Midweek Review

Looking back at political assassinations, violence

Published

2 years ago

2024/07/24

Trump was wounded in his upper right ear by a gunman at Butler Pennsylvania

During the JVP-led second abortive insurgency, its military wing killed quite a number of people, including politicians. Among the victims were Keerthi Abeywickrema, MP, and actor-turned-politician Vijaya Kumaratunga, killed in August 1987 and in February 1988, respectively. Vijaya Kumaratunga was shot dead outside his residence at Polhengoda. Abeywickrema was killed in a grenade attack on the UNP parliamentary group in committee room A. If the attacker had been successful in directing the attack on the UNP parliamentary group, as he desired, the results could have been catastrophic. Among those present therein were President J.R. Jayewardene, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa and National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali. About 120 MPs had been present at the meeting, the first gathering of the group following the signing of the Indo-Lanka peace accord on July 29, 1987. Elections held during 1987-1990 were marred by violence with the JVP carrying out attacks on those who dared to vote.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

President Ranil Wickremesinghe expressed shock at the failed assassination bid on former US President Donald Trump, 78, during a campaign event at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Declaring that he was relieved to learn that Trump survived the July 13 attempt, Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lankans had been victims of such violence in politics. Trump was wounded in his right ear.

The ex-President’s would-be-assassin 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds after he fired the first of eight shots. Crooks used a semi-automatic AR rifle owned by many gun enthusiasts in a country obsessed with being gun owners as a right.

So far, the US media haven’t been able to at least speculate on Crooks motive. What really triggered a young man who had been living with his parents about an hour away from the scene to attempt to assassinate such a high profile target? Crooks appeared to have acted alone but the possibility of him being influenced by terrorism elsewhere cannot be ruled out. The young man could have been influenced even by US actions abroad over the years.

We are, however, not one bit surprised as the USA is the country where the so-called independent mainstream media helped to mislead its masses about the assassination of its 35th President John Fitzgerald Kennedy by its entrenched deep state to this day. And, according to his nephew Robert Kennedy Jr, who is an independent Presidential candidate now running for President, even his own father was assassinated by the deep state in 1968 as he campaigned to be President. In both instances apparent patsies were blamed for the dastardly crimes.

[In July, 2011 Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Brevik killed 77 people, many of them teenagers, in a bomb attack and gun rampage. Breivik made references to the LTTE’s eviction of Muslims from the North in 1990 in his so-called ‘manifesto.’ There had been two references (i) Pro-Sri Lanka (supports the deportation of all Muslims from Sri Lanka) on page 1235 (ii) Fourth Generation War is normally characterised by a “stateless” entity fighting a state or regime. Fighting can be physically such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to use a modern example (Page 1479)]

A person seated behind Trump died. Two more persons also received gunshot injuries.

One thing is clear. Regardless of the outcome of the attempt, Crooks, who had graduated from a high school two years ago, was definitely on a suicide mission. The young man couldn’t have expected, under any circumstances, to give the slip to Secret Service snipers positioned therein, once he opened fire.

Whatever his motive, Crooks had been absolutely ready to sacrifice his life to take out his target, Republican presidential candidate Trump. That is the truth the US appeared to have conveniently ignored. The bottom line is that Crooks would have ended up in a morgue whether he succeeded or failed in his attempt.

As President Wickremesinghe recalled, Sri Lankans had been victims of political violence. Subsequently, the President proposed enhanced security measures for candidates at the forthcoming presidential election, as well as former presidents.

Let me examine political assassinations during the northern and southern terrorism campaigns (the terrorist threat on the executive and legislature as well as lower level of political representation at Local Government and Provincial Councils level) before the successful conclusion of the anti-JVP campaign and war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by January 1990 and May 2009, respectively.

In addition to the LTTE, the other Tamil terrorist groups carried out attacks. Of them, the TELO (currently represented in Parliament through the TNA) was definitely responsible for killing two Jaffna District ex-lawmakers V. Dharmalingam and M. Alalasundaram in early Sept. 1985. Dharmalingam’s son, Dharmalingham Siddharathan, MP, has accused the TELO of carrying out the twin assassinations at the behest of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India.

India ended its military mission in late March 1990 (July 1987 to March 1990).

Two CFA-time assassinations

Kumaratunga lost her right eye as a result of the suicide blast at Town Hall, Colombo

During the war in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, snipers took many targets, almost all in those areas. There had been only one victim of a sniper outside the war-torn regions during that entire conflict. That was Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar assassinated at his No 36, Bullers Lane residence on the night of August 12, 2005. The other high profile victim had been de-facto leader of EPRLF Thambirajah Subathiran aka Robert.

Both assassinations, carried out during the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) that had been spearheaded by Norway with the backing of the US, Japan and EU, underscored the vulnerability of the Sri Lankan State. By 2003, the EPRLF had been divided into two groups – one led by Arumugam Kandaiah Premachandran, better known as Suresh Premachandran, and Annamalai Varatharaja Perumal, the first and the only Chief Minister of the North East Provincial Council.

