Features

Terra cotta army in Xian and working in Vietnam

Published

3 years ago

2023/09/24

(Excerpted from Memories that Linger: My journey through the world of disability by Padmani Mendis)

I first heard of Xian when the famous Terra Cotta Army was discovered here in 1974. I was at Guys Hospital in London at the time, studying to be a teacher of physiotherapy. This was world news. Little did I think that I would one day actually see this spectacle. And here I was, taken on a tour of the site by an official from the Provincial Department of Civil Administration. He was born in this city. The people of Xian were proud of their cultural heritage. Our guide took his time explaining to Susan (my co-worker) and me the story of the discovery.

He said we were standing near the Mausoleum of the first Emperor of China by the name of Qin Shi Huang. The Emperor’s tomb has never been excavated. One day in 1974 while some farmers were digging a well near here, they found lots of pieces of pottery, including what appeared to be pieces of terracotta statues of soldiers and of horses and so on. The government took note of this and had Chinese archaeologists explore the site.

We were seeing what they found. Figures of a whole army that had been buried apparently surrounding the Emperor’s tomb as if to protect it. We gazed at the statues amazed. They were life-size, but heights varied. Each face was different with different features and expressions. They were dressed in different uniforms and had different hairstyles and head gear; this he said indicated their rank. Some were standing, others were kneeling with bows and arrows poised. And still others with bows and arrows by their side.

Only three of the pits on the site had been excavated. In the first pit there were more than 6,000 figures, and he said this was the main army. We paid more attention to the second pit. This had soldiers both as cavalry units with horses by their side and others as foot soldiers. We even saw chariots like those they would have gone to war with. And to think that these dated back to more than 200 years BC.

This was spectacular. But we found Xian itself a rather drab uninteresting city. Free market reforms had hardly touched it as yet. Tourism was yet to invade. Our hotel had seen better days. My husband visited here ten years later, and what he described to me was an amazingly different city.

Xian had been the capital of successive dynasties after its first Emperor Qin, and this was now showcased. Some of their mausoleums, tombs, old city walls and towers, ancient pagodas and other sites had been restored. It was now a “must visit” on any tourists’ itinerary or youngsters bucket list.

After Xian I stayed another three days in Beijing so I could experience some of its wonders. I chose not to join organised tours and went solo so I had time to drink it all in. It was relaxing spending time strolling along the Great Wall thinking of the many emperors who had a hand in the building of it from the time BC and the numerous wars it would been the focus of, the enemies it would have kept out and those that it did not.

Time was also spent at the Forbidden City, much more recent in comparison, built in the 15th century by the Ming Emperors. It remained as the residence of subsequent emperors and as the political centre of China until as recently as 1912. I had thought that the Forbidden City dated much further back. Two other sites I did not want to miss were the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace. To visit both on one day I took an organised tour.

The Ming Tombs, although not as ancient as I had thought they were, was important not to miss out on simply for the fact that so many of the great emperors had been buried there. Only one of the 13 tombs had been excavated. We did not enter it. Instead, we walked around the parks and on part of what is called the Sacred Way. There were huge sculptures and lots of carved arches. Altogether very pleasant and relaxing. And it was good to know that we were at this historical place.

Our visit to the Summer Palace in a way was similar. We walked around a lot seeing the lakes and gardens landscaped in beautiful surroundings. The names of the three gardens in the complex were interesting – translated, they meant ‘perfect brightness’, ‘elegant spring’ and ‘eternal spring’. The Chinese have very meaningful names for everything.

I visited Beijing twice more to participate in meetings. On each occasion I spent time at the Great Wall and the Forbidden Palace. I did not go back to the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace again.

Memories of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) that I have recalled until now I realise quite suddenly, come mostly from work which I have carried out for WHO. But there are other great CBR growers that I had the privilege of assisting in their goal of reaching disabled children and adults in the southern hemisphere. The first of these was Sweden. I have in Geneva recalled the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA. Among others are Radda Barnen or RB later also known as Swedish Save the Children.

Then of course, in academia, that which had the earliest and greatest impact was ICH or the International Child Health Unit of Uppsala University. There was also the Norwegian Association of the Disabled more popularly called just NAD. Yes, the Scandinavians were into CBR in a big way. Then came the Japanese. This was through JICA or the Japan International Cooperation Agency. They were conscious of the situation of disabled people in our part of the world. And they were keen on playing a part in changing that situation.

Radda Barnen or RB, Sweden in Vietnam

Soon after Vietnam won their war against the USA, the country was in a desperate state with the loss of lives and physical destruction the Americans had left behind. Yet unknown were the long-term effects the Vietnamese would face from the chemical warfare used by the mighty enemy. I am sure the immediate effect of what the chemical warfare did was familiar all around the world.

Many images of a forlorn people on their barren land were featured in the World Press and on television. Images of massive environmental destruction are still vivid in my mind. Perhaps in yours too. And six decades later we still hear of infants being born with severe disease and disabilities. Because those chemicals still persist in Vietnam and continue on their seemingly unending path of destruction.

But one thing the Americans could not destroy was the Vietnamese spirit. Fighting a war using purely indigenous strategies and tools with no generous donors fattening their own arms industries by supplying weapons for mass-scale slaughter. Supplying these in their own interest. The war they were forced into brought the Vietnamese people together to fight together. And even when the Americans were long gone, the Vietnamese people stayed together to rebuild their lives, their communities, their country.

It was at this time that Radda Barnen, or RB, asked me whether I would go to Vietnam, VN for short, to help them start CBR. The incredible Olaf Palme, Sweden’s Prime Minister, had stepped in to help VN at a time when the rest of the world treated her as an outcast for her victory over the Americans.

The two countries had a bilateral agreement, with the former assisting in the development of VN’s Timber Industry and Health System, two of Sweden’s strengths. It was in this context that RB was in Hanoi with a programme directed at improving child health through Primary Health Care or PHC. VN had no other development partners at that time. The Dutch came in later, in a small way at first.

My Introduction to Vietnam

Radda Barnen, RB, had offered to include children with disabilities in their cooperation package. The health authorities wished to have an institution built for disabled children. RB talked to the authorities about the possibilities that CBR would offer. Their response was negative; the health people preferred the known, an institution.

Discussions went on for over a year before VN’s Health Ministry was persuaded that CBR may be a better option. Suited both to Primary Health Care and to their culture. In the context of the task that needed to be done of working closely with local people to introduce CBR to them, RB felt that it may be more prudent to send a fellow Asian to do the job with them rather than a Swede.

Having carried out a joint feasibility study, Dr. Anders Norman, who had spent many years for RB in VN, stopped over in Colombo on his way home to Stockholm from Hanoi to brief me about the task. When I greeted him at the Colombo airport, the look of surprise on his face was obvious.

Later, after we got to know each other I asked him about it. He said, “You know, in VN they believe that wisdom comes with age. And you looked so young. I wondered how they would respond to you. Now I know you, I have no concerns on that score.” I was in the fifth decade of my life.

And so it was that over the next 10 years and more I had the great good fortune to get to know these fascinating people, the Vietnamese, and their indomitable spirit. Together with that spirit and the war they fought, the Vietnamese had acquired exceptional organisational skills. They had systems in place to reach their people from the centre to the periphery. And this is what was surprising in a communist system, that at the same time they had systems from the periphery to the centre. I was of course most familiar with their health and their social welfare systems which grew from needs of their people at the grass roots.

Vietnam was a discard also because it had a communist government. Whatever ideology one may attach to the word “communism”, the system I found in VN was not the usual one that is associated with communist political systems. There was indeed a rigid hierarchical structure from the Central People’s Committee of the Communist Party in Hanoi, through those in the province and district to the Commune People’s Committees in every town and village.

These formed the government at each level and must conform to party principles and toe the party line. Deviation from this was not possible. But within the practice of those principles, I found that each People’s Committee was remarkably autonomous and could do their own thing for their members, VN’s citizens.

