Features

The Asian Scene from Colombo in 1954

Published

1 year ago

2024/10/13

Thilina Walpola

Left to right: Sastromidjojo (Indonesia). Mohammed Ali (Pakistan), Sir. John (Ceylon), Nehru (India) and U. Nu (Burma)

The Colombo Powers Conference provided the momentum for Asian-African and led to 1955 Bandung Conference

(Excerpted from the Memoirs of JR Jayewardene)

I participated in this Conference held in Colombo in 1954 at which many of the Asian Regional States were represented by their Prime Ministers and led to Conferences in Bogor and Bandung and to the Non-Aligned Movement. It also gave ideas for the SAARC Organisation in the 1980s.

In April 1954, Sir John Kotelawala, Prime Minister of Ceylon, invited the Prime Ministers of Burma, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, to meet at a conference in Colombo “for an informal discussion of matters of common interest”. In his autobiography An Asian Prime Minister’s Story, Sir John relates how he thought of the idea of a Colombo Powers Conference and makes this comment:–

The South-East Asian Prime Ministers Conference began in Colombo on April 28, 1954, and ended in Kandy early in the morning of May 2. It was a historic occasion for Ceylon, and Colombo went gay for the visitors, who were received with acclamation and whom everyone united to make happy and comfortable during their short stay with us. The visitors too made themselves immensely popular.

“I had known Nehru of India, Mohammed Ali of Pakistan, and Nu of Burma before, but this was the first time I was meeting Ali Sastroemidjojo of Indonesia. I took to him instantly. It was interesting to observe the personalities of my distinguished colleagues. Each carried his individual quality and his individual charm–Nehru, earnest, disinterested, fiery; Mohammed Ali, debonair, forceful, practical; Nu, serene, dispassionate, brief, but very much to the point; Ali Sastroemidjojo, courteous, understanding, dedicated.”

I was one of the members of the Ceylon Delegation. Here I give an account of two important discussions of the Conference regarding the Indo-China war and the menace of International Communism, and relate how the final decisions, after heated debates, were arrived at.

The Colombo Powers Conference led to the Bandung Conference where 30 nations of Africa and Asia

met at Bandung, in Indonesia, in April 1955, to–

(a) promote goodwill and cooperation among the nations of Asia and Africa; to explore and advance their mutual as well as common interests; and to establish and further, friendliness and neighbourly relations;

(b) consider the social, economic and cultural problems and relations of the countries represented;

(c) consider problems of special interest to Asian and African peoples–e.g., problems affecting national sovereignty and of racialism and colonialism;

(d) view the position of Asia and Africa and their peoples in the world of today and the contribution they can make to the promotion of world peace and cooperation.

It is not my purpose to write of the Bandung Conference, for I was not present, Ceylon being represented by the Prime Minister, Sir John Kotelawala. Suffice it to say that the final decisions arrived at Bandung have become world-famous as the Bandung Ideals, a code of international morality that nations should seek to follow.

The Colombo Powers Conference was Sir John’s idea. His original proposal was to invite his colleagues, the Prime Ministers of Ceylon’s close neigbours, Burma, India and Pakistan, for an informal discussion on matters of common interest. Indonesia was included later. These Prime Ministers represented five nations having a population of almost 500 million people and immense resources that still awaited development. The international tensions then existing in Korea, Formosa, and Indo-China made the Conference more important than it originally appeared to be.

Fortunately, the Korean war concluded by dividing Korea into two, North and South, and the future of Formosa had not assumed that stage which nearly caused a war between America and Red China early in 1955. It was the war in Indo-China, now in its seventh year, which interested the world, and simultaneously with the meeting of the five Colombo Powers, nine nations which included the United Kingdom, France, and Red ChThe Asian Scene from Colombo in 1954

The Colombo Powers Conference provided the momentum for Asian-African and led to 1955 Bandung Conference

ina, met at Geneva to find a way of preventing the Indo-China war from becoming a Third World War. No nation had a greater interest in a just and peaceful settlement in Indo-China than the five nations that now met at Colombo.

The Asian Scene

The first few years after the end of the Second World War saw more changes in the Asian scene than had occurred previously during much longer periods lasting hundreds of years. When the War commenced in 1939, the whole of Asia with the exception of Japan and the portion of Russia in Asia was under Western rule, or controlled by Western Powers as was China. Nations with great cultural traditions and ancient civilizations were, during a period of 400 years, commencing with the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in the latter part of the fifteenth century, brought under the rule of some Western power – England, Holland, France, and Portugal – who divided Asia among themselves and in the nineteenth century. America sought to exercise her authority over China and the countries in the Pacific.

