Midweek Review

Vaccines, pandemic politics, and Global South

Published

5 years ago

2021/07/7

By Kalinga Tudor Silva

(A slightly amended version of a paper published as the editorial of Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences 44 (1) in June 2021.)

In describing the pandemic, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated in April 2020 “we are all in it together”. This laudable statement tried to drive home the point that the pandemic is a common challenge for the entire humankind and that a well-coordinated unified effort is needed from the world community – whether from the global north or south, majority or minority, infected or uninfected, to counter this unfolding human crisis. The twists and turns in the pandemic over the past one and a half years clearly demonstrated that everyone was vulnerable from heads of state at the top to mobile vendors on the streets. It also showed that while the virus does not discriminate, its impact does with elderly in institutional care, ethnic and racial minorities and socially underprivileged in general among the worst victims of the early phase of the pandemic globally. How the world will emerge from this terrible crisis is yet to be seen, but whether we like it or not it has taught us many lessons about what we should do and not do in responding to a global pandemic of this magnitude and the accompanying humanitarian crisis.

This powerful unifying statement by the head of the UN was made at a time when the pandemic was polarizing the world community in some fundamental ways. One was the disproportionate number of people of colour and minorities in general who fell victim to the pandemic in the United States and certain countries in Europe particularly during the onset of the pandemic. Thus, the pandemic was exposing serious disparities and the absence of universal coverage in the healthcare system even in the most economically advanced countries. Another was the pandemic of hate triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak, reflected in some mainstream and social media, whereby ethnic and religious other was often identified and labelled as the vector or carrier of the virus, reportedly spreading it to others at times purportedly deliberately. Thus, the social and political polarizing impact of the pandemic was as bad as its health (i.e., morbidity and mortality) impacts. We have seen some manifestations of this polarizing social impact of the pandemic in Sri Lanka as well. It is against this background that this valiant call for global unity and solidarity at the time of the pandemic must be understood. It is not framed as a plea for an unanticipated surge in ‘love in the time of corona’ along the lines of the award-winning novel of Marquez. Rather it was a pragmatic call for forgetting and perhaps overcoming the escalating internal differences within the world community when confronted by an unprecedented public health emergency unfolding right before our eyes.

Like many other UN calls and declarations, this enlightened UN statement too has fallen by the wayside. ‘Vaccine nationalism’ of developed countries directly relevant in the present context of the pandemic is a case in point. For vaccines to be effective as a widespread public health strategy for the control of COVID-19, the entire world, inclusive of developing countries, must have reasonable access to the vaccines so that the virus is contained satisfactorily throughout the world. However, the developed countries that manufacture the vaccines and have the technology and resources needed for production of vaccines have decided to order, stockpile and hoard much more than they actually require, purely taking their own self-interest into account to the neglect of third world countries in particular. According to an article published in The Guardian in March 2021, world’s rich countries with a total share of 14% of the global population, have secured 53% of the best vaccines for COVID- 19 produced or planned to be produced at the time (Bhutto 2021).

On the other hand, many countries in the global south will encounter a formidable challenge in the import of life-saving vaccines at current market prices due to their budgetary constraints and foreign exchange problems. This is likely to be even more challenging for smaller countries in the global south like Sri Lanka already heavily entangled in a debt trap along with intractable debt servicing problems as elaborated by Vinayagathasan and Sri Ranjith in their article in this issue. This situation is likely to create space for the virus to freely replicate and mutate in part of the world population in ways that will make it harder to contain the pandemic globally and prevent its upsurge in future. The reactions of corporate giants in the pharmaceutical world against cheaper manufacture of vaccines in the developing world reiterate the point that profits rather than human health across the board is the key driver of the global pharmaceutical industry. The fact that virus strains that emerged in India have spread to over 40 countries within a short period of their origin clearly points to the massive danger involved (Shrivastava 2021). China may be guided by their own vested interests and geopolitical agendas in rapidly developing and freely distributing their own vaccines, but the truth is that without access to lubricated and fast track Chinese supply line much of the developing world will be at the mercy of the multinational pharmaceutical corporations who will only use the pandemic as another profitable venture for accumulating wealth.

