Features

Dining at the Victorian Bar and some racist encounters

Published

3 years ago

2023/02/26

Thilina Walpola

Excerpted from A Life In The Law

by Nimal Wikramanayake

When I joined the Victorian Bar I wasn’t quite sure whether to attend the Annual Victorian Bar dinners. I thought that they might be the same rowdy affairs as they were in Ceylon. I had not attended the Bar dinner for 40 years until I received a wonderful invitation from that gracious lady, Melanie Sloss, then Chairperson of the Victorian Bar Council, and now a Supreme Court judge.

As I mentioned earlier, late in 1975 a number of us decided to leave the Calnin list and form a new list, the Duncan list. Dick McGarvie QC was our new chairman and Leo Lazarus QC was the vice-chairman. Dick decided to have a dinner so that he could meet and become acquainted the members of his new list.

The dinner was held, as far as I can recollect, in February 1976. Considerable quantities of alcohol were consumed by the new members before and during dinner. After dinner Dick McGarvie got up to speak. There were a number of inebriated rowdy barristers at this dinner. Several of them started shouting and bellowing “shut up” and “sit down” and made rude comments which I will not reproduce here.

With considerable aplomb, Dick stretched his hands out and said, “Gentlemen, please, no applause. Please no applause. You can applaud my speech when I finish.” This statement was greeted with roars of laughter and Dick went on with his speech uninterrupted. Afterwards he walked around and introduced himself to all the members of the new list. He walked up to my friend John Bolton and said, “My name is McGarvie.”

Bolton replied, “Arsehole, I’m not interested in your surname, what the fuck’s your Christian name?”

This story does not end there, for a month later Dick McGarvie was appointed to the Supreme Court. And who do you think appeared in the first case before Dick McGarvie? Bolton! Fortunately for Bolton, Dick McGarvie was a wonderful gentleman and he was extremely cordial to Bolton when he appeared before him.

Dick was no pushover. I remember one day appearing before him in the Practice Court when a young barrister turned up at 10.45 am to find that his case had been dismissed for non-appearance. He apologized to Dick and told him that he was sorry he was late but his watch was slow. Dick looked at him and asked, “What is the time on your watch now?” The young barrister went red in the face and started stammering. Dick told him never again to try to pull that chestnut on him.

The years rolled by and in 1982, although I had been at the Bar only ten years, I was appointed chairman of the Wayne Duncan list. We decided to have our annual dinner at a restaurant in Queen’s Road, which had formerly been a large family home. The meal was excellent, the speeches were good and we all had a good time. But, as usual, after the dinner, things began to deteriorate considerably. I was chatting with a few of my friends when someone came running up and told me that there was a disturbance between two barristers. Again, you must pardon me if I provide you with their names, for a good story is useless without names attached to it.

I was called to the disturbance to see a flaming row going on between the late Peter Jones and Betty King. I hope Betty will pardon me, as she has now retired as judge of the Supreme Court. Betty was sobbing and crying at the time. When I asked her what happened she told me that Peter Jones had flung her expensive shoes out of the hotel dining room and into the car park. It transpired that while Betty and Peter were having a dreadful row, Betty had pulled off one of her shoes to hit Peter with it. Peter promptly picked her shoe up and threw it out of the restaurant window, at which Betty pulled off the other shoe and tried to hit him; it suffered the same fate.

Several of us then went into the car park and spent about twenty minutes until we finally found Betty’s shoes. ‘thus list dinners in Victoria may sometimes, and I emphasize sometimes, be as bad as the Voet Lights dinners in Ceylon.

But don’t get me wrong, I had some very good times and some very interesting times at the list dinners. If one were to listen to the news every day, there is no good news reported on, because good news is not newsworthy. People would turn their television or radio sets off if they saw or heard about a couple walking happily through the Flagstaff Gardens. This is something I did regularly in my early years at the Bar with my two dear friends, Clive Rosen and Tony Lopes. In summer we would walk to the gardens and sit down to eat our sandwiches. But this is not newsworthy. It is thoroughly boring.

