Midweek Review

UNHRC in Mullivaikkal dirty politics

Published

8 months ago

2025/06/18

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is scheduled to visit Colombo later this month. The House on June 5 announced the visit, two days after the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Marc-André Franche, informed Speaker, Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne, of the impending visit.

A press release issued by the Parliament, dated June 5, 2025, mistakenly identified Volker Türk as the High Commissioner of the International Commission on Human Rights. Parliament never bothered to correct the statement posted on its website. Franche was accompanied by UN Peace and Development Resident Advisor Patrick McCarthy.

BTF (British Tamil Forum) General Secretary V. Ravi Kumar, in a letter dated May 27, 2025, urged the UN rights chief to visit Mullivaikkal where he alleged a genocide was committed in 2009. Kumar also requested the Austrian lawyer to visit Chemmani, where mass graves have been unearthed recently, as alleged by the BTF. Kumar, a former member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), received British citizenship many years ago. The Tamil Diaspora, spread over Europe, Canada and various other parts of the world, includes a significant number of former members of Tamil terrorist organisations.

The National People’s Power (NPP) government, without hesitation, should allow the UN official to visit Mullivaikkal, Chemmani or any other place desired by the Tamil Diaspora. The government shouldn’t allow the BTF and other interested parties to make wild allegations on the basis of not including Mullivaikkal and Chemmani in the UN official’s itinerary. The government should also invite Volker Türk to visit Nanthikadal lagoon where the Army eliminated the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his remaining diehard members in a last encounter on May 19, 2009, the day after Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion.

Senior military commanders, who spearheaded the successful war against the LTTE, should declare their support for the UN Human Rights chief’s visit to Sri Lanka. Whatever the differences they may have had among themselves during the war, retired Army, Navy and Air Force officers must sink their differences to set the record straight.

The BTF shouldn’t be allowed to manipulate the forthcoming UN human rights chief’s visit here. Perhaps, they should consider seeking a meeting with the UN official to explain their position. There is absolutely no harm in making representations on behalf of Sri Lanka as all stakeholders want to ascertain the truth.

As for the impartiality of previous High Commissioners, like South African of Indian Tamil origin Navaneethan ‘Navi’ Pillai, the less said is better.

The last UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Colombo was Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. The Jordanian was here in 2016, the year after Yahapalana leaders Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe betrayed the war-winning military by co-sponsoring a US-led resolution against Sri Lanka at the Geneva-based UNHRC. A treacherous act, indeed. There had never been a previous instance of a government betraying its own war-winning military. The UN official must be reminded that a terrorist organisation had never been defeated before the way the Sri Lankan military crushed the LTTE in a relentless combined security forces campaign (August 2006 to May 2009) that brought the LTTE to its knees by January 2009.

Those who cannot stomach Sri Lanka’s victory over the LTTE conveniently forget that Prabhakaran launched Eelam War IV on August 11, 2006, with the intention of capturing the Jaffna peninsula. They tend to forget how the Nordic truce monitoring mission found fault with the LTTE for launching the war. Declaring that the LTTE advanced over the forward defence lines near Muhamalai entry/exit point and cadres landed on several beaches on Kayts and Mandaithivu islands, the Norwegian-led five-nation truce monitoring mission said: “…. considering the preparation level of the operations it seems to have been a well prepared LTTE initiative.” (SLMM blames LTTE for Jaffna battle, The Island, Sept. 08, 2006).

Human shields

The majority of those who had been demanding accountability on the part of the Sri Lankan military and war-winning political leadership never asked Prabhakaran not to compel the civilians to accompany the retreating LTTE units. After having fiercely resisted the fighting formations on the Vanni front for several months, the LTTE began gradually withdrawing and, by January 2009, Prabhakaran was in a desperate situation. The man who ordered former Indian Prime Minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was taking cover among hapless Tamil civilians.

The then National List member and presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa received a one-page missive on Feb. 16, 2009, from the then Norwegian Ambassador, Tore Hattrem. The following is the text of Ambassador Hattrem’s letter, addressed to Basil Rajapaksa: “I refer to our telephone conversation today. The proposal to the LTTE on how to release the civilian population, now trapped in the LTTE controlled area, has been transmitted to the LTTE through several channels. So far, there has been, regrettably, no response from the LTTE and it doesn’t seem to be likely that the LTTE will agree with this in the near future.” (Secret missive to Basil Rajapaksa revealed: Norwegians believed LTTE won’t release hostages, The Island, April 01, 2015).

Unfortunately, the war-winning government and post-war governments never made an honest attempt to use all available information to prove that the LTTE used civilian shields to hinder the advancing Army. Perhaps, the retired military commanders should bring Hattrem’s letter to UN Human Rights official’s attention.

Having succeeded Michelle Bachelet (2018 to 2022) Volker Türk may not be aware of some of the developments and some interested parties in Geneva are widely believed to have suppressed vital information contrary to their narrative.

The BTF never asked Prabhakaran not to hold civilians hostage. Tamil Diaspora never appealed on behalf of the civilians forcibly held by the LTTE. Regardless of anti-government/military propaganda, civilians sought refuge in the government-held areas at an early stage of the Vanni offensive that was launched in March 2007.

In February, 2007 the LTTE detained two UN workers for helping civilians to reach government lines (LTTE detains UN workers, The Island, April 20, 2007). The NGO community and the truce monitoring mission remained silent to protect Tiger interests. What really baffled the government was the UN Office in Colombo having secret negotiations with the LTTE for the release of its workers (UN workers in LTTE custody: “UN had talks with Tigers on the sly,” The Island, April 23, 2007).

The so called human rights defenders turned a blind eye to the developing situation. Western powers, Tamil Diaspora and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that infamously declared the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil-speaking people in the run-up to the Eelam War IV, remained silent. Had they taken a stand against holding civilians against their will, the armed forces could have eradicated the LTTE’s conventional fighting power much quicker and spared many a life on both sides.

In the wake of The Island revelation, then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa urged the UN not to mollycoddle terrorists. Rajapaksa questioned the rationale in the UN trying to secure the lease of its abducted workers through secret negotiations (UN workers in LTTE custody: Lanka urges UN not to shield Tigers, The Island, April 25, 2007).

The UN mission in Colombo not only kept the government in the dark, it refrained from informing the UN Secretary General’s Office of the abduction of UN workers. When the media raised the abduction of UN workers at their daily press briefing in New York, the Secretary General’s spokesman Michele Montas disclosed they weren’t alerted (The Island expose of UN employees abducted by LTTE: UN HQ admits Colombo Office kept it in the dark, The Island April 28, 2007).

In other words, the UN mission in Colombo in a way facilitated the LTTE’s sordid operations. Had the UN resorted to tough action, the LTTE wouldn’t have held Tamil civilians as human shields for their protection.

No basis for comparison with Israeli actions

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher made reference to Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE when he addressed the United Nations Security Council in May this year on the massive death and destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza.

It would be pertinent to remind all concerned that the Israeli military action directed at Gaza and other countries, with the backing of the US-UK combine, cannot be compared in any way to Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE simply because of the terrible monstrosity of Israeli actions. Top British diplomat Fletcher cannot be unaware how successive UK governments encouraged the LTTE to wage war here with covert support, especially by the partial British media that white-washed LTTE atrocities, while magnifying even the slightest transgression by the Sri Lankan security forces, with the help of NGOs funded by them.

However, the British provided critical support during JRJ’s time by allowing ex-British personnel to train Sri Lankans.

The UK allowed the LTTE to establish its International Secretariat in London at a time India sponsored several terrorist groups fighting to divide Sri Lanka on ethnic lines.

It would be pertinent to ask whether the UK at least secretly urged Prabhakaran to give up human shields as the Army pressed its dwindling fighting cadre on the Vanni east front. Instead, the UK, with the French backing, sought to pressure President Mahinda Rajapaksa to halt the offensive. The President and his brother, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, steadfastly refused to bow down to combined British-French pressure. They sustained the offensive until the eradication of the terrorist organisation. The war could never have been won without their resolute leadership.

Geneva must recognise that until the eradication of the LTTE, conscription of Tamil children continued. The LTTE sacrificed thousands of children in high intensity battles with the military after a steep decline in adults joining the fighting cadre. The UN had been so concerned about deaths of children it sought to reach a consensus with the LTTE to halt deployment of child combatants.

The NGO community, or Tamil Diaspora, never asked the LTTE to stop throwing children into battle. In spite of agreeing to halt child recruitment, following talks with Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), Prabhakaran never stopped the despicable practice (Pledge to stop using children in combat: UN, LTTE to discuss modalities, The Island, May 11, 1998). UNICEF, too, appealed to the LTTE not to forcibly conscript children. The LTTE simply ignored such requests. Otunnu travelled to the North, in May 1998, to meet Prabhakaran’s representatives, British passport holder Anton Balasingham (died and buried in the UK in December 2006) and S.P. Thamilselvam (killed in SLAF strike in November 2007). They agreed on halting children, below 18, in combat operations and stopping recruitment of those under 17 (Tigers agree to end use of children below 18 in combat, The Island, May 9, 1998).

The Tamil Diaspora never ever demanded an end to child conscription. They felt comfortable as their children were not living in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Child recruitment had never been an issue for the Tamil Diaspora or the TNA. The child recruitment was finally brought to an end after the combined security forces eradicated the LTTE.

How many children escaped with their lives thanks to the annihilation of the LTTE militarily? The LTTE had to be destroyed at any cost. Sri Lanka paid a very heavy price to restore peace. The Gaza conflict with Sri Lanka’s war against the separatist Tamil terrorism cannot be equated as the modern massive firepower of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) by land, air and sea is simply overwhelming in comparison to the combined Sri Lanka security forces, under any circumstances.

Sri Lanka actually fought a lone battle against the most ruthless terrorist outfit with immense conventional capability. Western covert support and availability of ship loads of arms, ammunition and equipment and a steady sea supply allowed the LTTE to wage war until Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda’s Navy sunk their floating warehouses on the high seas. Intelligence provided by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), and the US, led to the total destruction of the LTTE. Therefore, the US, too, helped Sri Lanka to save children by hastening the LTTE’s destruction, albeit only to speed up its fall when it became clear that the Tigers were not invincible as they earlier tried to make them out to be.

The Air Force carried out operations in support of the Army while carrying out a strategic campaign that relentlessly targeted the enemy. That was meant to break the backbone of the LTTE.

Dhanapala’s advice disregarded

One of Sri Lanka’s famed career diplomats, the late Jayantha Dhanapala, discussed the issue of accountability when he addressed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), headed by one-time Attorney General, the late C. R. de Silva, on August 25, 2010. Dhanapala, in his submissions, said: “Now I think it is important for us to expand that concept to bring in the culpability of those members of the international community who have subscribed to the situation that has caused injury to the civilians of a nation. I talk about the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary; harboured; and supplied with arms and training by some countries with regard to their neighbours or with regard to other countries. We know that in our case this has happened, and I don’t want to name countries, but even countries which have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be abused in such a way that money can flow from their countries in order to buy arms and ammunition that cause deaths, maiming and destruction of property in Sri Lanka are to blame and there is therefore a responsibility to protect our civilians and the civilians of other nations from that kind of behaviour on the part of members of the international community. And I think this is something that will echo within many countries in the Non-Aligned Movement, where Sri Lanka has a much respected position and where I hope we will be able to raise this issue.”

Dhanapala also stressed on the accountability on the part of Western governments, which conveniently turned a blind eye to massive fundraising operations in their countries, in support of the LTTE operations. It is no secret that the LTTE would never have been able to emerge as a conventional fighting force without having the wherewithal abroad, mainly in the Western countries, to procure arms, ammunition and equipment.

Sri Lanka could have built its defence on Dhanapala’s statement to the LLRC. Even more importantly Sri Lanka ignored wartime US military advisor Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith’s defence of the Army that it didn’t execute surrendering LTTE cadres. In other words, the US official contradicted the then retired General Sarath Fonseka, who, with no shame whatsoever, accused the Army (that he earlier led to victory against all odds), of war crimes, to curry favour with the LTTE lackey TNA ahead of the 2010 presidential election.

Similarly Lord Naseby provided a golden opportunity to counter lies when he obtained confidential British diplomatic cables that were sent to the Foreign Office in London from Colombo during January-May 2009. In spite of them being heavily censored, the cables that had been sent by Smith’s British counterpart in Colombo, Lt. Col. Anthony Gash, effectively countered the wild UN allegation pertaining to the deaths of over 40,000 civilians on the Vanni east front.

The British estimated the number of deaths around 7,000. The British figure tallied with a survey carried out by the UN in Colombo during August 2008 to May 13, 2009, in the Vanni region. The UN recorded over 7,000 deaths but Sri Lanka never had a cohesive strategy to utilise all available information in a manner to counter lies.

****

How Geneva erred on Mannar mass graves

Michelle Bachelet

The Tamil Diaspora wants United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to visit what they call Chemmani mass graves. There must be mass graves all over the northern and eastern provinces. Have they forgotten the large number of Tamils executed by the LTTE? Where did the LTTE bury the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran’s deputy Gopalswamy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya? Mahattaya was executed on the mere suspicion of serving India’s interests. There can be skeletons of Indian officers and men killed in the northern and eastern regions during 1987-1990 deployment here. India altogether lost well over 1,300 personnel here.

