Midweek Review

How Premadasa’s ill-conceived strategies undermined Wanasinghe’s Army

Published

10 months ago

2025/06/25

Among the pallbearers at late Gen. Hamilton Wanasinghe's funeral were General Srilal Weerasooriya, General Crishanthe de Silva and General Shavendra Silva (pic courtesy army.lk)

A military funeral was held on the evening of June 15, 2025, at the new crematorium of the General Cemetery, Borella, to bid farewell to the late General Hamilton Wanasinghe (retd.) VSV USP ndc. Wanasinghe passed away at the Military Hospital, Narahenpita, on June 13. The eleventh commander of Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Wanasinghe was 91 at the time of his demise.

Admiral Ravindra C. Wijegunaratne did a piece on the late General, titled ‘A legendary military leader of our time’ (The Island, June 20, 2025 edition) in which the former Navy Commander discussed the late Wanasinghe’s four decades long career that included a turbulent period. Wijegunaratne’s piece is a must read. (https://island.lk/a-legendary-military-leader-of-our-time/)

The writer felt the need to discuss the political and security environment at the time Wanasinghe took over the Army, deployed in support of the police engaged in counter-terrorist operations against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and sudden eruption of fighting in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. The southern terrorism erupted after India intervened in July 1987 to save the LTTE from annihilation in Sri Lanka’s first brigade-level ground campaign in the Vadamarachchi region.

The Army spearheaded the eradication of the JVP threat by Dec. 1989. The writer covered the hastily arranged press conference at the Operational Headquarters of the Defence Ministry on Nov. 13, 1989, to announce the arrest 0f JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera, and his execution by the Army. Whatever the silly claims made by the UNP, and other interested parties, the truth is that the JVP leader was killed by the Army. Wanasinghe had been there along with State Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne, IGP Ernest Perera, State Foreign Affairs Minister John Amaratunga and Defence Secretary Cyril Ranatunga (Captured at Ulapane and flown to Colombo: Rohana Wijeweera killed and cremated yesterday, The Island, Nov. 14, 1989).

The Indo-Lanka accord forced on Sri Lanka effectively confined the armed forces to their barracks during the period July 1987-March 1990. By the time India ended its controversial mission here, all bases of the security forces in the Northern and Eastern provinces had been surrounded by the LTTE and overland access to them effectively cut off.

Wanasinghe served as the commander of Army at the time Eelam War II erupted in the second week of June 1990, just four months after the withdrawal of the Indian Army. Wanasinghe’s ill-prepared Army, deployed in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, had to face the brunt of the fighting. The consequences were devastating.

President Ranasinghe Premadasa simply pursued his political strategies, at the expense of national security, and the results were catastrophic. The UNP leader’s political-military miscalculations gave the battlefield advantage to the LTTE, and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran exploited the President’s weaknesses to the hilt before he ordered the UNP leader’s assassination.

Wanasinghe succeeded Air Chief Marshal Walter Fernando as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence several weeks after President Premadasa’s assassination. Wanasinghe held that post from June 06, 1993 to February 10, 1995. Having won both parliamentary and presidential elections in 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga effected far reaching changes. In line with the People’s Alliance (PA) thinking, Kumaratunga did away with the practice of having senior retired military officers as the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. After the introduction of the 1978 Constitution, that vital post had been held consecutively by Colonel C.A. Dharmapala, General Sepala Attygalle, General Cyril Ranatunga, Air Chief Marshal Walter Fernando and General Hamilton Wanasinghe. Kumaratunga brought in one-time head of the Elections Department, Chandrananda Silva, who served in that post from 1995 to 2001.

Let me examine the circumstances leading to Eelam War II that caused the swift overall deterioration of the ground situation, the northern battles and debilitating setbacks the Army suffered. Wanasinghe of the Artillery succeeded Engineers’ officer Lt. Gen. Nalin Seneviratne, VSV, on August 16, 1988. Wanasinghe held the top post till Nov. 15, 1991. during a violent period.

Counter-terrorist operations in South

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had been on the rampage in areas outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces and the Army was fully deployed to combat terrorism in the South. The crisis that engulfed the country during Wanasinghe’s tenure as the Commander of Army cannot be discussed without taking into consideration President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s response to the growing challenge posed by the LTTE and the JVP. Premadasa’s ill-conceived actions/decisions caused unprecedented mayhem.

Having won the presidential election in Dec. 1988, Premadasa ordered the release of as many as 1,800 suspected JVPers who had been detained by the military and the police. That was done soon after he took oaths at the ‘Paththirippuwa’ at the Dalada Maligawa, in Kandy, on January 2, 1989, like a Sri Lankan king of the past, raising many an eyebrow. The writer, into his third year in journalism, covered that event and what followed was nothing but tragedy.

