Features

Takeover of estates and failure of Provincial Councils

Published

6 months ago

2025/10/19

Thilina Walpola

Amunugama with Fukuda, Akashi and Devaraj

Innovating double cropping in Harispattuwa

The take over of estates created untold suffering to the estate population. During my circuits as a public servant soon after the change of management in the estate areas, I saw stacks of coffins for little children by the roadside. Obviously children were starving to death. Hundreds of old workers were pushed out of their estates to beg on the roads without food or medical attention. Many of them died of starvation.

All the while the so called “People Alliance” members, including the leftists, were stripping the plantations of their well maintained assets. It is a chapter which will redound as a curse to the so called socialists of this country for decades to come. Such deaths and suffering is a standing indictment of foolish administrators, particularly among the so called progressives. The human suffering they inflicted had to be seen to be believed.

Thondaman was the undisputed leader of the estate Tamils at that time. Though he remained in Parliament to be the right hand man of JRJ and Premadasa, his assistants represented him in the Central Provincial Council (CPC). The leader of this group was Devaraj who was a well educated and sober representative. He was a leftist by conviction but was totally loyal to his boss and only intervened to promote Thondaman’s agenda.

Devaraj and I were members of several delegations on foreign tours. We became good friends and later when he was elevated by his patron to be a Member of Parliament we spent quite some time together. He was assisted by Muthu Sivalingam who also became an MP and Deputy Minister. Another CWC member of the CPC was Sathasivam who came from a high caste estate family. With his fluency in three languages and tall stature he became a darling of the embassy cocktail circuit and thereby lost his standing within the party.

If my memory serves me right he left the party and went into oblivion. There were others from the younger generation like Arulsamy who are still influential provincial politicians. Thonda’s supremacy was challenged only by Chandrasekeran, a charismatic figure and a brilliant Tamil orator as mentioned earlier. He was cutting into the CWC vote with his party and emerging as an estate Tamil leader till he was felled due to alcoholism.

He entered Parliament and carried a vital vote which sustained the CBK administration. He too was made a Deputy Minister and I would encounter him in Parliament much the worse for drink. All of them however were later eclipsed after the death of the old man by his grandson “‘Thambi” Thondaman-a well educated and fun loving young man who became a fixture in every Cabinet. “Thambi” was the son of Ramanathan – the old mans son and heir – who was a Trinitian and had been a Minister in the previous CPC regime.

Unfortunately Ramanathan who was a perfect gentleman died young. The mantle fell on Thondaman Junior, who assisted by Devaraj and Muthu Sivalingam, maintained the CWC slot in the Sri Lankan Cabinet that had been earned by his master strategist grandfather through collaboration with successive Presidents. The senior Thondaman’s statue now adorns the courtyard of the old Parliament together with the statues of other national heroes. It is a well deserved tribute to a leader of a community that has served its adopted nation well above the call of duty. No one would deny that they deserve much more.

Operational failures

Having served as member of a Provincial Council and observing its operations at first hand I am convinced that the PCs as presently constituted are a costly failure. I recall the discussions that were held during the JRJ regime at the urging of the Indian government to offer some form of devolution to the Northern and Eastern provinces. This was mainly because the complex Indian political situation at that time demanded the appeasement of Tamil Nadu politicians. These leaders all together pressed the Indian Congress government to push the Sri Lankan authorities to devolve powers to representatives elected from the North and East.

It meant that Tamil politicians would enjoy some devolved executive powers. Behind this Tamil demand was the ghost of their recently proclaimed concept of the North and East as the Tamil “homeland”. Every attempt was made to find the language to satisfy both sides as the Sri Lankan Government would not, indeed could not, agree to demarcate “Tamil homelands” which would have collapsed the concept of “territorial integrity” and “sovereignity” which form the basis of our national identity.

Till the last moment Provincial Councils were to be established only in the North and East. They were to be the only “unit of devolution” according to the first draft. Indeed according to that draft there would be created a “temporarily” joined North-Eastern province. After a plebiscite in the Eastern province the voters there could decide on a permanent joinder or not.

What powers would devolve on the PCs? JRJ resolved this vexed issue by decreeing that we should “in toto” adopt the powers devolved to the Indian states under their Constitution. This entailed the adoption of three “lists”. List One would include the powers of the Centre. List Two would include the powers of the PCs. A third list would have “concurrent powers”where practical necessity required a sharing of power.

In this way the unit of devolution and the powers to be devolved were agreed upon and would later find constitutional affirmation via Parliament in the 13th amendment. But the outrage evoked by these proposals among the majority Sinhalese frightened JRJ. What he feared most after the UNP debacle of 1956 was the backlash of the Sinhalese voter. Therefore at the last minute he changed the decision to set up PCs only for the North-East and extended it to all provinces.

Thus the opposition could not argue that the North-East would become a special geographical and cultural entity which would enjoy devolved powers not available in the rest of the country. The Muslims too welcomed this change as they could dominate the Eastern PC together with the minority Sinhala or if necessary, alone. Thus the whole country was subjected to a radical change by the creation of a second tier of governance out of a structure which was conceived as a solution to a different problem, namely the ethnic and geographical configuration of the population of the country.

The financial arrangements for the implementation of this new tier of administration created many problems. The new PCs instead of being managed as lean and mean entities as earlier envisaged, were converted by the politicians, who were appointed as Chief Ministers, into pale imitations of the perks and procedures of the Ministers of the central government. All the wasteful expenditure on vehicles, staff, bungalows and local and foreign travel were duplicated at the provincial level particularly by the southern CMs, officials and their hangers on.

The PCs were allowed to levy several taxes as a way of collecting revenue. However this too created a problem as they started collecting taxes from all the productive enterprises to finance their conspicuous consumption. It raised a storm of protest from investors and the Ministry of Finance had to intervene by prohibiting PCs from exercising that right. Instead the Treasury provided a “block grant” to them based on population figures.