Let me remind you of the Mannar mass grave farce. Radiocarbon dating analysis by the Beta Analytic Testing Laboratory in Florida, US, in respect of six skeletal samples sent there in January 2019 with the intervention of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) established in accordance with October 2015 Geneva Resolution, proved that the skeletons belonged to a period that covered the Portuguese and the Dutch rule.

This was after Volker Türk’s predecessor Michelle Bachelet, typical of UN hacks negatively dealt with Mannar mass grave site in a report titled ‘Promoting Reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’ submitted to the ongoing 40th session of the HRC.

The following is the relevant section bearing No 23: “On May 29, 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in Mannar (Northern Province), Excavations conducted in support of the Office on Missing Persons, revealed a mass grave from which more than 300 skeletons were discovered. It was the second mass grave found in Mannar following the discovery of a site in 2014. Given that other mass graves might be expected to be found in the future, systematic access to grave sites by the Office as an observer is crucial for it to fully discharge its mandate, particularly with regard to the investigation and identification of remains, it is imperative that the proposed reforms on the law relating to inquests, and relevant protocols to operationalise the law be adopted. The capacity of the forensic sector must also be strengthened, including in areas of forensic anthropology, forensic archeology and genetics, and its coordination with the Office of Missing Persons must be ensured.”

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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Midweek Review

Aragalaya: GR blames CIA in Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s explosive narrative

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Asanga

Did CIA chief William Burns visit Colombo in Feb 2023? Sri Lanka and the US refrained from formally confirming the visit. The Opposition sought confirmation of the then CIA Chief’s visit to Colombo in terms of the Right to Information Act but the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government sidestepped the query. A former Republican congressman from Texas and Director of National Intelligence (2020–2021) John Ratcliffe succeeded Burns in late January 2025.

On the sheer weight of new evidence presented by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s ‘Winds of Change’, readers can get a clear picture of the forces that overthrew President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

Even five years after the political upheaval, widely dubbed ‘Aragalaya,’ controversy surrounds the high-profile operation that forced wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa to literally run for his dear life.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, formerly of the Army but a novice to party politics, comfortably won the 2019 November presidential election against the backdrop of the Easter Sunday carnage that caused uncertainty and suspicions among communities. The economic crisis, also clandestinely engineered from abroad, firstly by crippling vital worker remittances from abroad, almost from the onset of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, overwhelmed the government and created the environment conducive for external intervention. Could it have been avoided if the government, that enjoyed a near two-thirds majority in Parliament, sought the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?

The costly and well-funded book project, undertaken at the time Abeyagoonasekera was working on a governance diagnostic report for the IMF, in the wake of the change of government in Sri Lanka, meticulously examined the former Lieutenant Colonel’s ouster, taking into consideration regional as well as global developments. Abeyagoonasekera dealt efficiently and furiously with rapidly changing situations and developments before the unprecedented 03 January, 2026, US raid on Venezuela.

Lt. Col. (retd) Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for some unexplainable reason and a considerable time after the events, has chosen to blame his ouster on the United States. We cannot blame him either, by the way we have seen how other regime changes had been engineered, in our region, by Washington, since and before Gotabaya’s ouster. The accusation is extraordinary as Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his memoirs ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ refrained from naming the primary conspirator, though he clearly alluded to an international conspiracy.

April 8, 2019 meeting

Launched in March 2024, in the run-up to the presidential election that brought Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) to power, almost in a dream ride, if not for the intervening outside evil actors, ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ discussed the international conspiracy, but conveniently failed to name the primary conspirator. What made the former President speak so candidly with Abeyagoonasekera, the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, from 2016 to 2020?

Abeyagoonasekera also served as Executive Director at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute (LKI), under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2011–2015), during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The author, both precisely and furiously, dealt with issues. Readers may find very interesting quotes and they do give a feeling of the author’s general hostility towards the US, India, as well as to the US-India marriage of convenience. Those who sense so may end up thinking ‘Change of Winds’ being supportive of the Chinese strategy. Among the highly sensitive quotes that underlined the Indian approach were attributed to Indian Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra. The author quoted Mitra as having declared: “We need the MRCC centre [Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre], and you cannot give it to another nation.” As pointed out by the author, it was not a request but an order given to Sri Lanka on 8 April, 2019, meant to prevent Sri Lanka from even considering a competing proposal from China. Against that background, the author, who had been present at that meeting at which the Sri Lanka delegation was led by then Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, questioned the failure on the part of the delegations to take up the Easter Sunday attacks. Terrorists struck two weeks later. Implications were telling.

