Midweek Review

The need for a holistic approach and restructuring of system

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/2

Dr. Amarasekara receiving his D. Lit

Speech delivered by Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara after receiving his D. Lit from the University of Peradeniya, last week.

Let me first thank you for bestowing this honour on me, which I accept with gratitude and humility. I am grateful to the Dental Faculty for sponsoring it.

On this occasion in spite of my penchant for ideological and philosophical wrangling, I thought of speaking on something more down to earth, something which is relevant to the problems we as educationists and university lecturers are facing at the moment. Hence the topic, ‘The need for a Holistic Approach and a Restructuring of the System’. My observations are mainly to stimulate your thinking, and make you think outside the box. And, if you find them worthy of consideration it is left to you, who are more knowledgeable, to use them to formulate the envisaged model that is needed.

At the moment, I see a concerted effort by the education authorities to incorporate a knowledge of the basic sciences as well as the latest technical knowledge, technical skills and Information Technology to the universities, especially to the field of Humanities.

To put it in other words, it is an attempt to get a student following the Arts/Humanities to pursue a course in Biology or Mathematics, and a student following a course in Science to follow a course in History or Literature, and both groups to imbibe the latest technical knowledge offered by the Technological Revolution that has come into being.

Whether this is being proposed with a holistic perspective in mind to produce an enlightened graduate who could contribute to the intellectual, cultural life of the society, or to produce an employable graduate in demand is not clear at the moment.

It is most likely prompted by a desire to produce an employable graduate who will not turn out to be a rebel, an anarchist, or a threat and also, to prevent those insurgencies of the past that were centered round the universities. It is natural that the Arts graduate who faces a blank future with no hope in sight should resort to violence to vent his frustration and agony. We are lucky that so far this frustration is being channeled into the streets and not to violence against the establishment.

Even if the restructuring is prompted by a self -centered impulse it must be welcome.

This reminds me of a personal experience I underwent some time ago. It was in 1987 during the JVP insurrection. I was abroad at the time and very keen to know what was happening in the country. With my eyes glued to the television to see what was happening especially in the universities I could see the terrible mayhem, the terrible tragedy, the torture that was inflicted on the youth especially at Peradeniya. The picture of those decapitated heads lined up round that pond made me utterly sick, filling me with a deep sense of guilt.

When I came back, I was interviewed by a Week-end Sinhala weekly and was asked what remedial measures I could suggest to prevent such a tragedy happening in the universities. My response was an irrational and emotional outburst. ’There is no need to continue with these universities any longer. They have provided a breeding ground for those youth to be turned into rebels and insurgents. All these universities must be closed down, we must go back to the situation that was there prior to the establishment of these universities. We must have a Medical College to provide the number of doctors needed for the country, we should have an Engineering school to provide the necessary number of engineers, we must resurrect the Technical Colleges to provide the technicians necessary for the country. It is an unaffordable luxury to have residential universities to produce unemployable Arts graduates. If there is a need to teach Humanities, we could have a number of Open Universities to cater for that need.’

Mine was no doubt an irrational and emotional outburst. But I think it contained a kernel of truth; the restructuring programme that the State has initiated today is there in that kernel.

I think if this restructuring is to be a success it must start from the school level and not from the University level. The universities should carry on the restructuring process initiated at school level.

At the moment we have two major streams after O levels – an Arts stream and a Science stream. Those who follow the Science stream study subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology and none of the Arts subjects they studied at O levels. The same happens with those who follow the Arts stream; none of the subjects they had studied as Mathematics, and Environmental studies are followed by the Arts stream. There is a complete separation; this separation and compartmentalisation should cease, there should be only one stream at the Advanced levels. The Science stream student offering Science subjects for Advanced Levels should offer an Arts subject such as History or Literature. The same applies to the Arts student, while offering Arts subjects he/she must offer a subject like Mathematics or Biology.