This is, however, not to argue that we should counter vaccine nationalism of the developed world with our own brand of home-grown parochial nationalism where we limit ourselves to herbal remedies inherited from the past or so-called miracle sweeteners (paniya) of one kind or another. Instead, what is needed is a critical approach where we subject both scientific inventions and herbal therapies and inherited legacies to an equally robust validation procedures without accepting them uncritically just because they are sanctioned and legitimised by western science or “power of ancient knowledge” (Perera 2021) combined with eastern mysticism at times driven by populist identity politics and deep-seated political instincts. At this critical juncture of pandemic politics, we need to work towards evolving social policies and decision-making processes that are well informed, evidence based and able to withstand political pressures and partisan demands for favouritism in matters such as vaccination coverage. While pandemic does call for urgent action, monitoring and evaluation should be part and parcel of all interventions for pandemic control and mitigation just as much as they are routinely deployed in all development practice. What is important at this stage is a carefully crafted state policy that transcends narrow fault lines in society and polity and seeks to stand for collective interests and the common good of all humanity confronted by an unprecedented common challenge with all of us entangled in it collectively. This is where countries in the global north as well as global south must transcend short-term self-interests and popular appeal to identity politics in order to face an unprecedented global challenge where we are all entangled in one way or another.

Papers in this issue of SLJSS are diverse as they deal with a variety of economic, social and cultural issues. None of the papers in this issue speak to the devastating pandemic immediately confronting us as a society. They do, however, highlight the need for well-informed social policies in selected domains in life. For instance, Perera’s article on social safeguard policies of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other such agencies reveal that while such policies have been carefully developed and imposed by these multilateral banks on their borrowers, they are not well integrated with related policies and principals of other international players such as the United Nations. The article has a specific focus on their lack of integration with Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The article also comments on the lack of fit between the social safeguard principles advocated by these lending institutions and ground level realities of developing countries, with the lenders having to “nudge the borrowers to adopt safeguard best practices” (this issue p. 63) without necessarily pushing them to incorporate the guidelines in their development practices in general. The author reiterates the point that social safeguard policies of these key development actors are guided by the immediate concerns of the lending institutions and their global agendas rather than changing ground realities and economic and social drivers in the developing world itself.

Another interesting story about social policy is presented by Wanninayake in his paper in the current issue of the journal. In contrast to much of the literature dealing with the larger body of Tamil and Muslim IDPs in northern and Eastern Sri Lanka, this article focuses on Sinhala IDPs displaced from Vavuniya South to northern part of Anuradhapura District during the war. The prevailing state policies encouraged war induced IDPs to go back to where they were displaced from at the end of the war. Most of the IDPs in Anuradhapura, however, opted to stay back in Anuradhapura using existing and newly established kinship ties to establish a self-settlement pattern and a wide range of social networks with host communities (p. 140). The prevailing state policies about return and resettlement of IDPs which tried to reestablish a status quo prior to their displacement perhaps due to ideological and political reasons were obviously uninformed by this sociological reality that the author identifies as a successful adaptation mutually beneficial to both IDPs and their hosts due to economic and social considerations applicable to the post war situation. IDPs did contribute to economic development in host areas by sharing their agricultural knowledge and skills, disseminating cultivation methods and supplying farm labour at a time many local youth were mobilized in military employment. The paper calls for a IDP resettlement policy that is more in line with ongoing social reality and choices made by the IDPs themselves in place of armchair policy making by bureaucrats and politicians purely guided by political exigencies and ideological considerations of the ruling regime at the time.

The UN policy stand regarding the pandemic has an immediate relevance to us as there is a distinct need to reach out to all sections of society and make them realize that we are all in it together and that we must work together diligently and intelligently in dealing with the pandemic. While enforcement of quarantine regulations and health guidelines is certainly needed, people must realize that their health is partly in their own hands, but partly in the hands of the community at large and at the hands of a heartless virus adept at multiplying that can be contained only collectively. In tracing the global history of epidemics, McNeill (1976) observed “Humans often have complicated and contradictory motivations. Microbes do not: they ‘want’ to reproduce.” Trust building in systems and among each other is as much needed as delivering vaccines and establishing effective health services and effective hand washing practices in workplaces at this hour of national and global emergency. It must be stated here that Sri Lanka’s outstanding achievements in public health developed from 1930s onwards ultimately rest in the skills, dedicated commitment, and application of health workers at all levels and the confidence with which the public voluntarily utilized the services available as a routine practice. As an unfolding global event, a pandemic may be a completely different challenge, but we have dealt with similar epidemics in the past and we have a well-developed health care system with wide outreach to all communities in the country (Jones 2015, Silva 2014). All efforts must be made to reinforce and revitalize this system in dealing with the crisis at hand.