The then President felt that he could initiate a dialogue with the JVP by releasing its members. Unfortunately, the JVP took advantage of the situation. The then professed Marxist organisation unleashed the newly released men on their political opponents. They had extra hands to cause death and destruction. The release of JVPers was nothing but a cardinal mistake perpetrated by Premadasa.

Premadasa foolishly felt no need to consult the military top brass, or the police, regarding his bid to win over the JVP. The President went a step further, in the wrong direction. Having called for direct talks with the LTTE, the President personally handled the negotiations (May 1989 to June 1990) but obviously Velupillai Prabhakaran had other ideas. The LTTE struck just four months after Premadasa got rid of the Indian Army.

As for such erratic behaviour by President Premadasa, we have to grant that the society is partially to blame, for Premadasa was entirely a self-made man who literally survived by his instincts against many an odd, especially due to caste prejudices he had to suffer throughout his life, some imaginary no doubt like JRJ himself was plotting to make either Lalith Athulathmudali or Gamini Dissanayake his successor. The man, dubbed the 20th Century Fox, was only playing his top men against each other instead of being a threat to him. But he had clearly signalled Premadasa as his successor by appointing him the Prime Minister, but because of his inborn insecurity and the known vileness of JRJ, he did not trust him.

General Gerry de Silva, in his widely read A most noble profession, aptly described the deteriorating situation in the run up to Eelam War II. Having acknowledged that the political and military leadership had failed to recognise the rapidly emerging LTTE threat and disregarded what he called constant humiliation meted out to the armed forces and police by Tigers, the former commander asserted that politico-military hierarchy had to bear up as they didn’t want to cause friction. Wanasinghe had been the Commander of the Army, while General Cyril Ranatunga served as the Defence Secretary. Obviously, they couldn’t talk sense into Premadasa whose irrational directives were carried out by the late A.C. S. Hameed who served as the Foreign Minister at that time.

Having crushed the JVP for the second time, the Army seemed to have not anticipated a conventional type campaign against its isolated detachments in the northern theatre. The LTTE had been in a much better position in the North, having battle hardened against the Indian Army and gained valuable experience. By then, on the orders of the President, the Army had facilitated Prabhakaran to annihilate rival Tamil groups. The Tamil National Army that had been hastily formed by India, prior to their departure, and Varatharaja Perumal installed by them as the Chief Minister of the NE provincial administration, suffered irreversible losses against a series of lightning operations by the LTTE.

During President Premadasa’s honeymoon with the LTTE, the latter received at least Rs 125 mn in outright handouts from the Treasury, in addition to arms, ammunition and other requisites. The President had been so adamant in pursuing his foolish political-military strategy, even after the LTTE resumed hostilities, the UNP leader ordered the then Treasury Chief R. Paskaralingam to release funds. Paskaralingam transferred Rs 50 mn on Nov. 05, 1990, six months after Prabhakaran’s treachery. There had been altogether 16 cash transfers, with the Nov. 05, 1990, transfer being the largest single fund transfer to the LTTE.

Army caught off-guard

The LTTE destroyed the Kokkali Army detachment on the afternoon of July 13, 1990. Having unilaterally ended the 14-month long ceasefire (May 5, 1989-June 10, 1990), the LTTE swiftly gained the upper hand in the Jaffna peninsula and the Vanni, though, in the East, the group faced fierce resistance by combined security forces.

The LTTE targeted troops and police based at the Jaffna Fort at the onset of Eelam war II. It had been the LTTE’s main target in the peninsula. By the last week of June, 1990, the LTTE had been exploring ways and means of overwhelming those beleaguered security forces personnel after having cut off access to and from that base. The Army couldn’t even evacuate their wounded personnel.

A deeply embarrassed Gen. Wanasinghe had no option but to seek the help of the SLAF to evacuate those who had been wounded and trapped in the Jaffna Fort. The Army couldn’t even muster a force to mount a limited ground assault to facilitate the SLAF operation.

Wanasinghe’s predicament must be examined taking into consideration that he, at the behest of Premadasa, supervised the transfer of arms, ammunition and equipment to the LTTE to carry out attacks against the Indian Army. Now his own Army was at the receiving end of those weapons.

In an interview with the writer soon after he was told of President Premadasa’s decision to appoint him as the Commander of the Army, the then Maj. Gen. Wanasinghe discussed ways and means of improving the combat readiness of troops. A jubilant Wanasinghe revealed his plans to expand the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) to meet any eventuality, while emphasising the importance of training troops in jungle operations (Wanasinghe new Army chief––The Island Aug. 7, 1988).