This trend should be continued at the University level. At the same time the technological knowledge and skills introduced at the University level should be considered as Applied Science, and not as something unrelated to science which they had learnt. If we want to impart technical knowledge unrelated to science, we need no universities to perform that function, we could have Technical Schools such as the German Technical School. (We could consider our own Technical Colleges as against the German Technical School).

The demand for incorporating Technology into the University curriculum is being adhered to by the universities of the West at the moment. They seem to have realised the inadequacy of the classical model to cater to the present- day needs. The Fourth Industrial Revolution- the Technological Revolution seems to have awakened them. However, this has brought about a controversy about the place that Technology should occupy in the University Curriculum.

Professor Aaron Garre in his remarkable work, Post Modernism and Environment addresses his mind to the dilemma faced by the universities. This is what he has to say. “Associated with these developments universities are fundamentally transformed , thoroughly corrupted by the publish or perish syndrome, and by the pressure to lower standards to accommodate the higher proportion of young people going on to higher education, they are being reduced to extensions of High Schools and Technical Colleges, valued by governments only in so far as they provide people with vocational training or produce technological knowledge, and by students only to increase their earning power. Arts and Science Faculties have lost status within universities with good reason”.

Let this not happen to our universities.

The emphasis on technology and technological skills, IT, etc., at the expense of scientific knowledge is bound to generate a warped idea regarding science. It may make the youth consider science not as a source of knowledge, a way of understanding the world, an indispensable way of thinking but as a means to an end, the end being to create a world dominated by gadgetry which will relieve the youth from thinking and creativity and make life more comfortable and make more money as suggested by Prof. Garre.

Such a concept could be detrimental to a ‘Third World’ country like ours, which has not experienced the Industrial Revolutions and the expansion of scientific knowledge of the West. This may reinforce the idea of science as ‘pattapal boru’ in the minds of our youth.

I believe, this idea of a holistic approach devoid of compartmentalisation of knowledge is not something new to us. In the Pirivena universities we had, they maintained this holistic approach.

There is a mistaken belief amongst us that these Pirivenas were religious centres, and their main function was to propagate Buddhism. Far from it; they were centres of learning and also intellectual and cultural centers, and the Heads of these were advisers to the rulers and also representatives of the people. I am sure you are aware of the triangular relationship that existed among the king, the Sangha and the people-the Asokan model of governance we inherited with Buddhism.

One of the foremost Pirivenas was the Vijayaba Pirivena of the 15th century headed by the great Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula .

This was pointed out to an international community of scholars by Arunachalam Ponnambalam when he addressed that gathering at the Calcutta university in 1916.This was the observation he made at that conference. “Long before the emergence of universities in the Western world in the 18th century we had in our country, in the 15th century, a great seat of learning, a university of international fame at Thotagamuwa headed by poet Sri Rahula”.

An examination of the curriculum followed at the Vijayaba Pirivena shows how it resembles the curriculum of the present-day universities of the West. The disciplines that were followed consisted of Asian languages such as Sinhala, Tamil, Siamese and Burmese, Buddhist Philosophy and Indian Philosophy, Logic, Poetics, Literature, Medicine, Legal Studies, and Surya Siddhantha consisting of Astronomy, Astrology and Mathematics. A student was expected to pursue a number of diverse disciplines without confining himself to one.

Even the vedamahattaya of today is not only a doctor but a scholar and an intellectual who guides the thinking of the villagers. I believe he is a product of a lost tradition.

It is this knowledge that was imparted by these Pirivenas that enabled our engineers to achieve those engineering marvels as the Bisokotuwa of the great reservoirs, the Yoda Ela with a gradient that has baffled modern day engineers and those great dagobas-examples of unique architecture. The builders of those dagobas surely would have been aware of the gravitational forces long before Newton discovered them.

One may well ask ‘what happened to that knowledge? Why did that knowledge fail to achieve the level of scientific knowledge achieved by the West?’

This question has been asked and answered by Joseph Needham in dealing with science in China, on which he has produced ten volumes. He believes that it was capitalism in the Western world that caused the expansion of scientific knowledge which was not relevant to the Chinese who had opted out of capitalism. This is probably the answer we too can offer. Professor Needham’s observation that Capitalism is unavoidable for the progress of science has been proven wrong by the China of today. It has shown how a feudal state can skip the capitalist phase in its march towards great scientific achievements. It is no secret that the Chinese civilisation based on Confucius and Taoist Buddhism and our own civilisation based on Theravada Buddhism abhor capitalism as kamasukallikhanuyoga,

inimical to human happiness.

I feel, that this attempt to restructure the university curriculum is not an innovative move as such but an attempt to go back to our own tradition as pointed out by me.

At the present moment I feel that in addition to the restructuring of our university curriculum, there is a need to restructure our training programmes in the fields of Medicine, Dentistry and even Engineering. I will confine myself to my own field of Dentistry.

At the moment there is a great demand for Medicine and Dentistry. Over thousands seek admission to the Dental Faculty. Most of them have the required qualifications, but only about 10% of them are able to gain admission. This is by no means a healthy situation; it creates frustration and envy in those who fail to get in. This could be avoided by restructuring the system.

We take five years to produce a Dental Surgeon, we see to it that he/she is not second to a Dental Surgeon in a highly developed Western country. After that long and arduous training he/she is sent out to perform a function which could be done without that exhaustive training. Isn’t that underutilisation of manpower as well as a sheer waste of the tax payer’s money? Consequently, the Dental surgeon himself is unhappy, and seeks to come to the urban centre where he could use his knowledge and skills to make more money or to migrate to a foreign country where he can make dollars instead of rupees.

The result of this procedure can be seen by looking at those rural peasants on the television screen. Most of them are toothless by the age of fifty, their oral hygiene is putrid, some of them harbour precancerous lesions in their mouths. I think oral cancer still occupies the first place in the list of our cancers. This is in spite of the fact that we have a first-class Dental Faculty here in Peradeniya and the best Dental hospital in South Asia in Colombo. Isn’t there something wrong in the whole process? Only callous disregard for humanity prevents us from seeking a remedy for this sorry state of affairs.

I have over the years thought of a scheme to remedy this situation. I will present an idea of the scheme I envisage.

There will be three stages. In stage 1 we take in almost all the students who have fulfilled the qualifications and are eligible.

All of them should be sent to the periphery after two years’ training; they will provide the necessary treatment required by the rural masses. In addition to being clinicians they will perform the duties of dental health workers as well. In Stage 11 out of that thousand or so, 25% will be selected for further training. They will be given three years’ training, the kind of training that is given today at the Dental Faculty. In Stage 111 out of that 25%, 10% will be recruited for Specialist training as required by the country. What I have presented is the bare outline of the restructuring process I envisage. What is important is that all these should enjoy the same social status irrespective of the position they occupy. Such a scheme would be absolutely necessary if we are to overcome the present state of affairs for the proper utilisation of man power and finances. It will also fulfill the ambitions of those thousands who seek admission to the Dental Profession.

Of course, this kind of thinking is radical. It calls for systems that have been taken for granted to be turned around.

This restructuring scheme I have presented has an ideological basis; it is village-based, with the village occupying centre stage.

The present scheme we have is urban-based with the city occupying centre stage. That is what the colonial masters wanted it to be. We have only been tinkering with it and not attempted to change it. It is time we realise this and reverse this order of things. This country is still a collection of villages, 70 % of our population still live there. The village is still the pivot of our existence, which we will soon realize with the present fertiliser fiasco when we find there is no rice on our plate.

A holistic approach combined with such a restructuring process will not only produce an enlightened graduate and a humane professional but also an intelligentsia across the country who will lift us from the morass we are in and liberate us from the tyranny of the power- hungry self-seeking politician who has ruined this country.

