Features

The Impeachment and DUNF – how I saw the drama unfolding

Published

8 months ago

2025/08/31

“I want to be a soldier in the battle of ideas”— Fidel Castro

In 1989, with the Presidency already in its pocket, the UNP was well placed to emerge as the winner in the Parliamentary election. The opposition was divided and bereft of its chief vote getter Vijaya Kumaratunga who had been murdered by the JVP in 1987. The big question therefore was who was to be the Prime Minister in the forthcoming Premadasa Cabinet? In the presidential election Premadasa had skilfully exploited the rivalry of Gamini and Lalith by indicating that the harder campaigner between them would be considered for the post of PM.

Partly for this reason, and also because they were dedicated UNPers, the two aspirants threw themselves into the presidential campaign and garnered a large number of votes in their bailiwicks for Premadasa. They were then asked to win their electoral districts in the Parliamentary election with large majorities so as to be considered for higher office. Both undertook this task with gusto, but Lalith appeared to be leading because his base was in the Colombo district which was numerically superior to Gamini’s Nuwara Eliya district. It was at this time that Gamini decided to contest Kandy district in the future to ensure a wider support base to propel his vaulting ambition.
While President Premadasa shrewdly kept the younger contenders in the fight we received disconcerting news from time to time that he was also looking for other options. Before nominations were concluded he brought in DB Wijetunga, who had been relegated to the wilderness as the Governor of North Western Province by JRJ, to contest from the Kandy district. Premadasa supported Wijetunga’s campaign with enough funds and instructed him to make sure that he came first in the UNP list from Kandy come what may.

Both Lalith and Gamini received secret information about these designs but there was little they could do except to exert themselves even more to gather votes to impress the new President. I remember attending Lalith’s mamoth last rally in Ratmalana where his supporters were openly exhorting voters to back Lalith, the next Prime Minister. No doubt these announcements were filtered back to Premadasa who was carefully planning his next political “coup”.

The UNP won handsomely but with the new PR electoral system the SLFP led by Mrs. Bandaranaike also gained a considerable number of seats and she became the Leader of the Opposition. The President then sprang a surprise, particularly to the other contenders, by appointing Wijetunga as Prime Minister thereby signaling his desire to have a “weak” PM, who would sign off on all his presidential orders. To soften the blow he sent messages to Lalith and Gamini that this was only a “transitional” appointment and that he would be reviewing this arrangement in one years time.

This did not satisfy them but there was little they could do but accept the “fait accompli” and hope for the best. This however was the beginning of a disenchantment which laid the basis for the dramatic events that followed some time later, particularly in the impeachment of the President which convulsed the political atmosphere of this period. In his first Cabinet appointments President Premadasa gave plum posts to Gamini and Lalith. It was rumoured that Sirisena Cooray and Mrs. Premadasa had urged the President to be charitable.

Gamini was made the Minister of Plantation Industries and Lalith the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives. While both accepted these appointments their staff, in their disappointment at not being been made the PMs men as they had anticipated, began to malign the new President, often in an unfair manner. They did not realize that party politics had changed from the “laissez faire” approach of JRJ to the intensive involvement in detail by the new chief. Gamini’s staff was particularly nasty in their whispering campaigns. Gamini too began to act in an offhanded manner and soon the two former adversaries were again on collision course.

Then Gamini made, in my opinion, a bad political mistake. Thinking that “distance lends enchantment to the view”, he sought to avoid conflict with the President by asking for long leave to follow studies in Cambridge University while at the same time remaining in the Cabinet. This request which was extraordinarily unorthodox and ill advised naturally infuriated Premadasa who took it as a calculated insult to him personally. He sacked Gamini from the Cabinet and added sarcastically that he was now free to pursue his studies without the burden of cabinet responsibilities.

Gamini left for Cambridge and Premadasa began inquiring into his activities as a Minister in the JRJ cabinet with a view to eliminating him from the political arena. In the course of these investigations he was assisted by Ravi Jayewardene, JRJs son, who had developed an antipathy to Gamini for reasons unknown. Ravi led Premadasa to the Buultjens case which I have described in Volume One of my autobiography, with the idea of implicating Gamini in a criminal case which included kidnapping. At one stage a message was sent to Gamini not to return as he would be arrested at the airport on arrival. It is to Gamini’s credit that he boldly decided to return and face charges.

While the antipathy of the new President to Gamini was clear, Lalith did not attempt to cross his path and may have survived but for local politics of the Colombo district and the dramatic abduction and murder of Richard de Zoysa. Sirisena Cooray was the new President’s right hand man and the rise of Lalith was resented by his supporters even during the election campaign when they competed for the top slot in the Colombo list. However in fairness it must be stated that Cooray never encouraged this rivalry and, as mentioned above, even recommended to Premadasa that either Gamini or Lalith should be made PM. This advice was duly noted by Wijetunga who gave short shrift to Cooray for his pains after the death of Premadasa.