In the absence of Perumal, who resided in India under their protection, Robert led the EPRLF here. An LTTEer sniped Robert as he was doing physical exercises on top of the two storeyed EPELF party office on the Jaffna Hospital road. The sniper had fired from an unused classroom of a three-storeyed building in the southern area of Vembadi Girl’s High School.

The government conveniently failed to properly probe the Jaffna assassination. The LTTE obviously exploited lowering of overall security measures in the wake of the CFA signed on February 21, 2002, to assassinate the de facto EPRLF leader on the morning of June 14, 2003. By then the LTTE had quit the negotiating table and was increasingly acting in an extremely aggressive manner.

Then Major General Sarath Fonseka had been the Security Forces Commander, Jaffna (March 09, 2002 to Dec 15, 2003). That was his second stint at that particular position. Fonseka first served there from April 21, 2000 to August 3, 2000 during the Jaffna crisis.

The man who sniped Robert from a distance of about 200 metres, was never caught though he may have died subsequently during the conflict.

Hours after the assassination carried out at 6.15 am, the writer contacted the then Army Commander Lt. Gen. Lionel Balagalle, and military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne, as well as EPRLF contacts at that time (Tiger sniper kills senior EPRLF politician, The Sunday Island, June 15, 2003).

The police, military and the EPRLF didn’t rule out the possibility of Vembadi Girl’s school authorities being aware of the assassination plot. Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, at that time bending backwards to appease the LTTE regardless of consequences, and President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, failed to reach consensus on a tangible course of action to meet the terrorist threat.

The assassination of Kadirgamar, in Colombo, two months short of two years of signing the literally one sided ceasefire agreement, proved the assumption the group was ready to execute all-out war.

Kadirgamar was sniped around 10.30 p.m. as he stepped out of his swimming pool and went to look at his garden in the backyard, wearing slippers. The gunman fired at him from the window of a bathroom located on the top floor of house number 42, on Buller’s Lane, owned by Lakshman Thalayasingam, the son of a senior retired police officer. Thalayasingam told the police that he and his wife used only the ground floor of their house and that they weren’t aware of what was going on the top floor.

Later, it was revealed that those responsible for Kadirgamar’s security never subjected Thalayasingam’s residence on a directive of the Foreign Minister.

How Lankans perpetrated political violence abroad

No one else could have written about the assassination of former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi, as well as the President of the Congress Party (I), better than D.P. Kaarthikeyan and Radhavinod Raju, head of the Special Investigation Team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBO) and key investigator, respectively.

Triumph of Truth: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination – The Investigation first released in 2004 methodically dealt with the high profile overseas operation carried out by the LTTE. Gandhi, who was on the last leg of the parliamentary election campaign in 1991, when the LTTE struck at Sriperumbudur, a little village about 50 kms south-west of Chennai. At the time the LTTE mounted the attack, Gandhi had been under the protection of the Special Branch of the Tamil Nadu State Police. The authors explained the extremely poor security environment; those who had been assigned to guard Gandhi were compelled to work particularly due to lack of security equipment and Congress supporters responsible for causing chaos.

But what really impressed the reader regarding meticulous planning carried out by the LTTE, as revealed by former Indian investigators, was how the group tasked with the assassination conducted a ‘dry run’ for the Gandhi assassination.

The group had rehearsed at a political meeting addressed by V. P. Singh at Nandanam in Chennai on May 7, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was killed on May 21, 1991. The girls, known as Subha and Dhanu, who had been assigned for Gandhi assassination, managed to get close enough to Singh to garland him. Singh took the garland from Dhanu at the last moment and the person (Nalini Sriharan – one of the six convicts in the Gandhi assassination case she was released by the Supreme Court of India in Nov 2022) tasked to photograph the operation failed in her effort.

As the LTTE rehearsed before the assassination of Gandhi in Sriperumbudur, Robert in Jaffna and Kadirgamar in Colombo were finished off by it using snipers. Crooks, too, was certain to have previously visited the Agr International Building from where he took aim at the former President. US authorities haven’t so far explained why Crooks, who had been detected over an hour before the incident with a rangefinder – an instrument used to measure the distance to a target – was not detained.

Some Republican Senators demanded the immediate resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Perusal of US media reports indicated that law enforcement personnel at the scene had been fully aware of the threat and one unarmed local officer saw Crooks on top of the Agr International Building aiming a weapon, moments before he opened fire.

Political killings in the 90s

A few minutes before a suicide bomber blew up
Ranasinghe Premadasa at Armour Street, Maradana

President Ranasinghe Premadasa was blasted on May Day, 1993 by an LTTE suicide cadre who had infiltrated the UNP leader’s inner security cordon two years before. That assassination, near the Armour Street Police Station, soon after the writer returned to The Island editorial from a five minutes walking distance away, increased the threat of terrorism to a new level.

There hadn’t been such an attack on a high-profile political target before here though the LTTE also killed Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb blast. The LTTE infiltrated the President’s security contingent. This wouldn’t have been possible if not for the President’s valet, Mohideen’s weakness for women and liquor. The relationship with Mohideen and the LTTE cadre (Kulaweerasingham Weerakumar alias Babu) who had been tasked for the mission was so close he even had access to the President’s bedroom at his private residence, Sucharitha.

It was pertinent to mention that Premadasa was assassinated three years after the eruption of Eelam War II in June 1990. The President’s security had been weakened to such an extent, the killer could even have planted a bomb inside the President’s bedroom or cause an explosion in a SLAF helicopter carrying him to his estate.

The assassination took place at a time of great political upheaval against the backdrop of the assassination of one-time colleague and political rival Lalith Athulathmudali on April 23, 1993 at a political rally at Kirulapone. Having overcome a bid to impeach him in 1991 amidst catastrophic battlefield losses, President Premadasa seemed to have engaged in a process of consolidation when the LTTE removed him.

Like the Gandhi assassination, Premadasa’s killing altered Sri Lanka’s political direction.

The killing of State Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne in March 1992, UNP presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake in Oct 1994 and the failed bid on President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s life in Dec 1999 underscored the overwhelming threat posed by the LTTE that received financial backing from the Tamil Diaspora based in the West.

Dissanayake was killed while campaigning for the 1994 presidential election whereas Kumaratunga survived the blast directed at her as she was campaigning for her second term. Had the LTTE succeeded, perhaps UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe could have won the contest. The killing of Dissanayake helped Kumaratunga to win the 1994 election. The LTTE obviously worked in mysterious ways.

The global community turned a blind eye to LTTE efforts to destroy the political party system here, while outwardly singing hosannas for democratic values world over. The group targeted both the executive and legislature. Former Army Commander General C.S. Weerasooriya in his recently launched autobiography ‘Duty & Devotion’ dealt with how systematic elimination of key political party men undermined the country.

The LTTE killed quite a number of Tamil parliamentarians, including Appapillai Amirthalingam and Vettuvelu Yogeswaran. Like the assassination of Robert and Kadirgamar during the CFA arranged by Norway, the LTTE eliminated Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran as it was engaged in negotiations with President Premadasa (1989 May-June 1990).

Western powers reiterated their lenient attitude towards separatist terrorism here in the wake of Kadirgamar’s assassination. Instead of immediate retaliatory measures against the LTTE, they demanded Sri Lanka’s commitment to a much flawed peace process.

The US statement exposed the duplicity in their stand. The then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on August 12, 2005 declared: “I am shocked and saddened by the assassination of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. This senseless murder was a vicious act of terror, which the United States strongly condemns. Those responsible must be brought to justice.

I offer my deepest sympathies and condolences to Mr. Kadirgamar’s family and to his friends and colleagues in Sri Lanka who will miss him greatly.

I last met Foreign Minister Kadirgamar this June. He was a man of dignity, honour and integrity, who devoted his life to bringing peace to Sri Lanka. Together, we must honour his memory by re-dedicating ourselves to peace and ensuring that the Cease-Fire remains in force.”

How could Sri Lanka bring those responsible for the Kadirgamar assassination to justice while ensuring that the highly flawed Norwegian arranged CFA remained in force?

In spite of on and off statements issued following high profile attacks, Western powers accepted violence perpetrated by the LTTE as part of their strategy.

Minister Douglas Devananda is one of the luckiest to escape LTTE operations to kill him. Of the many LTTE attempts, the deadliest was the bid made in late Nov 2007 to introduce a disabled woman with explosives hidden in her brassiere into Devananda’s office at Isipathana road, Narahenpita. Suspicious security staff thwarted her attempt. She triggered a blast killing several on the spot. Devananda, who was in his office, escaped.

Two other high profile assassinations were that of Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle in the Katana police area on April 6, 2008 and Puttalam District MP D.M. Dassanayake on January 08, 2008 at Ja-Ela.

The combined forces eradicated the LTTE less than two years later.

Over 15 years after the conclusion of the war, a lawmaker was killed in broad light at Nittambuwa by people influenced by Aragalaya. The Speaker himself claimed that he was also threatened by those behind Aragalaya. The ousted President, too, claimed the conspiracy also targeted him. There hadn’t been proper investigation to date as to what happened during the March 31-July 14, 2022 period that changed the course of Sri Lanka’s history. The common thread in all that was outgoing US Ambassador Julie Chung as she defended it as a peaceful protest movement and insisted that security forces and police should not lay a hand on them.

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Midweek Review

Legacy of enforced disappearances: Vital facts conveniently forgotten to whitewash LTTE and India

Published

1 day ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

One-time child soldier Jesuthasan Antonythasan poses with actresses Claudine Vinasithamby and Kalieaswari Srinivasan during a photocall for the film "Dheepan" at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. The movie won the Palme d'Or in 2015. Antonythasan fought for the LTTE terrorist group before fleeing Sri Lanka and reached France in 1993. Of those categorised as missing, perhaps he is the most famous.

Those demanding accountability from Sri Lanka for war crimes allegations are strangely silent on atrocities committed by the LTTE. On the orders of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE killed hundreds of members belonging to rival terrorist groups. It assassinated President Ranasinghe Premadsasa, almost succeeded in assassinating President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and made attempts on President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, the indiscriminate use of children as cannon fodder went unnoticed. How many children, forcibly recruited into their ranks, perished in fighting? And, lastly, shouldn’t the Tamil community hold the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led now defunct Tamil National Alliance, that recognised the LTTE in 2001 as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, responsible for death and destruction caused since 2001?

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) representative Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, and head of the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED) Yogarasa Kanagaranjini, on 30 August, opened an exhibition at the Thanthai Selva Auditorium in Jaffna. The exhibition, appropriately named ‘Long Road for Justice,’ coincided with the International Day for Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Pérez later addressed a conference held therein where the responsibility on the part of Sri Lanka was stressed.

Civil society activist Sunanda Deshapriya, in an article titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Disappeared: Where Do We Go from Here?’ carried in Jaffna Monitor, dealt with missing persons issue. Deshapriya focused on the North-East war (https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/sri-lankas-disappeared-where-do-we-go-from-here/)

The ICRC, Colombo, issued a statement regarding the International Day of the Disappeared. When the writer sought the number of missing persons in the country, Ruwanthi Jayasundare, Head of Communications, said that they had a caseload of 15,000 registered tracing requests (1983-2009) but she asserted that the actual number of missing was far bigger (https://island.lk/icrs-sustained-and-collective-efforts-critical-to-address-issue-of-missing-persons/)

Perhaps, many people wouldn’t know that the ICRC arrived here in 1989 during the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) terror campaign in the wake of Indian military intervention here. The much discussed issue of disappearances must be appropriately dealt with, taking into consideration the relevant factors. At the time of their deployment here, President Ranasinghe Premadasa had been engaged in direct talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Geneva-headquartered body never expected a gruesome outbreak of violence. It would be pertinent to mention that within weeks after the ICRC’s arrival here, the JVP was crushed with brute force as it, too, resorted to senseless violence. The counter violence unleashed by the state apparatus was such that the then Marxist group’s top leadership was killed, except for Somawansa Amarasinghe, who escaped, with Indian help, in February 1990, and remained in exile till late 2001.

The ICRC deployment took place in mid October, 1989, and JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was captured in the second week of November, at Ulapone, and shot in custody, and was allegedly cremated alive at the Borella cemetery.

In fact, at the time the ICRC arrived here, the JVP was on its last legs. The UNP government never bothered to hand over the bodies of slain JVP cadres to their families. Those who had been listed missing at that time were no longer in the land of the living, by the time the ICRC brought its operation in the South to an end.

What the country never expected was a fresh flare-up in the northern and eastern regions. The LTTE resumed large-scale hostilities, in June, after the Indian Army pulled out from Sri Lanka in late March 1990. Interestingly, some of those demanding justice for the missing/disappeared are conveniently silent about the disappearances during the Indian Army deployment here (July 1987 to March 1990).

Soon after hostilities erupted in the northern and eastern regions, following a 14-month truce between President Ranasinghe Premadasa and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (May 1989 to June 1990), the ICRC was invited to open offices in that region. There had been excesses on the part of the military and law enforcement authorities as the government battled the LTTE, the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation as assessed by none other than the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Yet Sri Lanka must earnestly address accountability issues and take meaningful measures to compensate the families of the innocents.

However, the Tamil community must come to terms with the reality that the vast majority of dead were members of the LTTE. The LTTE enjoyed considerable firepower as it literally wielded a conventional fighting capability, which even included a fledgling air force and directly challenged the government, and the armed forces had no option but to fight back. Obviously, the LTTE, that achieved significant battlefield successes over the years, never expected the almost non-stop three-year-long offensive that brought the war to an end in May 2009. Disappearances became exceptionally an important issue in the overall agenda pursued by the Tamil Diaspora and Tamil speaking political parties here only after the LTTE’s eradication.

Multiple reasons

In September 1990, several months after the Indian Army was literally forced to pull out from Sri Lanka as Tigers fought back the mighty IPKF to a standstill, while President Premadasa, too, made it clear that they were no longer welcome here, Amnesty International (AI) documented 43 cases of disappearances. According to the London headquartered AI, the majority of these disappearances happened in the Jaffna peninsula, following the outbreak of fighting in October 1989. The Indian Army launched ‘Operation Pawan’ meant to disarm the LTTE in line with the Indo-Lanka Accord, signed on 29 July, 1987.

During the Indian Army deployment here (1987 July to 1990 March), the Sri Lankan armed forces were confined to their barracks in the North and East. The AI accused the Indian Army of torture, extrajudicial executions and disappearances. The deaths of nearly 1,500 Indian officers and men, and injuries to approximately 3,000 others during the Indian deployment here, underscored the ferocity of the situation.

The Indian Army carried out reprisals, following LTTE attacks in both provinces. The Indian Army was also accused of sexual violence. Perhaps, the August 1989 Valvettithurai orgy of violence, during which Indian soldiers killed civilians, tortured detainees, committed sexual violence, and systematically destroyed homes and businesses, while the town was under curfew, was the worst case.

In October, 2025, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) presented a detailed reparations claim, in association with the Valvettithurai Citizens’ Committee, to the Sri Lankan Office for Reparations, requesting USD $15 million (LKR 4.5 billion) for victims of a 1989 orgy of violence committed by the IPKF where at least 66 civilians were killed and 34 injured.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a comprehensive compensation claim for such a wartime crime. Thousands of LTTE cadres, some of them trained in India, and civilians, perished in Indian Army action. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) earned such a bad reputation it came to be dubbed the Indian People Killing Force.

The war in Sri Lanka, or whatever one chooses to call it, should be examined in the context of a high profile Indian destabilisation project ordered by Premier Indira Gandhi. Over a year after the Indian Army pullout, the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, by then out of power, but he was the person Velupillai Prabhakaran held responsible for the Indian Army deployment in Sri Lanka. Following Gandhi’s assassination, India hunted down the LTTE team, involved in the operation, carried out by a female suicide cadre.

The LTTE forgot the Indian role in the transformation of the Tamil separatist terrorist movement to a deadly conventional threat. If not for the despicable Indian action, Sri Lanka wouldn’t have been hauled up before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). That is the unpalatable truth.

How many Sri Lankan Tamils disappeared during weapons training in India? Did India investigate such disappearances as well as deaths caused by fighting among rival Tamil terrorist groups operating in India at that time? Among the groups that had been armed by India were PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam), EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front) and TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation) responsible for quite a significant number of killings and human rights violations.

India never accepted responsibility for the PLOTE raid on the Maldives on a contract to topple the then Maldivian PM Gayoom’s government given by a domestic rival in early November, 1988. Shouldn’t New Delhi at least apologise for the sea borne raid on the Maldives that resulted in deaths of Maldivians, as well as raiders? The Indian Navy sank a ship commandeered by the attackers fleeing the Maldives after air borne Indian troops brought the situation under control.

The Indian and global media praised swift Indian intervention but ignored two key factors, namely (i) the operation targeting Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was mounted by one of the groups trained, armed and deployed by India and (ii) two trawlers carrying the raiding party left the northern part of Sri Lanka, at that time held by the Indian Army.

The writer had the opportunity, in November, 2011, to interview the Maldivian businessman, Abdullah Luthufee, who convinced the PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran to carry out the operation. (Male plot leader speaks out 3 November, 2011, Rajiv saved us from Gayoom-Male coup leader 4 November 2011 and How Luthufee moved SAARC venue from Male to Addu 11 Nov 2011) dealt with the operation that should have drawn international attention to the Indian destabilisation project. Let me stress that some PLOTE cadres perished when the Indian Navy sank the vessel commandeered by the fleeing PLOTE cadres. They were among those who had been listed missing during the conflict.

Australian and US interventions

One-time top JVPer Kumar Gunaratnam secret arrival in Sri Lanka as an Australian Citizen Noel Mudalige, in early September, 2011, emphasised the issuance of foreign passports in assumed names to Sri Lankans under controversial circumstances. The writer exclusively reported how the head of the breakaway JVP faction, known as the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), arrived here. The Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka acted swiftly and decisively when Gunaratnam disappeared after entering the country, using Australian passport bearing number N 1016123 on September 4, 2011 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=43914). The writer dealt with the same issue again in August 2016 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=47936).

Among thousands of Sri Lankans, now having foreign citizenship, there can be many people listed here as “missing/forcibly” disappeared. Western governments never helped Sri Lanka to establish the real identities of Sri Lankans living abroad, under assumed names. If Gunaratnam never acted in a manner inimical to the JVP, he could have easily lived a comfortable life in Australia as Sinhala Buddhist Noel Mudalige.

There had been many interesting stories of those categorised as missing/dead turning up in the West, under new identities. One of the most intriguing ones, is about an ex-LTTE terrorist turned Frenchman Antonythasan Jesuthasan, the lead actor in Dheepen that won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Internationally acclaimed Jacques Audiard directed the movie about three Sri Lankans who formed a fake family to escape the war and to secure asylum in France. Antonythasan Jesuthasan’s performance in Dheepan earned him a Best Actor nomination at the 2016 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars). Jesuthasan is the only ex-LTTE terrorist to receive international acclaim as an actor.

In an interview with Tom Seymour (Dheepan’s Antonythasan Jesuthasan: from Tamil Tiger to star of a Palme d’Or winner in The Guardian) posted online on March 31, 2016, transformed Frenchman Jesuthasan, unwittingly revealed how he deceived the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to secure political asylum. Seymour reported that Jesuthasan, after having shown him a dense lattice of scars on his forearm, declared: “I did those to myself. I was 22, and I had spent years trying to come to the west. I wanted to get a fake French passport, but I had to be accepted as a refugee. I went to the UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees], but they wouldn’t believe my story. So I cut myself, and held up my arm, and said to them: ‘Look at my blood. This is my word.”

Jesuthasan is just one among thousands who obtained political asylum on false claims. Jesuthasan ended up as the star of Dheepan, directed by Jacques Audiard, possibly France’s most celebrated modern director. There cannot be a better example than Jesuthasan to highlight the web of deceit pertaining to the vast majority of those who successfully secured political asylum. But, the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry never bothered to set the record straight. Born in Allaipiddy, on the Velanaitivu islet, Jesuthasan claimed he fought the Sri Lanka Army in August 1990 and subsequently fled the country and managed to reach France.

But, the case of Kathiravel Thayapararajah is one of the most controversial cases. Thayapararajah had been involved in a Tamil Diaspora funded project in Kilinochchi during Eelam war IV. He couldn’t have secured the Diaspora assignment without the approval of the LTTE and remained in the Vanni during the war. He disappeared in September 2009.

His disappearance prompted a section of the media, as well as some international NGOs, to accuse the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of executing him. No less a person than the then US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs and one-time US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert O. Blake, inquired about the missing person.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), the Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal, Tamilnet and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights among others blamed the Sri Lankan intelligence for the disappearance. However, the Indian media, in May, 2014, revealed Thayapararajah’s arrest though they didn’t know at the time that he was the person who was supposed to have been killed by the Sri Lankan Intelligence. At the time Indian police apprehended Thayapararajah, at Arichamunai off Dhanuskodi, after arriving there in a boat from Sri Lanka, he had been with notorious female human smuggler Uthayakala. She claimed Thayapararajah was her second husband.

That chance detection exposed a blatant lie propagated over the years. The then Head of Missing Persons Commission, retired High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama, is also on record as having called for international cooperation to trace persons living overseas under new identities. Paranagama told the writer that at that time both the international community, including the ICRC, had declined to help Sri Lanka identify those taking cover behind new identities.

Chemmani mass graves

Sri Lanka needs to investigate war crimes allegations, particularly the high profile Chemmani mass grave. The country cannot ignore the continuing accusations with the international media taking advantage of the situation to tarnish the country, especially the Rajapaksa rule. It must be a way of the West taking revenge from the Rajapaksas for going against their wish to save the bold thirsty Tigers. It is like their logic that Israel can do no wrong!

The CNN dealt with the Chemmani issue while the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in July last year, called for what it claimed as victim-centred investigation into the alleged mass graves in compliance with international law and standards.

Tamil political parties, too, repeatedly demanded tangible action against the perpetrators. The Chemmani mass grave site drew national and international attention in 1998 following the confession of a soldier implicated in the rape and murder of schoolgirl Krishanthy Kumaraswamy. Chemmani has become a powerful and painful symbol of the country’s war-torn past.

Krishanthy Kumaraswamy was raped and killed by soldiers on the 7th of September, 1996. The same group of soldiers later killed her mother, her younger brother and a family friend who went out searching for the teenager.

An excavation, in 1999, led to the recovery of 15 sets of remains, and then the matter was allowed to rest for about a quarter of a century. On the orders of the Jaffna Magistrate’s court, a fresh excavation was ordered last year, following the chance recovery of some skeletal remains and so far nearly 600 sets of human remains have been found, among them children and infants. Tamil media have declared Chemmani as the largest mass grave found in Sri Lanka.

It would be pertinent to mention that some time back the Army was accused of the Mannar mass graves but investigations undertaken by the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), with international expertise, proved the claims false. Bone fragment samples were submitted to Beta Analytic, a specialised US radiocarbon-dating laboratory. This happened during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019) Later, the lab indicated that the tested bone samples dated back to the period between 1499 and 1719 AD (the 15th to 18th century). That brought an end to the Mannar mass graves hoax.

Whatever the circumstances, the government cannot remain silent regarding the Chemmani mass graves. The area that had been under Security Forces Headquarters, Jaffna continues to receive public attention, both here and abroad. The Army will have to address the issue without further delay. Let me stress the importance of investigating the atrocities perpetrated by others, namely the Indian Army for which the responsibility lies with the government of India as well as the LTTE, and over half a dozen other terrorist groups that subsequently entered the political mainstream.

The formation of Tamil National Army (TNA) by India before the Indian Army pullout by March 1990, too, must receive the attention of Sri Lanka as well the concerned international community. Having totally destabilised the smaller neighbouring county by arming scores of terrorist groups, New Delhi went a step further by the formation of the TNA meant to protect Varatharaja Perumal’s North-East provincial administration.

In spite of President Ranasinghe Premadasa drawing strong criticism for arming the LTTE against the Indian Army, in hindsight, if not for his controversial decision, India’s proxy, TNA may have taken root. Whatever various parties say today, the TNA had been formed to ensure the continuation of the deeply unpopular Perumal’s administration that went to the extent of forcible conscription. India can never absolve itself of responsibility for what it did in Sri Lanka. The destabilisation project, largely influenced by the then Premier Indira Gandhi’s concerns over the developing situation in Tamil Nadu, caused massive death and destruction. No less a person than J.N. Dixit, who served as their High Commissioner in Colombo (1985 to 1989), and later appointed National Security Advisor (2004 to 2005) disclosed in his memoirs ‘Makers of India’s Foreign Policy: Raja Ram Mohun to Yashwant Sinha’, Indira’s Gandhi’s intervention. The late Dixit in no uncertain terms blamed her for Indian intervention in Sri Lanka.

Midweek Review

A street where Sri Lankan stories found their readers

Published

1 day ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel / Ashok Ferrey

By Ifham Nizam

Pictures by Nishan S Priyantha and Kamal Bogoda

Ashok Ferrey took readers into an older Colombo through Colpetty People. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten opened the door to the personal stories behind her poetry. Andrew Fidel Fernando brought cricket, culture and the distinctive world of Sri Lankan school cricket into the conversation, while Ramya Jirasinghe spoke candidly about the long and often difficult road from writing a manuscript to seeing it published.

Then came Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel, whose conversation moved from literature to the question of where Sri Lanka should be by 2048.

These were among the voices that gave life to Fairway Street of Stories, a new initiative that sought to bring Sri Lankan English-language writers closer to their readers.

But behind the gathering of authors, readers, books, children, book clubs and aspiring writers was a bigger idea—the brainchild of Amendra Haputhanthri, Director of Sarasavi Bookshop (Pvt) Ltd.

For Haputhanthri, Fairway Street of Stories is not merely another literary event. It is part of a much larger attempt to create a marketplace for Sri Lankan talent and to persuade readers to discover stories that are unmistakably their own.

“Usually, when we have exhibitions, such as the Colombo Book Fair, we always think about what sells the most. Here, we wanted to create a niche market for people who want to read Sri Lankan writing,” she said.

And the first event demonstrated just how wide that literary world can be.

Stories from a Sri Lanka we know

Haputhanthri believes one of the greatest strengths of Sri Lankan English writing is its sense of place.

A thriller set in an unfamiliar foreign city may be entertaining. But a thriller unfolding at the Galle Face Hotel or Mount Lavinia Hotel carries another kind of intimacy for a Sri Lankan reader.

“You have familiar words and actual real-world places that we have been to. There will be a connection with the book,” she said.

That connection can be even more powerful when the story takes readers into places and experiences that are disappearing.

This is one reason she admires Ferrey’s work.

During his Fairway session, Ferrey, together with Tanya de Mel, offered readers an engaging glimpse into the world behind Colpetty People and the Colombo it captures.

Amendra Haputhanthri (extreme left) with winners

For Haputhanthri, Ferrey’s writing is also a record of a rapidly changing city.

“Even Sri Lanka is changing very rapidly. Within Colombo also, the environment is rapidly changing, and that is being addressed nicely in the books of Ashok Ferrey,” she said.

Literature, in that sense, becomes more than entertainment.

It becomes memory.

The stories behind the poems

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten offered a very different literary experience.

Haputhanthri describes her as one of the country’s outstanding contemporary talents, particularly because of the personal histories embedded in her poetry.

A poem on a page may be only a few lines long. But behind those lines can lie an entire life.

Vanderpoorten spoke about those experiences at Fairway, including deeply disturbing events she had witnessed during her university years.

For Haputhanthri, hearing those stories transformed the poems.

“All her stories, there is a back story. All her poems, there is a back story,” she said.

She believes such conversations are precisely what literary events should create—a space where readers can move beyond the printed page and understand the human experience that produced it.

She also encouraged people to read poetry, even if only one poetry collection a year.

Poetry, she believes, forces readers to think beyond what is immediately presented.

“It gives you the ability to think out of the box,” she said.

Cricket is more than a score

Andrew Fidel Fernando brought yet another dimension to the event.

For someone who writes and comments on international cricket, his work naturally takes readers into the world of the game. But Haputhanthri noted that Fernando’s writing also captures the culture surrounding cricket in different countries.

And Sri Lanka has a particularly richstory to tell.

Andrew Fidel Fernando / Dr. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten

For Haputhanthri, the island’s school-cricket culture is something the world should know more about.

“We are the best in the world when it comes to having a culture for school cricket. It is something very unique to our country,” she said.