References

Bhutto, F. (2021). The World’s Richest Countries are Hoarding Vaccines. The Guardian, March 17, 2021.

Jones, M. (2015). Sri Lankan Path to Health for All from the Colonial Period to Alma Ata. In A. Medcalf et al. eds. Health for All: The Journey of Universal Health Coverage. Hyderabad: Blackswan.

McNeill, William (1976). Plagues and Peoples. Garden City: Doubleday.

Perera, S. (2021). Science, Belief and State Policy: Towards a Necessary Exercise in Discursive Disentanglement. Presentation to National Academy of Sciences in Sri Lanka on January 22, 2021.

Silva, K.T. (2014). Decolonisation, Development and Disease: A Social History of Malaria in Sri Lanka. Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

Shrivastava, B. (2021). Virsu Strain behind India’s Surge in Covid Cases Detected in 44 Countries. Fortune, May 12, 2021.

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Midweek Review

At the edge of a world war

Published

4 days ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

In September 1939, as Europe descended once more into catastrophe, E. H. Carr published The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Twenty years had separated the two great wars—twenty years to reflect, to reconstruct, to restrain. Yet reflection proved fragile. Carr wrote with unsentimental clarity: once the enemy is crushed, the “thereafter” rarely arrives. The illusion that power can come first and morality will follow is as dangerous as the belief that morality alone can command power. Between those illusions, nations lose themselves.

His warning hovers over the present war in Iran.

The “thereafter” has long haunted American interventions—after Afghanistan, after Iraq, after Libya. The enemy can be dismantled with precision; the aftermath resists precision. Iran is not a small theater. It is a civilization-state with a geography three times larger than Iraq. At its southern edge lies the Strait of Hormuz, narrow in width yet immense in consequence. Geography does not argue; it compels.

Long before Carr, in the quiet anxiety of the eighteenth century, James Madison, principal architect of the Constitution, warned that war was the “true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” War concentrates authority in the name of urgency. Madison insisted that the power to declare war must rest with Congress, not the president—so that deliberation might restrain impulse. Republics persuade themselves that emergency powers are temporary. History rarely agrees.

Then, at 2:30 a.m., the abstraction becomes decision.

Donald Trump declares war on Iran. The announcement crosses continents before markets open in Asia. Within twenty-four hours, Ali Khamenei, who ruled for thirty-seven years, is killed. The President calls him one of history’s most evil figures and presents his death as an opening for the Iranian people.

In exile, Reza Pahlavi hails the moment as liberation. In less than forty-eight hours, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps collapses under overwhelming air power. A regime that endured decades falls swiftly. Military efficiency appears absolute. Yet efficiency does not resolve legitimacy.

The joint strike with Israel is framed as necessary and pre-emptive. Retaliation follows across the Gulf. The architecture of energy trade becomes fragile. Shipping routes are recalculated. Markets respond before diplomacy finds its language.

It is measured in the price of petrol in Colombo. In the bus fare in Karachi. In the rising cost of cooking gas in Dhaka. It is heard in the anxious voice of a migrant worker in Doha calling home to Kandy, asking whether contracts will be renewed, whether flights will continue, whether wages will be delayed. It is calculated in foreign reserves already strained, in currencies that tremble at rumor, in budgets forced to choose between subsidy and solvency.

Zaara was the breadwinner of her house in Sri Lanka. Her husband had been unemployed for years. At last, he secured an opportunity to travel to Israel as a foreign worker—like many Sri Lankans who depend on employment in the Middle East. It was to be their turning point: a small house repaired, debts reduced, dignity restored.

Now she lowers her eyes when she speaks. For Zaara, geopolitics is not theory. It is fear measured in distance—between a construction site abroad and a village waiting at home.

