Features

Black July– Pogrom and Survivors

Published

2 years ago

2024/09/8

by Jayantha Perera

It was an ordinary Monday morning. At the Lunawa railway station, I watched the calm blue sea dotted with a few fishing boats. The train to Colombo was 30 minutes late, and it was almost empty. I saw some confusion among railway passengers — some got off the train and got into a train that went to Kalutara. A friend among them warned me that I should not go to Colombo. When I reached the ARTI in Colombo 7, I had the eerie feeling that something was wrong. I saw some employees hurriedly leaving the ARTI. One told me that the Institute had received an anonymous telephone call that the LTTE had plans to attack Colombo before noon. I brushed off the rumour and went to my room.

I saw a Tamil colleague sobbing in her room. She told me that a mob had attacked her house in Wellawatte. The Police had taken her mother to a refugee camp. The director requested that I take my colleague to the refugee camp where her mother was. A driver, who was an ex-soldier, agreed to take us to the camp.

We realised the gravity of the security situation when we left the ARTI for the refugee camp. Hundreds of people, mostly office workers, were stranded on the road. People were walking home. Two soldiers checked our identity cards and my colleague’s handbag at the refugee camp. One asked me in Sinhala, “Why do you accompany a Tamil woman?” He told me politely that I should have sent her by herself without exposing myself to mobs. While we were waiting for the approval to enter the camp, a large crowd appeared from nowhere, shouting, “Kill the Tamils before they kill us! Some carried jerrycans full of petrol, iron clubs, and axes. They were in a frenzy. The soldiers at the camp gate stopped them before they reached the periphery wall of the school.

I introduced my colleague and myself to the Army officer at the registration desk as Deputy Directors of the ARTI. I told him my colleague had heard that her mother was already in the camp. He promised to find her whereabouts. When I left the camp, my colleague waved at me with tears in her eyes. I waited until she disappeared among the new refugees who were agitated and scared. Several women were crying, as they did not know what had happened to their children who went to work in the morning. Chaos, fear, hatred, and confusion reigned in the camp and its vicinity. It occurred to me that I had not offered to bring food or clothes for my colleague and her mother. I felt ashamed of myself.

The driver dropped me off at Bambalapitiya Junction on Galle Road. At the Bambalapitiya junction, I met two colleagues. We started walking towards Dehiwela, where we saw mobs searching for Tamils. A few stopped pedestrians and demanded to prove they were not Tamils. Suddenly, a convoy of cars and motorbicycles drove past us. Motorcycle riders shouted the LTTE had captured Colombo and the LTTE would kill us soon. A few minutes later, another convoy of vehicles passed us with the same message. Pedestrians ran to its side lanes, emptying the main road for about ten minutes.

At Dehiwela, we saw many men in their shorts and folded sarongs shouting the Sinhalese would kill the Tamils. Two men had lists of residents in the area and wanted to know their whereabouts. One mob got petrol by force from a gas station. We watched helplessly while mobs looted and demolished shops. At one shop, they grabbed the owner and assaulted him ruthlessly on the main road. He ran back to his shop with blood dripping from his head. I could not see the Army or Police on the road. Anarchy ruled, and many lost their lives and property in a few minutes.

I reached home exhausted and confused. I felt ashamed of myself because I could not help the people who were crying for help. The three young girls who ran along the Galle Road shouting for help had shaken me to my core. Without lunch, I slept. About an hour later, a jeep stopped in front of my house. The ARTI Director wanted me to go to the Ministry Head Office. I reached Colombo in 20 minutes, as the road was empty. The Army and the Air Force had taken control of the Galle Road. There were no mobs or fleeing people. But I could see the smoke rising from the burned houses, shops, and factories.

The Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands presided over the meeting. The Secretary informed the meeting that the ministry would manage two refugee camps for a week or two. He wanted me to be at the refugee camp at St. Thomas’ College in Mount Lavinia. He explained that as many as 1,000 persons might seek refuge at the camp. My responsibilities were to feed them and provide bedding, drinking water, and sanitary facilities. The Secretary also told me that I should get the Army’s assistance and ask the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) to get dry food to the camp. He signed several papers that authorised me to order and accept food, bedding, sanitary items, drinking water, blankets, plates, and glasses. He also assigned three Ministry officials to work at the camp.