Due to the failure on the part of the Army to evacuate the wounded and send in reinforcements to Jaffna fort, the SLAF was asked to launch an unprecedented operation to airlift the wounded. The unparalleled operation was codenamed ‘Eagle.’

Premadasa’s ill-fated policy of appeasement had weakened the armed forces to such an extent the military top brass were in a permanent state of flux.

The SLAF, too, had been under heavy pressure to mount a rescue operation. It would be pertinent to mention here that the SLAF didn’t have the capability to demolish LTTE positions, situated close to the Jaffna Fort, to enable helicopters to land in the fort. The government hadn’t felt the need to acquire jets, dedicated helicopter gunships or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to facilitate a complicated operation.

Sri Lanka paid attention to enhance firepower only after the LTTE took the upper hand in the North. The SLAF acquired supersonic jets (Chinese F7 and FT 7) in 1991, Kfirs in 1996 and MiG 27s in 2000. The SLAF took delivery of helicopter gunships (Mi 24s) in 1995 and UAVs the following year.

The SLAF initially scheduled Operation Eagle for July 4, 1990. At the eleventh hour, the SLAF advanced the operation by 24 hours. The SLAF decided to mount the operation at 4 a.m. on July 3, 1990.

With the Jaffna fort having been under siege for 21 days, the Army top brass felt it was only a matter of days before the LTTE fought its way into the Dutch built fortress. In fact, many senior officers had given up hope of saving those trapped in the Jaffna fort, when the SLAF took up the daunting task and carried it out successfully. The SLAF achieved success in the wake of two earlier abortive missions.

The then Air Force Commander, Air Vice Marshal Terrence Gunawardena and the late Group Capt. Anselm Peiris, who functioned as the mission commander, too, had been present at Ratmalana when a fixed wing aircraft, carrying the wounded, touched down there at 8 a.m. (Dramatic rescue of injured men from Jaffna Fort––The Island – July 4, 1990).

Soon after the conclusion of the rescue mission, President Premadasa visited thr SLAF headquarters to thank the officers involved in the rescue mission.

No one dared to challenge Premadasa when he ordered the Army to surrender to the LTTE at the onset of Eelam War II.

Although the daring rescue mission boosted the morale of the Army, it didn’t stop the rapid deterioration of the ground situation in the northern region. The LTTE was on the offensive, with the Army struggling to counter the growing threat on all major bases in the Jaffna peninsula and the Vanni region. Officers and men had been thoroughly demoralised and as a result, desertions were extremely high in spite of troops making some headway in the Eastern Province. But, even in the Eastern Province, the Army had suffered some stunning setbacks as the LTTE brought in experienced units in to the battle.

Having quickly taken the upper hand in the Batticaloa District, the LTTE mounted attacks on Kinniya, Uppuveli and Muttur police stations. The LTTE quickly overran Kinniya, though the police at Muttur repulsed the attack with the support of troops based at the adjoining Army detachment. As the Army feared those defending Muttur could not manage the situation on their own, the Army top brass authorised a special operation to relieve them. The then Lt. Commander Lakshman Illangakoon, Commanding Officer of the landing craft ‘Kandula,’ was tasked to ferry troops necessary for the operation.

Chaos in the East

Unfortunately, the operation went awry though the Navy managed to land a contingent of commandos, led by Maj. A. M. Arshad, close to brown rock point, east of Muttur, in the early hours of June 14, 1990. Having allowed the commandos to come ashore without a fight, the LTTE ambushed them a little distance away from the landing point, killing 40. Six commandos, who had survived the ambush, escaped in a boat and drifted for several weeks in the Indian Ocean, though only four managed to reach the beaches of Bangkok in early August 1990. They told how two of their colleagues died during the uncharted journey. At the time of his untimely death, Arshad was to marry the then State Housing Minister Imithiaz Bakeer Markar’s sister (Four commandos escape Tigers, land in Bangkok––The Island Aug. 9, 1990).

Arshad was a distinguished and much admired old boy of Balangoda Central College, according to the then Navy Spokesman Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya (currently southern commander. He holds the rank of Rear Admiral). For many, Arshad was an inspiring figure, like Colonel Fazly Laphir, Commanding Officer of the 1 Special Forces Regiment, who, too, died in another disastrous rescue mission in July 1996

Exactly a month after the resumption of hostilities with the massacre of over 600 police officers and men after they were ordered to be surrendered to the Tigers by the Premadasa regime, Wanasinghe placed Maj. Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa in charge of operations in the Northern region. The situation on the ground had deteriorated to such an extent, Kobbekaduwa’s appointment as the Northern Commander didn’t make any difference. The LTTE had built fortifications around all camps in the Jaffna peninsula as well as in the Vanni. Prabhakaran brazenly took advantage of his ‘honeymoon’ with President Premadasa to build gun positions around bases. The LTTE also moved into positions abandoned by the Indian army.

Besides, President Premadasa had ordered the Army to vacate some of its bases, including strategically positioned troops at Valvettithurai and Point Pedro. The Army could not either reinforce or vacate besieged bases at Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Kokavil, Manakulam, Mullaitivu and Jaffna fort.

The Army top brass felt that an urgent offensive was needed to rescue troops in bases vulnerable to an LTTE onslaught. But, the overall planning was chaotic in the absence of a cohesive strategy to decipher the LTTE stratagem. In hindsight, the LTTE was obviously bent on smashing Army bases, situated along the Kandy-Jaffna A9 main road, between Kokavil and Jaffna fort. The Army top brass obviously failed to realise the danger posed by the massive LTTE build-up in the Vanni. Had they realised the threat on the main overland supply route to Jaffna, they would have acted swiftly and decisively. Unfortunately, the Army lacked the wherewithal to reinforce bases situated along the A9. While the Army was engaged in counter insurgency operations against the JVP, in support of the police, the LTTE (July 1987- Feb/March 1990), received much needed retraining. Having crushed the Indian-sponsored TNA in a series of lightning operations, the Tigers had collected a massive arsenal supplied by India, on top of the huge arsenal of weapons supplied by President Premadasa.

Immediately after Maj. Gen. Kobbekaduwa assumed the northern command on July 11, 1990, the LTTE overran the isolated Kokavil detachment, established to protect a Rupavahini tower there. In spite of the detachment being under attack for almost a month, the Army top brass failed to reinforce those defending the base. Lieutenant S.U. Aladeniya of the Sinha Regiment (Second Volunteer battalion) fought to the end, though he was given an opportunity to withdraw at an early stage of the battle.

Refusing to abandon the base, leaving behind casualties, Aladeniya finally urged the Army to pound his own base with long range artillery. Aladeniya was one of the few to receive the Parama Weera Vibhushana (PWV) posthumously, for his gallantry. Army Headquarters pathetically failed to reinforce the Kokavil detachment, comprising two platoons, in spite of Aladeniya calling for reinforcements. They also ran out of ammunition. About 50 volunteers went down fighting at Kokavil. None of their bodies were recovered. Some of the captured volunteer Sinha Regiment personnel are believed to have been executed. Two soldiers who escaped by crawling through the LTTE cordon, managed to reach the Army base at Mankulam, situated north of Kokavil. According to them, those captured were burnt alive.

The rest is history.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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Midweek Review

Squeaky clean image of JVP in tatters

Published

5 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

During the recent debate on the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) Batticaloa District lawmaker, Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, warned that the next NCM would be moved against Fisheries Minister Ramalingham Chandrasekaran. Rasamanickam accused the National List member of corruption, a charge vehemently denied by the NPPer. The NPP/JVP needs to initiate an internal inquiry before corruption allegations overwhelm the party that received the full advantage of Aragalaya to transform the outfit from just a three-member parliamentary group, in 2024, to a staggering 159, a year later. The UNP and SLFP led alliances were dealt harshly by the electorates for want of action to curb corruption. Today, the UNP and SLFP are not represented in Parliament, while the SLPP, that secured 145 seats at the 2020 general election, was reduced to just three with its parliamentary group leader Namal Rajapaksa entering Parliament through the National List. Rajapaksa junior obviously feared to face the Hambantota electorate at the last general election. That is the undeniable truth.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The ongoing controversy over Agriculture, Lands, Irrigation and Livestock Minister K.D. Lal Kantha’s three-storeyed luxury house has intensified pressure on the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) government struggling to cope-up with the devastating coal scam, blamed on Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody forcing him to resign.

Jayakody, one of those who financed the NPP/JVP campaign in the run-up to the 2024 national polls ,resigned on 17 April, along with Prof. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Energy Ministry. Their resignations happened eight months after the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway faction of the JVP, revealed the alleged coal scam. The Lal Kantha affair received significant public attention though the primary issue at hand is the massive coal scam that ripped through the government.

Jayakody will continue as a National List member of the ruling party. The NPP/JVP won an unprecedented 159 seats, including 18 National List slots at the November 2024 parliamentary elections.

The Opposition dismissed government claims that the resignations were meant to facilitate the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the procurement of coal, since the commissioning of the country’s only coal-fired power plant during the onset of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term. In the wake of the much delayed resignations, NPP/JVP heavyweight Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, addressing the media at the Information Department, pathetically vouched for Jayakody’s integrity.

Let us discuss the accusations directed at Lal Kantha who had served the SLFP-led Cabinet for a short period, years ago, in terms of an agreement between the SLFP and the JVP. Lal Kantha had never been accused of corruption and was, in fact, one of those lawmakers who raised the issue both in and outside Parliament. Political parties may have forgotten that the UNP got rid of Lacille de Silva, Director General of Administration, Parliament, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s premiership, in the 2001-2003 period, alleging he passed on information to Lal Kantha to attack the government.

The NPP Executive Committee member, as well as JVP politburo and Central Committee heavyweight, has publicly defended his right to own a luxury house amidst a section of the social media pushing for police investigation into the lawmaker’s wealth.

Unlike the owner/owners of the mysterious Malwana mansion, built on a 16-acre land overlooking the Kelani river, Lal Kantha didn’t try to disclaim the house ownership at Jusse Road, Welivita, in the Kaduwela area. The Malwana house was built towards the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The hullabaloo over the ownership of the Malwana mansion, and construction costs, dominated the 2015 presidential election campaign. On the basis of the Malwana mansion, the UNP and the JVP built a strong case against the Rajapaksas, accusing the family of corruption.

It would be of pivotal importance that the JVP backed Maithripala Sirisena’s 2015 presidential polls candidature. The campaign was built on an anti-corruption platform that earned the appreciation of the public who disregarded the unprecedented development work successfully carried out by the Rajapaksas, while also fighting a war to defeat the most ruthless terrorist organisation that was out to break up the country.

During a US-India backed violent protest campaign, in March-July 2022, an organised gang set the stately Malwana mansion ablaze. The general consensus was that the Malwana mansion belonged to Basil Rajapakasa, though he vehemently denied having anything to do with it.

Yahapalana Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, is on record as having declared that the Malwana mansion would be renovated and used to accommodate a state institution. Lal Kantha’s newly acquired wealth has to be examined and discussed, taking into consideration his long standing claim that as a fulltime member of the JVP he entirely depended on his wife’s monthly salary and help provided by friends and associates. If that was the case, Lal Kantha couldn’t have ended up among the richest group of politicians, within less than two years after the last presidential election, held in September 2024.

Lal Kantha couldn’t have been unaware of the possibility of the Opposition, particularly the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), attacking him and the NPP/JVP over his Kaduwela house. Responding to critics, the Anuradhapura District lawmaker has claimed, on YouTube, that he sold a property he owned in Anuradhapura and used that money to acquire the Jusse Road land.

The outspoken Minister is also on record as having said that the existence of his new house, to which he moved in late 2024, was disclosed by him. However, incisive Youtuber Dharma Sri Kariyawasam has claimed that he made the revelation on 01 October, 2025, while another You-Tuber, Abeetha Edirisinghe, rammed up pressure on the NPP by lodging a complaint with the police, via the special number 1818. Edirisinghe’s SL Leaders YouTube posted a video of him lodging the complaint.

What made the complaint really interesting was Edirisinghe’s declaration based on ‘Dark Room’ YouTube allegations that wealthy businessman Nissanka Senadhipathi, who had been one of the closest associates of the Rajapaksas, provided the wherewithal required to acquire land, build and then furnish the Jusse Road mansion. Defending his position, Lal Kantha claimed that he acquired a piano for his daughter, about 15 years ago, while declaring he enjoyed the capacity to raise large sums of funds if necessary. A smiling Lal Kantha explained how he could effortlessly collect Rs 500,000 each from 100 associates/friends. Programmes posted by Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe are must-watch for those genuinely interested in knowing the explosive story, from different angles.

Close on the heels of debates on Lal Kantha’s mansion, the media reported the Minister’s last available asset declaration, sent to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), dealt with over Rs 80 mn worth of property, vehicles and gold, etc. The JVP heavyweight’s annual income has stunned even the staunchest supporters of the ruling party. Lal Kantha, through his lawyer, demanded Rs 10 bn in damages from ‘Hiru’ for wrongly estimating his properties, etc., at Rs 460 mn.

Both Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe propagated that police wanted the public to complain to special the number 1818, created to accept such complaints in case they felt suspicious about newly acquired property, regardless of who owned them.

Unexpected disclosure of Lal Kantha’s unprecedented wealth obviously stunned the public who genuinely believed in the unshakable NPP/JVP stand on corruption. Lal Kantha, who had joined the JVP in 1982, before becoming a full time member, in 1987, had no qualms in defending his new lifestyle, having repeatedly and bitterly complained about the difficulties experienced by him and his family.

In his defence, Lal Kantha emphasised that he hadn’t been accused of robbing the taxpayer or public sector corruption. However, the NPP/JVP all-out attack on all previous governments, over waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, and branding all their MPs corrupt, cannot adopt such a stance. The Kaduwela mansion has sent shockwaves through the electorate. Dharma Sri Kariyawasam, in his response to Lal Kantha, repeatedly stressed that his wealth was being questioned by those who exercised their franchise in support of the NPP/JVP at the national elections and Local Government polls, in 2025.

Growing public resentment over what various interested parties, including the NPP/JVP called ill-gotten wealth of members and henchmen of previous governments fuelled Aragalaya (31 March-14 July 2022). Those who set houses and other property, belonging to various then government politicians and their associates ablaze, operated on the presumption that they were beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth. The NPP/JVP powered the campaign, alongside the breakaway JVP faction, styled as Peratugami Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party) as well as the UNP.

Ranwala and others

Against the backdrop of Auditor General Samudrika Jayarathne’s devastating report on coal procurement for the 2025/2026 period and Lal Kantha’s declaration that he owned a three-storeyed house, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker of Parliament, over his failure to prove his declared academic qualifications seemed uncalled for. Jayarathne signed that report on behalf of the National Audit Office (NAO).

The Gampaha District MP resigned on 13 December, 2024, just 22 days after being appointed the Speaker. The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) relentlessly attacked Ranwala over his fabricated or unverified educational qualifications, specifically a Ph.D. from a Japanese university and a degree from the University of Moratuwa.

The NPP/JVP tried to defend Ranwala but quickly succumbed to SJB pressure. We never managed to establish whether Ranwala resigned on his own accord or the NPP/JVP asked him to resign to save the party. Similarly, the resignations of Energy Minister Jayakody and Prof. Hemapala, who cut a sorry figure before the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently, must have been demanded by the ruling party. Had the NPP bosses acted prudently, much earlier, after he was indicted before the Colombo High Court on a previous corruption case, they could have easily asked Jayakody to resign his ministerial portfolio before the Parliament debated the no-confidence motion against him.

Another case that really embarrassed the ruling party was accusations directed at Dr. Jagath Wickremeratne, who succeeded Ranwala as House Speaker. The Polonnaruwa District MP was the next to face fire, following a dispute with the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Chaminda Kularatne who is also the Chief of Staff of the House. Kularatne hit back hard after Parliament sacked him over alleged irregularities. In a petition, dated 2 February, 2026, sent to CIABOC, Kularatne disclosed the circumstances the Speaker reacted angrily after he brought to the NPPer’s notice illegal actions and corruption, as well as his (Kularatne) recommendation in his capacity as the Right to Information (RTI) officer, to release certain information sought by civil society activists. Kularatne further claimed that the situation deteriorated further over an incident that happened on 18 June, 2025, or a date closer to that date, in the room where Speaker Wickremeratne had his lunch. Kularatne refrained from revealing the incident.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a senior parliamentary official moving the CIABOC against the Speaker. The allegations directed at the Speaker, in respect of abuse of vehicles, taking two fuel allowances, misuse of equipment belonging to the Media Unit of Parliament, inadequate payment for lunch obtained for Chameera Gallage, Speaker’s private secretary, who had lunch with him, illegal payments made to retired Ministry Additional Secretary S.K. Liyanage, who was appointed to inquire into Kularatne’s conduct, suppression of release of information in terms of RTI, and uncalled for interventions in administration.

Kularatne’s complaint to the CIABOC failed to result in an expeditious inquiry, though a complaint lodged against a sacked parliamentary official appeared to have received much more attention. The NPP has responded cautiously to Kularatne vs Wickremeratne battle as pressure mounted on the ruling party over the coal scam that threatened to cause further increase in already unbearable electricity tariffs. The Auditor General’s report, in no uncertain terms, has implicated the Energy Ministry and Lanka Coal Company in the sordid operation that resulted in low-grade coal ending up at the Lakvijaya coal-fired power plant that earlier met about 30 to 40% percent of the country’s power requirements at essentially low cost, barring hydroelectricity.

The report declared that the term tender for the supply of coal was awarded to Trident Champhar, an Indian company that hadn’t been registered at the time it bid for Sri Lanka’s largest tender and procedures in respect of loading and unloading the cargo. To make matters worse, Minister Jayakody, who had been implicated in the coal scam, was recently indicted on corruption charges in the High Court of Colombo. There hadn’t been a previous instance of a sitting member of the Cabinet being indicted for corruption. Therefore, the NPP government cannot be happy over its steamroller majority in Parliament having defeated the no-confidence motion moved against Jayakody who remained confident in the parliamentary group’s support at the behest of the top party leadership.

The NPP/JVP finds itself in an extremely embarrassing and pitiful situation over the coal scam. The damning report issued by the Auditor General pertaining to the coal scam has to be examined taking into consideration the failure on the part of the government and the Constitutional Council to reach a consensus on filling the vacant Auditor General’s post in 2025. The post of Auditor General remained vacant from early April 2025 to early February 2026.

Role of NAO

The NAO functions as an independent body answerable to Parliament. The recent NAO report that dealt with coal procurement exposed the utterly corrupt system in place, regardless of assurances given by the government. The report proved that irregularities can be perpetrated and corrupt practices continued, regardless of assurances given by the current dispensation.

Over the past several years, tangible measures were taken to strengthen the NAO. Parliament certified the National Audit (Amendment) Act, No. 19 of 2025 on 22 September, 2025. That act introduced reforms meant to enhance public sector accountability, enforce audit findings, and streamline the surcharge process. The no nonsense report proved that in spite of interference and undue influence exerted on the NAO, those responsible did their job without fear or favour.

SJB lawmaker Mujibur Rahman, during the debate on the no-confidence motion against Minister Jayakody, alleged in Parliament that COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) Chairman Dr. Nishantha Samaraweera directly intervened when the NAO was in the process of finalising the report. The former UNPer called for an investigation to establish whether the Galle District NPP MP visited the NAO on several days to meet those handling the investigation.

We are not aware whether the COPE Chief, who called for the NAO to inquire into allegations in respect of coal procurement, visited the NAO.

However, the NAO report on the coal scam, now available online for all to study, underscores the pivotal importance of the anti-corruption fight.

In September 2025, the SJB asked the CIABOC to probe how some NPP/JVP Ministers amassed so much property. The SJB raised the issue with the focus on Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe (like Lal Kantha, he, too, represents the Anuradhapura District) amassed Rs 275 mn. The SJB’s complaint to CIABOC sought investigations on Ministers Sunil Handunetti, Bimal Rathnayake, Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa and Kumara Jayakody, and Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala.

Lal Kantha, who has now acknowledged having as much as Rs 80 mn worth property, was not among the lawmakers targeted by the SJB. Having falsely propagated an anti-corruption campaign to deceive the public, the NPP/JVP stand literally exposed before the public. The coal scam and Lal Kantha fiasco have caused irreparable damage to such an extent, their anti-corruption campaigns may not carry any weight with the public at future elections.

Midweek Review

Some languages confine you; some languages free you

Published

5 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

‘… where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; ….

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward….into ever-widening thought and action…’

With wide apologies, I am going to put snatches of that poem into more dreary uses, though not quite desert sand.

What are those narrow domestic walls which break up the world into fragments? Languages.

Amiya reads the Gitanjali but does not read the Tirukkural. Hong Li reads Kong Fut Ze’s Analects but not Plato’s Republic. Paul reads Miton’s Paradise Lost but not Njal Saga. Sarath Kumara reads Wickremasinghe’s satva santatitya but not Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Ngidi does not read Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 20th Century or Anthony Atkinson’s Inequality at all. Hirono uses Large Language Models to do homework but Rasolomanana has not seen a computer. And so on and so forth. The world is broken into fragments by languages, but not by languages alone. The daughter of a rich black man living in Howard County in Maryland goes to Stanford but a brown dweller in Dharavi cannot enter Jawaharlal Nehru University. The lesson is that it is not only languages or orthodoxies that break up the world into ‘fragments’ but also many other barriers, about one of which Tagore sang.

Language is a marvellous ‘invention’ of nature well cultivated by humans. No other species has the faculty to use language to know. Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed it epigrammatically, ‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ It is language that carries forth knowledge. It is not only language that carries forth knowledge: mathematics, in its own right, is a powerful carrier of knowledge. One can write something simple like if x-y=0, then x=y, as well as whole pages of complex and complicated arguments using mathematical notations. Mathematics may and often does write nature and about nature; it also writes about things that exist only in the mind. That is not different from languages: heaven and Vishnu exist in some minds but not in others or elsewhere. Galileo Galilei learnt ‘Nature is an open book but it is written in mathematics’. Much of nature is a closed book to those to whom mathematics is alien territory. But today, I am interested in how some languages ‘break the world into fragments by domestic walls’, while a few others fly about regardless. When a team from India played cricket with a team from Pakistan a few weeks back, the commentary was broadcast in India in 14 languages and in Nigeria national news is read in several languages. That same game of cricket also was broadcast to the rest of the world in one language: English.

When and how do some languages come to ‘lead the mind forward into ever widening thought and action’? The transformation occurs when users of one language become conquerors and rulers of peoples using other languages and when the users of a language become generators of new knowledge which are eagerly sought after by users of other languages. Greek, Latin and Arabic contributed mightily to the vocabulary of modern Western European languages. When new ideas in law, government, philosophy, medicine and science had to be expressed, they went to Greek, Latin or Arabic. Consequently, you will bump into Greek terms the moment you begin thinking about those disciplines. The serious study of Greek was introduced to England by Erasmus (of Rotterdam) about 1500 AC. The use of Latin began with the Roman Empire but took on new functions when Latin became the vehicle carrying Christianity east and north (of Europe) and elsewhere later. Until about the 18th century AC Latin was the language of learning in most of Europe. At its inception, Manchester Grammar School was a Latin school and the Boston Latin School which started in 1635 still thrives in that name. The two medieval universities in England were mostly seminaries teaching in Latin well into the 19th century. A wide swathe of languages is written with the Latin alphabet: European languages from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, America from Canada to Chile, sub-Saharan Africa including Togo, and Indonesian, Malaysian and several others. The exodus of Jewish, Arabic and other scholars, after the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottomans, brought Greek and Arabic to Western Europe including England. From about the 14 to the 18th century, European indigenous vernaculars grew to be carriers of new knowledge, especially in sciences. Luther’s reformation and the development of German had much in common. Gutenberg’s new printing press (1450 AC) helped the growth of European vernaculars and the spread of reformed Christianity.

Four western European languages stood out as both conquerors and carriers of new knowledge: Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. Arabic performed the same function from about 800 AC to the 13 AC when that language carried a new religion and new knowledge in mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Arabic replaced the indigenous languages in the entire Maghreb. The language of governance and learning from Mexico south to Chile is Spanish with Brazil using Portuguese and are collectively called Latin America, because Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are Romance or Latin Languages. French is the language of governance and learning in several parts of West Africa. English was a phenomenon in itself. It destroyed the use of hundreds of languages in North America. It conquered almost half the world and English is the language of governance and higher education in a good part of the land it once ruled. As a language carrying new knowledge, English excels all others. As the collapse of four European empires, including the Ottoman, went on from about 1915 to about 1960, English, which produced new knowledge faster than any other, began to break ‘domestic walls’, the world over. China, which had little love for the English-speaking world, had millions of its citizens schooled in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia during the last 30 years and continues to do so, to date. In contrast, during that time how many rushed to Niger to learn Fulfulde or to Lanka to study Sinhala? The prominence of English was promoted by two other processes: one was translation into English of major works in other languages and the other the growth of a class of indigenous writers and readers in the conqueror’s language. One reads Oblomov, Gilgamesh and, indeed, Gitanjali translated into English. India now probably has more readers in English than any other single country. Persons in Western African countries have crafted in French and English, masterpieces in fiction, poetry and drama. Modern European languages have been both conquerors’ languages and carriers of new knowledge.

Several people recently have written in The Island and in Lankadeepa about the importance of using the ‘mother tongue’. They have stressed the importance of the ‘mother tongue’ in creative writing. As with observations regarding empirical phenomena, it is necessary to test those generalisations against reality. Samskrt is a language not entirely unfamiliar to many in this land. Samskrt was nobody’s mother tongue. (After all, it is deva bhaashitam.) There is not a shred of evidence that Kalidasa’s mother talked to him in Samskrt. But Kalidasa wrote rtusmahara and shakuntalam.. The vedas and upanishads were first spoken and later written in samskrt. Pali is nobody’s mother tongue but Theravada writings are almost entirely in that language. Isaac Newton wrote Principia Mathematica in Latin; we have no evidence that baby Isaac babbled in Latin. Paul Dirac wrote about particle physics in mathematics rather than in his father’s beloved French. Leopold Senghor’s mother tongue was not French nor Chinua Achebe’s English. More casually, check your own libraries. I had a collection of about 2,300 books until last year. There weren’t even 200 written in Sinhala and that 200 included editions of works from the 13th century. Check how many books written in Sinhala and English you bought in the last two years. There were far too many writers and scientists who brought forth highly acclaimed work in languages other than their mother tongue, contradicting the argument that the mother tongue was essential or even desirable for original work, in science or in literature.

Most languages ‘break the world into narrow fragments’. A few coagulate them into large masses: 900 million people speak Mandarin and 325 million, Bengali. A half dozen bind themselves together speaking a conqueror’s language. Four languages stand out as having ‘led the ‘mind forward into ever-widening thought and action’: Greek, Latin, Arabic and English. English, so far, is unrivalled.

by Usvatte-aratchi