The war in Iran has shattered calculations that once felt practical. Nations like Sri Lanka now require strategic foresight to navigate unfolding realities. Reactive responses—whether to natural disasters or external shocks like this conflict—can cripple economies far faster than gradual pressures. Disruptions to energy imports, migrant remittances, and foreign reserves show how distant wars ripple into daily lives.

War among great powers is debated in think tanks. Its consequences are lived in markets—and in quiet kitchens where uncertainty sits heavier than hunger.

The conflict does not unfold in isolation. It enters the strategic calculus of China and Russia, both attentive to precedent. Power projected beyond the Western hemisphere reshapes perceptions in the Eastern theater. Iran’s transformation intersects directly with broader alignments. In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a twenty-five-year strategic agreement. By 2025, China was purchasing the majority of Iran’s exported oil at discounted rates. Energy underwrote strategy. That continuity has been disrupted. Yet strategic relationships do not vanish; they adjust.

In Winds of Change, my new book, I reproduce Nicholas Spykman’s 1944 two-theater confrontation map—Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War. Spykman distinguished maritime power from amphibian projection. Control of the Rimland determined balance. Then, the United States fought across two vast theaters. Today, Europe remains unsettled through Ukraine, the Pacific simmers over Taiwan and the South China Sea, Latin America remains sensitive, and the Middle East has been abruptly transformed. The architecture of multi-theater tension reappears.

At this juncture, the reflections of Marwan Bishara acquire weight. America’s ultimate power, he argues, resides in deterrence, not in the habitual use of force. Power, especially when shared, stabilizes. Force, when used with disregard for international law, breeds instability and humiliation. Arrogance creates enemies and narrows judgment. It is no surprise that many Americans themselves believe the United States should not act alone.

America’s strength does not rest solely in its military reach. Its economy constitutes roughly one-third of global output and generates close to 40 percent of the world’s research and development. Structural power—economic, technological, institutional—has historically underwritten deterrence. When force becomes the primary instrument, influence risks becoming coercion.

The United States now confronts simultaneous pressures across continents. The Second World War demonstrated the capacity to sustain multi-theater engagement; the post-9/11 wars revealed the exhaustion that follows prolonged intervention. Iran, larger and geopolitically deeper, presents a scale that cannot be resolved by air power alone.

Carr’s “thereafter” waits patiently. Military victory may be swift; political reconstruction is slow. Bishara reminds us that deterrence sustains stability, while force risks unraveling it.

At the edge of a potential world war, the decisive question is not who strikes first, but who restrains longest.

History watches. And in places far from the battlefield, mothers wait for phone calls that may not come.

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is a Senior Research Fellow at the Millennium Project, Washington, D.C., and the author of Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, published by World Scientific

Midweek Review

Live Coals Burst Aflame

Published

4 days ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Live coals of decades-long hate,

Are bursting into all-consuming flames,

In lands where ‘Black Gold’ is abundant,

And it’s a matter to be thought about,

If humans anywhere would be safe now,

Unless these enmities dying hard,

With roots in imperialist exploits,

And identity-based, tribal violence,

Are set aside and laid finally to rest,

By an enthronement of the principle,

Of the Equal Dignity of Humans.

By Lynn Ockersz

Midweek Review

Saga of the arrest of retired intelligence chief

Published

6 days ago

2026/03/2

Sahan Weerasooriya

Retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay’s recent arrest attracted internatiattention. His long-expected arrest took place ahead of the seventh anniversary of the bombings. Multiple blasts claimed the lives of nearly 280 people, including 45 foreigners. State-owned international news television network, based in Paris, France 24, declared that arrest was made on the basis of information provided by a whistleblower. The French channel was referring to Hanzeer Azad Moulana, who earlier sought political asylum in the West and one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan aka Pilleyan. May be the fiction he wove against Pilleyan and others may have been to strengthen his asylum claim there. Moulana is on record as having told the British Channel 4 that Sallay allowed the attack to proceed with the intention of influencing the 2019 presidential election. The French news agency quoted an investigating officer as having said: “He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks. He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.”

****

Suresh Sallay of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) received the wrath of Yahapalana Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in 2016, over the reportage of what the media called the Chavakachcheri explosives detection made on March 30, 2016. Premier Wickremesinghe found fault with Sallay for the coverage, particularly in The Island. Police arrested ex-LTTE child combatant Edward Julian, alias Ramesh, after the detection of one suicide jacket, four claymore mines, three parcels containing about 12 kilos of explosives, to battery packs and several rounds of 9mm ammunition, from his house, situated at Vallakulam Pillaiyar Kovil Street. Chavakachcheri police made the detection, thanks to information provided by the second wife of Ramesh. Investigations revealed that the deadly cache had been brought by Ramesh from Mannar (Detection of LTTE suicide jacket, mines jolts government: Fleeing Tiger apprehended at checkpoint, The Island, March 31, 2016).

The then Jaffna Security Forces Commander, Maj. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake, told the writer that a thorough inquiry was required to ascertain the apprehended LTTE cadre’s intention. The Chavakachcheri detection received the DMI’s attention. The country’s premier intelligence organisation meticulously dealt with the issue against the backdrop of an alleged aborted bid to revive the LTTE in April 2014. Of those who had been involved in the fresh terror project, three were killed in the Nedunkerny jungles. There hadn’t been any other incidents since the Nedunkerny skirmish, until the Chavakachcheri detection.

Piqued by the media coverage of the Chavakachcheri detection, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration tried to silence the genuine Opposition. As the SLFP had, contrary to the expectations of those who voted for the party at the August 2015 parliamentary elections, formed a treacherous coalition with the UNP, the Joint Opposition (JO) spearheaded the parliamentary opposition.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) questioned former External Affairs Minister and top JO spokesman, Prof. G.L. Peiris, over a statement made by him regarding the Chavakachcheri detection. The former law professor questioned the legality of the CID’s move against the backdrop of police declining to furnish him a certified copy of the then acting IGP S.M. Wickremesinghe’s directive that he be summoned to record a statement as regards the Chavakachcheri lethal detection.

One-time LTTE propagandist Velayutham Dayanidhi, a.k.a. Daya Master, raised with President Maithripala Sirisena the spate of arrests made by law enforcement authorities, in the wake of the Chavakachcheri detection. Daya Master took advantage of a meeting called by Sirisena, on 28 April, 2016, at the President’s House, with the proprietors of media organisations and journalists, to raise the issue. The writer having been among the journalists present on that occasion, inquired from the ex-LETTer whom he represented there. Daya Master had been there on behalf of DAN TV, Tamil language satellite TV, based in Jaffna. Among those who had been detained was Subramaniam Sivakaran, at that time Youth Wing leader of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), the main constituent of the now defunct Tamil National Alliance. In addition to Sivakaran, the police apprehended several hardcore ex-LTTE cadres (LTTE revival bid confirmed: TNA youth leader arrested, The Island April 20, 2016).

Ranil hits out at media

Subsequent inquiries revealed the role played by Sivakaran in some of those wanted in connection with the Chavakachcheri detection taking refuge in India. When the writer sought an explanation from the then TNA lawmaker, M.A. Sumanthiran, regarding Sivakaran’s arrest, the lawyer disowned the Youth Wing leader. Sumanthiran emphasised that the party suspended Sivakumaran and Northern Provincial Council member Ananthi Sasitharan for publicly condemning the TNA’s decision to endorse Maithripala Sirisena’s candidature at the 2015 presidential election (Chava explosives: Key suspects flee to India, The Island, May 2, 2016).

Premier Wickremesinghe went ballistic on May 30, 2016. Addressing the 20th anniversary event of the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, at the Sports Ministry auditorium, the UNP leader castigated the DMI. Alleging that the DMI had been pursuing an agenda meant to undermine the Yahapalana administration, Wickremesinghe, in order to make his bogus claim look genuine, repeatedly named the writer as part of that plot. Only Wickremesinghe knows the identity of the idiot who influenced him to make such unsubstantiated allegations. The top UNPer went on to allege that The Island, and its sister paper Divaina, were working overtime to bring back Dutugemunu, a reference to war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. A few days later, sleuths from the Colombo Crime Detection Bureau (CCD) visited The Island editorial to question the writer where lengthy statements were recorded. The police were acting on the instructions of the then Premier, who earlier publicly threatened to send police to question the writer.

In response to police queries about Sallay passing information to the media regarding the Chavakachcheri detection and subsequent related articles, the writer pointed out that the reportage was based on response of the then ASP Ruwan Gunasekera, AAL and Sumanthiran, as had been reported.

Wickremesinghe alleged, at the Muslim media event, that a section of the media manipulated coverage of certain incidents, ahead of the May Day celebrations.

In early May 2016 Wickremesinghe disclosed that he received assurances from the police, and the DMI, that as the LTTE had been wiped out the group couldn’t stage a comeback. The declaration was made at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRIS) on 3 May 2016. Wickremesinghe said that he sought clarifications from the police and the DMI in the wake of the reportage of the Chavakachcheri detection and related developments (PM: LTTE threat no longer exists, The Island, May 5, 2016).

The LTTE couldn’t stage a comeback as a result of measures taken by the then government. It would be a grave mistake, on our part, to believe that the eradication of the LTTE’s conventional military capacity automatically influenced them to give up arms. The successful rehabilitation project, that had been undertaken by the Rajapaksa government and continued by successive governments, ensured that those who once took up arms weren’t interested in returning to the same deadly path.

In spite of the TNA and others shedding crocodile tears for the defeated Tigers, while making a desperate effort to mobilise public opinion against the government, the public never wanted the violence to return. Some interested parties propagated the lie that regardless of the crushing defeat suffered in the hands of the military, the LTTE could resume guerilla-type operations, paving the way for a new conflict. But by the end of 2014, and in the run-up to the presidential election in January following year, the situation seemed under control, especially with Western countries not wanting to upset things here with a pliant administration in the immediate horizon. Soon after the presidential election, the government targeted the armed forces. Remember Sumanthiran’s declaration that the ITAK Youth Wing leader Sivakaran had been opposed to the TNA backing Sirisena at the presidential poll.

The US-led accountability resolution had been co-sponsored by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo to appease the TNA and Tamil Diaspora. The Oct. 01, 2016, resolution delivered a knockout blow to the war-winning armed forces. The UNP pursued an agenda severely inimical to national interests. It would be pertinent to mention that those who now represent the main Opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), were part of the treacherous UNP.

Suresh moved to Malaysia

The Yahapalana leadership resented Sallay’s work. They wanted him out of the country at a time a new threat was emerging. The government attacked the then Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, who warned of the emerging threat from foreign-manipulated local Islamic fanatics on 11 Nov. 2016, in Parliament. Rajapakshe didn’t mince his words when he underscored the threat posed by some Sri Lanka Muslim families taking refuge in Syria where ISIS was running the show. The then government, of which he was part o,f ridiculed their own Justice Minister. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe feared action against extremism may cause erosion of Muslim support. By then Sallay, who had been investigating the deadly plot, was out of the country. The Yahapalana government believed that the best way to deal with Sallay was to grant him a diplomatic posting. Sally ended up in Malaysia, a country where the DMI played a significant role in the repatriation of Kumaran Pathmanathan, alias KP, after his arrest there.

Having served the military for over three cadres, Sallay retired in 2024 in the rank of Major General. Against the backdrop of his recent arrest, in connection with the ongoing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, The Island felt the need to examine the circumstances Sallay ended up in Malaysia at the time. Now, remanded in terms of the Prevention of terrorism Act (PTA), he is being accused of directing the Easter Sunday operation from Malaysia.

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader and former Minister Udaya Gammanpila has alleged that Sallay was apprehended in a bid to divert attention away from the deepening coal scam. Having campaigned on an anti-corruption platformm in the run up to the previous presidential election, in September 2024, the Parliament election, in November of the same year, and local government polls last year, the incumbent dispensation is struggling to cope up with massive corruption issues, particularly the coal scam, which has not only implicated the Energy Minister but the entire Cabinet of Ministers as well.

The crux of the matter is whether Sallay actually met would-be suicide bombers, in February 2018, in an estate, in the Puttalam district, as alleged by the UK’s Channel 4 television, like the BBC is, quite famous for doing hatchet jobs for the West. This is the primary issue at hand. Did Sallay clandestinely leave Malaysia to meet suicide bombers in the presence of Hanzeer Azad Moulana, one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, aka Pilleyan, former LTTE member?

The British channel raised this issue with Sallay, in 2023, at the time he served as Director, State Intelligence (SIS). Sallay is on record as having told Channel 4 Television that he was not in Sri Lanka the whole of 2018 as he was in Malaysia serving in the Sri Lankan Embassy there as Minister Counsellor.

Therefore, the accusation that he met several members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), including Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, in Karadipuval, Puttalam, in Feb. 2018, was baseless, he has said.

The intelligence officer has asked the British television station to verify his claim with the Malaysian authorities.

Responding to another query, Sallay had told Channel 4 that on April 21, 2019, the day of the Easter Sunday blasts, he was in India, where he was accommodated at the National Defence College (NDC). That could be verified with the Indian authorities, Sallay has said, strongly denying Channel 4’s claim that he contacted one of Pilleyan’s cadres, over, the phone and directed him to pick a person outside Hotel Taj Samudra.

According to Sallay, during his entire assignment in Malaysia, from Dec. 2016 to Dec. 2018, he had been to Colombo only once, for one week, in Dec. 2017, to assist in an official inquiry.

Having returned to Colombo, Sallay had left for NDC, in late Dec. 2018, and returned only after the conclusion of the course, in November 2019.

Sallay has said so in response to questions posed by Ben de Pear, founder, Basement Films, tasked with producing a film for Channel 4 on the Easter Sunday bombings.

The producer has offered Sallay an opportunity to address the issues in terms of Broadcasting Code while inquiring into fresh evidence regarding the officer’s alleged involvement in the Easter Sunday conspiracy.

The producer sought Sallay’s response, in August 2023, in the wake of political upheaval following the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, elected at the November 2019 presidential election.

At the time, the Yahapalana government granted a diplomatic appointment to Sallay, he had been head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). After the 2019 presidential election, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named him the Head of SIS.

The Basement Films has posed several questions to Sallay on the basis of accusations made by Hanzeer Azad Moulana.

In response to the film producer’s query regarding Sallay’s alleged secret meeting with six NTJ cadres who blasted themselves a year later, Sallay has questioned the very basis of the so called new evidence as he was not even in the country during the period the clandestine meeting is alleged to have taken place.

Contradictory stands

Following Sajith Premadasa’s anticipated defeat at the 2019 presidential election, Harin Fernando accused the Catholic Church of facilitating Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory. Fernando, who is also on record as having disclosed that his father knew of the impending Easter Sunday attacks, pointed finger at the Archbishop of Colombo, Rt. Rev Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, for ensuring Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, as well as JVP frontliner Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa, accused India of masterminding the Easter Sunday bombings. Then there were claims of Sara Jasmin, wife of Katuwapitiya suicide bomber Mohammed Hastun, being an Indian agent who was secretly removed after the Army assaulted extremists’ hideout at Sainthamaruthu in the East. What really had happened to Sara Jasmin who, some believe, is key to the Easter Sunday puzzle.

Then there was huge controversy over the arrest of Attorney-at-Law Hejaaz Hizbullah over his alleged links with the Easter Sunday bombers. Hizbullah, who had been arrested in April 2020, served as lawyer to the extremely wealthy spice trader Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim’s family that had been deeply involved in the Easter Sunday plot. Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim had been on the JVP’s National List at the 2015 parliamentary elections. The lawyer received bail after two years. Two of the spice trader’s sons launched suicide attacks, whereas his daughter-in-law triggered a suicide blast when police raided their Dematagoda mansion, several hours after the Easter Sunday blasts.

Investigations also revealed that the suicide vests had been assembled at a factory owned by the family and the project was funded by them. It would be pertinent to mention that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government never really bothered to conduct a comprehensive investigation to identify the Easter Sunday terror project. Perhaps, their biggest failure had been to act on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) recommendations. Instead, President Rajapaksa appointed a six-member committee, headed by his elder brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, to examine the recommendations, probably in a foolish attempt to improve estranged relations with the influential Muslim community. That move caused irreparable damage and influenced the Church to initiate a campaign against the government. The Catholic Church played quite a significant role in the India- and US-backed 2022 Aragalaya that forced President Rajapaksa to flee the country.

Interested parties exploited the deterioration of the national economy, leading to unprecedented declaration of the bankruptcy of the country in April 2022, to mobilie public anger that was used to achieve political change.