That particular quote reveals the circumstances India and the US operated here. No wonder the incumbent government does not want to discuss the secret defence MoUs it has entered into with India and the US as they would clearly reveal the sellout of our interests.

The following line says a lot about the circumstances under which Gotabaya Rajapaksa was removed: “In Singapore, a senior journalist recounted how Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation was scripted, under duress, at a hotel, facilitated by a foreign motorcade.”

In the first Chapter that incisively dealt with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the author was so lucky to secure an explosive quote from the ousted leader in an exclusive, hitherto unreported, interview in June 2024, a few months after the launch of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s memoirs. The ex-President hadn’t minced his words when he alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated his removal. He also claimed that he had been under US surveillance throughout his presidency.

The ousted leader has confidently cleared India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of complicity in the operation. What made him call Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval ‘a good man,’ in response to Abeyagoonasekera’s pointed query. Abeyagoonasekera quoted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as having said: “… he would never do such things.” The ex-President must have some reason to call Doval a good friend, regardless of intense pressure exerted on him and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government by the Indians to do away with large scale Chinese-funded projects. (Doval in late October last year declared “poor governance” was the reason behind uprisings that led to change of governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka over the period of past three-and-a-half years. The media quoted Doval as having said, during a function in New Delhi, that democracy and non-institutional methods of regime change in countries, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, created their own set of problems. That was the first time a senior Indian government official made remarks on Nepal’s government change, followed by the Gen Z uprising in early September, 2025.)

Gotabaya Rajapaksa also cleared the Chinese of seeking to oust him. It would be pertinent to mention that China reacted sternly when at the onset of the Gotabaya presidency, the President suggested the need to re-negotiate the Hambantota Port deal.

During the treacherous ‘Yahapalana’ administration (2015 to 2019) Gotabaya Rajapaksa told me how Doval had pressed him to halt not only the Colombo Port City project but to take back Hambantota Port as well. By then, the Chinese had twisted the arms of the Yahapalana leaders Mairthpala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe and secured the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease in a one-sided USD 1.2 bn deal. The Colombo Port City project, that had been halted by the Yahapalana government, too, was resumed possibly under Chinese threat or for some money incentive.

Once Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, declared, at a hastily arranged media briefing at Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF), that Sri Lanka would be relentlessly targeted as long as the Chinese held the Hambantota Port. The writer was present at that media briefing.

Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said so in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, while disclosing his abortive bid to convince the Yahapalana government to abrogate the Hambantota Port deal. Did the parliamentarian know something we were not aware of? The author’s assessment, regarding the Easter Sunday attacks, based on interviews with Chinese officials and scholars, is frightening and an acknowledgement of a possible Western role in Sri Lanka’s destabilisation plot.

The ousted leader, in his lengthy interview with Abeyagoonasekera, made some attention-grabbing comments on the then US Ambassador here, Julie Chung. The ex-President questioned a particular aspect of Chung’s conduct during the protest campaign but his decision not to reveal it all in his memoirs is a mystery. Perhaps, one of the most thought-provoking queries raised by Abeyagoonasekera is the rationale in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s claim that he didn’t want to suppress the protest campaign by using force against the backdrop of his own declaration that the CIA orchestrated the project.

Author’s foray into parliamentary politics

Gotabaya

For those genuinely interested in post-Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga developments, pertaining to international relations and geopolitics, may peruse ‘Winds of Change’ as the third of a trilogy. ‘Sri Lanka at Crossroads’ (2019) dealt with the Mahinda Rajapaksa period and ‘Conundrum of an Island’ (2021) discussed the treacherous Sirisena–Wickremesinghe alliance. The third in the series examined the end of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rule and the rise of Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) whom the author described as a Marxist, though this writer is of the view the JVP and NPP leader AKD is not so. AKD has clearly aligned his administration with US-India while trying to sustain existing relationship with China.

Among Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s other books were ‘Towards a Better World Order’ (2015) and ‘Teardrop Diplomacy: China’s Sri Lanka Foray’ (2023, Bloomsbury).