Japan alone remained free and showed that an Asian nation could equal the great nations of the West in achievements. The five years after the end of the War in 1945 saw the consummation of the hopes of many Asian leaders, the attainment of freedom by their native lands. India and Pakistan, carved out of India, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia and the Philippines, attained freedom. Malaya was on the road to freedom. She attained freedom in 1957. China, now a red colossus, challenged the great Western powers. The wheel of destiny turned a full circle. The subject nations attained freedom and Japan was occupied for six years.

New problems now arose. The great movements that had been launched in these countries for the attainment of freedom had unleashed forces that continued to stir the masses. Men of varying political views had joined together to secure freedom for their countries, but after freedom they differed as to how that freedom should be used. Racial and religious conflicts arose in India and Ceylon; democrats and Communists fought in Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

These differences were not yet resolved, but it could be stated that there was now no threat to the sovereignty of these new nations. They had also all accepted the principle of the well-being of the largest number, and not of a privileged few, as their economic goal. Through the Colombo Plan the developed nations had joined them in a cooperative effort to help in their economic and social development. The Colombo Plan was an example of the Asian nations joining together to protect their freedom, and to ensure peace in the Asian countries through their unity of purpose.

Indo-China required that an agreement on a cease-fire should be reached without delay. The Prime Ministers felt that the solution of the problem required direct negotiations between the parties principally concerned, namely, France, the three Associated States of Indo-China and Viet-Minh, as well as other parties invited by agreement.

The area known as Indo-China is in the land mass that juts out into the South China sea from the south-west portion of China. Before the War it consisted of the Protectorates of Tong-king, Laos, Annam, Cambodia and the colony of Cochin China, and formed part of the French Colonial Empire. These territories covered an area of almost 300,000 square miles and had a population of about 28 millions. A thousand years ago, Cambodia was a great Hindu Empire in Indo-China stretching from the Gulf of Bengal to the China Sea. The present Cambodia is only a feeble remnant of that great empire of the Khmer people, which at the height of its power produced great cities such as Angkor.

Laos, to the north-east of Cambodia, is a smaller state with a population of a million and a half and was founded by the Thai people who also founded the Kingdom of Siam or Thailand. Both these states were monarchies and the French ruled through the reigning monarchs. Tong-king, Annam, and Cochin-China, the largest land group known as Vietnam, lie between the Protectorates mentioned above and the South China Sea, and have a populationof 23 milions. The vast majority of the inhabitants are of Mongolian stock, closely allied to the Chinese in religion and culture and were governed by their own monarch before the War. The Laotians and Cambodians are Buddhists of the Theravada School, as are the Siamese, Burmese, and Sinhalese, and their culture is Hindu.

The Japanese armies swept through these territories and at the end of the War, together with other Asian countries, the peoples of French Indo-China clamoured for freedom. The French negotiated with the Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia and agreed with them in 1949, to grant them complete internal sovereignty within the French Union. In Vietnam, the position was different, for there were two nationalistic movements, one led by Bao-Dai which was pro-democracies and purely nationalistic; and the other led by Ho-Chi-Minh was pro-Communist and was supported by Red China.

Ho-Chi-Minh resorted to force to achieve his goal, and the war with the French had now been waged with varying degrees of fortune for almost seven years. The French had employed large armies but their efforts had been in vain. Ho-Chi-Minh had gained many successes and the intervention of America on the side of the French was imminent when the Geneva Conference met to seek a way of avoiding a Third World War.

This was the position on the eve of the Colombo Conference. The Colombo Powers who were intimately concerned with the Indo-China events were not invited, yet the Conference became all the more important for that reason. It had before it certain proposals made by Nehru in the Indian Parliament, viz:

(1) An immediate ceasefire.

(2) The parties to the ceasefire should be France and the actual belligerents, the three Associated States and Viet-Minh (i.e., the territory occupied by HoChi-Minh’s forces).

(3) A complete transfer of sovereignty by the French.

(4) The setting up of machinery for direct negotiation between France and the Indo-Chinese.

(5) Non-intervention in Indo-China by any of the Great Powers.

(6) Supervision by the UNO of the implementation of these proposals.

The Prime Ministers were in agreement with the main principles underlying these proposals but differences of opinion were expressed with regard to their implementation. Indonesia thought that if Red China was admitted to the UNO the tension would cease and any help she was giving to Ho-Chi-Minh would also cease. The majority were not in favour of tying up this question with the Indo-China problem, though they all agreed that Red China should be admitted to the UNO. The other question that difficulty was the part to be played by the Western powers in the negotiations before and after the ceasefire, and also the scope of non-intervention.

