Selected Writings
Ana Pararajasingham, Australia

Ana Pararajasingham has a master’s degree in management from the University of Technology, Sydney, and works as a Management Consultant. He is also a Fellow Member of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants (FCPA) and Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (ACMAUK). He worked with the World Bank (as a Consultant) to assess the needs of the war torn NorthEast on behalf of multilateral donor agencies in 2003 and to help assess the needs arising from the damage caused by the tsunami in 2005. He appeared before the Australian Parliament’s Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence on several occasions to present the case for international action in the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. In 2002/03 he developed and delivered a course on Project Management for personnel working for Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the North East of Sri Lanka, a project funded by UNICEF. He has served on the Editorial Board of the ‘Tamil Nation’ fortnightly and has written extensively on the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka and on related human rights issues, and has presented papers and participated at several conferences. He is the Chairman of the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations - an umbrella organisation of Tamil Associations in the Australasian region. [see also Heard in Internet Circles]

"..It is vital that the Tamils seek a deeper understanding of the factors which drive this (Sinhala) intransigence. A clue to this is to be found in a speech by S W R D Bandaranaike, the founder of the Sinhala Maha Saba and the architect of the Sinhala Only policy of 1956 which marked the beginning of the Tamil struggle for self-rule. According to  the Daily News of 8, November 1955, Bandaranaike made the case for the Sinhala Only bill by arguing that  "With their  books and culture and the will and strength characteristic of their race, the Tamils (if parity were granted) would  soon rise to exert their dominant power over us”  It was not just the Mahavamsa inspired notions of 'primacy' that have been the impetus, but also something else-the fear of domination. .".

"...Michael Maher, the interviewer, had little trouble drawing the Sri Lankan President into revealing her personality. Maher’s intention was to enlighten rather than sensationalize.  His approach was friendly, polite to the point of being deferent but probing. The Sri Lankan President obliged by speaking her mind out..."

“It appears evident, then, that that the Indian State failed to take the political force and mass appeal of Tamil nationalism seriously If the violence and perfidy of the Sri Lankan State had given rise to Tamil nationalism in the first place, the popular commitment to Eelam was cemented and solidified by the Tamils bitter experience with the Indian State. The current policy of supporting the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka while not addressing the spectre of Tamil nationalism will therefore have to be construed as a policy not much different from that which resulted in the physical intervention by India in support of Colombo. The question that needs to be asked is how realistic is it for the Indian Government to persist with such a policy when ground realities have changed significantly during the intervening period."
 

"Given the credentials of both writers, (Sathananthan is a political scientist with a Ph.D. from Cambridge and a visiting research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University of International Studies; Taraki is the pseudonym of Sivaram who has written extensively on the armed struggle of the Tamil people for well over a decade), one needs to give serious consideration to the essential thrust of this argument, i.e. that the international community is pursuing a plan to weaken the LTTE and prop up Colombo. .." more

"....July 2000  marks the 17th anniversary of the worst anti-Tamil pogrom. While it was the years of discriminatory administrative and legislative measures that drove the Tamils people into staking a political claim for a federal form of government and subsequently independence, the main impetus for the armed struggle is the direct consequence of these state assisted/orchestrated pogroms during the first twenty-five years of Sinhala rule.. It was state terror that finally drove the Tamil people into taking up arms. The war is the result of the Sri Lankan political establishment's policy of seeking to beat the Tamil people into submission. Perhaps it is time the international community is reminded of those events which took place seventeen years ago..."   more

"The growth in the Sri Lankan Government’s military expenditure between 1983 and 1996 could only be described as astronomical. In 1983, the Sri Lankan Government’s military expenditure was US $74 million In 1996 it was well over US $842 million¾ a eleven fold increase! Not surprisingly, this exponential growth in the military expenditure of the Sri Lankan Government was accompanied by a growth in the size of its armed forces. The combined armed forces (army, navy and airforce) of the Sri Lankan Government which stood at 15,000 in 1983 now stands at well over 106,000 - a seven fold increase..."  more