In 1982, my friend David Levin informed me that a young lad had arrived from England and wanted to join the Victorian Bar. He asked me if I could have him as a reader. His name was Richard Phillips and had been at the English Bar for a year. Richard’s period off reading with me was uneventful, save for one interesting incident. He would keep calling me “Nimal” as in “Malcolm’: I kept telling him that my name was “Nimull” as in “Mull” of Kintyre. I told him that “Nimal” a was Sanskrit word, and that Sanskrit was the mother of most European languages, coming from Mohenjo Daro in Central Asia over 5,000 years ago.

Richard looked at me, grinned and told me that I did not look 5,000 years old. Sadly, Richard Phillips died last year in the prime of his life. I expected my reader to bury me; I did not expect to have to bury him.

In September 1986, my second young man, Grant Holley, came to read with me. Life with my new reader was uneventful, save that when I moved rooms early in 1987, he moved all my law books by carrying about fifteen books at a time in his arms. He was and still is a delightful gent.

Racism at the Victorian Bar

Racism is an interesting topic and is usually spoken about in this country in hushed tones. However it has suddenly reared its ugly head in this wonderful country of ours. And thank God for that.According to some Queensland senators in the National Party, it would appear to be non-existent in Australia. Some Australians will never admit that they are racist, and racism is unfortunately swept under the carpet. In 2004, a neighbour of mine on the ninth floor of Owen Dixon Chambers West told me that he finds it quite distressing when he goes to see his parents-in-law. They are both bigoted and racist, and often talk in disparaging tones about migrants, whether black, brown, yellow or white.

A human being’s unusual physical features, be it a man or a woman, can always be the subject of derision. A fat man, a shortsighted woman, a boss-eyed person, a hunchback are all the subject of twisted humour by their more fortunate peers. Colour has always been brought into this equation. Does the fact that one person has peculiar physical features make the other person without these characteristics a better or superior person? Is a person with dark skin inferior to a person with white skin?

John Howard said Australians are not racist. I beg to disagree. A fair number of Australians are racist although a large number aren’t. It reminds me of an incident that occurred in the late 1940s in Ceylon. We had all gone to see and hear the famous Methodist preacher, Dr Leslie Weatherhead, speaking. After he finished his talk he called for questions. A friend of mine who fancied himself a humourist got up and asked Dr Weatherhead, “Can Christians dance?” It was a poorly phrased question and Dr Weatherhead came back quickly with this answer: “Some can, some can’t:’ My friend disappeared from the hall quite sheepishly, followed by loud applause.

The Australian male often delights in denigrating a man or woman with a darker complexion. His humour is both callous and insensitive, and he may not be aware of the hurt he is causing because he thinks his remarks are funny. Some white members of parliament who have not been the subject of racial innuendo want to amend the Racial Discrimination Act so that I can be called a “nig-nog” without any adverse repercussions. Fortunately I have had only a few bad experiences of racism at the Victorian Bar during a career of over 40 years, but these experiences are more than enough.

My friend Tony Lopes, who unfortunately has now left the Bar, had a room on the seventh floor of Owen Dixon Chambers in the 1970s. I would often go up to his room to talk to him or he would come down to my room on the third floor to visit me. On the seventh floor there was a barrister who was known as “Fascist Bob” because of his foul mouth. Whenever I went up to see Tony Lopes, Fascist Bob would say, “Hello, blackie!” This was the normal way in which he greeted me. I could never fathom why he greeted me like this. I did not pay much attention to it as it was just a fleeting greeting and I rarely saw him.

However, in 1982 Fascist Bob got a room on the third floor where I had my chambers. Shortly after he arrived on my floor, I was coming out of the lavatory when I met Fascist Bob. He said, “Hello, blackie’

I was angry and I knew that I had to nip this behaviour in the bud. I said, “Good God, if you are the epitome of the white Anglo-Saxon race, God help your race, because you are an ugly-looking bastard. In fact, I am much better looking than you,” and I walked away.

A few days later we met again in the lavatory and Fascist Bob opened the batting by repeating, “Hello, blackie.”

I replied, “You’re the sort of skunk who, if he saw a hunchback, boss-eyed girl, would say, ‘Jesus Christ, what an ugly-looking bitch you are:”

Fascist Bob said, “What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” I retorted, “What has my colour got to do with the price of fish?” and walked off.

