post.

If you can’t clearly show how I violated guidelines, you can’t make this statement: “if you unable / unwilling to ascribe to the submission guidelines” . I state again that I did my best to adhere to guidelines. I do understand the freedom to express exist anywhere on the web and thank you for reminding that.

I also understand that I can’t fight against a dictator by being one. I expect less subjectivity on a forum like this during the decision making process.

Cheeers

groundviews said,

December 29, 2007 @ 12:34 pm

Dear Plain Truth,

Clearly, your best is not always good enough.

I don’t have the time or interest to pander to your demands. If you don’t choose to understand for yourself how you should ascribe to guidelines, then please don’t comment. I edit this forum to a standard that is deeply subjective and based on published guidelines and that which I myself adhere to in my writing and comments. Anyone I feel does not match or exceed these standards will not be published.

I am certainly not going to post your long drawn out meanderings that are ultimately meaningless and add little or nothing to the debate. Your debates with Bala and his responses to your comments are largely of a nature that do not engage with the original post and as clearly noted in the guidelines, discussions best had between yourselves via email or any other media you choose. I am happy to facilitate mutual contact.

As noted quite clearly in the guidelines “We are reluctant to impose specific limits on the number of posts by any one contributor, but we ask you to exercise restraint. Discussions dominated by the frequency or verbosity of individual contributors become less interesting and useful for the rest of us. At times, it may be more appropriate for you to exchange e-mail directly with a fellow poster rather than carrying on a conversation in the feedback area.”

This is the last I will post on this confounded farrago of doubts and grievances you have. I am subjective, opinionated, biased and partial to good English, good arguments and good commentary.

If you can’t live up the standards on this site, please visit other fora that may offer you ready space to point back to this site and discuss issues as you see fit. Others in the blogosphere have already done it and see no problem is insulting me, CPA, my family and colleagues in such a manner.

I hope however that you are not of this ilk and in the future submits comments more judiciously and with greater emphasis on genuine, constructive, civil engagement.

Best,

Sanjana

Bala said,

December 30, 2007 @ 8:47 pm

On my last post, I have only meant to say “go after means“ bring them to some kind of a justice system. It was my mistake that I didn’t properly write it because I assumed Jews as I know usually do this. If anyone was offended by that mistake I would like apologize for that mistake.

AS for Plain Truth about the evidence for systematic cleaning of Tamils just look at east from Pothuvil to Trinco and Batti. How Tamils land’s taken over and colonized of Sinhalese in Tamil lands. I am pretty sure you will have some explanation for this but the fact is it is Tamils who suffers. If you want to tell me this is happening because of LTTE, blame fall in to Sinhalese as they created LTTE by their actions.

Plain Truth said,

December 31, 2007 @ 1:19 am

Dear Bala,

Offenses are taken by humans challenged by the intelligence. I have said before you never offended me. I don’t think anyone can offend me either. How can one get offended if that person is sincere, truthful and has no ulterior motive?
I apologize if I offended you. We both say we did not offend each other, however our moderator has a very opposite view on that.

I have seen discussions between Tamils and Sinhalese related to how the land was taken on theacademic dot org forum where the content is loosely moderated and site is not supported by an NGO. What actually came out: Yes, Sinhelese were given land. No, they were not Tamil land. Apparently the land was uninhibited and belonged to the government. It is quite possible Tamil nationalists have sold this fact to Tamil people to create anger against Sinhalese. Whether it is JVP or LTTE, they have to blame themselves for their existence.

Small group of citizens have no right to start a struggle that will affect majority of the innocent people and a country. We know the blame game leads us nowhere. If I have to blame someone for the existence of LTTE, I choose to blame Tamil intellectuals who did not have a clear vision and provided the backbone to LTTE. If you watch “No more Tears Sister movie”, you will get my point.

groundviews said,

December 31, 2007 @ 8:33 am

Dear Plain Truth,

It was brought to my attention that you’ve been emailing friends and colleagues, including the Executive Director of CPA, colleagues from InfoShare and others from CPA, about your perceived and misplaced grievances on how I moderate this site. The email in question, though treated as irrelevant by all those who received it, is nevertheless slanderous, inaccurate and displays a marked bent to colour this site and my management of it in a negative light.

Clearly, your actions mark you out as a person ill fit to be published here. Should you wish to continue your campaign of emailing me veiled threats to, inter alia, “expose” me by emailing “those who pay my bills” my bias on this site and calling Ruki’s original post “an article by an idiot”, I can only imagine you have much time to waste on your hands. I don’t and have little patience for disgruntled trolls.

You can’t expect to be published here and at the same time send derogatory emails behind my back. In 2008, you should stick to the fora you mention that are in your view not supported by NGOs to air your opinions.

Best,

Sanjana

groundviews said,

January 3, 2008 @ 6:58 am

Plain Truth,

Note the comment above - http://www.groundviews.org/2007/12/27/present-situation-in-jaffna-a-video-interview/#comment-32396

Your comments to Groundviews will not be published this year based on your concerted actions to discredit the content and management of Groundviews and its authors on various fora, including other blogs as well as through ill-advised emails directed to colleagues, friends and authors associated with this site.

Please do not email me in future and desist from commenting on this site. As noted in the guidelines:

“Kindly note that we aggressively pursue those who vilify, threaten, abuse or otherwise act is discordance with the guidelines outlined herein. We take all complaints against abuse seriously and automatically log, in a manner not beyond that which is made possible by Wordpress, the details of those who post and comment in this forum, which may include public IP addresses. This information may be used to inform ISPs of repeat offenders who attempt to hijack this site by trolling, hate speech and comment spam.”

Perhaps with the fullness of time you may once again wish to revisit this site and engage with its content, authors and I in a manner that is markedly different to that which coloured your approach in 2007.

Sanjana

groundviews » Current situation in Jaffna, Sri Lanka: A resident speaks out said,

February 28, 2008 @ 8:46 pm

[...] Also see Present situation in Jaffna: A video interview in English and Sinhala. [...]

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