Pakistan’s Premier saw the conflict as one between Communism as represented by Ho-Chi-Minh, and Colonialism as represented by France. He was not keen that either should win, but if one was to succeed, he preferred colonialism as it was a decaying force. Ultimately, a solution was found by limiting the non-belligerent invitees to the negotiations, to those “parties invited by agreement”. With regard to non-intervention the burden was placed on the Great Powers “to agree on the steps necessary to prevent a recurrence or resumption of hostilities”.

The stage was set for the final communique and this was telegraphed to Anthony Eden at Geneva. His hands were strengthened by the unanimous decision of the five Colombo Powers and the Geneva Conference ended successfully with the cessation of hostilities and the possibility of a permanent settlement in Indo-China. Today Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are independent nations. The original Vietnam was divided into two states, the dividing line being the 17th parallel.

Communism

The problems caused by the spread of Communism and the influence exercised by International Communism raised a heated debate. The controversy showed more the attitude of certain countries towards the Soviet Union and Red China rather than their views on Communism, which academically they unanimously disliked. There was also the influence of local Communist parties, such as in Indonesia, which made that country’s Prime Minister lean heavily on the side of Red China and Communism.

Burma, led by its Buddhist Prime Minister U Nu, while expressing its strong disapproval of Communism, did not wish to annoy Red China, its neighbour. India and Pakistan carried their private quarrel into the international sphere too, and Nehru and Mohammed Ali clashed. Ceylon’s Prime Minister opened the discussion and pointed out that the greatest danger to the countries of the region arose from the subversive activities of International Communism.

He said: The countries of the region should, therefore, combine and assist each other in meeting this menace. The infiltration activities of International Communism took many forms. Funds were brought into the country by various means to help local Communists and Communist organizations. The countries of the region were flooded with Communist literature. Russian agents established contacts with local Communists.

At the recent ECAFE Conference held in Ceylon, for instance, the Soviet Delegation had consisted of 22 persons while the other delegations contained far smaller numbers. These delegates had attempted to establish clandestine contacts with local Communists. Another of the undesirable activities of International Communism was the attempt made by Communist countries to induce nationals of non-Communist countries to visit them by awarding generous scholarships and arranging attractive free tours. During these tours the persons concerned were indoctrinated with Communist ideas. All these activities involved interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and the conference should therefore adopt a strongly worded resolution condemning the activities of International Communism.

Pakistan and Burma supported Ceylon. India thought otherwise. She was anxious to avoid aligning with any one of the two Great Power blocs. The countries of the region were aware of the dangers of Communism, yet each must decide how best to deal with the problem in the context of the country’s politics. England dealt with it in one way and America in another. He preferred the former. Dr Sastroemidjojo adopted India’s attitude. In Indonesia they permitted Communist parties to function and they were of the Tito brand and not Stalinist. His government was “non-Communist” but not “anti-Communist”.

The debate produced fierce words between India and Pakistan, and was adjourned for the discussion to be continued in the cooler atmosphere of Kandy, up in the hills. Here too, it was not until in the morning of May 2 that an agreement was reached and the signatures of all five Prime Ministers appended to the communique. Nehru’s contributions had a great effect in producing this unanimity. On one occasion he used eloquent words.

He said that in his long experience of dealing with issues involving large numbers of human beings, he always felt that the better approach was to try to win the confidence of the people and wean them away from something which was evil rather than attempt to suppress anything by force. Such a course often had the effect of encouraging and strengthening the very thing it was desired to suppress.

He was certainly in favour of each country taking all possible steps, either by law or more efficient administrative methods, to stop Communist intervention or infiltration into its territory, but he thought that in dealing with Communism little could be achieved by merely denouncing it. A different approach was necessary: an approach to people’s minds and an attempt to influence them against the attractions of Communism would, he thought, be more effective.

He said that, after all, if one attempted an analysis of the situation, one would find intellectuals in every country who were strongly attracted towards Communist ideologies. The challenge of Russian Communism today was really the challenge of her economic system. The real test was which economy, Communist or Capitalism, would pay better dividends to the people. It therefore boiled down to a conflict of ideas. The idea that would prevail in the end would be that which would be more acceptable to humanity, and it was for this reason that the approach should be by reason and persuasion, rather than by compulsion.

Ultimately, difference of views could not be reconciled. So the communique mildly stated that: “The Prime Ministers made known to each other their respective views on and attitudes towards Communist ideologies” and continued to affirm “their faith in democracy and democratic institutions”. They were all resolved “to resist interference in the affairs of their countries by external Communist, anti-Communist or other agencies”.

On other matters there was controversy and the Conference adjourned. The Colombo Powers met again at Bogor in 1955. Another meeting was held New Delhi in 1956. It would be a pity if the unity, on many matters of national and international interest forged at Colombo was allowed to weaken; the one way of preserving this unity was for these Powers to meet often and express their views, which carry weight in the Councils of the World.

All News Advertisement

Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

21 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

21 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

21 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