A few days later we again met in the lavatory. This would appear to be our only meeting place. And he began by saying, “Hello blackie:’

I was very angry and told him I was getting pretty fed up with this and to stop it at once. All this occurred, I believe, in the year 1984 when Owen Dixon Chambers West had just been completed.

Early in 1984 a room had been advertised for viewing by members of the Bar who wished to take rooms in Owen Dixon Chambers West. A number of us on the third floor decided to go over and have a look at these rooms.

They were Maurice Phipps, now a Federal Court magistrate, John Coleman of counsel and his secretary Judy as well as another secretary, and a lady barrister, Rose Weinberg, the wife of Justice Weinberg, formerly of the Court of Appeal. I also went up to see this room. There was insufficient bookshelf space and I remarked to the person who was showing us around, “There aren’t many bookshelves in this room”

Just then Fascist Bob walked in and said, “A black bastard like you with no brains, what do you need bookshelves for?”

I was livid and just exploded. Maurice Phipps and John Coleman had to escort me out of the room. I wonder whether Phipps and Coleman remember this incident as it happened over 35 years ago. Unfortunately, Robert Johnstone is dead and cannot contradict my version of the events.

After this encounter, whenever Fascist Bob tried to talk to me I would stop, look him up and down, insult him and walk away. Maurice Phipps should remember this because he was in the room opposite me and spent a considerable amount of time trying to pacify me and get me to make up with Fascist Bob. I steadfastly refused to do this for over a year. Instead, I would make it a point to insult him. He never called me “blackie” again. I remember John Coleman also trying to patch up this quarrel.

I experienced several nasty incidents of racism with ‘ABC” He came to the Bar in the early 1970s and considered himself to be eccentric. I met him one day near the lift in Owen Dixon Chambers and he suddenly blurted out, “Hello Sambo, down from your tree?” I was completely shattered by this unnecessary and unseemly remark. I quickly left the foyer. I met him a few days later again in chambers, and we were walking towards each other when he repeated his remark: “Hello Sambo, down from your tree?”

I said, “ABC, I came down from my tree 5,000 years before you did. For if you remember your history, Mohenjo Daro in Central Asia is the cradle of civilisation.” I walked away in disgust.A few days later I went up to the coffee bar on the 13th floor to get myself a cup of coffee. There was a long table adjacent to the coffee bar and seated at it were a number of barristers. I remember three of them – Robert Richter, Boris Kayser and, of course, our young hero, ABC. ABC shouted out, “Hello Sambo!”

I had had enough and walked up to him. “What did you say?” He began to reply when Robert Richter told him, “ABC, look, you had no business talking to Nimal like that’

This incident happened over 40 years ago; I wonder whether either Robert or Boris remembers it. I pulled a chair up to their table and sat down, looked ABC in the eye and asked, “How old are you?”I believe he replied “Twenty-four.” I then proceeded to dress him down in language which cannot be repeated here. The incident cannot be denied.

As I was putting these incidents with ABC in writing, I decided to investigate this matter further. I telephoned Robert Richter and discussed this incident. Robert had a clear recollection of the incident. However he told me that unfortunate as this incident was, ABC had a warped sense of humour and a bad mouth. This was ABC at his worst. He thought he was being funny. Robert told me that he had cautioned him on numerous occasions about his bad mouth. He told me that ABC did not have a racist bone in his body. He was a strong supporter of Aboriginal rights and had been for many, many years. Why then did he have to hurt me?

I was invited to an exhibition of paintings on the thirteenth floor in 1982. I took my wife, Anna Maria, along with me and we walked into the exhibition. Who do you think we saw? It was our hero wearing a Singapore rickshaw coolie’s long blue shirt. I burst out laughing when I saw him and I told Anna Maria, “Look who’s here? It’s that racist shit, ABC.”

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

22 mins ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Rohana Wijeweera

It is also different from all past governments as it faces new and different challenges

No one knows whether the already broken ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Israel as a reluctant adjunct, will last the full 10 days, or what will come thereafter. The world’s economic woes are not over and the markets are yo-yoing in response to Trump’s twitches and Iran’s gate keeping at the Strait of Hormuz. The gloomy expert foretelling is that full economic normalcy will not return until the year is over even if the war were to end with the ceasefire. That means continuing challenges for Sri Lanka and more of the tough learning in the art of governing for the NPP.