Impeachment

The tale of the Premadasa impeachment has not yet been fully told. There are so many angles and versions to this episode that it has a “Rashomon” like quality with each participant presenting his own version of the event that is often at odds with the recollections of others. I will attempt to describe the evolving scenario mostly from the vantage point of Lalith and Gamini who were bamboozled by the Speaker Mohamed and had their political futures irrevocably compromised. I will narrate those events as they unfolded before my eyes.

One day in August 1991, I received an urgent telephone call from Gamini saying that he and Wickreme Weerasooria were on their way to my home in Siripa Road to discuss an important matter. Gamini had the habit of dropping in on his friends at short notice to discuss political and personal matters. On this day we went to my office room and Gamini asked me whether In my opinion he could trust Lalith on a serious political matter. I was not taken aback since the evening before I had been with some friends at the Eighty Club and there had been whispers of a crisis in the Cabinet though nobody really knew what it was all about.

I replied that Lalith was an ambitious and able politician and that it would be difficult to fight him. On the other hand if he was to be a partner in a political venture he would be an indefatigable and effective comrade in arms. This seemed to satisfy Gamini and Wickreme and they confided in me about the impeachment process that had been launched. From then on till their betrayal by the Speaker, I was in the know of the details of the impeachment attempt which was unique in the annals of our modern history.

Background

The background to the impeachment attempt was Premadasa’s Impatience to mould the UNP into a party in his own image. This was reasonable in that he had loyally long served the party In various capacities and had saved the UNP from disaster by his heroic efforts in winning the presidency. This was followed by the UNP victory under his leadership in the succeeding parliamentary election. He then characteristically lost no time In attempting to make the UNP more democratic and efficient.

A long tenure since 1977 during which JRJ had permitted his MPs to earn money by way of liquor licences, permits to open petrol sheds, allocation of import quotas, allocating of lands under the Land Reform Commission and all manner of other “deals” had alienated them from their voters. The new President wanted “fresh blood”, preferably of those personally loyal to him, to come into the grass roots organizations of the party.

For example under JRJ party branches could be set up only by the relevant party organizer who usually was the MP. Premadasa allowed the formation of party branches without the imprimatur of the MP cum organizer. This led to much heartburn as party branches sprang up, often times in opposition to the MP. A test case was that of the Speaker’s son Hussein Mohamed who made no attempt to nurse his electorate but depended on his father to pull his political chestnuts out of the fire.

Premadasa, for whatever reason, pounced on him and wanted him removed from the organisership of the Borella electorate. In fact Lalith Athulathmudali, as district leader, was nominated to hold an inquiry into Hussein’s inefficiency and lethargy. Hussein was a bit of a joke among the party leaders due to his uncritical worship of his father. His nickname was “Daddy told” because he would begin every sentence with “Daddy told” much to the amusement of his colleagues. The bond between father and son was very strong.

Another instance of Premadasa’s growing impatience was the manner in which he treated GM Premachandra who was the MP representing Mawatagama electorate. Premachandra was known to be a camp follower of the President being identified as “Punchi Premadasa” or acolyte of the big man. This identification was enhanced when he was selected as the deputy to the Minister of Highways – a portfolio held by the President himself. However he had countermanded an order made by his minister and a furious Premadasa had him removed.

This led to an enmity between the two and Premachandra switched his allegiance to Gamini and became a leader of the impeachment effort. Samaraweera Weerawanni, an able young orator from Uva, had been warned by Premadasa about allegations of bribery. Thus there were both political and personal interests involved in the impeachment effort.
Speaker Mohamed had another grouse with Premadasa. As a party senior he had expected to join the Cabinet. However Premadasa made him the Speaker. This was to prevent Mohamed from interfering in tenders and engaging in other forms of corruption that he was known for under the JRJ dispensation when he was Minister of Transport. There also may have been electoral rivalry as both came from the Colombo district and had to compete under proportional representation. The Speaker, who was a party senior and former UNP Mayor of Colombo, referred to the new President without much respect.

The upshot of this hostility was that Mohamed spent time in studying the constitutional provisions regarding the impeachment of an incumbent President. This was article 38 of the Constitution which had not been studied with any enthusiasm by MPs during the JRJ Presidency. The Constitution gave considerable discretion to the Speaker. If more than half the number of MPs supported a motion for the impeachment of the President for prescribed reasons he could launch proceedings on the lines set out culminating in the dismissal of the incumbent after an inquiry and the passage of a motion with a two third majority.

Once he accepted the impeachment notice with the support of half the number of MPs the President was precluded from dissolving Parliament by article 70[i]c. Mohamed’s first masterstroke was to draw Mrs. Bandaranaike into his grand design. She was smarting uinder her defeat to Premadasa who had used harsh words on her, and her son Anura, in Parliament which she found difficult to accept.
Perhaps an even more important development was that the new President had set a cracking pace after he was elected and was cutting into her electoral base.