Hundreds of adults and children were at St. Thomas’ College. Some were crying, others were shouting, and a few had bandaged heads and bloodstained arms. It was a chaotic situation. I told them, using a megaphone, that help would soon come, and the security forces would protect them. One laughed and asked, “Why do you want to help us. Aren’t you a Sinhalese?” I told him to be patient.

An old woman who lost her house told me a squad of goons had arrived at her place brandishing clubs and swords. They told her to get out of the house if she wanted to save her life. Another woman said that goons came with a list of names and checked each house on the lane for Tamil families before setting her home on fire. Families with small children and grown-up daughters had to save their children from mobs. Some parents pushed their daughters and sons over boundary walls to friends’ compounds to protect them from attackers before leaving their homes. Some of them did not know what had happened to their children.

My colleagues set up an office and recorded the refugees’ names and addresses. They also prepared an inventory of food, bedding, blankets, and sanitary facilities that we had received. NGOs, neighbourhood groups, and religious organisations already delivered food, essential medicine, and hygienic supplies. The camp received large quantities of rice, lentils, canned fish, onions, and bread. A benevolent donor sent more than 200 food parcels for dinner.

In the evening, I visited the ARTI Cafeteria Manager in Moratuwa. I asked him to find me six cooks and loan large cooking utensils. I promised to pay his charges within two weeks. His wife accompanied me to a small hamlet by the sea. There, she spoke to three middle-aged women and explained their new assignment. She asked them to collect three more women to go to St. Thomas’ College for a few days. I asked the Manager’s wife to pack basic spices, salt, and oil into one large cooking pot. The women had many years of experience cooking for many people at weddings and funerals.

Using the megaphone, I told the refugees that each family should find a place in a classroom or the large hall to sleep and collect bed sheets and mats from the camp office. A commotion erupted as some women did not want to sleep in rooms with strangers. Others were scared to sleep on the floor. After much discussion, we agreed to organise people into several clusters. ‘Neighbours,’ ‘children attending the same school,’ ‘professionals,’ and ‘government officials’ were some criteria for allocating camp space. Two large posters were hung on a wall showing men and women their toilets.

I rang a bell at 9 pm to indicate the dinner was ready. The food parcels we had received were sufficient to feed those who wanted to eat. Men and women lined up, and four cooks served food. Several young mothers requested milk for their toddlers. Fortunately, the storeroom had a few milk cartons and packets of milk powder. I asked them to prepare milk after dinner. Several older people did not eat rice at night and wanted bread. I checked the storeroom and found steamed bread received from India. I asked a cook to heat 25 small loaves of bread on a flat steel plate. I distributed the bread among those who preferred bread to rice.

It took about eight hours to settle the refugees in the camp and console them. I promised to check on their houses the following day. Many were urban poor who lived in small huts and rented dwellings in Dehiwela and Ratmalana. They had lost everything.

Several beggars who lived on the street had infiltrated the refugee camp after the Army chased them away from the pavements. It was difficult to distinguish them from the refugees. Security guards told me beggars were a security risk because they might steal whatever the refugees had with them, especially gold jewellery, or assault young women at night. The security guards could not check each entrant’s identity card because many had none.

After dinner, I thanked the cooks and allocated a place for them to sleep with bed sheets and mats. I discussed the breakfast with them and agreed to provide bread and pol sambal for adults and bread with eggs for children. Also, we decided to give each person a cup of tea.

I left the camp at 1 am. The road was empty, and the Army stopped me at two places. An army officer explained to me that the killing of 13 soldiers in the North and the delay in handing bodies to their families had triggered the riots. Looting and burning houses continued in lanes and slums. The Army did not have instructions to quell the riots and the mayhem. Instead, the Army controlled the main roads and arrested curfew breakers.

Before lunch, officials from the Commissioner General of Essential Services and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands Secretary visited the camp with an Army Major. They talked to the refugees and noted their immediate concerns, such as withdrawing money from banks, contacting relatives, and getting medical attention. The Secretary spoke about the logistics and secured me two more vehicles with curfew passes. He told me to encourage refugees with friends or relatives nearby to move to such places as early as possible, as the riots were now under control. After they left, we served lunch of rice, dhal curry, and tempered potatoes. Many refugees told the kitchen crew that the food was good, though simple. More food, medicine, drinking water, and blankets arrived in the evening.

