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Dushmanthe Srikanthe Ranetunge (born 25 December 1960), commonly known as Dushy Ranetunge, is a Sri Lankan journalist based in London.
Educated at Royal College, Colombo, the University of North London and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), he worked in merchant banking in the city of London before becoming a journalist.
Ranetunge's foray into journalism was as a result of an accidental meeting with Rohan Gunaratna in London during the late 1990s. Gunaratna was in Scotland, reading for his doctorate in international relations from St Andrews University, where he was a British Chevening Scholar. Gunaratna encouraged Ranetunge, who was in London, to exploit his merchant banking experience to initiate investigations into the financing operation of the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) in London.
Ranetunge has traveled widely following the early rise of LTTE, covering LTTE meetings in the UK, Europe and North America, their proscription as terrorists worldwide and more recently Sri Lankan-LTTE peace talks in Geneva. The early visits covered separatists international Peace Conferences in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom and other separatist events in Europe organised to raise the international profile of the secessionist movement. Exposure of these events in The Island in Sri Lanka disrupted them.
After the publication of his article "Dinosaurs of the Tamil cause congregate in Ottawa" [1] in The Island in Sri Lanka on 4 June 1999, the secessionists were not able to organise any more international conferences [2] of that magnitude and international participation, as the host countries began denying visa's and deporting [3] participants.
The publication of his article "British Charities fund Terrorists" [4] on 4 October 2000 led to the British Charity Commission raiding [5] the LTTE's premier fund raising vehicle, the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), freezing bank accounts and initiating an investigation [6] [7] which resulted in the TRO being de-listed [8] from the British Charities register.
On 28 February 2001, Britain listed [9] the LTTE as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Similar action followed against the TRO in the United States [10] more recently.
Ranetunge has been a fierce critic of the LTTE. From the late 1990s, he has contributed regularly to The Island in Sri Lanka and more recently to the Tamilweek. A Buddhist and a supporter of Sri Lanka, he is freely critical of both. As a result, he has attracted censure from nationalists on both sides of Sri Lanka's ethnic divide.[ citation needed ]
He has appeared on BBC TV, BBC World Service Radio, BBC Radio 5 and others to discuss politics in Sri Lanka.[ citation needed ]
Ranetunge emigrated to the UK at the age of 18, where he lives with his wife, Nilmarnie Panabokke and their two children, Annaliza (Queenswood School) and Julian (Winchester College).[ citation needed ]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the northeast of the island in response to violent persecution and discriminatory policies against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Government.
The Sri Lankan civil war was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.
Velupillai Prabhakaran was a Tamil revolutionary. Prabhakaran was a major figure of Tamil nationalism, and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE was a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka in reaction to the oppression of the country's Tamil population by the Sri Lankan government. Under his direction, the LTTE undertook a military campaign against the Sri Lankan government for more than 25 years.
The Black Tigers was an elite suicide commando unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Tamil separatist organization in Sri Lanka.
The Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) was established in 1985 in Tamil Nadu in southeastern India by Sri Lankan Tamil refugees fleeing the violence in North and East Sri Lanka. Its initial operation was to provide relief to the refugees in India. After the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the subsequent fighting between the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force, TRO moved its operation and headquarters to Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka.
The Kent and Dollar Farm massacres were the first massacres of Sinhalese civilians carried out by the LTTE during the Sri Lankan Civil War. The massacres took place on 30 November 1984, in two tiny farming villages in the Mullaitivu district in north-eastern Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government labeled this as an attack on civilians by the LTTE.
The Anuradhapura massacre occurred in Sri Lanka in 1985 and was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This was the largest massacre of Sinhalese civilians by the LTTE to date; it was also the first major operation carried out by the LTTE outside a Tamil majority area. Initially, EROS claimed responsibility for the massacre, but it later retracted the statement, and joined the PLOTE in denouncing the incident. The groups later accused the LTTE for the attack. Since then, no Tamil militant group has admitted to committing the massacre. However, state intelligence discovered that the operation was ordered by the LTTE's leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He assigned the massacre to the LTTE Mannar commander Victor and it was executed by Victor's subordinate Anthony Kaththiar. The LTTE claimed the attack was in revenge of the 1985 Valvettiturai massacre, where the Sri Lanka Army killed 70 Tamil civilians in Prabhakaran's hometown. In 1988, the LTTE claimed that the massacre was planned and executed under the guidance of Indian intelligence agency, RAW.
The Dehiwala train bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the rush hour of July 24, 1996.
The Palliyagodella massacre was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the mostly Muslim population of the Palliyagodella village located on border region of the northern part of Sri Lanka that were controlled by the Tigers at the time. This was the largest massacre of Muslim civilians by the LTTE to date. Village eyewitnesses claim that some 285 men, women and children, around a third of the population, were killed by a 1,000 strong force of the Tamil Tigers; however, the Sri Lankan government states that the LTTE massacred 166 to 171. All but 40 of the victims of the Palliyathidal massacre were Muslim; the rest were Sinhalese.
The October 1995 Eastern Sri Lanka massacres were a series of massacres of the Sinhalese population in the Eastern Province carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Tamil Television Network (TTN) is a France-based Tamil language satellite television channel. Its main audience were Sri Lankan Tamils living in Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The channel mainly broadcast films, live broadcast of football, crickets matches and news.
The Canadian Tamil Congress is a Canadian non-profit organization that serves Tamil Canadians since October 2000 and has 11 chapters. The objectives of the Canadian Tamil Congress are: to promote the participation of Tamil Canadians in activities of local, regional, provincial and national importance; to uphold the Canadian values of human rights, multiculturalism, religious and cultural diversity, pluralism, and volunteerism; to champion for equal rights and in particular, gender equality; to support the cultural and political aspirations of Tamils. The organization also promotes the study and knowledge of Tamil language, culture and history within the Canadian context. The CTC also works on adjustment/settlement issues.
The war was waged for over a quarter of a century, with an estimated 70,000 killed by 2007. Immediately following the end of war, on 20 May 2009, the UN estimated a total of 80,000–100,000 deaths. However, in 2011, referring to the final phase of the war in 2009, the Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka stated, "A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths." The large majority of these civilian deaths in the final phase of the war were said to have been caused by indiscriminate shelling of a formerly designated 'No Fire Zone' by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
Vishvanath Buddhika Keerthisena, also known as Boodee Keerthisena, is a Sri Lankan filmmaker. He began his career drawing comics before moving into painting, dress design, and visual arts. He moved into music in the late 1980s, and performed in a band called "Boo-Dee and the Woo-Zees" (1986–1992) as the lead singer.
Reactions to the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War on 18 May 2009 were generally positive and welcoming, while some countries expressed concern over the civilian casualties and the humanitarian impact.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist militant organization formerly based in northern Sri Lanka, had various organizations affiliated to it. These include charitable organizations, political parties, state intelligence organizations and even governments of Sri Lanka and other countries. Although the LTTE was militarily defeated in 2009, the Sri Lankan government alleges that a number of foreign-based organizations are still promoting its ideology.
Terrorism in Sri Lanka has been a highly destructive phenomenon during the 20th and 21st centuries, especially so during the periods of the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) and the first (1971) and second JVP insurrections (1987–1989). A common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence to intimidate a population or government for political, religious, or ideological goals. Sri Lanka is a country that has experienced some of the worst known acts of modern terrorism, such as suicide bombings, massacres of civilians and assassination of political and social leaders. Terrorism has posed a significant threat to the society, economy and development of the country. The Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1978 is the legislation that provides the powers to law enforcement officers to deal with issues related to terrorism in Sri Lanka. It was first enacted as a temporary law in 1979 under the presidency of J. R. Jayewardene, and later made permanent in 1982.
There are allegations of various types of criminal activities levelled against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by state actors and agencies.