By emphasizing the need to get the IPKF out of Sri Lanka he had taken over the main demand of the SLFP and the JVP. Moreover given his opposition to Indian policies from the time of JRJ he had gained credibility among the Sinhala voters who had earlier backed the SLFP. Unlike in the case of JRJ, Premadasa became a favourite of the Sangha. He took great pains to attend to their everyday needs and wean them away from their natural ally – the SLFP.

I was personally aware of his sensitivity after I went on a mission to Malwatta and Asgiriya on behalf of Gamini Dissanayake. Uduwawela Chandananda, who was the head priest of the influential Adahana Maluwa of the Asgiriya fraternity, was my kinsman. On one of my visits he told me that the rooms of the priests in the Asgiriya monastery were in a very bad state and needed to be repaired. I mentioned this to Gamini who immediately decided to undertake that work at his expense. He delegated this job to one of his businessman friends who had probably grown rich on contracts awarded by the Mahaweli Ministry.

This friend and I visited Asgiriya and itemised the repair work which was necessary. Included in this list was the “pansala” of the influential Mahanayake, Palipane Chandananda who was a fierce critic of the Indo-Lanka accord and of JRJ himself. Imagine our surprise when we learnt that the businessman had betrayed Gamini and had taken the refurbishment project to Premadasa. In order to please Premadasa he undertook to complete the work with his own funds which were probably the byproduct of Gamini’s largesse.

Gamini’s friend thereby became a favourite of the new President and his liaison officer to the Kandyan monks who had been introduced to him by me at Gamini’s behest. Such were the background tensions among the leaders of the UNP notwithstanding its electoral successes which were envied by the SLFP. Some leaders of the SLFP like Stanley Tillekeratne, who did not forgive Mrs. B for not making him a minister in her 1970 Cabinet, were consorting with Premadasa and adding to Mrs. B’s woes.

The SLFP was split Into warring factions. The most tragic situation for Mrs. B was that she was at loggerheads with her favourite child, Anura. The anti-Sirimavo faction of the SLFP was so offensive to her that she suffered a stroke which later in time killed her. To her great credit she did not abandon the SLFP in spite of the rank ingratitude of many of its leaders who had earlier been sponsored by her.
Another threat to the SLFP was the populist measures undertaken by President Premadasa. He launched the “Janasaviya” programme which was a radical poverty alleviation measure. All families below the poverty line were entitled to a “relief package” of basic food items. In turn they were to contribute their manual labour for village infrastructure projects. This was a novel village level program which caught the imagination of the rural populace who formed the bulk of the SLFP vote base. The President succeeded in inducting a new set of young public servants like Susil Siriwardhana who helped in conceptualizing this project and implementing it through the public service. The Janasaviya program became a signature project of the new President. It has survived to this day under different names despite changes of rulers and their political ideologies.

Modus operandi

The biggest challenge was to keep the impeachment project a secret while at the same time coopting a majority of signatories as required by law. Nihal Seneviratne who was the Secretary General to the House in his book “A Clerk Reminisces” refers to this saying “Anil Moonesinghe MP walked into my room and sat down. He opened his conversation by saying “Nihal, you will be at the centre of a big controversy very soon.” I was quite puzzled by this remark and asked him, “why me of all people”? Anil smiled and said, “You will know soon” and walked out of my room”.

Keeping this secret was almost a superhuman effort as MPs are loose tongued and apt to run to their chiefs with the latest information to score brownie points. So it is likely that some were not told the truth before they signed the petition. The “modus operandi” was to entrust the collection of signatures to a few trusted “conspirators” who were then to ensure that their quota of members would be roped in. The main “collectors” were Lalith and Gamini from the UNP, Anuruddha Ratwatte and Anura for the SLFP and the Speaker for the rest.

It is said that the Speaker over dramatized the situation by kissing his set of signatories on both cheeks and offering them refreshments in the Speaker’s chamber. It need hardly be said that this was not a conduct in keeping with the traditional responsibilities of a Speaker of Parliament. All the while he was egging on Lalith and Gamini by frequently telephoning them and assuring them that everything was going according to plan. Actually it was not so though the plotters were optimistic. Mrs. B gave her full support and her confidence in Gamini and Lalith was complete though they were in different parties.

Once there was panic when Stanley Tillekeratne, who was inching ever closer to Premadasa, demanded to see the petition and even wanted to take it home for further study. Mrs. B adroitly evaded the issue though Stanley had already alerted Premadasa regarding some challenge to his authority. Each conspirator had a separate sheet of paper on which their designated MPs would sign. Later many of them alleged that they were asked to sign a blank sheet in the hope that they were asking for a salary increase.

This may have been a lame excuse after their efforts failed and they had to face a future with a revengeful President. However a friend of Gamini I shared the incoming information in “real time”which at that stage appeared to be satisfactory. Gamini was in constant touch with Lalith and Mohamed. Little did he, and by the same token we his supporters, know of what was really going on. A huge drama of intrigue and betrayal was about to begin.

(Excerpted from volume 3 of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography) ✍️

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

1 day 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

1 day 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

1 day 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