Princess Oulayvanh Sethathirath and her husband Prince
Anouvong Sethathirat IV were colleagues of mine. We received
the news soon after it happened two days ago. We are very sad
because they were wonderfully smart and kind people. Besides
the loss we feel as friends, the field has experienced a great
loss since they had helped Lao Studies in the US a great deal.
jm
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:35:17 +0700
>From: Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@...>
>Subject: [palistudy] Murder, not grammar (S.L. & Thailand)
>To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
>
>To digress very briefly, I note the following
>
>(1) The man known as Prince Anouvong Sethathirat IV was just
>assasinated in Nong Khai, Thailand, along with his wife.
This is not
>the sort of thing that gets reported in the Western Press,
but it is
>(and will be) significant for the history of the region. The
shooting
>took place at Sala Kaew-kaw, i.e., a famous garden of modern
>(concrete) Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, doubtless a
familiar site
>for several members of this list, and a popular tourist
attraction.
>The authors of the assasination are unknown, but, I would expect,
>conspiracy theorists will not take long to jump to their
conclusions.
>
>(2) In case you think I'm just a tourist...
>I picked up a copy of _An X- ray of the Sri Lankan policing
system &
>torture of the poor_ --I believe this was published less than six
>months ago. I very much "enjoyed" its brutal, factual
descriptions of
>manifold (recent) acts of torture, abduction, and murder
carried out
>by the Sinhalese police and army. The tacit thesis of the
book (a
>collection of essays with various explicit theses) is that press
>coverage has tended to frame this brutality in terms of racial
>divisions, and the legacy of the British empire, but the
facts suggest
>that the primary division is between rich and poor (i.e., the
>Sinhalese authorities do indeed brutalize Sinhalese pesants,
perhaps
>more than Tamils) and that this systemic brutality seems to have
>developed in the post-British period (i.e., the Sinhalese
system has
>replaced, not perpetuated, a former colonial system --each being
>brutal after its own fashion).
> There's a book review, here:
> http://www.ahrchk.net/pr/mainfile.php/2005mr/266/
>
>E.M.
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm@...