A Tamil colleague at the ARTI had become a refugee overnight. While fleeing, she went through a harrowing experience. Some shops from where she used to buy provisions were in flames. Mobs had attacked some people she knew in such shops after destroying shops and houses. Soon after she left home, a mob gathered in front of her house and checked the electoral list to identify the owners of houses in the lane. Fortunately, the list had the name of her father’s Sinhalese tenant. The mob spared her house.

One morning, I found a young girl at the camp crying. Her mother told me the girl’s 11th birthday was in two days. I asked her what she wanted. She said a birthday cake and her dollies. My colleagues promised to find a doll and to get a cake for her birthday.

We visited several bakeries in the area, but they were closed. We went to the Cafeteria Owner’s house in Moratuwa and begged his wife to bake a cake for the girl’s birthday. She listened to the little girl’s story and baked a large cake for her.

The girl’s mother lit a candle, and her friends sang ‘Happy Birthday’. For the first time, the girl smiled. But soon, she started crying, saying that she wanted her dollies. A colleague gave her a small doll. The girl said she had a similar doll and wanted to go home to play with her toys.

The most challenging request came from a group of older people. They complained they hate to mix with “low castes” and “uncouth” refugees, especially at mealtime. They found it repugnant to eat with them and share bathrooms. I asked them what they wanted me to do. They suggested segregating them from others and providing a separate sleeping area with a toilet. I told them I could not segregate people on a caste or class basis. I explained that the riots had ended and they should consider moving to their relatives and friends. It was the fifth day of the camp. They were unhappy but did not raise this issue again.

Many refugees wanted to leave the camp but were scared and confused. They also wanted to avoid burdening their relatives and friends. Some wanted to rebuild destroyed or damaged houses as fast as they could. They wanted to visit their homes and return to the camp. Several refugees told me that many affected families had already decided to sell their property and go to Jaffna or South India. A few wanted to seek political asylum in Western countries.

Parents with young children were worried about their education. Several girls asked me how to get their textbooks and exercise books from their destroyed houses. One girl told me her father could not buy books for her and her sister, as he had lost all his money. I patiently listened to them and took notes.

On the eighth day after the riots, the refugee camp was closed. Some refugees were overwhelmed by emotions and cried when they met friends and relatives at the school gate. The meetings were heart-rending, but I was happy that they were determined to restart their lives from scratch. My great worry, however, was the fate of the children. Some were traumatised and did not want to leave the camp, where they found some stability and care.

There were about 30 persons who wanted to stay longer at the camp. I told them the camp was no longer providing food. A few confessed that they were beggars who lived on the road or in abandoned buildings. At the refugee camp, they found a safe place with security, food, and basic facilities. A few of them were getting ready to restart, begging. One young man told me that beggars went through the worst form of aggression, torture, and hunger every day, and no one cared about their plight. He knew some refugees did not want to see them at the camp. But he said, “We, too, are human beings and deserve kindness and help.”

A few years later, a refugee family invited me to lunch at their new home. When the riots broke out their children were toddlers. They looked normal and happy. I wanted to know how they had restarted their lives after the riots, but I did not want to broach the subject on that happy occasion.

After lunch, I walked along a lane severely affected by riots. At two places, people recognised me. Some families had rebuilt their houses partially. Later, I met a businessman who told me that Tamils, who had money, left for India, Canada, and Australia. I do not know what happened to the wage workers, low-grade government servants, and, mainly, the garment factory workers I met at the refugee camp. They must have regained their everyday lives. I wish they had, but I do not know.

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Features

The Great AI Schism: When the Titans of Tech tell us to slow down

Published

1 hour ago

2026/10/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Prof. C. A. Saliya

Something extraordinary happened in September 2026. The very people who have spent the last decade pouring tens of billions of dollars into building artificial intelligence, the visionaries, the investors, the CEOs, suddenly started telling the world to hit the brakes. It’s a bit like the captain of a speeding train leaning out of the window and shouting, “Actually, maybe we should slow down a bit!” The public, understandably, is confused. We’ve been told AI will cure cancer, solve climate change, and give us all free time. Now we’re being told it might kill us all. Welcome to the great AI schism.

To understand what’s happening, you have to listen to the people in the room. These are not wild-eyed doomsayers on the internet. They are the titans of the industry. And they are starting to argue with each other.

Dario Amodei: The Insider Who Wants to Hit Pause

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic (Claude AI), is the man who kicked the hornet’s nest. In a 3,800-word essay, posted on his website in mid-September 2026, he didn’t just suggest caution, he demanded a slowdown. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” he wrote. His reasoning is simple and terrifying: the technology is moving faster than our ability to control it. He warned that AI could be misused for cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption.

What makes Amodei’s warning so chilling is that it comes from a man whose company, Anthropic, builds one of the most powerful AI models in the world, Claude. He’s not a critic on the sidelines. He’s in the driver’s seat, and he’s telling us the car might not have brakes. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said he agreed with a departing Anthropic researcher who claimed AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade. That researcher, 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, resigned in protest, saying the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all”. When the people building the technology start resigning because they’re afraid of it, you should pay attention.

Bill Gates: The Elder Statesman with a Warning

Bill Gates has been around long enough to know a paradigm shift when he sees one. The Microsoft co-founder, who spent decades warning the world about pandemics and climate change, has now turned his attention to AI. And he’s not mincing words. In September 2026, Gates warned that AI is “powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths”.

Gates is not worried about Terminator-style robots. He’s worried about people. “There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he said. His solution is simple: regulation. “No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. He even offered to be the man to convince President Trump to regulate AI. Gates is a pragmatist. He knows the technology is coming. He just wants to make sure it doesn’t get us first.

Sam Altman: The Showman with a Conscience (Maybe)

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (Chat GPT), has always been the industry’s greatest showman. He’s the man who told us AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is “just around the corner” and that AI will soon be a “genie that can grant any wish”. But even Altman is now singing a different tune. In September 2026, he ruled out an OpenAI IPO in 2026, citing safety concerns. He called even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction “unacceptable”.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman posted on X. This is a remarkable shift. Altman has spent years being criticised for moving too fast, for prioritising profit over safety. Now, facing mounting evidence that AI models can cause real harm, from cyberattacks to mental health crises, he’s suddenly the voice of caution. Is it genuine? Or is it a PR move? The cynics will tell you it’s the latter. But the fact remains: when Sam Altman says we need to slow down, the world listens.

Elon Musk: The Provocateur Who Saw It Coming

Elon Musk has been warning about AI for over a decade. He’s the man who called AI “more dangerous than nuclear weapons” long before it was fashionable. So it’s no surprise that he joined the chorus of slowdown calls in September 2026. But Musk being Musk, he couldn’t resist a bit of dark humour. When asked if we’re all going to die within 10 years, he replied, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but we’re all going to die someday anyway”.

But behind the joke is a serious point. Musk believes AI models could escape their constraints, take control of military systems, and even launch nuclear weapons. His solution is mutual oversight: leading AI companies should test each other’s systems for safety before release, and he even suggested a deal with China to make it happen. Musk is a provocateur, but he’s also a visionary. And his vision is one where AI is a weapon that we might not be able to control.

Satya Nadella: The Quiet Strategist

While the others are shouting about doom, Satya Nadella is quietly building an empire. The Microsoft CEO doesn’t talk about extinction risks. He talks about “agentic AI”, AI that can act autonomously, which he calls “a new paradigm”. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which powers these AI agents, grew 43% in the last quarter, surpassing $100 billion in annual revenue.

Nadella’s view is simple: don’t compete to build the most powerful model; compete to control the “orchestration layer”, the systems that connect different AI models. He wants to build the infrastructure that everyone else relies on. It’s a smart play, and it’s making Microsoft a fortune. But Nadella’s silence on safety is deafening. While Amodei and Altman wrestle with their consciences, Nadella is counting the money. It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s that his business model depends on AI being adopted, not regulated.

Jacob Coxon: The Whistleblower Who Lit the Fuse

You may not have heard of Jacob Coxon. He’s not a billionaire. He’s not a CEO. He’s a 27-year-old researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic. And in September 2026, he resigned from Anthropic with a warning that shook the industry. “Neither company is acting responsibly,” he wrote on X. “They are launching themselves directly toward a superintelligence capable of self-improvement, and gambling with our lives”.

Coxon’s warning was remarkable because it came from inside the machine. He said the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. He called for a temporary freeze on advanced AI training. His resignation triggered a wave of concern, and even Dario Amodei admitted he agreed with Coxon more than he disagreed. Coxon is the canary in the coal mine. And the canary is not looking well.

Donald Trump: The Wildcard

And then there’s Donald Trump. The US President has consistently downplayed AI fears, calling them a “hoax” and a “sick conspiracy”. But even Trump is starting to change his tune, sort of. In September 2026, he announced plans to create an “AI Force” and appoint an AI “Czar”. He said the government would look for “bad” uses of AI through the existing criminal and civil justice systems.