The NPP government has been doing what most governments in Asia have been doing to cope with the current global crisis, which is also an Asian crisis insofar as oil supplies and other supply chains are concerned. What the government can and must do additionally is to be totally candid with the people and keep them informed of everything that it is doing – from monitoring import prices to the timely arranging of supplies, all the details of tender, the tracking of arrivals, and keeping the distribution flow through the market without bottlenecks. That way the government can eliminate upstream tender rackets and downstream hoarding swindles. People do not expect miracles from their government, only honest, sincere and serious effort in difficult circumstances. Backed up by clear communication and constant public engagement.

But nothing is going to stop the flow of criticisms against the NPP government. That is a fact of Sri Lankan politics. Even though the opposition forces are weak and have little traction and even less credibility, there has not been any drought in the criticisms levelled against the still fledgling government. These criticisms can be categorized as ideological, institutional and oppositional criticisms, with each category having its own constituency and/or commentators. The three categories invariably overlap and there are instances of criticisms that excite only the pundits but have no political resonance.

April 5 anniversary nostalgia

There is also a new line of criticism that might be inspired by the April 5 anniversary nostalgia for the 1971 JVP insurrection. This new line traces the NPP government to the distant roots of the JVP – its April 1965 founding “in a working-class home in Akmeemana, Galle” by a 22-year old Rohana Wijeweera and seven others; the short lived 1971 insurrection that was easily defeated; and the much longer and more devastating second (1987 to 1989) insurrection that led to the elimination of the JVP’s frontline leaders including Wijeweera, and brought about a change in the JVP’s political direction with commitment to parliamentary democracy. So far, so good, as history goes.

But where the nostalgic narrative starts to bend is in attempting a straight line connection from the 1965 Akmeemana origins of the JVP to the national electoral victories of the NPP in 2024. And the bend gets broken in trying to bridge the gap between the “founding anti-imperialist economics” of the JVP and the practical imperatives of the NPP government in “governing a debt-laden small open economy.” Yet this line of criticism differs from the other lines of criticism that I have alluded to, but more so for its moral purpose than for its analytical clarity. The search for clarity could begin with question – why is the NPP government more than a JVP offspring? The answer is not so simple, but it is also not too complicated.

For starters, the JVP was a political response to the national and global conditions of the 1960s and 1970s, piggybacking socialism on the bandwagon of ethno-nationalism in a bi-polar world that was ideologically split between status quo capitalism and the alternative of socialism. The NPP government, on the other hand, is not only a response to, but is also a product of the conditions of the 2010s and 2020s. The twain cannot be more different. Nothing is the same between then and now, locally and globally.

A pragmatic way to look at the differences between the origins of the JVP and the circumstances of the NPP government is to look at the very range of criticisms that are levelled against the NPP government. What I categorize as ideological criticisms include criticisms of the government’s pro-IMF and allegedly neo-liberal economic policies, as well as the government’s foreign policy stances – on Israel, on the current US-Israel war against Iran, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, and the apparent closeness to the Modi government in India. These criticisms emanate from the non-JVP left and Sinhala Buddhist nationalists.

Strands of nationalism

To digress briefly, there are several strands in the overall bundle of Sri Lankan nationalism. There is the liberal inclusive strand, the left-progressive strand, the exclusive Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist (SBN) strand, and the defensive strands of minority nationalisms. Given Sri Lanka’s historical political formations and alliances, much overlapping goes on between the different strands. The overlapping gets selective on an issue by issue basis, which in itself is not unwelcome insofar as it promotes plurality in place of exclusivity.

Historically as well, and certainly after 1956, the SBN strand has been the dominant strand of nationalism in Sri Lanka and has had the most influential say in every government until now. Past versions of the JVP frequently straddled the dominant SBN space. Currently, however, the dominant SBN strand is in one of its more dormant phases and the NPP government could be a reason for the current dormancy. This is an obvious difference between the old JVP and the new NPP.

