Features

Thilo Hoffman’s odyssey in then Ceylon

Published

3 years ago

2023/01/29

Thilina Walpola

Excerpted from the Authorized biography
by Douglas B. Ranasinghe

(Continued from Jan. 22)

Thilo Walter Hoffmann was born on March 13, 1922 at St Gallen in Switzerland. He was the eldest child of Walter Hoffmann, a paediatrician, and his wife Gertrud, nee Bopp. Walter’s father was a proprietary farmer, and Gertrud’s father, too, was a doctor. Thilo’s mother and both grandmothers were housewives, as was then the norm.

Dr Hoffmann was well known in that part of the country as a leading specialist in his field, and widely liked. He also wrote and published numerous articles on medical, dietary and educational subjects. Beyond his regular work, he dedicated much of his life to a cause. Every day for nearly forty years he voluntarily spent two to three hours in a children’s institution. Here, without expecting or receiving a cent, he treated thousands of newborn infants and small children.

Thilo had two sisters and a brother seven years younger. They grew up in St Gallen, about 700 metres above sea level, in the north-east of the country, close to Lake Constance and to the German and Austrian borders.

Walter was a keen botanist and a skilled mountaineer. He took Thilo along on walks and journeys from an early age, and introduced him to the wonders and secrets of nature. Before entering school at the age of six, Thilo knew the names of many plants and animals. It is no surprise that interest in nature became a hobby with him. But who would have thought that this would lead him to play an historic role in the protection of the flora and fauna of a distant tropical island?

Thilo led a life normal for a boy of his background. Like all Swiss children, he was sent to State schools for his primary, secondary and higher education. He was a Boy Scout. The sport he liked best was skiing, when the nearby hills and mountains were covered with snow.

At 18-years he took his matriculation examination, and entered the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, a world-renowned university where several Nobel laureates, including Albert Einstein, have studied or taught. Thilo Hoffmann followed a course in Agronomy, and finished with a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Science.

A happy time of youth was interrupted by the Second World War, which broke out in neighbouring Germany. Thilo was then still studying. Food, clothing and energy were severely rationed, traveling was restricted, and austerity prevailed all round. It was impossible to leave little Switzerland for nearly five years, an important period in his life. Like all young citizens, he had to join its militia army and take the 17-week basic training course.

To Ceylon

In 1946, just after the war, a Swiss agricultural firm in Ceylon needed a Scientific Advisor, and inquired from Thilo’s university. They recommended the new 24-year-old graduate. By now he had developed “a romantic yearning for the wide world, in particular for the tropics”. But he hesitated because his mother was unhappy about the separation. When he consented five other candidates had been listed, but the head of the firm, A. Baur, selected him.

Amidst the travel constraints, Thilo left Switzerland by train for the seaport of Marseilles, in the south of France. He boarded a British vessel, Durban Castle, then a troop ship, which would take him to Port Said in Egypt. Here he had to remain for three weeks until another ship was found for the rest of the voyage. Thilo liked that country, and was later to return to it on a number of occasions, on business and as a tourist.

From Egypt, he travelled in the US Liberty vessel Black Warrior, a cargo boat, which stopped at three ports and took two months to reach Colombo. The passage through the Suez Canal was an adventure. Convoys from north and south crossed within it on the Great Bitter Lake, where war-damaged and sunken ships were lying.

For the first time Thilo saw the desert, stretching away on either side of the canal. Beyond, on the Red Sea, the ship stayed two weeks at Jeddah, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in heat he found almost unbearable – there was no air conditioning then. After a brief stop at Aden, three weeks were spent at Bombay, where unloading and loading were slowed by the nightly curfew due to the Hindu-Muslim riots which convulsed India at that time.

Eventually, on an early morning in October, the ship anchored mid-harbour at Colombo. Travellers then landed at the passenger jetty by rowing boat or launch. There was a little episode. The Managing Director of Baurs came on board for Thilo, accompanied by a junior assistant. But Thilo was not ready. He is a “bad sailor,” feels unwell on board, and was unable to pack and prepare to disembark as long as the ship was still moving.

The big boss did not take kindly to what he perceived to be lack of respect, and stormed off the ship. The assistant was sent back two hours later, to escort the new arrival ashore and help with Customs formalities. It was not exactly the auspicious beginning of a promising career.

Employment

The first Swiss firm to trade in the East was Volkarts, which exchanged manufactured goods from Europe for raw materials from India such as cotton and jute. In 1857 it opened an office in Colombo, and exported coffee, coconut oil and cinnamon from Ceylon.

Alfred Baur was born in a village in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland. He arrived in Ceylon when he was 19 as an Assistant at Volkarts. A dynamic person, six years later he was a proprietary planter at Rajakadaluwa a few miles north of Chilaw – an area then well known for elephant, bear and leopard.

In 1897 at the age of 32 he established his own firm, the Ceylon Manure Works, to manufacture, import and sell fertilizer. This later became A. Baur and Co. Ltd and diversified into other products and services. The firm, widely known and respected in Sri Lanka, celebrated its centenary in 1997.

Young Thilo Hoffmann’s main job as a Scientific/Agriculture Advisor at Baurs was ‘extension work’. He advised customers on the most suitable fertilizers, and the best agricultural practices, for tea, rubber and coconut, as well as paddy and minor crops. He prepared various fertilizer mixtures, printed booklets for many types of crops and engaged in field work to assist planters and farmers.

Among other things, Hoffmann pioneered a new system for the manual manuring of coconut. This was to turn the soil with mammoties, followed by thatching if possible, instead of opening and closing a trench around each palm as was then the custom. He personally demonstrated the new method in many estates and small-holdings. Today it is the general practice in Sri Lanka.

Thilo frequently visited the three crop Research Institutes – Tea, Rubber and Coconut – and various sections of the Department of Agriculture in Peradeniya. At these places he discussed problems and solutions with the different scientists, especially in the fields of soil chemistry, entomology and mycology (pests and diseases).

He vividly remembers when in 1947 the ‘blister blight’ disease of tea broke out in the hills of Ceylon. It was feared that it would be as disastrous as the ‘coffee rust’ which had ruined that industry about a 100 years before. Thilo was one of the first to experiment with, and then market (for Baurs), a copper spray from Switzerland as an efficient remedy.

That was the time when DDT, the first successful synthetic insecticide, was developed by a Swiss chemist. Thilo recalls how carelessly the new material was handled, because its long-term toxicity was realized only later. Today it is banned nearly worldwide. After the Second World War it was applied on countless humans to control parasites such as lice and fleas. It was also very successfully used in malaria control. Thilo himself took no precautions, freely using the concentrated powder with his bare hands and getting soaked by the spray.

A notable instance was the first time Thilo and his newly-wed wife Mae invited the Managing Director of Baurs, Mr A. O. Haller and his wife to dinner at their small flat. Mae had often complained about being bitten by something, but Thilo ignored her. Now she brought to his office a matchbox in which she had caught one of her tormentors and demanded to know what it was.

Thilo, after consulting some books, found it was a bedbug. He had samples of 50% DDT wettable powder in his laboratory. These he took to their veranda, and threw handfuls at chairs, beds and mattresses, banging them on the floor so the bugs fell off into an ever-thickening layer of DDT. By evening the powder had been removed, and the floors and furniture washed and polished.

“It was the only time we had bedbugs in our home,” says Thilo. They were then common in cinemas, and people took along newspapers to sit on. On returning home one immediately undressed in a place where the insects would show against the background.

One of Thilo’s first tasks at Baurs was to report on a new method of manuring paddy by sending alternating electrical current through the soil, invented by a local engineer. This was given wide publicity in the front pages of local newspapers. The Baurs boss feared for his fertilizer business. After visiting the trial plot in Colombo, Thilo’s report categorically excluded any possible effectiveness of the method.

“Are you sure?” asked the boss. So much had he been affected by the sensational reporting, which claimed that fertilizers had become redundant. After a few months the whole thing just disappeared and was never heard of again.

