Thursday 23rd April, 2026

Sri Lanka has reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening its national security and countering terrorism financing with renewed focus on Targeted Financial Sanctions (TFS), according to media reports quoting the Ministry of Defence. Sri Lanka’s compliance with the implementation of the TFS is in line with UN Security Council Resolutions, we are told. The irony of the aforementioned government announcement, which has come close on the heels of the seventh anniversary of the Easter Sunday terror attacks, may not have been lost on political observers.

The targeted financial sanctions, imposed on individuals and organisations suspected of involvement in terrorism or the financing of terrorism, include freezing assets, limiting access to financial systems and preventing designated persons or entities from conducting any form of financial activity within the country. Once a designation is published through a Gazette notification, a legally binding freezing order comes into effect. This results in the immediate freezing of bank accounts and restrictions on the use, transfer, sale, or leasing of movable and immovable assets, including property, vehicles, jewellery, and other valuables.

Eliminating the scourge of terrorism financing is a prerequisite for the success of any anti-terror campaign. Hence, the focus of all operations to defeat terrorism is on following the money trail, which is a forensic investigation technique used to trace financial transactions from their origin to the final destination, uncovering corruption, money laundering, or terrorism. In the case of the Easter Sunday terror strikes, it was not difficult to find out who had funded the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) terror campaign. Sri Lankan investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US confirmed that the Ibrahim family, two of whose members carried out suicide bomb attacks, had financed the TNJ terror project.

The JVP-NPP government has drawn criticism from its political opponents for shielding the head of the Ibrahim family, Mohamed Ibrahim, who was a JVP National List nominee in 2015. Taking exception to the release of the assets seized from the residence of a suspect in the Easter Sunday terror strikes, the Opposition politicians have called for confiscating the wealth of the Ibrahim family and using it to compensate the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Interestingly, former President Maithripala Sirisena, ex-Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, former IGP Pujith Jayasundara, former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena, and ex-State National Intelligence Service Chief Sisira Mendis have paid compensation to the Easter carnage victims, as per a Supreme Court order, for their failure to prevent the terror attacks.

The offence of financing terrorism is no less serious than the act of carrying out terrorist attacks. There is reason to believe that the issue of financing the Easter Sunday terror campaign has not been probed properly. The need for a fresh investigation into this vital aspect of the carnage cannot be overstated. However, the incumbent dispensation cannot be expected to open a can of worms by ordering a probe into this issue, and therefore a future government will have to get to the bottom of it.

It must also be found out what has become of the assets of the other terrorist organisations which raised colossal amounts of funds in this country. The LTTE and the JVP carried out numerous robberies, including bank heists, and obtained protection money from many people. They also robbed money and gold jewellery from the public. There have been election promises to trace the overseas assets of former rulers, but no serious effort has been made to fulfil these pledges. Illegal assets stashed away overseas must be brought back. Curiously, no political party has pledged to trace the missing assets of the former terrorist groups.

Wednesday 22nd April, 2026

The Opposition is in overdrive, attacking the JVP-NPP government, left, right and centre, over the coal procurement scam, which has resulted in a huge increase in the cost of power generation and electricity tariffs, besides bleeding the Treasury. The government has said the additional cost of burning diesel to produce electricity to meet the Norochcholai generation shortfall will not be passed on to the public, but the funds it is spending on diesel liberally for power generation belong to the public, and not to the JVP or the NPP. It is the people who bear the losses and the cost overruns in power generation caused by the coal procurement scandal.

What we are witnessing is a textbook example of the link between unbridled power and corruption. Allegations of corruption against the incumbent government, which came to power promising to usher in good governance, remind us of a rhetorical question in Juvenal’s Satires: Who guards the guards? (Quis custodiet ipso custodes?) It is being argued in some quarters that self-policing is the way out, but what Juvenal has highlighted is the problem of ensuring accountability at the top as well as the need for effective checks and balances. Guards simply do not care to guard themselves. Acton’s dictum about the correlation between power and corruption also points to the fact that those who wield unchecked power tend to believe they are above the law, beyond criticism and always right. Hence, steamroller parliamentary majorities and the overconcentration of power in one or two political institutions are detrimental to the interests of a country that lacks robust democratic safeguards. This has been Sri Lanka’s experience.

A collective of Opposition parties has pledged to defeat the JVP-NPP government, probe the coal procurement scandal, etc., and throw the corrupt elements in the current dispensation behind bars. Some Opposition bigwigs appeared on television yesterday and made a pledge to that effect. The corrupt no doubt must be brought to justice, but pity a nation that has to rely on the corrupt to punish the corrupt, one may say with apologies to Brecht. Most of the self-righteous Opposition politicians on a crusade against corruption are tainted. They faced serious allegations of corruption while in power. If their corrupt deals and ill-gotten assets had been properly probed, they would have been in jail.

The Opposition politicians who are out for former Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody’s scalp for his involvement in the coal scam and hauling President Anura Kumara Dissanayake over the coals for shielding him, also have a history of defending the corrupt. SLPP politicians are at the forefront of the Opposition’s anti-corruption campaign. During the previous government, they unashamedly shielded the then Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, who was embroiled in a procurement racket, and even defeated a no-faith motion against him. They are demanding to know how some JVP full-timers have acquired valuable assets including houses. They themselves are well-heeled, full-time politicians, aren’t they? They have bigger houses than the JVP leaders. How have they acquired their wealth?

Some of the Opposition grandees campaigning against corruption and condemning the incumbent rulers for corrupt deals had the chutzpah to deny the Treasury bond scams (2015) and go so far as to defend the culprits during the UNP-led Yahapalana government. They went to the extent of trying to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the bond scams by having a slew of footnotes incorporated into it. They also sullied their reputations by defending the Yahapalana administration accused of various questionable deals. Interestingly, from 2015 to 2019, they were in league with the JVP leaders who are currently in power. The JVP propped up the Yahapalana government despite the latter’s involvement in the Treasury bond scams and failure to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage. The SLPP, which came to power, vowing to have the UNP leaders jailed over the bond scam, joined forces with the latter in 2022 to retain its hold on power.

Thus, it may be seen that the ruling party politicians and their Opposition counterparts are driven by expediency and not principle; they are ready to do anything to safeguard self-interest despite their moral grandstanding and rhetoric.

Tuesday 21st April, 2026

‘Mastermind’ has become a household term in this country since the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019). The last seven years have seen several investigations, conducted by the police, committees and a presidential commission, into the carnage that shook the world, but there has been no general consensus on who actually masterminded the terror strikes. There are several schools of thought and various conspiracy theories about the terror attacks and the mastermind(s) behind them, and how long it will take to put the matter to rest is anybody’s guess.

The Easter Sunday carnage has caused Sri Lankans’ attitudes towards terrorism to undergo a sea change. Everyone has condemned the heinous crime unequivocally, without trotting out anything in extenuation of it. This, we reckon, is something positive.

Terrorism must be condemned and eradicated in all its forms and manifestations. It has no place in the civilised world, regardless of the various causes the perpetrators of it flaunt to justify their crimes and gain legitimacy. Terrorism is no means to an end; it is both the means and the end.

Unfortunately, while the LTTE and the JVP were going on killing sprees, opinion was divided on their terror campaigns and causes. The mastermind behind the LTTE’s terror attacks on civilians was obviously Prabhakaran, but some political and religious leaders and foreign diplomats had no qualms about meeting him and even posing for pictures with him, thereby allowing him to gain legitimacy. There are thousands of JVP members, including the current government leaders, who commemorate Rohana Wijeweera, who masterminded the JVP’s terror campaign. Prabhakaran is commemorated in a similar manner in the North and the East. Thankfully, no such public events are held in memory of Zahran Hashim, who led the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ), which carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, killing more than 275 people and injuring about 500 others.

Failure to prevent terror attacks despite the availability of actionable intelligence is also a criminal offence that must not go unpunished. Whoever masterminded the Easter Sunday bombings, lives could have been saved if the police, the then government and the intelligence agencies had acted swiftly upon being warned of impending attacks. Only a few of those who failed to prevent the carnage have faced legal action and been made to pay compensation to the victims. All recommendations made by the Presidential Commission that probed the Easter Sunday terror attacks must be implemented.

Curiously, prominent among those tasked with probing the Easter Sunday carnage afresh in a bid to trace the mastermind(s) behind it are two individuals who were at the helm of the CID in 2019, when it failed to prevent the terror attacks. They are retired SSP Shani Abeysekera and retired SDIG Ravi Seneviratne. They are currently serving as the Director of the CID and the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, respectively. Their political affiliations with the ruling NPP, as members of its Retired Police Collective, and the fact that the incumbent government brought them out of retirement and elevated them to their current positions for political reasons have compromised the integrity of the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday carnage.

Some of those seeking justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks have demanded that Deputy Defence Minister Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Aruna Jayaskera resign forthwith, as he was the Security Forces Commander (East) at the time of the carnage, and some military intelligence officers facing investigations for their alleged links to the NTJ served under him. They insist that there is a conflict of interest on his part. Their argument is tenable, but it defies comprehension why they have not likewise called upon Abeysekera and Seneviratne to step down, thereby helping preserve the integrity of the investigations into the terror attacks.

Meanwhile, the masterminds behind some financial crimes have also not been identified. The Treasury bond scams (2015) were blamed squarely on the then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran although it is public knowledge that he acted at the behest of his political masters. Neither the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that probed the bond scams nor the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), headed by JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti, revealed the mastermind. The JVP was honeymooning with the UNP at the time. The mastermind behind the coal procurement scam, which has caused staggering losses to the Treasury and sent the power tariffs up, must also be identified and brought to justice. It is not possible that Kumara Jayakody, blamed for the scam, acted of his own volition.