A second set of criticisms, or institutional criticisms, emanate from political liberals and human rights activists and these are about the NPP government’s actions or non-actions in regard to constitutional changes, the future of the elected executive presidency, the status of provincial devolution and the timing of provincial council elections, progress on human rights issues, the resolution of unfinished postwar businesses including the amnesia over mass graves. These criticisms and the issues they represent are also in varying ways the primary concerns of the island’s Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaka (planntationn) Tamils. As with the overlapping between the left and the non-minority nationalists, there is also overlapping between the liberal activists and minority representatives.

A third category includes what might be called oppositional criticisms and they counterpose the JVP’s past against the NPP’s present, call into question the JVP’s commitment to multi-party democracy and raise alarms about a creeping constitutional dictatorship. This category also includes criticisms of the NPP government’s lack of governmental experience and competence; alleged instances of abuse of power, mismanagement and even corruption; alleged harassment of past politicians; and the failure to find the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter bombings. At a policy and implementational level, there have been criticisms of the government’s educational reforms and electricity reforms, the responses to cyclone Ditwah, and the current global oil and economic crises. The purveyors of oppositional criticisms are drawn from the general political class which includes political parties, current and past parliamentarians, as well as media pundits.

Criticisms as expectations

What is common to all three categories of criticisms is that they collectively represent what were understood to be promises by the NPP before the elections, and have become expectations of the NPP government after the elections. It is the range and nature of these criticisms and the corresponding expectations that make the NPP government a lot more than a mere JVP offspring, and significantly differentiate it from every previous government.

The deliverables that are expected of the NPP government were never a part of the vocabulary of the original JVP platform and programs. The very mode of parliamentary politics was ideologically anathema to the JVP of Akmeemana. And there was no mention of or concern for minority rights, or constitutional reforms. On foreign policy, it was all India phobia without Anglo mania – a halfway variation of Sri Lanka’s mainstream foreign policy of Anglo mania and India phobia. For a party of the rural proletariat, the JVP was virulently opposed to the plantation proletariat. The JVP’s version of anti-imperialist economics would hardly have excited the Sri Lankan electorate at any time, and certainly not at the present time.

At the same time, the NPP government is also the only government that has genealogical antecedents to a political movement or organization like the JVP. That in itself makes the NPP government unique among Sri Lanka’s other governments. The formation of the NPP is the culmination of the evolution of the JVP that began after the second insurrection with the shedding of political violence, acceptance of political plurality and commitment to electoral democracy.

But the evolution was not entirely a process of internal transformation. It was also a response to a rapidly and radically changing circumstances both within Sri Lanka and beyond. This evolution has not been a rejection of the founding socialist purposes of the JVP in 1968, but their adaptation in the endless political search, under constantly changing conditions, for a non-violent, socialist and democratic framework that would facilitate the full development of the human potential of all Sri Lankans.

The burden of expectations is unmistakable, but what is also remarkable is their comprehensiveness and the NPP’s formal commitment to all of them at the same time. No previous government shouldered such an extensive burden or showed such a willing commitment to each and every one of the expectations. In the brewing global economic crisis, the criticisms, expectations and the priorities of the government will invariably be focussed on keeping the economy alive and alleviating the day-to-day difficulties of millions of Sri Lankan families. While what the NPP government can and must do may not differ much from what other Asian governments – from Pakistan to Vietnam – are doing, it could and should do better than what any and all past Sri Lankan governments did when facing economic challenges.

by Rajan Philips

Features

A Fragile Ceasefire: Pakistan’s Glory and Israel’s Sabotage

Published

31 mins ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Smokes over Beirut: Israel’s Ceasefire Attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon

After threatening to annihilate one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, TACO* Trump chickened out again by grasping the ceasefire lifeline that Pakistan had assiduously prepared. Trump needed the ceasefire badly to stem the mounting opposition to the war in America. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted the war to continue because he needed it badly for his political survival. So, he contrived a fiction and convinced Trump that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire. Trump as usual may not have noticed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Shariff had clearly indicated Lebanon’s inclusion in his announcement of the ceasefire at 7:50 PM, Tuesday, on X. Ten minutes before Donald Trump’s fake deadline.

True to form on Wednesday, Israel unleashed the heaviest assault by far on Lebanon, reportedly killing over 300 people, the highest single-day death toll in the current war. Iran responded by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz and questioning the need for talks in Islamabad over the weekend. There were other incidents as well, with an oil refinery attacked in Iran, and Iranian drones and missiles slamming oil and gas infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The US tried to insist that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, with the argumentative US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Budapest, Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban, calling the whole thing a matter of “bad faith negotiation” as well as “legitimate misunderstanding” on the part of Iran, and warning Iran that “it would be dumb to jeopardise its ceasefire with Washington over Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.”

But as the attack in Lebanon drew international condemnation – from Pope Leo to UN Secretary General António Guterres, and several world leaders, and amidst fears of Lebanon becoming another Gaza with 1,500 people including 130 children killed and more than a million people displaced, Washington got Israel to stop its “lawn mowing” in southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to “open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,”. Lebanese President Joeseph Aoun has also called for “a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, followed by direct negotiations between them.” Israel’s involvement in Lebanon remains a wild card that threatens the ceasefire and could scuttle the talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad.

Losers and Winners

After the ceasefire, both the Trump Administration and Iran have claimed total victories while the Israeli government wants the war to continue. The truth is that after more than a month into nonstop bombing of Iran, America and Israel have won nothing. Only Iran has won something it did not have when Trump and Netanyahu started their war. Iran now has not only a say over but control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire acknowledges this. Both Trump and Netanyahu are under fire in their respective countries and have no allies in the world except one another.

The real diplomatic winner is Pakistan. Salman Rushdie’s palimpsest-country has emerged as a key player in global politics and an influential mediator in a volatile region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Field Marshal Asim Munir have both been praised by President Trump and credited for achieving the current ceasefire. The Iranian regime has also been effusive in its praise of Pakistan’s efforts.

It is Pakistan that persisted with the effort after initial attempts at backdoor diplomacy by Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye started floundering. Sharing a 900 km border and deep cultural history with Iran, and having a skirmish of its own on the eastern front with Afghanistan, Pakistan has all the reason to contain and potentially resolve the current conflict in Iran. Although a majority Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is home to the second largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, and is the easterly terminus of the Shia Arc that stretches from Lebanon. The country also has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that includes Pakistan’s nuclear cover for the Kingdom. An open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have put Pakistan in a dangerously awkward position.

It is now known and Trump has acknowledged that China had a hand in helping Iran get to the diplomatic table. Pakistan used its connections well to get Chinese diplomatic reinforcement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Beijing to brief his Chinese counterpart and secured China’s public support for the diplomatic efforts. The visit produced a Five-Point Plan that became a sequel to America’s 15-point proposal and the eventual ten-point offer by Iran.

There is no consensus between parties as to which points are where and who is agreeing to what. The chaos is par for the course the way Donald Trumps conducts global affairs. So, all kudos to Pakistan for quietly persisting with old school toing and froing and producing a semblance of an agreement on a tweet without a parchment.

It is also noteworthy that Israel has been excluded from all the diplomatic efforts so far. And it is remarkable, but should not be surprising, the way Trump has sidelined Isreal from the talks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been enjoying overwhelming support of Israelis for starting the war of his life against Iran and getting the US to spearhead it. But now the country is getting confused and is exposed to Iranian missiles and drones far more than ever before. The Israeli opposition is finally coming alive realizing what little has Netanyahu’s wars have achieved and at what cost. Israel has alienated a majority of Americans and has no ally anywhere else.

It will be a busy Saturday in Islamabad, where the US and Iranian delegations are set to meet. Iran would seem to have insisted and secured the assurance that the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance, while including Trump’s personal diplomats – Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran has not announced its team but it is expected to be led, for protocol parity, by Iran’s Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and will likely include its suave Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Vice President Vance’s attendance will be the most senior US engagement with Iran since Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal under President Obama.

The physical arrangements for the talks are still not public although Islamabad has been turned into a security fortress given the stakes and risks involved. The talks are expected to be ‘indirect’, with the two delegations in separate rooms and Pakistani officials shuttling between them. The status of Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be the major points of contention. After Netanyahu’s overreach on Wednesday, Lebanon is also on the short list

The 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) took months of negotiations and involved multiple parties besides the US and Iran, including China, France, Germany, UK, Russia and the EU. That served the cause of regional and world peace well until Trump tore up the deal to spite Obama. It would be too much to expect anything similar after a weekend encounter in Islamabad. But if the talks could lead to at least a permanent ceasefire and the return to diplomacy that would be a huge achievement.

(*As of 2025–2026, Donald Trump is nicknamed “TACO Trump” by Wall Street traders and investors as an acronym for “”. This term highlights a perceived pattern of him making strong tariff threats that cause market panic, only to later retreat or weaken them, causing a rebound.)

by Rajan Philips

Features

CIA’s hidden weapon in Iran

Published

31 mins ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

We are passing through the ten-day interregnum called a ceasefire over the War on Iran. The world may breathe briefly, but this pause is not reassurance—it is a deliberate interlude, a vacuum in which every actor positions for the next escalation. Iran is far from secure. Behind the veneer of calm, external powers and local forces are preparing, arming, and coordinating. The United States is unlikely to deploy conventional ground troops; the next moves will be executed through proxies whose behaviour will defy expectation. These insurgents are shaped, guided, and amplified by intelligence and technology, capable of moving silently, striking precisely, and vanishing before retaliation. The ceasefire is not peace—it is the prelude to disruption.

The Kurds, historically instruments of Tehran against Baghdad, are now vectors for the next insurgency inside Iran. This movement is neither organic nor local. It is externally orchestrated, with the CIA as the principal architect. History provides the blueprint: under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kurdish uprisings were manipulated, never supported out of sympathy. They were instruments of leverage against Iraq, a way to weaken a rival while projecting influence beyond Iran’s borders. Colonel Isa Pejman, Iranian military intelligence officer who played a role in Kurdish affairs, recalled proposing support for a military insurgency in Iraq, only for the Shah to respond coldly: “[Mustafa] Barzani killed my Army soldiers… please forget it. The zeitgeist and regional context have been completely transformed.” The Kurds were pawns, but pawns with strategic weight. Pejman later noted: “When the Shah wrote on the back of the letter ‘Accepted’ to General Pakravan, I felt I was the true leader of the Kurdish movement.” The seeds planted then are now being activated under new, technologically empowered auspices.

Iran’s geographic vulnerabilities make this possible. The Shah understood the trap: a vast territory with porous borders, squeezed by Soviet pressure from the north and radical Arab states from the west. “We are in a really terrible situation since Moscow’s twin pincers coming down through Kabul and Baghdad surround us,” he warned Asadollah Alam. From Soviet support for the Mahabad Republic to Barzani’s dream of a unified Kurdistan, Tehran knew an autonomous Kurdish bloc could destabilize both Iraq and Iran. “Since the formation of the Soviet-backed Mahabad Republic, the Shah had been considerably worried about the Kurdish threat,” a US assessment concluded.

Today, the Kurds’ significance is operational, not symbolic. The CIA’s recent rescue of a downed F-15 airman using Ghost Murmur, a quantum magnetometry system, demonstrated the reach of technology in intelligence operations. The airman survived two days on Iranian soil before extraction. This was not a simple rescue; it was proof that highly mobile, technologically augmented operations can penetrate Iranian territory with surgical precision. The same logic applies to insurgency preparation: when individuals can be tracked through electromagnetic signatures, AI-enhanced surveillance, and drones, proxy forces can be armed, guided, and coordinated with unprecedented efficiency. The Kurds are no longer pawns—they are a living network capable of fracturing Iranian cohesion while providing deniability to foreign powers.

Iran’s engagement with Iraqi Kurds was always containment, not empowerment. The Shah’s goal was never Kurdish independence. “We do not approve an independent [Iraqi] Kurdistan,” he stated explicitly. Yet their utility as instruments of regional strategy was undeniable. The CIA’s revival of these networks continues a long-standing pattern: insurgent groups integrated into the wider calculus of international power. Israel, Iran, and the Kurds formed a triangular strategic relationship that terrified Baghdad. “For Baghdad, an Iranian-Israeli-Kurdish triangular alliance was an existential threat,” contemporary reports noted. This is the template for modern manipulation: a networked insurgency, externally supported, capable of destabilizing regimes from within while giving foreign powers plausible deniability.