She even suggested that writers interested in Sri Lankan cricket should explore this largely distinctive phenomenon in greater depth.

Because literature can sometimes reveal what statistics cannot.

A schoolboy walking onto a cricket ground carries with him a school, a city, friendships, rivalries, family expectations and an entire culture.

From manuscript to book

Ramya Jirasinghe’s contribution was particularly relevant to aspiring writers.

She spoke about her own journey and the realities of getting a book published.

Her experience demonstrated that literary success rarely happens overnight.

Winning recognition is one thing. Turning a manuscript into an internationally published book is another.

For emerging writers listening to her, the message was clear: writing requires patience, revision and persistence.

Haputhanthri knows that process well.

Writers, she said, can be rejected repeatedly—even at international level.

And translations create another layer of difficulty.

Sometimes an author reads a translation of his or her work and says: “This doesn’t have my voice.”

That, Haputhanthri acknowledged, illustrates how complex the journey from an original manuscript to another language can be.

A speech from the future

Carmel Miranda

Asanka de Mel and Margaret Richardson brought another perspective to Fairway.

De Mel’s 2048: A Speech from 2048 looks towards the centenary of Sri Lanka’s independence and asks why the country has not yet become a developed nation.

But his message, as Haputhanthri interpreted it, was not one of resignation.

Sri Lanka should not allow its small geographical size to become a psychological limitation.

De Mel’s own journey—from two decades in Silicon Valley to returning to Sri Lanka and embarking on entrepreneurial ventures—was offered as an example of what persistence and confidence can achieve.

For Haputhanthri, it reinforced one of the central lessons of both writing and life.

“There is no shortcut in life,” she said.

Stories that preserve a country

Fairway Street of Stories also reflected Haputhanthri’s belief that literature can preserve aspects of Sri Lankan identity that are increasingly vulnerable.

She spoke about Angampora, Beeralu weaving, traditional culture and historical stories.

Even the country’s royal heritage can become a gateway for a new generation to understand the island’s past.

She recalled seeing foreign visitors browsing books about Sri Lankan kings.

Those books were doing more than recounting history. They were presenting the story of a country with a long and complicated heritage.

Haputhanthri believes Sri Lankan literature can perform a similar role internationally.

“Our stories should also reach people in the same way our food and cultural experiences have reached the world,” she said.

She recalled meeting two foreigners who had visited Sri Lanka around 156 times.

Their extraordinary attachment to the country reminded her that Sri Lanka’s culture has an ability to attract people repeatedly.

The stories of the country, she believes, deserve the same reach.

The problem is not the e-book

Ramya Jirasinghe (third from left)

Yet while Haputhanthri is passionate about books, she is equally concerned about the future of reading.

She does not believe e-books are necessarily the enemy.

“If people are reading an e-version, as long as they are reading something valuable, that will add something to you,” she said.

The bigger threat, in her view, is the endless scrolling culture of the smartphone.

“Scrolling on the phone reduces your attention span and you can’t do any sort of deep work,” she said.

She has observed this challenge among young people entering the workplace and believes sustained concentration is increasingly difficult.

But her answer is not to blame young people.

It is to begin much earlier—with parents and teachers.

“Whatever the parents read, the children also will read,” she said.

‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’

That belief is now developing into another initiative.

Haputhanthri is working on a programme titled ‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’, which she hopes to take from school to school and community to community.

The target will be parents as much as children.

The message is that reading habits are cultivated. They are demonstrated, encouraged and nurtured.

She also hopes to involve children who have themselves developed through reading, allowing them to share their experiences with others.

For Haputhanthri, the issue is deeply personal.

“I would credit everything that I have today, and everything I am today, because of reading,” she said.

She believes avid readers develop empathy, creativity and critical thinking—qualities that are increasingly valuable in a world dominated by information but often short on attention.

Beyond one literary weekend

Fairway Street of Stories, therefore, is not intended to remain a once-a-year literary celebration.

Haputhanthri wants to see activities connected with reading and books continue throughout the year.

A bargain book sale is among the ideas being considered, making use of books from Sarasavi’s extensive network of branches that may have suffered minor damage or discolouration while remaining on shelves.

The next major event will be the book fair, followed by further initiatives.

But the larger ambition goes beyond sales.

It is about discovery.

A reader discovering a Sri Lankan writer.

A child discovering poetry.

An aspiring author discovering that rejection is not the end.

A foreign visitor discovering that Sri Lanka’s stories are as rich as its food, landscapes and traditions.

And a country discovering itself in its own books.

That is perhaps the most significant contribution of Fairway Street of Stories.

Because the authors who gathered there did more than talk about their books.

They demonstrated the many ways in which Sri Lanka can be written, remembered and imagined.

And behind that gathering was Amendra Haputhanthri’s conviction that these stories deserve not only a place on a bookshelf, but a place in the minds of readers—and eventually, a place in the wider world.