But Trump’s priority is clear: winning the AI race against China. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry,” he said. He wants AI to account for 25% of US GDP. Trump is not a technologist. He’s a businessman and a nationalist. He sees AI as a tool for economic dominance, not an existential threat. Whether he’s right or wrong, his stance puts him at odds with almost every expert in the field.

The Bottom Line: A House Divided

So where does this leave us? We have the CEOs of the world’s leading AI companies, Amodei, Altman, and Musk, all calling for a slowdown. We have Bill Gates, the elder statesman of tech, warning of a billion deaths. We have a whistleblower who says the industry is gambling with our lives. And then we have Satya Nadella, quietly building the infrastructure that powers it all, and Donald Trump, who wants to speed up.

The irony is hard to miss. The people who built the AI train are now telling us to slow down. The people who profit from the AI economy are the ones building the tracks. And the public is caught in the middle, trying to figure out who to believe.

Maybe the most honest thing anyone said came from Jacob Coxon, the 27-year-old researcher who quit. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he wrote. “This is not a marketing stunt”.

If the people building the technology believe it could kill us, perhaps we should listen. Before it’s too late.

(Prof. C. A. Saliya, is a charted accountant, academic, researcher and former banker. He is the author of SAMAJA GAVESHAKAYA and Springer Publication DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH. He can be contacted at saliya.ca@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations with which he is affiliated.)

Features

Preventing grievances from becoming communal

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

Police removing the Thileepan statue

by Jehan Perera

The death sentence on Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan citizen convicted of blasphemy in Saudi Arabia has taken a central place in national consciousness for the past several weeks. It has been in the headline news since it was first reported last month. There have been many initiatives taken locally to get a more lenient sentencing by the Saudi authorities. There is also an undercurrent that is critical of both the culture and religion from which this sentencing emanates. This also sustains the widespread publicity being given nationally to the issue. By way of contrast, the controversy caused by the forcible removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna has not significantly impacted upon the national consciousness. There was only passing mention of the incident in the national media which has been overtaken by other events.

However, in the north and east of the country, and in the diaspora, the removal of the Thileepan statue has become a major issue. It has led to protest marches led by university students and widespread condemnation by civil society and political groups. The issues underlying the Thileepan statue have deep undercurrents in the Tamil consciousness particularly in the north and east which time is unlikely to dispel. The real test of harmony in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Sri Lanka is not whether communities coexist peacefully when nothing controversial is at stake. Rather, the test is how they respond when an event touches their identities and grievances. The death sentence imposed on Anojan in Saudi Arabia and the removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna carry the risk of becoming grievances to entire communities.

In the case of Anojan, a young Tamil migrant worker, he was first sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of three million Saudi riyals over a Facebook comment. Both he and the Saudi prosecution appealed, with the appeal court raising the sentence to death. This has led to public sympathy for him in Sri Lanka.

Appeals for clemency have come from the President, government and opposition leaders, clergy of all faiths and Muslim political leaders. At the same time there is a need to reject attempts to turn the case into a source of anti-Muslim sentiment or collective blame. Peacebuilding therefore has to be within Sri Lanka as well as diplomatic. Religious leaders and civil society in the country should be ready to quell rumour, even as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian leaders stand together publicly.

Thileepan Statue

The Thileepan controversy has had a different trajectory. Many Tamils admire Thileepan, the LTTE name of Rasaiah Parthipan, who died on 26 September 1987 after a twelve-day fast. His demands were addressed to India but included matters pertaining to the Sri Lankan government including the release of detainees held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The statue put up during this year’s commemoration was removed by police in the early hours of 27 September, a day after the commemoration ended. The government’s legal concern, as articulated by its spokesperson, was the LTTE remains a proscribed organisation and before removing the statue, police had presented facts to the court. But law and memory answer different questions and the depth of Tamil anguish cannot be disregarded.

For many Tamils, remembrance of Thileepan is connected to their sense of loss and historical memory. The memorial has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once, and each destruction has added to the meaning it carries. Many who mourn Thileepan are grieving a young man who died without violence and by his own fast. They also grieve an era of loss of the struggle for Tamil rights and self-determination for which Thileepan has become a symbol. The Office for Reparations Act, No. 34 of 2018, provides for collective reparations and gives the Office for Reparations a role in policies on memorialisation. This does not automatically permit any particular statue, nor does it override laws on public places or proscribed organisations. But it shows that memorialisation is recognised within Sri Lanka’s framework for reparations and reconciliation. There is also a wider question of equality.

The JVP that now leads the NPP government was itself once proscribed when it took up arms against the state in which tens of thousands died, later entered democratic politics, and now for many years has publicly commemorated its own fallen. The opportunity to remember those who died should not belong to one community alone.

A commitment to peacebuilding requires that the same trust that has been given to former militants of one community needs to be given to members of other communities if equal citizenship and equal rights are to have meaning. Further, the Office for Reparations Act provides for reparations through livelihood. It is today a fact that those former LTTE members who went through the government’s rehabilitation process find it difficult to get jobs in the private sector.

Private sector employers are reluctant to come under surveillance for employing former LTTE members. There needs to be equal access to employment and removal of unjustified barriers to reintegration, with targeted public programmes where necessary. Until this situation is realized on the ground, the government needs to consider employing those who went through the government’s rehabilitation process and still unable to find suitable employment.

Continuing Peace

The challenge that post-war Sri Lanka faces, a full 17 years after the end of war, is to strengthen the foundations of trust between communities rather than deepen existing suspicions. Anojan is an individual Sri Lankan citizen facing a severe sentence in another country. His case should not become a reason to blame Sri Lankan Muslims. Thileepan is remembered differently by different communities, but the dispute over his memorial should not become a reason to revive the communal divisions of the past. The cases are also mirror images in an important respect. In the Anojan case, the state is an advocate pleading before another government. In the Thileepan case, the state is the actor whose decision is being judged. The first calls for quiet diplomacy and restraint in public language. The second calls for fairness and explanation, and the burden on the state is heavier.

The common roots of the two cases lie in mistrust that does not belong to one community alone. It has been produced by experiences of discrimination, violence, insecurity and loss that have been interpreted differently by different communities. Grievances turn communal when an individual is seen as a representative of a community, when institutions seem to treat communities unequally, and when people feel their pain goes unacknowledged. Each of these can be addressed. The system change that the Sri Lankan people voted for in 2024 would need to include a government that rejects collective blame, acknowledges grief and explains its decisions openly. It also requires state institutions to act transparently and consistently, so that no citizen feels that the law protects some communities more than others.

This peacebuilding imperative requires enlightened leadership as much as legal authority. It requires leaders who will speak to their own communities against prejudice, even when this is politically inconvenient. It requires religious leaders who will demonstrate solidarity across religious boundaries. And it requires civil society to recognise that peacebuilding is not simply preventing violence after tensions have risen, but is addressing the mistrust and grievances that allow tensions to rise in the first place. Sri Lanka has learned, at great cost, that communal divisions can become much larger than the events that initially give rise to them. The Anojan and Thileepan cases give Sri Lanka an opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned from its past. The test of Sri Lanka’s continuing peace is whether we can address difficult grievances without turning them into communal ones.

Features

Sri Lanka Cricket Bill: Governance reform is not yet a cricket strategy – Part II

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Sarath S. Kodithuwakku

President, Institute of Management of Sri Lanka; Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya

(Continued from yesterday)

Representation, Independence and Decision-Making

The membership-based electoral structure should provide representation without becoming a substitute for executive management. The seven Elected Directors would bring the perspectives of the SLC membership into the Board, while the seven Independent Directors would provide additional professional expertise and independence. The model’s effectiveness will, therefore, depend on whether the Board can integrate these perspectives into coherent strategic decisions while maintaining a clear boundary between governance and day-to-day management.

The equal division between Elected and Independent Directors also raises a governance-design question. An even-numbered Board can create a tie. The Bill addresses this directly: in the event of equality, the Chairperson has a casting vote; in the Chairperson’s absence, the Deputy Chairperson has a casting vote; and if both are absent, an Independent Director, elected to preside, has the casting vote. The issue is, therefore, not whether a tie can be resolved, but how this mechanism affects the balance between representation, independence and accountability.

The leadership structure reinforces this balance: the Chairperson is elected from among the Independent Directors and the Deputy Chairperson from among the Elected Directors. The casting-vote arrangement makes the Chairperson’s role and perceived independence particularly important, especially when a major strategic decision divides the two components of the Board.

The Bill’s committee provisions could support a disciplined model of delegation, but implementation will depend heavily on the terms of reference adopted by the new Board. The framework could be strengthened by requiring a published cricket-development strategy, a clear division of powers among the Board, executives and selection committees, transparent principles for major development allocations, and periodic reporting on outcomes across men’s, women’s, schools and domestic cricket. These measures would strengthen accountability without legislating the details of team selection or tournament scheduling.

From Measurement to Strategic Accountability

If the Board is to hold management accountable for strategy rather than simply for short-term results, it needs a performance framework that captures both outcomes and the capabilities that produce them.

SLC should consider requiring an explicit multi-year cricket-development strategy, supported by measurable objectives and an annual strategy review. Such a strategy should identify the development pathway from schools and grassroots cricket through domestic competitions to high performance; define major capability priorities such as coaching, sports science, data and analytics; set resource-allocation principles; and establish indicators against which progress can be assessed.

The purpose would not be to turn cricket into a bureaucratic exercise. Strategic accountability simply creates a disciplined basis for asking whether the organisation is doing what it said it would do, whether its assumptions remain valid, and whether resources are producing the intended results.

From Measurement to Organisational Learning

SLC should, therefore, consider adopting a formal Balanced Scorecard. Rather than measuring success solely through international match results or annual financial audits, the framework could track four interdependent perspectives:

Financial Sustainability:

commercial growth, financial discipline and compliance.

Internal Processes:

domestic tournament quality, development pathways and selector-process integrity.

Stakeholder Value:

grassroots development, school cricket and women’s cricket expansion.

Strategic Capability:

coaching quality, sports science, talent development, data and analytics capability, and the organisation’s ability to convert investment into sustainable performance.

The purpose of such a framework would not be to reduce cricket development to a collection of numbers. Rather, it would create a disciplined process for asking four fundamental management questions:

What did we expect to achieve?

What actually happened?

Why was there a difference?

What should we change as a result?

Evaluating these dimensions periodically would help SLC move beyond performance reporting towards genuine organisational learning.

ICC as a Stakeholder in Governance Reform

The ICC is another important stakeholder whose interests should be recognised in the reform process. SLC’s governance arrangements do not operate solely within Sri Lankan law; they also have to be compatible with the governance obligations associated with ICC membership. The ICC’s Articles of Association require each Member to provide for free and democratic elections (or nominees from outside its members) and to manage its affairs autonomously, without government or other public-body interference in the governance, regulation or administration of cricket.

International experience demonstrates that ICC engagement in member governance restructuring is not unusual. In the United States, after the ICC expelled the old national association for chronic governance failures, the ICC directly oversaw a multi-year project to design a new governance model. The ICC Board formally approved the constitution for a replacement body (USA Cricket) before it was adopted. The resulting structure combined elected constituent directors with independent directors, showing that an ICC-backed framework can accommodate both forms of representation.

In Nepal, the ICC established a Nepal Advisory Group comprising stakeholders from across the game to recommend constitutional amendments, with adoption of the revised constitution and subsequent elections forming part of the conditions for reinstatement of ICC membership.[8] The ICC subsequently facilitated an independent panel that included ICC nominees together with representatives of Nepal’s National Sports Council and the existing cricket administration to map the election process, guidelines and timelines.[9] More recently, in 2026, an ICC delegation visited Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.[10] The ICC has also reported that its Deputy Chair and another ICC Board representative visited Sri Lanka and met relevant stakeholders to assess ongoing developments, while the ICC Board reiterated the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

These precedents make the ICC a legitimate stakeholder in considering the governance implications of the proposed Bill. This does not mean that the ICC should determine Sri Lanka’s domestic legislation, nor that every feature of the Bill requires prior ICC approval. It does, however, suggest that early and formal engagement with the ICC would be prudent, particularly where the proposed arrangements concern Board independence, elections, government involvement and the transition to the new governance structure.

This is particularly relevant because the Bill creates two institutional arrangements that deserve careful scrutiny from an autonomy perspective. The Transformation Committee is responsible for managing the transition until the First Board is constituted, while the Nomination Committee, although structurally independent of the SLC Board, includes representatives connected with the Sports Ministry and the National Sports Council. Neither arrangement, by itself, establishes government interference. However, taken together, they make it important that the independence of the incoming Board is demonstrable through transparent procedures rather than assumed from the structure alone.

Given the professional calibre and international exposure of the members of the Transformation Committee, it would be reasonable to expect that the importance of ICC engagement would have been recognised. Although any such consultation has not been evident in the public domain, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the ICC has either already been consulted or will be consulted before the Bill is enacted. Such engagement would allow potential incompatibilities to be identified before the new structure is enacted and implemented, rather than after the fact.

The Transition Is Itself a Governance Challenge

The transition provisions introduce a significant organisational-change challenge. Replacing the existing club- and association-based governance structure with a new hybrid Board and governance architecture is not simply a legal exercise; it is an organisational change programme. The Sri Lanka Cricket Transformation Committee is required to manage the transition until the First Board is constituted and, during that period, to establish rules covering matters including tournament structure, domestic governance, selection committee appointments, committee terms of reference, the Nomination Committee process and the election of the Elected Directors.

Structural reform on paper can encounter resistance from established interests, institutional habits and existing routines. The implementation phase will therefore require a clear change-management framework, including stakeholder engagement, transparent onboarding for Independent Directors, clarification of decision rights, alignment of legacy committees, and careful transfer of information and responsibilities.

Without attention to these organisational factors, cultural friction could undermine the intended administrative improvements. The success of the reform will therefore depend not only on the text of the legislation but also on the quality of the rules, appointments, delegation arrangements and organisational behaviours that follow it.

From Governance Reform to a Cricket Strategy

The Bill deserves credit for addressing how SLC is constituted and for creating places for specialist advice. It should not be dismissed simply because it does not prescribe a batting order or a domestic fixture list. Those are not appropriate tasks for legislation.

Its limitation is more precise: the proposed governance arrangements do not, by themselves, assure the strategic capability of the Board or the quality, independence and accountability of the decisions made beneath it. They establish the architecture. The future Board and management must supply the strategy, capabilities, discipline and learning mechanisms that make the architecture work.

A stronger reform would connect four elements: a Board selected for collective strategic capability; professional cricket management with clear delegated authority; transparent but non-mechanical selection and investment processes; and systematic evaluation of development outcomes. Within the first of these, information technology and computer science should be recognised as distinct from the broader capability to understand and govern data science, analytics and emerging AI-enabled decision support.

Ultimately, the governing question is not only who gets a seat at the SLC Board table. It is whether that Board can build, fund, execute and learn from a credible strategy for Sri Lankan cricket.

References

1. Department of Government Printing, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Cricket Bill, Gazette Supplement, Part II of September 25, 2026, issued on 28 September 2026.

2. International Cricket Council. Media release, 15 July 2026, reporting the ICC Board discussion of Sri Lanka Cricket and the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

3. Sport New Zealand – Ihi Aotearoa. Nine Steps to Effective Governance, particularly Step 1: Define and Agree the Board’s Role; Step 4: Provide Strategic Leadership; Step 5: Employ and Support a Chief Executive; and Step 8: Get the Right People on Board.

4. Cricket South Africa. Governance and management frameworks, including the delegation-of-authority framework, Board committees, Cricket Committee, Cricket Pipeline Committee and CEO accountability.

5. International Cricket Council. ICC Articles of Association, provisions requiring free and democratic elections and autonomous administration without government or other public-body interference. ICC. https://images.icc-cricket.com/image/upload/prd/f7vm88yw1933dc38cgtg.pdf

6. International Cricket Council. “ICC outlines proposed USACA constitution.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/icc-outlines-proposed-usaca-constitution

7. International Cricket Council. “Approved constitution marks historic landmark for cricket in USA.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/approved-constitution-marks-historic-landmark-for-cricket-in-usa

8. International Cricket Council. “ICC welcomes Nepal Special General Meeting to adopt revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-welcomes-nepal-special-general-meeting-to-adopt-revised-constitution

9. International Cricket Council. “Independent Panel meet to progress Nepal elections under revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/independent-panel-meet-to-progress-nepal-elections-under-revised-constitution

10. International Cricket Council. “ICC delegation visits Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.” ICC, 2026. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-delegation-visits-bangladesh-to-engage-with-stakeholders-on-governance-and-electoral-matters

11. International Cricket Council. “ICC Board approves governance, membership and member support decisions.” ICC, 2026; see also “ICC Board Meeting,” 2026, reporting ICC representatives’ meetings with stakeholders in Sri Lanka. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-board-approves-governance-membership-and-member-support-decisions

(Concluded)