Iran today faces fragility. Years of sanctions, repression, and targeted strikes have weakened educational and scientific hubs; Sharif University in Tehran, one of the country’s leading scientific centres, was bombed. Leaders, scholars, and innovators have been eliminated. Military readiness is compromised. Generations-long setbacks leave Iran exposed. Against this backdrop, a Kurdish insurgency armed with drones, AI-supported surveillance, and precision munitions could do more than disrupt—it could fracture the state internally. The current ten-day ceasefire is a mirage; the next wave of revolt is already being orchestrated.

CIA involvement is deliberate. Operations are coordinated with allied intelligence agencies, leveraging Kurdish grievances, mobility, and ethnolinguistic networks. The Kurds’ spread across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria provides operational depth—allowing insurgents to strike, vanish, and regroup with impunity. Barzani understood leverage decades ago: “We could be useful to the United States… Look at our strategic location on the flank of any possible Soviet advance into the Middle East.” Today, the calculation is inverted: Kurds are no longer instruments against Baghdad; they are potential disruptors inside Tehran itself.

Technology is central. Ghost Murmur’s ability to detect a single heartbeat remotely exemplifies how intelligence can underpin insurgent networks. Drones, satellite communications, AI predictive modeling, and battlefield sensors create an infrastructure that can transform a dispersed Kurdish insurgency into a high-precision operation. Iran can no longer rely on fortifications or loyalty alone; the external environment has been recalibrated by technology.

History provides the roadmap. The Shah’s betrayal of Barzani after the 1975 Algiers Agreement demonstrated that external actors can manipulate both Iranian ambitions and Kurdish loyalties. “The Shah sold out the Kurds,” Yitzhak Rabin told Kissinger. “We could not station our troops there and keep fighting forever,” the Shah explained to Alam. The Kurds are a pivot, not a cause. Networks once acting under Tehran’s influence are now being repurposed against it.

The insurgency exploits societal fissures. Kurdish discontent in Iran, suppressed for decades, provides fertile ground. Historical betrayal fuels modern narratives: “Barzani claimed that ‘Isa Pejman sold us out to the Shah and the Shah sold us out to the US.’” Intelligence agencies weaponize these grievances, pairing them with training, technological augmentation, and covert support.

Geopolitically, the stakes are immense. The Shah’s defensive-offensive doctrine projected Iranian influence outward to neutralize threats. Today, the logic is inverted: the same networks used to contain Iraq are being readied to contain Iran. A technologically augmented Kurdish insurgency, covertly backed, could achieve in months what decades of sanctions, diplomacy, or repression have failed to accomplish.

The operation will be asymmetric, high-tech, and dispersed. UAVs, quantum-enhanced surveillance, encrypted communications, and AI-directed logistics will dominate. Conventional Iranian forces are vulnerable to this type of warfare. As Pejman reflected decades ago, “Our Army was fighting there, rather than the Kurds who were harshly defeated… How could we keep such a place?” Today, the challenge is magnified by intelligence superiority on the insurgents’ side.

This is not a temporary flare-up. The CIA and its allies are constructing a generational network of influence. Experience from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon proves these networks endure once operationalised. The Shah recognized this: “Iran’s non-state foreign policy under the Shah’s reign left a lasting legacy for the post-Revolution era.” Today, those instruments are being remade as vectors of foreign influence inside Iran.

The future is stark. Iran faces not simply external threats, but a carefully engineered insurgency exploiting historical grievances, technological superiority, and precise intelligence. The Kurds are central. History, technology, and geopolitical calculation converge to create a transformative threat. Tehran’s miscalculations, betrayals, and suppressed grievances now form the lattice for this insurgency. The Kurds are positioned not just as an ethnic minority, but as a vector of international strategy—Tehran may be powerless to stop it.

Iran’s containment strategies have been weaponized, fused with technology, and inverted against it. The ghosts of Barzani’s Peshmerga, the shadows of Algiers, and the Shah’s strategic vision now converge with Ghost Murmur, drones, and AI. Tehran faces a paradox: the instruments it once controlled are now calibrated to undermine its authority. The next Kurdish revolt will not only fight in the mountains but in the electromagnetic shadows where intelligence operates, consequences are lethal, and visibility is scarce.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa