Southeast Asia Archive

Third of a three-part series. Click here to read Part I, and here to read Part II. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — In a career spent fighting the Tamil Tigers, Gen. Gerry de Silva (ret.), a former commander of the Sri Lankan army, learned a thing or two about information warfare. In campaigns in the north of the island, time and again he found himself confronting disinformation among the Tamil population. “It’s a disinformation program even to their own people, to their own cadre,” he told World Politics Review in an interview at his family’s home in the Cinnamon Gardens neighborhood […]

Second of a three-part series. Click here to read Part I. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — No one understands the importance of Sri Lanka’s information war quite like N. Vithyatharan, an editor whose two Tamil-language newspapers — one in the northern peninsula of Jaffna, the other in Colombo — are “continuously targeted by pro-government forces.” Vithyatharan is a small man with a listing walk that suggests heavy burdens. During a visit to his Colombo office, he related how in May 2006, on the night before international press freedom day, five masked gunmen shot up the Jaffna compound of the newspaper there, […]

With 2008 drawing to a close, I decided to look back at the year’s columns and update some stories where important developments have occurred. The stark, if obvious, realization arising from this review is that world politics is shaped by people — people of all kinds: smart, stupid, brave, crafty, or cowardly. But behind every movement, trend and event stand individuals, whose actions shape the course of history. We can easily lose sight of that fact when we focus on the larger picture of global events. In places such as Yemen, Iraq, Israel, and beyond, history-makers do not stand still. […]

First of a three-part series. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — In the silent, low-res imagery of the closed-circuit video footage that rapidly spread across YouTube, the young Tamil woman appears unafraid, even poised. Wrapped in a crisp sari, hair in a tight bun, she waits across the desk from the political secretary of a Sri Lankan minister. But something, almost imperceptible in the footage, goes wrong. So as a dozen people go about their business behind her, the woman rises from her chair, tugs at her bra and explodes, her torso vaporized in a C4 blast that kills her and the […]

TOKYO — Last month the Indian Navy sunk what it believed to be a Somali pirate “mother ship” off the coast of Somalia. The vessel turned out to be a Thai trawler, but the intervention nevertheless highlighted an increasing willingness among Asian nations to take a lead in tackling the growing piracy problem that has garnered worldwide attention and alarm. Notwithstanding the Indian misstep, the results so far are impressive. While the number of attacks off the coast of Africa, including the Gulf of Aden, has jumped about 75 percent this year, Asia’s Malacca Straits had experienced just two attacks […]

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Calm descended on Thailand Tuesday, following a decision by its Constitution Court to dissolve the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) and two of its coalition partners for electoral fraud. Protesters calling themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had initially called for the PPP to step down, calling it a proxy party for ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his dissolved Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party. They also called on the PPP to stop its attempts to amend the constitution to remove a clause banning 111 former TRT leaders for electoral fraud. The billionaire telecom tycoon was […]

FORMER CHILD SOLDIERS FIGHT DIFFERENT BATTLE — A group of six former African child soldiers have come together to launch a United Nations-backed advocacy group, the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW), which will help other children escape from war and create a worldwide network of survivors seeking to achieve rehabilitation. “We are determined to help children whose fate has been similar to ours regain their confidence and their lives. We also hope to remind the world of how resilient children are, when given the right support,” the founders said in a statement released Nov. 20. The founders […]