Had Abeyagoonasekera succeeded in his bid to launch a political career in 2015, the trilogy on Sri Lanka may not have materialised. Abeyagoonasekera contested the Gampaha district at the August 2015 parliamentary election on the UNP ticket but failed to garner sufficient preferences to secure a place in Parliament. That dealt a devastating setback to Abeyagoonasekera’s political ambitions, but the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena administration created the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, for him. Abeyagoonasekera received the appointment as the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, from 2016 to 2020.

Several persons dealt with ‘Aragalaya’ (the late Prof. Nalin de Silva used to call it (Paragalaya) before Abeyagoonasekera though none of them examined the regional and global contexts so deeply, taking into consideration the relevant developments. Having read Wimal Weerawansa’s (Nine: The hidden story), Sena Thoradeniya’s (Galle Face Protest; Systems Change or Anarchy?). Mahinda Siriwardena’s (Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival – Reflection on the Journey from Crisis to Recovery) and Prof. Sunanda Maddumabandara’s (Aragalaye Balaya), the writer is of the opinion Abeyagoonasekera dealt with the period in question as an incisive insider.

Abeyagoonasekera, as a person who left the country, under duress, in 2021, painted a frightening picture of a country with a small and vulnerable economy trapped in major global rivalries. The former government servant attributed his self–imposed exile to two issues.

The first was the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage. Why did the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena government ignore the warning issued by Abeyagoonasekera, in his capacity as DG INSS, in respect of the Easter Sunday bombing campaign? There is absolutely no ambiguity at all in his claim. Abeyagoonasekera insists that he alerted the government four months before the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) bombers struck. The bottom line is that Abeyagoonasekera had issued the warning several weeks before India did but those at the helm of that inept administration chose to turn a blind eye.

The second was the impending economic crisis that engulfed the country in 2022. Abeyagoonasekera is deeply bitter about his arrest on 21 July, 2024, at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) over an alleged IRD –related offence as reported at that time, especially because he was returning home to visit his sick mother.

Asanga’s father Ossie, a member of Parliament and controversial figure, was killed in an LTTE suicide attack at Thotalanga in late Oct. 1994. The Chairman and leader of Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya had been on stage with then UNP presidential election candidate Gamini Dissanayake when the woman suicide cadre blasted herself. The assassination was meant to ensure Kumaratunga’s victory. The LTTE probably felt that it could manipulate Kumaratunga than the experienced Dissanayake who may have had reached some sort of consensus with New Delhi on how to deal with the LTTE.

Let me reproduce a question posed to Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and his response in ‘Winds of Change’ as some may believe that the author is holding something back. “Didn’t they listen?” a US intelligence officer had asked me incredulously after the bombings. Years later, during my role as a technical advisor for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid Sri Lanka’s collapse, the question resurfaced: “How did you foresee the collapse of a powerful regime with a majority in parliament?” My answer remained the same—patterns. Rigorously gathered data and relentless analysis reveal the arcs of history before they unfold.

Perhaps, readers may find what former cashiered Flying Officer Keerthi Ratnayake had to say about ‘Aragalaya’ and related developments (https://island.lk/ex-slaf-officer-sheds-light-on-developments-leading-to-aragalaya/)

Bombshell claim

Essentially, Abeyagoonasekera, on the basis of his exclusive and lengthy interview with former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, confirmed what Wimal Weerawansa and Sena Thoradeniya alleged that the US spearheaded the operation.

But Prof. Maddumabandara, a confidant of first post-Aragalaya President Ranil Wickremesinghe has bared the direct Indian involvement in the regime change operation. In spite of Gotabaya Rajapaksa confidently clearing Indian NSA Doval of complicity in his ouster, Prof. Maddumabandara is on record as having said that the then Indian High Commissioner here Gopal Baglay put pressure on Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to take over the government for an interim period. (https://island.lk/dovals-questionable-regional-stock-taking/)

Obviously, the US and India worked together on the Sri Lanka regime change operation. That is the undeniable truth. India wanted to thwart Wickremesinghe receiving the presidency by bringing in Speaker Abeywardena. That move went awry in spite of some sections of both Buddhist and Catholic clergy throwing their weight behind New Delhi.

The 2022 violent regime change operation cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the US-led project that also involved the UNP, JVP and TNA to engineer retired General Sarath Fonseka’s victory at the 2010 presidential election and their backing for turncoat Maithripala Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election.

The section, titled ‘Echoes of Crisis from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh: South Asia’s Struggle in a Polycrisis’, is riveting and underscores the complexity of the situation and fragility of governments. Executive power and undisputable majorities in Parliament seems irrelevant as external powers intervene thereby making the electoral system redundant.

Having meticulously compared the overthrowing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Bangladesh’s Premier Sheikh Hasina, the author condemned them for their alleged failures and brutality. Abeyagoonasekera stated: “When the military sides with the protesters, as it did in Sri Lanka and now in Bangladesh, it reveals the rulers’ vulnerabilities.” The author unmercifully chided the former President for seeking refuge in the West while alleging direct CIA role in his ouster. But that may have spared his life. Had he sought a lifeline from the Chinese so late the situation could have taken a turn for worse.

The comment that had been attributed to Gotabaya Rajapaksa seemed to belittle Ranil Wickremesinghe who accepted the challenge of becoming the Premier in May 2022 and then chosen by the ruling SLPP to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term. Ranil was definitely seen as an opportunistic vulture who backed ‘Aragalaya’ without any qualms till he saw an opening for himself out of the chaos.

On Wickremesinghe’s path

Abeyagoonasekera discussed the joint US-Indian strategy pertaining to Sri Lanka. Whatever the National People’s Power (NPP) and its President say, the current dispensation is continuing Wickremesinghe’s policy as pointed out by the author. In fact, this government appears to be ready even to go beyond Wickremesinghe’s understanding with New Delhi. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence and the selling of the controlling interests of the Colombo Dockyard Limited (CDL) to India, mid last year, must have surprised even those who always pushed for enhanced relations at all levels.

The economic collapse that resulted in political upheaval has given New Delhi the perfect opportunity to consolidate its position here. Uncomplimentary comments on current Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha in ‘Winds of Change’ have to be discussed, paying attention to Sri Lanka’s growing dependence and alleged clandestine activities of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Abeyagoonasekera seemed to have no qualms in referring to RAW’s hand in 2019 Easter Sunday carnage.

Overall ‘Winds of Change’ encourages, inspires and confirms suspicions about US and Indian intelligence services and underscores the responsibility of those in power to be extra cautious. But, in the case of smaller and weaker economies, such as Sri Lanka still struggling to overcome the economic crisis, there seems to be no solution. Not only India and the US, the Chinese, too, pursue their agenda here unimpeded. Utilisation of political parties, represented in Parliament, selected individuals, and media, in the Chinese efforts, are obvious. Once parliamentarian Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe raised the Chinese interventions in Sri Lanka. He questioned the Parliament receiving about 240 personal laptops for all parliamentarians and top officials. The then UNPer told the writer his decision not to accept the laptop paid for by China. Perhaps, he is the only Sri Lankan politician to have written a strongly worded letter to Chinese leader Xi warning against high profile Chinese strategy.

Winds of Change
is available at
Vijitha Yapa and Sarasavi

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Beginning of another ‘White Supremacist’ World Order?

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Donald Trump’s complete lack of intelligence, empathy and common sense have become more apparent during the current term of his presidency. Ordinarily, a country’s wish to self-destruct as the United States seemingly does at present, and as the violence against US citizens and immigrants alike at the hands of federal authorities have shown in Minnesota, can be callously considered the business of that country. If the Trumpian imbecility was unfolding in Sri Lanka, anywhere else in South Asia or some other country of the purported Third World, the so-called World Order, led by the United States, would be preaching to us the values of democracy and human rights. But what happens when the actions of a powerful country, such as the United States, engulfs in the ensuing flames the rest of us? Trump and his madness then necessarily become our business, too, because combined with the military and economic power of the United States and its government’s proven lack of empathy for its own people, and the rest of the world, is quite literally a matter of global survival. Besides, one of the ‘positive’ outcomes of the Trumpian madness, as a friend observed recently, is that “he has single-handedly exposed and destroyed the fiction of ‘Western Civilisation’, including the pretenses of Europe.”

It is in this context that the speech delivered by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, on 20 January, 2026, deserves attention. It was an elegant speech, a slap in the face of Trump and his policies, the articulation of the need for global directional change, all in one. But, pertinently, it was also a speech that did not clearly accept responsibility for the current world (dis)order which Carney says needs to change. The reality of that need, however, was overly reemphasised by Trump himself during his meandering, arrogant and incohesive speech delivered a day later, spanning over one hour.

My interest is in what Carney did not specifically say in his speech: who would constitute the new world order, who would be its leaders and why should we believe it would be any different from the present one?

Speaking in French, Carney observed that he was talking about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He was, of course, responding to the vulgar script for global domination put in place by the Trumpian United States, given Trump’s declared interest in seeing Canada as part of the United States, his avarice for Greenland, not to mention his already concluded grab for Venezuelan oil. But within this scenario, bound by ‘no limits’ and ‘no constraints’ he was also talking of Russia and China albeit in a coded language.

He reiterated, “that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states. The power of the less power starts with honesty.”

Who could disagree with Carney? His words are a refreshing whiff of fresh air in the intellectual wasteland that is the Trumpian Oval Office and the current world order it prevails over. But where has been the ‘honesty’ of the less powerful in the specific situation where he equates Canada itself within this spectrum? He tells us that “the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

That is stating the obvious. We have known this for decades by experience. Long before Canada’s relative silence with regard to Trump’s and US’ facilitation of the assault on Palestine and the massacre of its people, and the US President’s economic grab in Venezuela and the kidnapping of that country’s President and his wife, Canada’s own chorus in the world order that Carney now critiques has been embellished by silence or – even worse – by chords written by the global dominance orchestra of the United States.

He says the fading of the rules-based order has occurred because of the “strong tendency for countries to go along, to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.” Canada fits this description better than most other nations I can think of. But would Canada, along with other nations among the silent majority within the ‘intermediate powers’ take the responsibility for the mess in the world precisely that silence has directly led to creating? Who will pay for the pain many nations have endured in the prevailing world order? Will Canada lead the way in the new world order in doing this?

Carney further articulates that “for decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.”

But this is not true, is it? Countries like Canada prospered not merely because of the stability of rules of the world order, but because they opted for silence when they should not have. The rupture and the chaos in the world order Carney now critiques and is insanely led by Trump today is not merely the latter’s creation. It has been co-authored for decades by countries such as Canada, France, the United Kingdom to mention just a few who also regularly chant the twin-mantras of human rights and democracy. Trump is merely the latest and the most vocal proponent of the nastiness of that World Order.

It is not that Carney is unaware of this unpleasant reality. He accepts that “the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

While Canada seems to be coming to terms with this reality only now, countries like Sri Lanka and others in similarly disempowered positions in this world order have experienced this for decades, because, as I have outlined earlier, Canada et al have been complicit sustainers of the now demonised and demonic world order.

It is not that I disagree with the basic description Carney has painted of the status of the world. But from personal experience and from the perspective of a citizen from a powerless country, I simply do not trust those who preach ‘the gospel of the good’ not as a matter of principle, but only when the going gets tough for them.

At this rather late stage, Carney says, Canada is “amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.” Unfortunately, we, the people of countries who had to dance to the tunes of the world order led by the First World, have heard it for years, with no one listening to us when our discomforts were articulated. Now, Carney wants ‘middle powers’ or ‘intermediate powers’ within which he also locates Canada, “to live the truth?” For him, the truth means “naming reality” as it exists; “acting consistently” towards all in the world; “applying the same standards to allies and rivals” and “building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored.” This appears to be the operational mantra for the new world order he is envisioning in which he sees Canada as a legitimate leader merely due to its late wakeup call.

He goes on to give a list of things Canada has done locally and globally and concludes by saying, “we have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.” He goes on to say Canada also has “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.” He notes this is “Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.” Quite simply, this a leadership pitch for a new world order with Canada at its helm.

Without being overly cynical, this sounds very familiar, not too dissimilar to what USAID and Voice of America preached to the world; not too dissimilar to what the propaganda arms of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party used to preach in our own languages when we were growing up. It is difficult to buy this argument and accept Canadian and middle country leadership for the new world order when they have been consistently part of the problem of the old one and its excuses for institutionalised double standards practiced by international organisations such as the likes of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other hegemonic entities that have catered to the whims of that world order.

As far as Canada is concerned, it is evident that it has suddenly woken up only due to an existential threat at home projected from across its southern border and Trump’s threats against the Danish territory of Greenland. When Gaza was battered, and Venezuela was raped, there was no audible clarion call. Therefore, there is no real desire for democracy or human rights in its true form, but a convenient and strategic interest in creating a new ‘white supremacist’ world order in the same persona as before, but this time led by a new white warrior instead. The rest of us would be mere followers, nodding our heads as expected as was the case before.

As the 20th century American standup comedian Lenny Bruce once said, “never trust a preacher with more than two suits.” Mr. Carney, Canada along with the so-called middle powers and the lapsed colonialists have way more than two suits, and we have seen them all.