The beginning of CBR in Vietnam

Thus it was that CBR blended in smoothly within VN’s political administration and through that, its development. Within the People’s Committee at each level, one member was responsible for health and social welfare including employment. In the city of My Tho, Ba (meaning Mrs.) Nguyen was that member. She was my hostess in Tien Giang province and soon became my friend. She was the link between the Provincial People’s Committee and all the district committees with the Central Committee in Hanoi. She facilitated logistic support from Hanoi.

Each district made their own plans for CBR implementation, and within those plans so could reach peripheral People’s Committees. Health and Social Welfare Departments implemented those plans with the resources they commanded. And what is more, the Vietnamese people made this system work. They knew it was to their own benefit. This was obviously a remnant from having fought the war. It was by working together and for each other that they had overcome adversities.

In every community, many had been injured and left with impairment. Wherever possible, people had overcome the consequences of these and were active, contributing members of their communities. Take for example, the loss of limbs and other physical injuries, extremely common in VN because the war was fought on the ground, often face to face.

It was quite amazing for me to find so many amputees among the colleagues I worked with in government and among participants on my courses. So also, people who had parts of their bodies paralysed by poliomyelitis. More often than not these disabilities were not ever seen or noticed. They were not an issue. Some had improvised appliances, others had learned to adapt to living without them and get on with whatever it was they had to do.

Vietnam had also a consciousness and sensitivity about disability. It started within the family and extended into their community. Every member had to contribute whatever they could, and so also members who had disability. This was important for their sense of self-worth on the one hand and for the growth and development of their family on the other. Now when CBR brought them access to technology which enabled those members with disabilities to function and participate more effectively, it was welcome.

The WHO Manual in Vietnamese was an essential tool which they could use themselves. They had but few rehabilitation professionals in the country. When disability was extreme, community members supported the family to provide the care that was called for. In the villages, disabled people were encouraged to come together to share common problems and discuss possible issues. The seeds of what would grow into Disabled People’s Organisations were planted.

And so, the Vietnamese authorities requested RB for increasing support year by year to reach more parts of their country with CBR. First in the south in Tieng Giang, located in the Mekong delta and not far from Ho Chi Minh City. Here they made Cai Lay district a model for learning and teaching.

Then to the central region, to the ancient city of Hue and to Da Nang which had been occupied by American forces for a short while. The authorities then said to Radda Barnen, “Can you help us with the North? We have nothing there.”

So that was how it came to pass that I was with them walking the villages of Hai Hung and in Vinh Phu, where often I was the first foreigner even older children had seen. Radda Barnen support for disabled people was holistic, so there was interaction with the health referral system and physiotherapy and the employment and education sectors as well in Hanoi and in the provinces. And always, always linking with Peoples Committees for socialisation and inclusion.

Mr. Binh

With my memories of Vietnam come always to mind one individual – Mr. Binh. The community workers wanted me to meet Mr. Binh on one of my follow-up visits to their village. Mr. Binh had had a stroke. Since then, he had been confined to bed all day and all night for nine long years. This is how the community workers found him some months before, inside his tiny, dark, single-roomed home.

His wife left by his bedside all that he would need for the day while she went out to work. She left at dawn and returned after dark. After they found him, the community workers brought a few of his neighbours to Mr. Binh. They talked about his situation and how together they could help Mr. Binh. The neighbours were willing to do what they could.

Together, the workers and the neighbours first put up two bars by Mr. Binh’s bed. They helped him to stand up for some time each day. Then to take a few steps. Gradually Mr. Binh very cautiously learned to walk. As he did so, the neighbours and the workers extended the length of the bars to the door and then beyond. The day Mr. Binh walked out that door was the first time in nine years that he had seen the sun shine. But when I spoke with him, Mr. Binh told me that the greatest benefit CBR had brought him was the friendship and interest of his neighbours. They would now pop in ever so often for a chat and to help when needed.

My experience in Vietnam brought home to me the wise words of the great Ho Chi Minh, philosopher, visionary, and poet, a strength and inspiration to the Vietnamese people and to many of us in the developing world:

“By its very nature a stone will not budge by itself.

But when many people join hands,

a stone, however big and heavy can be moved aside.”

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

3 days 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

3 days 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

3 days 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