Many Ceylonese landowners were keen to manage their properties in an optimal manner, and would readily seek Thilo’s advice. Eventually, he became a specialist in coconut cultivation, and was asked to advise plantation companies abroad, in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea for example. He frequently visited Arcadia Estate in Perak with the owner, his friend G. G. Ponnambalam Sr.

Thilo was surprised to find that the Chettiars, the South Indian bankers operating mainly out of the Pettah, were dedicated agriculturalists. Only the best was good enough for the coconut properties they took over in the course of their business. He visited many of these, and was always received with respect, treated to excellent hot meals served on washed and smoked fresh banana leaves and eaten in the traditional eastern way. Usually an interpreter was needed as the owner did not speak English. Thilo’s recommendations were scrupulously followed.

The Baurs plantations

Three months after Thilo arrived in Colombo he was sent up-country to one of Baurs’ tea estates to familiarize himself with all practical aspects of tea planting. He recalls:

I took the night train from Maradana to Bandarawela which arrived there at six in the morning. I had a separate, very clean, wood-panelled cabin with a washbasin. It was as good as any first-class sleeper in Europe. The attendants were in uniform and neatly dressed. Proper white linen was provided for bed sheets. Meals were served in the dining car, run by the Victoria catering service. It was similar to a good resthouse of those times with spotless tablecloth, cutlery and crockery and a vase of flowers on the table.

Thilo was met in the cold morning at the Bandarawela station by Paul Hausmann, the Swiss superintendent of Kinellan Estate at Ella, and taken to the spacious bungalow there, where he was to live and work for two months, until the latter went on home leave. Then he moved to Chelsea Estate off the Bandarawela-Etampitiya road. This was nearly 600 acres in extent and also owned by Baurs.

Between the two tea estates he had to spend a few days at the Bandarawela Hotel, owned by Millers Ltd. There for the first time he saw a bucket latrine. All the rooms had this arrangement. Special labourers had to change the buckets several times a day through a separate door from the garden outside. Another place with the same system then was the Kalkudah resthouse.

At the time European shop assistants and tailors were still employed by Millers and Cargills in all their branches, and by Apothecaries and Whiteaways in Colombo. For several years after the war there were thousands of British and Allied military personnel in Sri Lanka, gradually being demobilized and sent back to their home countries. Many military camps and airfields lay across the island, with the main bases at Colombo, Trincomalee, Kandy, Katunayaka and Diyatalawa.

There were then about 5,000 British planters in tea and rubber estates. Practically all would have left the country by the early 1970s. Thilo recalls how social life and sports were centred on the many clubs which dotted the planting districts. Most have disappeared now, in contrast to India, where British-style club life continues almost unchanged. Planters’ wives tended bungalow gardens which often were outstanding.

The monotony of life in these areas was broken by visits from Chinese hawkers, who brought on bicycles large bundles of Chinese goods wrapped in oil-cloth: embroidered tablecloths, tablemats, household linen and carved knick-knacks. Linen was kept in a camphorwood chest from China to protect it against damp and vermin. There were Chinese shops in the larger towns. The 200-odd descendants of these people were given Sri Lankan citizenship in 2008.Another feature was the presence of ‘Afghan’ (Baluchi) money-lenders moving about on large motorcycles. The tall men in their typical dress were especially conspicuous on pay days, also in Colombo and other towns.

Thilo completed his practical training at Chelsea Estate under George Knox, a senior Uva planter, and returned to Colombo in March 1947. Eight years later, in 1955, he became a Director at Baurs. The scope of his work at the firm widened.

Amongst other things, he took charge of Baurs’ own plantations. As an agronomist, he had a particular liking for estate work, and visited the four tea estates owned by them, which were Clarendon-Avoca in Dimbula, Uva Ben Head, Chelsea and Kinellan in Uva, and their two coconut estates, Palugaswewa and Polontalawa, at least twice a year. For decades he was a member of the committee of the Low Country Products Association (LCPA) and of the Agency Section of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon.

All the Baurs estates were well run. The Clarendon mark frequently topped the tea market. Palugaswewa was the highest-yielding coconut property in the world. Polontalawa was developed from jungle in the 1960s and had, apart from coconut, over 200 acres of lift-irrigated paddy land which produced the first basmati rice in Sri Lanka.

In the mid 1960s the Tea Research Institute engaged a new Director who came from East Africa. Surprised to find that tea in Sri Lanka was grown under shade, he convinced planters that the removal of shade trees would result in higher yields. As a result, the appearance of the up-country tea districts changed dramatically. Thilo opposed this policy for agronomic and ecological reasons, and soon Baurs’ tea estates stood out among their treeless neighbours.

With the change yields did increase, but later levelled out and then declined. Today many tea estates have reverted to shade, high and light in the wet zone, two-tiered (for example, grevillea and dadap) in dry regions such as Uva.

Thilo felt acutely the loss of the Baurs plantations when all properties over 50 acres were nationalized in the 1970s under ‘Land Reform’ – which he describes as a “mislabelled political act”. About two decades later the country’s main plantation industries had been ruined, and the better estates were re-privatized on long-term leases.

This Thilo criticizes, because instead of permitting numbers of small and medium firms and even individuals to participate, some two dozen large companies were created, thus concentrating management of tea, rubber, and to a lesser extent coconut, plantations in a few hands.

After nationalization Baurs were left with a small portion of Uva Ben Head Estate at Welimada, about 1,200 m above sea level. The well-equipped bungalow there has served Thilo as a base for many excursions in the mountains and to other parts of the country, especially to the East.

Baurs were the major innovators in coconut cultivation in Sri Lanka. Palugaswewa Estate, near Bangadeniya, had been developed by the founder of the firm in the 19th century. After the Second World War it was producing over six million nuts on 1,400 acres, or 5,000 nuts per cultivated acre per year, which is 80 nuts per palm on average. The Swiss Superintendent Xavier Jobin and Thlo were responsible for this achievement.

After nationalization in 1974 the total annual yield had dropped to two million and the nuts had become smaller: 25% more, or 1,500, were needed to produce a candy (218 kg) of copra.

(To be continued)

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Features

Counting cats, naming giants: Inside the unofficial science redefining Sri Lanka’s Leopards and Tuskers

Published

3 hours ago

2026/01/12

Thilina Walpola

For decades, Sri Lanka’s leopard numbers have been debated, estimated, and contested, often based on assumptions few outside academic circles ever questioned.

One of the most fundamental was that a leopard’s spots never change. That belief, long accepted as scientific fact, began to unravel not in a laboratory or lecture hall, but through thousands of photographs taken patiently in the wilds of Yala. At the centre of that quiet disruption stands Milinda Wattegedara.

Sri Lanka’s wilderness has always inspired photographers. Far fewer, however, have transformed photography into a data-driven challenge to established conservation science. Wattegedara—an MBA graduate by training and a wildlife researcher by pursuit—has done precisely that, building one of the most comprehensive independent identification databases of leopards and tuskers in the country.

“I consider myself privileged to have been born and raised in Sri Lanka,” Wattegedara says. “This island is extraordinary in its biodiversity. But admiration alone doesn’t protect wildlife. Accuracy does.”

Raised in Kandy, and educated at Kingswood College, where he captained cricket teams, up to the First XI, Wattegedara’s early years were shaped by discipline and long hours of practice—traits that would later define his approach to field research.

Though his formal education culminated in a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Cardiff Metropolitan University, his professional life gradually shifted toward Sri Lanka’s forests, grasslands, and coastal fringes.

From childhood, two species held his attention: the Sri Lankan leopard and the Asian elephant tusker. Both are icons. Both are elusive. And both, he argues, have been inadequately understood.

His response was methodical. Using high-resolution photography, Wattegedara began documenting individual animals, focusing on repeat sightings, behavioural traits, territorial ranges, and physical markers.

This effort formalised into two platforms—Yala Leopard Diary and Wild Tuskers of Sri Lanka—which function today as tightly moderated research communities rather than casual social media pages.

“My goal was never popularity,” he explains. “It was reliability. Every identification had to stand scrutiny.”

The results are difficult to dismiss. Through collaborative verification and long-term monitoring, his teams have identified over 200 individual leopards across Yala and Kumana National Parks and 280 tuskers across Sri Lanka.

Each animal—whether Jessica YF52 patrolling Mahaseelawa beach or Mahasen T037, the longest tusker bearer recorded in the wild—is catalogued with photographic evidence and movement history.

It was within this growing body of data that a critical inconsistency emerged.

“As injuries accumulated over time, we noticed subtle but consistent changes in rosette and spot patterns,” Wattegedara says. “This directly contradicted the assumption that these markings remain unchanged for life.”

That observation, later corroborated through structured analysis, had serious implications. If leopards were being identified using a limited set of spot references, population estimates risked duplication and inflation.

The findings led to the development of the Multipoint Leopard Identification Method, now internationally published, which uses multiple reference points rather than fixed pattern assumptions. “This wasn’t about academic debate,” Wattegedara notes. “It was about ensuring we weren’t miscounting an endangered species.”

The implications extend beyond Sri Lanka. Overestimated populations can lead to reduced protection, misplaced policy decisions, and weakened conservation urgency.

Yet much of this work has occurred outside formal state institutions.

“There’s a misconception that meaningful research only comes from official channels,” Wattegedara says. “But conservation gaps don’t wait for bureaucracy.”

That philosophy informed his role as co-founder of the Yala Leopard Centre, the world’s first facility dedicated solely to leopard education and identification. The Centre serves as a bridge between researchers, wildlife enthusiasts, and the general public, offering access to verified knowledge rather than speculation.

In a further step toward transparency, Artificial Intelligence has been introduced for automatic leopard identification, freely accessible via the Centre and the Yala Leopard Diary website. “Technology allows consistency,” he explains. “And consistency is everything in long-term studies.”

His work with tuskers mirrors the same precision. From Minneriya to Galgamuwa, Udawalawe to Kala Wewa, Wattegedara has documented generations of bull elephants—Arjuna T008, Kawanthissa T075, Aravinda T112—not merely as photographic subjects, but as individuals with lineage, temperament, and territory.

This depth of observation has also earned him recognition in wildlife photography, including top honours from the Photographic Society of Sri Lanka and accolades from Sanctuary Asia’s Call of the Wild. Still, he is quick to downplay awards.

“Photographs are only valuable if they contribute to understanding,” he says.

Today, Wattegedara’s co-authored identification guides on Yala leopards and Kala Wewa tuskers are increasingly referenced by researchers and field naturalists alike. His work challenges a long-standing divide between citizen science and formal research.

“Wildlife doesn’t care who publishes first,” he reflects. “It only responds to how accurately we observe it.”

In an era when Sri Lanka’s protected areas face mounting pressure—from tourism, infrastructure, and climate stress—the question of who counts wildlife, and how, has never been more urgent.

By insisting on precision, patience, and proof, Milinda Wattegedara has quietly reframed that conversation—one leopard, one tusker, and one verified photograph at a time.

By Ifham Nizam ✍️

Features

AI in Schools: Preparing the Nation for the Next Technological Leap

Published

3 hours ago

2026/01/12

Thilina Walpola

This summary document is based on an exemplary webinar conducted by the Bandaranaike Academy for Leadership & Public Policy ((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZGjlaMC08). I participated in the session, which featured multiple speakers with exceptional knowledge and experience who discussed various aspects of incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the education system and other sectors.

There was strong consensus that this issue must be addressed early, before the nation becomes vulnerable to external actors seeking to exploit AI for their own advantage. Given her educational background, the Education Minister—and the Prime Minister—are likely to be fully aware of this need. This article is intended to support ongoing efforts in educational reform, including the introduction of AI education in schools for those institutions willing to adopt it.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept. Today, it processes vast amounts of global data and makes calculated decisions, often to the benefit of its creators. However, most users remain unaware of the information AI gathers or the extent of its influence on decision-making. Experts warn that without informed and responsible use, nations risk becoming increasingly vulnerable to external forces that may exploit AI.

The Need for Immediate Action

AI is evolving rapidly, leaving traditional educational models struggling to keep pace. By the time new curricula are finalised, they risk becoming outdated, leaving both students and teachers behind. Experts advocate immediate government-led initiatives, including pilot AI education programs in willing schools and nationwide teacher training.

“AI is already with us,” experts note. “We must ensure our nation is on this ‘AI bus’—unlike past technological revolutions, such as IT, microchips, and nanotechnology, which we were slow to embrace.”

Training Teachers and Students

Equipping teachers to introduce AI, at least at the secondary school level, is a crucial first step. AI can enhance creativity, summarise materials, generate lesson plans, provide personalised learning experiences, and even support administrative tasks. Our neighbouring country, India, has already begun this process.

Current data show that student use of AI far exceeds that of instructors—a gap that must be addressed to prevent misuse and educational malpractice. Specialists recommend piloting AI courses as electives, gathering feedback, and continuously refining the curriculum to prepare students for an AI-driven future.

Benefits of AI in Education

AI in schools offers numerous advantages:

· Fosters critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills

· Enhances digital literacy and ethical awareness

· Bridges the digital divide by promoting equitable AI literacy

· Supports interdisciplinary learning in medicine, climate science, and linguistics

· Provides personalised feedback and learning experiences

· Assists students with disabilities through adaptive technologies like text-to-speech and visual recognition

AI can also automate administrative tasks, freeing teachers to focus on student engagement and social-emotional development—a key factor in academic success.

Risks and Challenges

Despite its potential, AI presents challenges:

· Data privacy concerns and misuse of personal information

· Over-reliance on technology, reducing teacher-student interactions

· Algorithmic biases affecting educational outcomes

· Increased opportunities for academic dishonesty if assessments rely on rote memorisation

Experts emphasise understanding these risks to ensure the responsible and ethical use of AI.

Global and Local Perspectives

In India, the Central Board of Secondary Education plans to introduce AI and computational thinking from Grades 3 to 12 by 2026. Sri Lanka faces a similar challenge. Many university students and academics already rely on AI, highlighting the urgent need for a structured yet rapidly evolving national curriculum that incorporates AI responsibly.

The Way Forward

Experts urge swift action:

· Launch pilot programs in select schools immediately.

· Provide teacher training and seed funding to participating educational institutions.

· Engage universities to develop short AI and innovation training programs.

“Waiting for others to lead risks leaving us behind,” experts warn. “It’s time to embrace AI thoughtfully, responsibly, and inclusively—ensuring the whole nation benefits from its opportunities.”

As AI reshapes our world, introducing it in schools is not merely an educational initiative—it is a national imperative.

BY Chula Goonasekera ✍️
on behalf of LEADS forum admin@srilankaleads.com

Features

The Paradox of Trump Power: Contested Authoritarian at Home, Uncontested Bully Abroad

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/11

Thilina Walpola

Protests and a vigil have been held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the shooting of Renee Nicole Good occurred on Wednesday (photo courtesy BBC)

The Trump paradox is easily explained at one level. The US President unleashes American superpower and tariff power abroad with impunity and without contestation. But he cannot exercise unconstitutional executive power including tariff power without checks and challenges within America. No American President after World War II has exercised his authority overseas so brazenly and without any congressional referral as Donald Trump is getting accustomed to doing now. And no American President in history has benefited from a pliant Congress and an equally pliant Supreme Court as has Donald Trump in his second term as president.

Yet he is not having his way in his own country the way he is bullying around the world. People are out on the streets protesting against the wannabe king. This week’s killing of 37 year old Renee Good by immigration agents in Minneapolis has brought the City to its edge five years after the police killing of George Floyd. The lower courts are checking the president relentlessly in spite of the Supreme Court, if not in defiance of it. There are cracks in the Trump’s MAGA world, disillusioned by his neglect of the economy and his costly distractions overseas. His ratings are slowly but surely falling. And in an electoral harbinger, New York has elected as its new mayor, Zoran Mamdani – a wholesale antithesis of Donald Trump you can ever find.

Outside America it is a different picture. The world is too divided and too cautious to stand up to Trump as he recklessly dismantles the very world order that his predecessors have been assiduously imposing on the world for nearly a hundred years. A few recent events dramatically illustrate the Trump paradox – his constraints at home and his freewheeling abroad.

Restive America

Two days before Christmas, the US Supreme Court delivered a rare rebuke to the Trump Administration. After a host of rulings that favoured Trump by putting on hold, without full hearing, lower court strictures against the Administration, the Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority decided to leave in place a Federal Court ruling that barred Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Chicago. Trump quietly raised the white flag and before Christmas withdrew the federal troops he had controversially deployed in Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles – all large cities run by Democrats.

But three days after the New Year, Trump airlifted the might of the US Army to encircle Venezuela’s capital Caracas and spirit away the country’s President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Celia Flores, all the way to New York to stand trial in an American Court. What is not permissible in any American City was carried out with absolute impunity in a foreign capital. It turns out the Administration has no plan for Venezuela after taking out Maduro, other than Trump’s cavalier assertion, “We’re going to run it, essentially.” Essentially, the Trump Administration has let Maduro’s regime without Maduro to run the country but with the US in total control of Venezuela’s oil.

Next on the brazen list is Greenland, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who manipulated Maduro’s ouster is off to Copenhagen for discussions with the Danish government over the future of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark. Military option is not off the table if a simple real estate purchase or a treaty arrangement were to prove infeasible or too complicated. That is the American position as it is now customarily announced from the White House podium by the Administration’s Press Secretary Karolyn Leavitt, a 28 year old Catholic woman from New Hampshire, who reportedly conducts a team prayer for divine help before appearing at the lectern to lecture.

After the Supreme Court ruling and the Venezuela adventure, the third US development relevant to my argument is the shooting and killing of a 37 year old white American woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, at 9:30 in the morning, Wednesday, January 7^th. Immediately, the Administration went into pre-emptive attack mode calling the victim a “deranged leftist” and a “domestic terrorist,” and asserting that the ICE officer was acting in self-defense. That line and the description are contrary to what many people know of the victim, as well as what people saw and captured on their phones and cameras.

The victim, Renee Nicole Good, was a mother of three and a prize-winning poet who self-described herself a “poet, writer, wife and mom.” A newcomer to Minneapolis from Colorado, she was active in the community and was a designated “legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities,” to monitor interactions between ICE agents and civilian protesters that have become the norm in large immigrant cities in America. Renee Good was at the scene in her vehicle to observe ICE operations and community protesters.

In video postings that last a matter of nine seconds, two ICE officers are seen approaching Good’s vehicle and one of them trying to open her door; a bystander is heard screaming “No” as Good is seen trying to drive away; and a third ICE officer is seen standing in front of her moving vehicle, firing twice in the direction of the driver, moving to a side and firing a third time from the side. Good’s car is seen going out of control, careening and coming to a stop on a snowbank. Yet America is being bombarded with two irreconcilable narratives – one manufactured by Trump’s Administration and the other by those at the scene and everyone opposed to the regime.

It adds to the explosiveness of the situation that Good was shot and killed not far from where George Folyd was killed, also in Minneapolis, on 25^th May, 2020, choked under the knee of a heartless policeman. And within 48 hours of Good’s killing, two Americans were shot and injured by two federal immigration agents, in Portland, Oregon, on the Westcoast. Trump’s attack on immigrants and the highhanded methods used by ICE agents have become the biggest flashpoint in the political opposition to the Trump presidency. People are organizing protests in places where ICE agents are apprehending immigrants because those who are being aggressively and violently apprehended have long been neighbours, colleagues, small business owners and students in their communities.

Deportation of illegal immigrants is not something that began under Trump. It has been going on in large numbers under all recent presidents including Obama and Biden. But it has never been so cruel and vicious as it is now under Trump. He has turned it into a television spectacle and hired large number of new ICE agents who are politically prejudiced and deployed them without proper training. They raid private homes and public buildings, including schools, looking for immigrants. When faced with protesters they get into clashes rather than deescalating the situation as professional police are trained to do. There is also the fear that the Administration may want to escalate confrontations with protesters to create a pretext for declaring martial law and disrupt the midterm congressional elections in November this year.

But the momentum that Trump was enjoying when he began his second term and started imposing his executive authority, has all but vanished and all within just one year in office. By the time this piece appears in print, the Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s tariffs (expected on Friday) may be out, and if as expected the ruling goes against Trump that will be a massive body blow to the Administration. Trump will of course use a negative court ruling as the reason for all the economic woes under his presidency, but by then even more Americans would have become tired of his perpetually recycled lies and boasts.

An Obliging World

To get back to my starting argument, it is in this increasingly hostile domestic backdrop that Trump has started looking abroad to assert his power without facing any resistance. And the world is obliging. The western leaders in Europe, Canada and Australia are like the three wise monkeys who will see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil – of anything that Trump does or fails to do. Their biggest fear is about the Trump tariffs – that if they say anything critical of Trump he will magnify the tariffs against their exports to the US. That is an understandable concern and it would be interesting to see if anything will change if the US Supreme Court were to rule against Trump and reject his tariff powers.

Outside the West, and with the exception of China, there is no other country that can stand up to Trump’s bullying and erratic wielding of power. They are also not in a position to oppose Trump and face increased tariffs on their exports to the US. Putin is in his own space and appears to be assured that Trump will not hurt him for whatever reason – and there are many of them, real and speculative. The case of the Latin American countries is different as they are part of the Western Hemisphere, where Trump believes he is monarch of all he surveys.

After more than a hundred years of despising America, many communities, not just regimes, in the region seem to be warming up to Trump. The timing of Trump’s sequestering of Venezuela is coinciding with a rising right wing wave and regime change in the region. An October opinion poll showed 53% of Latin American respondents reacting positively to a then potential US intervention in Venezuela while only 18% of US respondents were in favour of intervention. While there were condemnations by Latin American left leaders, seven Latin American countries with right wing governments gave full throated support to Trump’s ouster of Maduro.

The reasons are not difficult to see. The spread of crime induced by the commerce of cocaine has become the number one concern for most Latin Americans. The socio-religious backdrop to this is the evangelisation of Christianity at the expense of the traditional Catholic Church throughout Latin America. And taking a leaf from Trump, Latin Americans have also embraced the bogey of immigration, mainly influenced by the influx of Venezuelans fleeing in large numbers to escape the horrors of the Maduro regime.

But the current changes in Latin America are not necessarily indicative of a durable ideological shift. The traditional left’s base in the subcontinent is still robust and the recent regime changes are perhaps more due to incumbency fatigue than shifts in political orientations. The left has been in power for the greater part of this century and has not been able to provide answers to the real questions that preoccupied the people – economic affordability, crime and cocaine. It has not been electorally smart for the left to ignore the basic questions of the people and focus on grand projects for the intelligentsia. Exhibit #1 is the grand constitutional project in Chile under outgoing President Gabriel Borich, but it is not the only one. More romantic than realistic, Boric’s project titillated liberal constitutionalists the world over, but was roundly rejected by Chileans.

More importantly, and sooner than later, Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and his intended takeover of the country’s oil business will produce lasting backlashes, once the initial right wing euphoria starts subsiding. Apart from the bully force of Trump’s personality, the mastermind behind the intervention in Venezuela and policy approach towards Latin America in general, is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former Cuban American Senator from Florida and the principal leader of the group of Cuban neocons in the US. His ultimate objective is said to be achieving regime change in Cuba – apparently a psychological settling of scores on behalf Cuban Americans who have been dead set against Castro’s Cuba after the overthrow of their beloved Batista.

Mr. Rubio is American born and his parents had left Cuba years before Fidel Castro displaced Fulgencio Batista, but the family stories he apparently grew up hearing in Florida have been a large part of his self-acknowledged political makeup. Even so, Secretary Rubio could never have foreseen a situation such as an externally uncontested Trump presidency in which he would be able to play an exceptionally influential role in shaping American policy for Latin America. But as the old Burns’ poem rhymes, “The best-laid plans of men and mice often go awry.”

by Rajan Philips ✍️