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Midweek Review

At the edge of a world war

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

In September 1939, as Europe descended once more into catastrophe, E. H. Carr published The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Twenty years had separated the two great wars—twenty years to reflect, to reconstruct, to restrain. Yet reflection proved fragile. Carr wrote with unsentimental clarity: once the enemy is crushed, the “thereafter” rarely arrives. The illusion that power can come first and morality will follow is as dangerous as the belief that morality alone can command power. Between those illusions, nations lose themselves.

His warning hovers over the present war in Iran.

The “thereafter” has long haunted American interventions—after Afghanistan, after Iraq, after Libya. The enemy can be dismantled with precision; the aftermath resists precision. Iran is not a small theater. It is a civilization-state with a geography three times larger than Iraq. At its southern edge lies the Strait of Hormuz, narrow in width yet immense in consequence. Geography does not argue; it compels.

Long before Carr, in the quiet anxiety of the eighteenth century, James Madison, principal architect of the Constitution, warned that war was the “true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” War concentrates authority in the name of urgency. Madison insisted that the power to declare war must rest with Congress, not the president—so that deliberation might restrain impulse. Republics persuade themselves that emergency powers are temporary. History rarely agrees.

Then, at 2:30 a.m., the abstraction becomes decision.

Donald Trump declares war on Iran. The announcement crosses continents before markets open in Asia. Within twenty-four hours, Ali Khamenei, who ruled for thirty-seven years, is killed. The President calls him one of history’s most evil figures and presents his death as an opening for the Iranian people.

In exile, Reza Pahlavi hails the moment as liberation. In less than forty-eight hours, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps collapses under overwhelming air power. A regime that endured decades falls swiftly. Military efficiency appears absolute. Yet efficiency does not resolve legitimacy.

The joint strike with Israel is framed as necessary and pre-emptive. Retaliation follows across the Gulf. The architecture of energy trade becomes fragile. Shipping routes are recalculated. Markets respond before diplomacy finds its language.

It is measured in the price of petrol in Colombo. In the bus fare in Karachi. In the rising cost of cooking gas in Dhaka. It is heard in the anxious voice of a migrant worker in Doha calling home to Kandy, asking whether contracts will be renewed, whether flights will continue, whether wages will be delayed. It is calculated in foreign reserves already strained, in currencies that tremble at rumor, in budgets forced to choose between subsidy and solvency.

Zaara was the breadwinner of her house in Sri Lanka. Her husband had been unemployed for years. At last, he secured an opportunity to travel to Israel as a foreign worker—like many Sri Lankans who depend on employment in the Middle East. It was to be their turning point: a small house repaired, debts reduced, dignity restored.

Now she lowers her eyes when she speaks. For Zaara, geopolitics is not theory. It is fear measured in distance—between a construction site abroad and a village waiting at home.

The war in Iran has shattered calculations that once felt practical. Nations like Sri Lanka now require strategic foresight to navigate unfolding realities. Reactive responses—whether to natural disasters or external shocks like this conflict—can cripple economies far faster than gradual pressures. Disruptions to energy imports, migrant remittances, and foreign reserves show how distant wars ripple into daily lives.

War among great powers is debated in think tanks. Its consequences are lived in markets—and in quiet kitchens where uncertainty sits heavier than hunger.

The conflict does not unfold in isolation. It enters the strategic calculus of China and Russia, both attentive to precedent. Power projected beyond the Western hemisphere reshapes perceptions in the Eastern theater. Iran’s transformation intersects directly with broader alignments. In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a twenty-five-year strategic agreement. By 2025, China was purchasing the majority of Iran’s exported oil at discounted rates. Energy underwrote strategy. That continuity has been disrupted. Yet strategic relationships do not vanish; they adjust.

In Winds of Change, my new book, I reproduce Nicholas Spykman’s 1944 two-theater confrontation map—Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War. Spykman distinguished maritime power from amphibian projection. Control of the Rimland determined balance. Then, the United States fought across two vast theaters. Today, Europe remains unsettled through Ukraine, the Pacific simmers over Taiwan and the South China Sea, Latin America remains sensitive, and the Middle East has been abruptly transformed. The architecture of multi-theater tension reappears.

At this juncture, the reflections of Marwan Bishara acquire weight. America’s ultimate power, he argues, resides in deterrence, not in the habitual use of force. Power, especially when shared, stabilizes. Force, when used with disregard for international law, breeds instability and humiliation. Arrogance creates enemies and narrows judgment. It is no surprise that many Americans themselves believe the United States should not act alone.

America’s strength does not rest solely in its military reach. Its economy constitutes roughly one-third of global output and generates close to 40 percent of the world’s research and development. Structural power—economic, technological, institutional—has historically underwritten deterrence. When force becomes the primary instrument, influence risks becoming coercion.

The United States now confronts simultaneous pressures across continents. The Second World War demonstrated the capacity to sustain multi-theater engagement; the post-9/11 wars revealed the exhaustion that follows prolonged intervention. Iran, larger and geopolitically deeper, presents a scale that cannot be resolved by air power alone.

Carr’s “thereafter” waits patiently. Military victory may be swift; political reconstruction is slow. Bishara reminds us that deterrence sustains stability, while force risks unraveling it.

At the edge of a potential world war, the decisive question is not who strikes first, but who restrains longest.

History watches. And in places far from the battlefield, mothers wait for phone calls that may not come.

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is a Senior Research Fellow at the Millennium Project, Washington, D.C., and the author of Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, published by World Scientific

Midweek Review

Live Coals Burst Aflame

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Live coals of decades-long hate,

Are bursting into all-consuming flames,

In lands where ‘Black Gold’ is abundant,

And it’s a matter to be thought about,

If humans anywhere would be safe now,

Unless these enmities dying hard,

With roots in imperialist exploits,

And identity-based, tribal violence,

Are set aside and laid finally to rest,

By an enthronement of the principle,

Of the Equal Dignity of Humans.

By Lynn Ockersz

Midweek Review

Saga of the arrest of retired intelligence chief

Published

4 days ago

2026/03/2

Sahan Weerasooriya

Retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay’s recent arrest attracted internatiattention. His long-expected arrest took place ahead of the seventh anniversary of the bombings. Multiple blasts claimed the lives of nearly 280 people, including 45 foreigners. State-owned international news television network, based in Paris, France 24, declared that arrest was made on the basis of information provided by a whistleblower. The French channel was referring to Hanzeer Azad Moulana, who earlier sought political asylum in the West and one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan aka Pilleyan. May be the fiction he wove against Pilleyan and others may have been to strengthen his asylum claim there. Moulana is on record as having told the British Channel 4 that Sallay allowed the attack to proceed with the intention of influencing the 2019 presidential election. The French news agency quoted an investigating officer as having said: “He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks. He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.”

****

Suresh Sallay of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) received the wrath of Yahapalana Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in 2016, over the reportage of what the media called the Chavakachcheri explosives detection made on March 30, 2016. Premier Wickremesinghe found fault with Sallay for the coverage, particularly in The Island. Police arrested ex-LTTE child combatant Edward Julian, alias Ramesh, after the detection of one suicide jacket, four claymore mines, three parcels containing about 12 kilos of explosives, to battery packs and several rounds of 9mm ammunition, from his house, situated at Vallakulam Pillaiyar Kovil Street. Chavakachcheri police made the detection, thanks to information provided by the second wife of Ramesh. Investigations revealed that the deadly cache had been brought by Ramesh from Mannar (Detection of LTTE suicide jacket, mines jolts government: Fleeing Tiger apprehended at checkpoint, The Island, March 31, 2016).

The then Jaffna Security Forces Commander, Maj. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake, told the writer that a thorough inquiry was required to ascertain the apprehended LTTE cadre’s intention. The Chavakachcheri detection received the DMI’s attention. The country’s premier intelligence organisation meticulously dealt with the issue against the backdrop of an alleged aborted bid to revive the LTTE in April 2014. Of those who had been involved in the fresh terror project, three were killed in the Nedunkerny jungles. There hadn’t been any other incidents since the Nedunkerny skirmish, until the Chavakachcheri detection.

Piqued by the media coverage of the Chavakachcheri detection, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration tried to silence the genuine Opposition. As the SLFP had, contrary to the expectations of those who voted for the party at the August 2015 parliamentary elections, formed a treacherous coalition with the UNP, the Joint Opposition (JO) spearheaded the parliamentary opposition.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) questioned former External Affairs Minister and top JO spokesman, Prof. G.L. Peiris, over a statement made by him regarding the Chavakachcheri detection. The former law professor questioned the legality of the CID’s move against the backdrop of police declining to furnish him a certified copy of the then acting IGP S.M. Wickremesinghe’s directive that he be summoned to record a statement as regards the Chavakachcheri lethal detection.

One-time LTTE propagandist Velayutham Dayanidhi, a.k.a. Daya Master, raised with President Maithripala Sirisena the spate of arrests made by law enforcement authorities, in the wake of the Chavakachcheri detection. Daya Master took advantage of a meeting called by Sirisena, on 28 April, 2016, at the President’s House, with the proprietors of media organisations and journalists, to raise the issue. The writer having been among the journalists present on that occasion, inquired from the ex-LETTer whom he represented there. Daya Master had been there on behalf of DAN TV, Tamil language satellite TV, based in Jaffna. Among those who had been detained was Subramaniam Sivakaran, at that time Youth Wing leader of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), the main constituent of the now defunct Tamil National Alliance. In addition to Sivakaran, the police apprehended several hardcore ex-LTTE cadres (LTTE revival bid confirmed: TNA youth leader arrested, The Island April 20, 2016).

Ranil hits out at media

Subsequent inquiries revealed the role played by Sivakaran in some of those wanted in connection with the Chavakachcheri detection taking refuge in India. When the writer sought an explanation from the then TNA lawmaker, M.A. Sumanthiran, regarding Sivakaran’s arrest, the lawyer disowned the Youth Wing leader. Sumanthiran emphasised that the party suspended Sivakumaran and Northern Provincial Council member Ananthi Sasitharan for publicly condemning the TNA’s decision to endorse Maithripala Sirisena’s candidature at the 2015 presidential election (Chava explosives: Key suspects flee to India, The Island, May 2, 2016).

Premier Wickremesinghe went ballistic on May 30, 2016. Addressing the 20th anniversary event of the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, at the Sports Ministry auditorium, the UNP leader castigated the DMI. Alleging that the DMI had been pursuing an agenda meant to undermine the Yahapalana administration, Wickremesinghe, in order to make his bogus claim look genuine, repeatedly named the writer as part of that plot. Only Wickremesinghe knows the identity of the idiot who influenced him to make such unsubstantiated allegations. The top UNPer went on to allege that The Island, and its sister paper Divaina, were working overtime to bring back Dutugemunu, a reference to war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. A few days later, sleuths from the Colombo Crime Detection Bureau (CCD) visited The Island editorial to question the writer where lengthy statements were recorded. The police were acting on the instructions of the then Premier, who earlier publicly threatened to send police to question the writer.

In response to police queries about Sallay passing information to the media regarding the Chavakachcheri detection and subsequent related articles, the writer pointed out that the reportage was based on response of the then ASP Ruwan Gunasekera, AAL and Sumanthiran, as had been reported.

Wickremesinghe alleged, at the Muslim media event, that a section of the media manipulated coverage of certain incidents, ahead of the May Day celebrations.

In early May 2016 Wickremesinghe disclosed that he received assurances from the police, and the DMI, that as the LTTE had been wiped out the group couldn’t stage a comeback. The declaration was made at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRIS) on 3 May 2016. Wickremesinghe said that he sought clarifications from the police and the DMI in the wake of the reportage of the Chavakachcheri detection and related developments (PM: LTTE threat no longer exists, The Island, May 5, 2016).

The LTTE couldn’t stage a comeback as a result of measures taken by the then government. It would be a grave mistake, on our part, to believe that the eradication of the LTTE’s conventional military capacity automatically influenced them to give up arms. The successful rehabilitation project, that had been undertaken by the Rajapaksa government and continued by successive governments, ensured that those who once took up arms weren’t interested in returning to the same deadly path.

In spite of the TNA and others shedding crocodile tears for the defeated Tigers, while making a desperate effort to mobilise public opinion against the government, the public never wanted the violence to return. Some interested parties propagated the lie that regardless of the crushing defeat suffered in the hands of the military, the LTTE could resume guerilla-type operations, paving the way for a new conflict. But by the end of 2014, and in the run-up to the presidential election in January following year, the situation seemed under control, especially with Western countries not wanting to upset things here with a pliant administration in the immediate horizon. Soon after the presidential election, the government targeted the armed forces. Remember Sumanthiran’s declaration that the ITAK Youth Wing leader Sivakaran had been opposed to the TNA backing Sirisena at the presidential poll.

The US-led accountability resolution had been co-sponsored by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo to appease the TNA and Tamil Diaspora. The Oct. 01, 2016, resolution delivered a knockout blow to the war-winning armed forces. The UNP pursued an agenda severely inimical to national interests. It would be pertinent to mention that those who now represent the main Opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), were part of the treacherous UNP.

Suresh moved to Malaysia

The Yahapalana leadership resented Sallay’s work. They wanted him out of the country at a time a new threat was emerging. The government attacked the then Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, who warned of the emerging threat from foreign-manipulated local Islamic fanatics on 11 Nov. 2016, in Parliament. Rajapakshe didn’t mince his words when he underscored the threat posed by some Sri Lanka Muslim families taking refuge in Syria where ISIS was running the show. The then government, of which he was part o,f ridiculed their own Justice Minister. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe feared action against extremism may cause erosion of Muslim support. By then Sallay, who had been investigating the deadly plot, was out of the country. The Yahapalana government believed that the best way to deal with Sallay was to grant him a diplomatic posting. Sally ended up in Malaysia, a country where the DMI played a significant role in the repatriation of Kumaran Pathmanathan, alias KP, after his arrest there.

Having served the military for over three cadres, Sallay retired in 2024 in the rank of Major General. Against the backdrop of his recent arrest, in connection with the ongoing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, The Island felt the need to examine the circumstances Sallay ended up in Malaysia at the time. Now, remanded in terms of the Prevention of terrorism Act (PTA), he is being accused of directing the Easter Sunday operation from Malaysia.

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader and former Minister Udaya Gammanpila has alleged that Sallay was apprehended in a bid to divert attention away from the deepening coal scam. Having campaigned on an anti-corruption platformm in the run up to the previous presidential election, in September 2024, the Parliament election, in November of the same year, and local government polls last year, the incumbent dispensation is struggling to cope up with massive corruption issues, particularly the coal scam, which has not only implicated the Energy Minister but the entire Cabinet of Ministers as well.

The crux of the matter is whether Sallay actually met would-be suicide bombers, in February 2018, in an estate, in the Puttalam district, as alleged by the UK’s Channel 4 television, like the BBC is, quite famous for doing hatchet jobs for the West. This is the primary issue at hand. Did Sallay clandestinely leave Malaysia to meet suicide bombers in the presence of Hanzeer Azad Moulana, one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, aka Pilleyan, former LTTE member?

The British channel raised this issue with Sallay, in 2023, at the time he served as Director, State Intelligence (SIS). Sallay is on record as having told Channel 4 Television that he was not in Sri Lanka the whole of 2018 as he was in Malaysia serving in the Sri Lankan Embassy there as Minister Counsellor.

Therefore, the accusation that he met several members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), including Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, in Karadipuval, Puttalam, in Feb. 2018, was baseless, he has said.

The intelligence officer has asked the British television station to verify his claim with the Malaysian authorities.

Responding to another query, Sallay had told Channel 4 that on April 21, 2019, the day of the Easter Sunday blasts, he was in India, where he was accommodated at the National Defence College (NDC). That could be verified with the Indian authorities, Sallay has said, strongly denying Channel 4’s claim that he contacted one of Pilleyan’s cadres, over, the phone and directed him to pick a person outside Hotel Taj Samudra.

According to Sallay, during his entire assignment in Malaysia, from Dec. 2016 to Dec. 2018, he had been to Colombo only once, for one week, in Dec. 2017, to assist in an official inquiry.

Having returned to Colombo, Sallay had left for NDC, in late Dec. 2018, and returned only after the conclusion of the course, in November 2019.

Sallay has said so in response to questions posed by Ben de Pear, founder, Basement Films, tasked with producing a film for Channel 4 on the Easter Sunday bombings.

The producer has offered Sallay an opportunity to address the issues in terms of Broadcasting Code while inquiring into fresh evidence regarding the officer’s alleged involvement in the Easter Sunday conspiracy.

The producer sought Sallay’s response, in August 2023, in the wake of political upheaval following the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, elected at the November 2019 presidential election.

At the time, the Yahapalana government granted a diplomatic appointment to Sallay, he had been head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). After the 2019 presidential election, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named him the Head of SIS.

The Basement Films has posed several questions to Sallay on the basis of accusations made by Hanzeer Azad Moulana.

In response to the film producer’s query regarding Sallay’s alleged secret meeting with six NTJ cadres who blasted themselves a year later, Sallay has questioned the very basis of the so called new evidence as he was not even in the country during the period the clandestine meeting is alleged to have taken place.

Contradictory stands

Following Sajith Premadasa’s anticipated defeat at the 2019 presidential election, Harin Fernando accused the Catholic Church of facilitating Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory. Fernando, who is also on record as having disclosed that his father knew of the impending Easter Sunday attacks, pointed finger at the Archbishop of Colombo, Rt. Rev Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, for ensuring Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, as well as JVP frontliner Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa, accused India of masterminding the Easter Sunday bombings. Then there were claims of Sara Jasmin, wife of Katuwapitiya suicide bomber Mohammed Hastun, being an Indian agent who was secretly removed after the Army assaulted extremists’ hideout at Sainthamaruthu in the East. What really had happened to Sara Jasmin who, some believe, is key to the Easter Sunday puzzle.

Then there was huge controversy over the arrest of Attorney-at-Law Hejaaz Hizbullah over his alleged links with the Easter Sunday bombers. Hizbullah, who had been arrested in April 2020, served as lawyer to the extremely wealthy spice trader Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim’s family that had been deeply involved in the Easter Sunday plot. Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim had been on the JVP’s National List at the 2015 parliamentary elections. The lawyer received bail after two years. Two of the spice trader’s sons launched suicide attacks, whereas his daughter-in-law triggered a suicide blast when police raided their Dematagoda mansion, several hours after the Easter Sunday blasts.

Investigations also revealed that the suicide vests had been assembled at a factory owned by the family and the project was funded by them. It would be pertinent to mention that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government never really bothered to conduct a comprehensive investigation to identify the Easter Sunday terror project. Perhaps, their biggest failure had been to act on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) recommendations. Instead, President Rajapaksa appointed a six-member committee, headed by his elder brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, to examine the recommendations, probably in a foolish attempt to improve estranged relations with the influential Muslim community. That move caused irreparable damage and influenced the Church to initiate a campaign against the government. The Catholic Church played quite a significant role in the India- and US-backed 2022 Aragalaya that forced President Rajapaksa to flee the country.

Interested parties exploited the deterioration of the national economy, leading to unprecedented declaration of the bankruptcy of the country in April 2022, to mobilie public anger that was used to achieve political change.