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An Island Tragedy

A. Sivanandan recounts his country’s long road to ethnic cleansing, from the social engineering of colonial Ceylon to Colombo’s anti-Tamil campaigns. Marginalization, displacement and destruction of a people, in a communal onslaught fanned by Buddhist chauvinism.

Speech before the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission

“Chairman and Members of the Commission:” read more

Communication on Ceylon and China

“Dear Comrades,” read more

Letter to Sirimavo Bandaranaike

“Below is the complete text of Chou En-lai’s letter to Sirimavo Bandaranaike, dated April 26 1971 and officially published by the Ceylonese Government a month later. The text has not been readily accessible internationally, thus giving rise to uncertainty as to the letter’s existence or authenticity. For . . .” read more

The Ceylonese Insurrection

“In April 1971 a revolutionary insurrection exploded in Ceylon. Unanticipated by imperialism, and unexpected by revolutionaries elsewhere, sections of the rural masses rose in organized rebellion against the very government they had voted into power in the previous May. This upsurge marks a totally new phase in the . . .” read more

Letter from Ceylon

“Addressing himself in 1923 to the students of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow, Trotsky tried to make them aware of the dangers that Marxism ran in the colonial and semicolonial countries. National movements for independence, argued Trotsky, constitute a highly progressive phenomenon . . .” read more