This did not prevent the PCs from constantly asking for more funds putting a further strain on the country’s resources. Then a question of staffing arose. It was decided to recruit to such positions from the SLAS and allied services. However minor staff and clerical officers were recruited direct to the PC. This provided ample opportunities for local politicians to go on a recruiting spree. Since some technical services such as road building and minor irrigation were devolved subjects, provincial departments were set up by absorbing local recruits from the all island services.

They were provided with budgeted funds and a provincial work program. However since many of those recently absorbed officials were comparatively inexperienced the quality of the local technical services suffered as could be seen from the poor quality of roads and minor irrigation works in the outstations. When I became the Minister of Public Administration I had to ensure that the state officials who were on secondment came back to the senior service.

Chief Ministers and local Ministers were loath to release their seconded officers with whom they had “sweetheart deals”. But I had to insist on the rules of secondment which were meant to ensure the integrity of the public service. Our Ministry was not very popular with the Chief Ministers. Once when I cautioned them against following the wasteful symbolic expenditure of Cabinet ministers, Bertie Dissanayake, a “strong man” type of Chief Minister of North Central Province, held a press briefing criticizing my interference in their affairs.

Innovations

I found it comparatively easy to perform my duties as a Provincial Councilor as I had served as Additional Government Agent of Kandy district and Government Agent of Matale district. These two districts covered two thirds of the area of the CPC and I knew them like the back of my hand. Furthermore, I represented Harispattuwa electorate which was the largest in the Kandy district. My parental home in Nugawela was located in the centre of the electorate and I used it as my office.

Villagers were quite used to coming there to see my parents who were popular teachers in the district. Apart from servicing the needs of my electors at a time when letters of recommendation were vital for even menial tasks, I tried to look at the bigger picture and promote some projects which would be of benefit to a large number of my constituents. On my suggestion the building of a major roadway linking Ankumbura with Ridigama in Kurunegala district was undertaken. In addition to easing access between villages on the boundary of these two districts it facilitated the exchange of agricultural products as well as services.

We were delighted when the price of coconuts from Kurunegala dropped in Harispattuwa thanks to shorter travel and better links with producers. Similarly spices which were a speciality of my electorate got better prices because urban traders would come over to buy pepper, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom direct from producers. I also used my allocation of funds from the PC to purchase plants and seedlings from the Agriculture Department in Peradeniya and distribute them to many villages so that we would have a big enough crop every season to interest more affluent buyers.

Today, many years later, when I visit these villages I see mango, coconut, avocado, guava, rambutan and banana groves laden with fruit. Often the villagers would prepare a basket of mangoes for me after a meeting to thank me for those budded plants I distributed many years ago. I experimented with growing rambutan plants I bought in Malawana, along the river banks of Hataraliyadde. A private entrepreneur who got the cue from me now has a large rambutan grove that is famous in the area. He is now known as “Rambutan Mahattaya” thanks to my links with Malwana.

As I mentioned in Volume One of my autobiography – The Kandy Man – I had a friend in Malwana named GT Wickremasinghe who rented out fruit laden Rambutan trees and I would take my young family for a day’s outing there to come back with a car full of rambutans which we happily distributed to our friends and relatives. Later my friend Sarathchandra Rajakaruna of Dompe, who was a Deputy Minister, would call over with a basketful of delicious fruits every season.

Ginger

But my greatest achievement was in supporting the growing of ginger on a commercial scale in villages in the Galabawa area in Galagedera where the paddy fields are ideal for growing of alternative commercial crops like ginger, turmeric and linseed. The credit for this path breaking development should go to a dedicated Agricultural Officer by the name of Abeyaratne who became my close confidante and electoral supporter. He negotiated with the Kandurata Bank for credit to farmers who were willing to grow ginger in several villages which had large “yayas” or paddy fields and had proper irrigation facilities.

We negotiated with Elephant House – the manufacturer of Elephant Ginger Beer. Fortunately for us this division of Elephant House was led by my friend Jit Gunaratne who immediately saw the value of this arrangement and entered into an agreement with the local producers cooperative. The collaboration of the Kandurata Bank, Abeyaratne, Jit Gunaratne and the farmers cooperative was exemplary and the farmers who were used to low paddy yields and marginal profits now earned a tidy income.

This was shown in their new houses and tractors that we observed with much satisfaction. I recall one instance later on when the then acting Minister of Agriculture, Maithripala Sirisena, gave an order to the commercial banks not to provide loans for farmers who were abandoning paddy production and turning to other crops like ginger and turmeric. This led to a storm of protest from my farmers who arrived at my Nugawela office in buses and tractors to solicit my assistance to get Sirisena’s directive rescinded. I saw the justice of their request and in their presence called up MS at his residence in Polonnaruwa. I told him about the success of our program and threatened him that unless he withdraws that directive I would resign forthwith and go public about his incompetence.

I was happy when he immediately agreed with me and rescinded his directive a few days later. It was a dramatic victory and the older farmers still recall that encounter when I visit their fields. Now growing alternative commercial crops has caught on in even the neighbouring electorates and manufacturers of other brands of ginger beer also buy from my electorate. Both Jit and Abeyaratne are now in retirement and, as a matter of fact, so am I.

(Excerpted from vol. 3 of the Sarath Amunugama autbiography)

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Rohana Wijeweera

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

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

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

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

April 5 anniversary nostalgia

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

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

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

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

Strands of nationalism

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

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

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

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

Criticisms as expectations

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

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

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

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

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

by Rajan Philips

Features

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

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

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

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

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

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

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

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

Losers and Winners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Rajan Philips

Features

CIA’s hidden weapon in Iran

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa