Opinion

13A and federalism: US manoeuvrings since 1980s

Published

4 years ago

2023/02/17

By Daya Gamage
Former US State Department
Foreign Service National Political Specialist

Activating the 13th Amendment and devolution of power – possibly with the merger of two provinces –seems to have returned to the national agenda with President Ranil Wickremasinghe taking a lead role. He undertook a similar endeavour as the prime minister in 2001-2004 during the Bush Administration with its Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage playing a significant role during the Norwegian-initiated peace talks.

Washington policymakers and lawmakers had a very clear agenda: having a strong belief that Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils were discriminated against by the Sinhalese ‘chauvinists’ and their ‘Sinhalese-controlled’ administration, and Tamil grievances could be redressed only with the adoption of a federal system.

The US policy toward Sri Lanka’s ethnic issue has long been guided by the comforting notion that Tamil self-government within a decentralised Sri Lankan state would satisfy the legitimate needs of that minority community and shield it from Sinhalese oppression. The system of dispersing power federally is so deeply rooted in the US political culture that Americans tend to be uncritical in assessing its implications for governance, national unity and social justice. In the light of America’s mixed experience with federalism, one could question whether it is reasonable for Washington to press a small island nation to adopt a federal system when the evidence suggests that beyond a certain degree of administrative and political de-concentration, it would not be a good fit.

Washington believed that the Tamil community (accounting for 12% of the Sri Lankan population) had fewer economic and employment opportunities when compared to the ‘advantaged’ 74% Sinhalese majority, and it would benefit from a federal system.

Washington policymakers arrived at this determination way back in the 1980s, long before the signing of the infamous Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. That determination governed the mindset of the policymakers and lawmakers in the U.S. through 2009 and to date.

Vital documents

I will now disclose contents of two 1980s documents developed in Washington, and they formed Washington’s foreign policy agenda in respect of Sri Lanka, and it to date, in my belief, has remained unknown to Sri Lankan policymakers. Ignorant of these policy determinations, Sri Lanka during those years engaged in discourses with international players

It is also vital to disclose how the Political Office of the United Nations (UN) – always a domain of retired US Foreign Service (FS) Officers – in collaboration with State Department and White House officials – endeavoured to prepare a path to ‘impose’ a federal system in Sri Lanka in keeping with the determinations of those two documents, which escaped the attention of Sri Lankan authorities and prevented them from formulating Sri Lanka’s own independent foreign and national policies beneficial to all ethnic communities.

Washington’s ignorance of the demographic formation of Sri Lanka, caste factor especially among the northern Tamil community, which initially sparked the northern rebellion, dueling nationalisms, economic factors that have affected all ethnic groups, influenced the formulation of the US foreign policy agenda.

Classified 1984/1986 US Documents Advocating Federalism

Here are the two United States Government documents that underpin its policy toward Sri Lanka. The naïve manner in which Sri Lanka has handled its foreign policy dealings and its national agenda placed it on a slippery slope.

In June 1984, the Directorate of Intelligence (CIA) and the State Department’s Near East and South Asia Bureau (NEA) jointly prepared a document called ‘Failure to Share Political Power with Minority Groups’. Declaring President Jayewardene’s commitment to his Sinhalese-Buddhist constituency at the height of the July 1983 communal riots, it said “by the general election of 1956 Sinhalese-dominated parties had gained control of the government and driven the small Tamil parties out of the mainstream political life.”

Another document dated September 02, 1986 and authored jointly by the CIA and the NEA noted that ‘northern insurgency’ had politicised Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese and Tamil communities. The ethnic rivalry is at the heart of the conflict, the document says, adding that the Tamils believe – with some adjustments – they need some devolution of power to their districts and that they are victims of political and economic discrimination, suggesting that Washington refrain from providing military assistance to the Sri Lanka administration, as it noted even in another document that Washington shouldn’t get involved in a battle between two ethnic communities.

These three documents laid the foundation for the subsequent structure of Washington’s foreign policy toward Sri Lanka all the way until the end of the separatist Eelam War IV in May 2009 and well beyond.

Washington sentiments

Washington sentiments were amply reflected in this 1984 classified document. This June 1984 document, subsequently declassified, had most revealing sentiments that played a major role in subsequent years during Washington’s intervention in Sri Lanka’s national issues, one of which was the proposal for a federal system in Sri Lanka solely and exclusively focusing on minority Tamil issues.

Washington’s initial (1984) understanding was that a federal structure would extensively satisfy the Tamil demands. The document states, “Tamil demands probably would be satisfied by a federal structure that would guarantee Tamils control over security and economic development where they comprise the majority of the population”. This belief was notably expressed by State Department Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) at frequent intervals in subsequent years when Washington intervened in Sri Lankan national affairs; in keeping with this agenda the USAID in 2005, with active participation of top officials of the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, continuously for three months, convened nationwide public seminars with the assistance of civil society groups underscoring the merits of federalism.

This writer and his State Department associate, Senior Foreign Service (FSO) and Intelligence Officer Dr. Robert K. Boggs, have already addressed these issues deeply in a manuscript currently being prepared – ‘Defending Democracy: Lessons in Strategic Diplomacy from U.S.-Sri Lanka Relations’. It is to be released through an international publisher soon. The two authors’ thirty-year experience, knowledge and understanding of Washington’s foreign policy dealings with the South Asian region centering Sri Lanka and India, and their subsequent research and collection of (mostly hidden) data – most of which the Sri Lankan policymakers never knew even existed (or their infantile approach to national issues never took those seriously) will be featured in this book with their (unconventional) interpretations and analyses. Both authors had extensive experience and gained vast knowledge of Washington’s foreign policy trajectory in the South Asian region and its dealings with Sri Lanka and India during their official engagements in Colombo, New Delhi, Mumbai and Washington.

The June 1984 classified ‘intelligence assessment’ expressed fear that if Washington was seen associating with a regime that battles a minority group it could “damage the U.S. prestige in the region and in parts of the Third World and that highly politicised Tamil minority in Sri Lanka might even turn to the Soviet Union for support.” (It is with this rationale that Washington deeply engaged during the 2002-2004 peace talks that it believed could bring favourable acceptance in the international community).

The direct quote is: “Increased identification with Jayewardene at this time could damage US prestige in the region and in parts of the Third World. It could be perceived by other small ethnic groups as acceptance by the United States of the use of repression against minorities. Moreover, elements of the highly politicised Tamil minority in Sri Lanka might even turn to the Soviet Union for support.”

The June 1984 ‘Intelligence Assessment’ further declares “Tamil demands probably would be satisfied by a federal structure that would guarantee Tamils control over security and economic development where they comprise the majority of the population” – meaning the North-East region of Sri Lanka.

The document opined that Washington believed “the Tamils have become convinced that they should have an autonomous homeland with economic and security control.”

What the June 1984 document says about the United States refusal to extend military assistance to the (American-friendly) Jayewardene regime’s request to combat the LTTE terrorism and its total blocking of the supply of military gear to the subsequent Rajapaksa regime during (2006-2009) its military offensive against the separatist movement led to Washington’s strict belief that such military equipment could be used for “repressive measures against the Tamils.”, and that other avenues need to be found such as devolution of power and setting up a federal structure.

Lalith Athulathmudali

The then National Security Minister Athulathmudali reached to this writer somewhere in May 1987 to convey the regime’s displeasure at the U.S. ambassador the US Department of Defence’ (USDOD) administrative action preventing American arms manufacturing corporations selling combat equipment to Sri Lanka; the matter was extensively discussed in a tense atmosphere at a National Security Council session chaired by President Jayewardene.

The document justifying Washington’s refusal to provide military assistance says, “Some of these weapons would have been useful beyond immediate internal security needs.”

Following are taken from ‘Sri Lanka: The Challenge of Communal Violence’ , a joint intelligence assessment by the Directorate of Intelligence (CIA) Office of Near Eastern and South Asia Bureau of the State Department. June 1984 Secret document subsequently declassified:

1. President Jayewardene’s failure to deal with the demands of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority – 18 percent of the population – has brought the Tamils to the brink of open insurrection. In our judgment, Jayewardene, through his political manoeuvering since his election in 1977, has contributed to the deterioration of communal relations by failing to share political power with minority groups

2. Tamil demands probably would be satisfied by a federal structure that would guarantee Tamils control over security and economic development where they comprise the majority of the population.

3. The Tamils, according to Embassy and scholarly reports, have become convinced that they should have both an autonomous homeland and control over security forces and access to more economic development projects.

4. We believe the frustrations of the last year have convinced even moderate Tamils they must press for a separate homeland with the hope of achieving at least a federal relationship with Colombo.

Subsequent U.S. Manipulation for a Federal System

In early 2012, under the auspices of the Office of the Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (Political Affairs) B. Lynn Pascoe, attended by many professionals that included President Barack Obama’s close confidante and information czar Prof. Cass Sustein and his wife Dr. Samantha Power, the U.S. President’s human rights-war crimes-genocide crusader in the National Security Council, to start a process of restructuring several developing Third World nations’ constitutional arrangements to promulgate federalism as an answer to ethnic minority grievances.

The Under-Secretary-General (Political) B. Lynn Pascoe was a retired career diplomat from the US State Department.

Since the early 2012-process commenced a number of closed-door meetings and seminars at which the partition of UN member states has been discussed. Most of the meetings have been held under the direction of the UN Interagency Framework for Coordination on Preventive Action (the Framework Team or FT). The control of the FT fell into the domain of the under-secretary-general of Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, who took over from Pascoe in June 2012.The UN slot in the Department of Political Affairs, for decades, has always been assigned to a retired American Foreign Service officer (FSO), and it is the second most influential position next to the Secretary-General.

When a former American FSO occupies the Number Two slot of the UN, the State Department has extensive leverage over the operation of the United Nations, and it has been seen that both branches – the Department of Political Affairs and the US State Department – work together to achieve common objectives. As much as the state department and its representative – US ambassador to UN- maintain jurisdiction over the Human Rights Commission in Geneva under internal UN arrangement, during this period, the Under-Secretary (Political) Jeffrey Feltman oversaw the functioning of UNHRC.

When the process commenced in 2012, Sri Lanka, apart from Nepal, was also a target for the identity federalism engineers.To promote a ‘serious devolution to the peripheral regions’ – whether one calls it federal structure or otherwise – Dr. Samantha Power, who initially attended the Framework Team in early 2012 with the UN Department of Political Affairs, travelled to Sri Lanka in November 2015. So was the UN Under-Secretary-General (Political) Jeffrey Feltman travelled to Sri Lanka for talks in July 2017, during the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration.

Richard Boucher, in his capacity as assistant secretary for South Asia in the state department, in one of his official visits to Sri Lanka, at a press conference in Colombo on June 1, 2006, expressed the US policy in this manner: “Although we reject the methods that the Tamil Tigers have used, there are legitimate issues that are raised by the Tamil community and they have a very legitimate desire, as anybody would, to be able to control their own lives, to rule their own destinies and govern themselves in their homeland; in the areas they’ve traditionally inhabited”.

Boucher’s recognition of the “homeland concept” and “traditionally inhabited” areas, the right to “govern themselves in their homeland,” and inalienable right to “control their own lives,” reflect the 1984/1986 initial formation of the policy.

In 1999 Victor L. Tomseth, who was assistant secretary at the State Department in Washington for South Asia (1982–1984), was asked in an interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training if they were “involved at all in trying to moderate or do anything about the Tamil movement in Sri Lanka.” Tomseth confirmed that Washington and the embassy in Colombo “were fairly proactive in that…But we, the U.S., were trying to do what we could to encourage some kind of dialogue with responsible Tamil political leaders and pushing on the government a bit to think in terms of some kind of structure through federalism or regionalism that would address a lot of the concerns that a lot of Tamils had, not just the radicals,” he declared.

Mr. Tomseth was later (1984–1986) assigned to Colombo as the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy.

U.S. Misconceptions and Fallacies – What GoSL Never Understood The U.S. apparently never seriously challenged the fundamental notion that the LTTE represented the interests of all Sri Lankan Tamils and the entire population of the two provinces it claimed as the Tamil homeland. Some 45 percent of all Sri Lankan Tamils (excluding plantation Tamils) live outside the North and East in the South among the Sinhalese, including many of the best educated and most professionally accomplished members of the community.

Pertaining to the northern caste structure, the LTTE was dominated by leaders from only a narrow segment of the caste hierarchy. Given the deep-seated tensions among the various Tamil castes, it is unlikely that many members of either the dominant caste (the Vellarlas comprising about half of the total community) or of the so-called low castes (about 15 percent of the Tamil population) would have agreed that the LTTE spoke for them. In the Eastern Province, which the LTTE claimed in entirety as part of its historical homeland, Tamils of all castes constitute only about 39% of the population there. The Northern Vellarlas think that the Eastern Tamils, known as “Mukkuwars,” rank low in Tamil society. Eastern Tamils expressed, in conversation with this writer, during several tours in the 1980s their deep resentment at northerners’ near-control of the administrative structure of the East.

The US contributed to legitimising the LTTE by exempting it from the organisations being targeted in its war on terrorism (GWoT). Then the international community made a concession of enormous value to the LTTE without receiving any concessions in return. By accepting the Tigers’ claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people, the West (the US in particular) boosted the LTTE’s prestige, lobbying clout and fund-raising capacity unchallenged by the Sri Lanka governments.

In 2001 the U.S. signed on to a peace process that essentially granted the LTTE diplomatic parity with the Sri Lankan government and artificially limited the discussion to just the two antagonists.

Illegality of the Accord and 13A

Given the persistent salience of the 13th Amendment in Indo-Sri Lankan diplomatic discourse, it would be appropriate to mention the underlying legality of the amendment and its checkered implementation. First, there is a reasonable argument to be made that the bilateral accord – the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 – that mandated the devolutionary restructuring of the Sri Lankan government was illegal from the very inception. Although signed by President Jayewardene the accord was crafted and implemented by India by using threat of military action. The threat of forcible intervention must have been perceived as real to persuade President Jayewardene to agree to Indian occupation of the North although that surely added fuel to the Sinhalese insurrection in the South. Lt. Gen. A.S. Kalkat, the Commander of the IPKF during 1987-1990, explained in an interview that Rajiv Gandhi had felt compelled by domestic political pressures from Tamil Nadu to launch the military intervention and that he had extracted the Accord from President Jayewardene by the show of power projection, which was the infamous food drop. The General opined that the Accord, opposed by both the Sri Lankan people and the LTTE, was fundamentally flawed in granting autonomy to one fifth of the population in an area comprising one third of the area of the island. The lesson for India and the US., he said, is that “an outside power cannot give a political dispensation; only the government of the country could give [that to] its citizens.”

But the 13th Amendment was imposed on the country under duress rather than being legislated through democratic debate, and it remains politically controversial. What is less debatable is that the Indian airdrop and intimidatory diplomatic communications from New Delhi to Colombo prior to the IPKF were violative of at least the spirit of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. That UN Article enjoins all member states to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.” Both the Security Council and the General Assembly have adopted numerous resolutions that contain implicit or explicit references to Article 2(4), condemning, deploring or expressing concern about acts of aggression or the launching of armed intervention. A number of resolutions have included calls for withdrawing troops from foreign territories.

In addition, Article 51 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states that an “expression of a state’s consent to be bound by [a] treaty which has been procured by coercion of its representative through acts or threats directed against him shall be without legal effect.” Similarly, Article 52 of the same Convention provides that “a treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.”

Some Indian commentators have argued that Sri Lanka cannot withdraw from the 1987 Accord—and by extension the Amendment—by reason of the Vienna Convention because neither Sri Lanka nor India are signatories to the Convention. The United States has never ratified the Vienna Convention, but its Department of State as early as 1971 acknowledged that the Convention constituted “the authoritative guide to current treaty law and practice,” even for non-parties. Despite being a non-signatory, the U.S. Government has frequently brought cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) based on alleged violations of the Vienna Convention. In short, neither India nor the USG has standing under international law to press the Sri Lanka to honor commitments imposed on it illegally.

The Thirteenth Amendment was enacted in the Sri Lanka Constitution as a result of this illegal Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987.

In conclusion, it is essential to state that demographic formation in Sri Lanka is largely ignored by Washington, and Sri Lanka never used it as a negotiating tool. US diplomats who promoted the federal system did not take into account the shifting demography. More Tamils live among the Sinhalese than ever before in the history of the Sri Lankan nation. Tamils in significant numbers left the north and east to settle in the south; they purchase houses and land in Sinhalese-majority areas mostly in the suburban areas. (In fact, no Tamil or any other ethnic community member who has no ancestral roots in the District of Jaffna is allowed to acquire land in that district under the Thesavalamai Law, which is in Sri Lanka’s statute books). In 1981, at the time the LTTE commenced its armed insurrection, 608,144 or 32.8% of Tamils lived outside the northern and eastern provinces. In 2001, approximately 736,480 Tamils lived outside those two provinces. A conservative estimate since December 2004 has been that close to 40% of minority Tamils were domiciled among the Sinhalese outside the two provinces. The Department of Census and Statistics for 2014 reveals that 54% Tamils are living outside north and east. In the capital of Colombo within the city limits and surrounding areas alone the Tamil community is estimated at 30% of the total population of the area.

Another factor that has been ignored: Sri Lanka is 77 percent rural, 19 percent Urban and 5 percent plantation. 77% Rural, Monaragala, Ratnapura, Kegalle. Hambantota in the Sinhalese-majority South, and Vanni, Kilinochchi, Mannar, parts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa in the (total) Tamil districts are included. These rural sectors experience sub-standard education and health facilities, employment issues and less infrastructure facilities. Which means the Sinhalese and Tamils as well as Muslims experience these anomalies. In the Urban 19% sector, the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims enjoy all the facilities the Rural Sector population doesn’t enjoy. Extremely well nurtured educational and health facilities, the best infrastructure, employment opportunities and upward mobility in the society is found in these Urban Sectors such as Jaffna, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Trincomalee in which all three ethnic communities enjoy the fruits of government patronage. These facts have escaped the attention of the Western nations. When going into negotiations Sri Lanka never focused on these.

The devolution, federal structure and Thirteenth Amendment are being discussed without the above-mentioned facts being taken into account.

(The writer is a retired Foreign Service National Political Specialist of the United States Department of State accredited to the Political Section of the U.S. Embassy, Colombo, Sri Lanka from 1980 through 1995. Previous ten years he was engaged in Public Affairs for the State Department. In 2017, he published a research-analytical book ‘Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America: U.S. Foreign Policy Adventurism & Sri Lanka’s Dilemma’)

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Opinion

Homer’s Odyssey

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/2

Thilina Walpola

Odysseus

An archetypal journey of life towards self-discovery

By Dr Siri Galhenage,
Psychiatrist [Retd]

The Odyssey is a narrative poem by Homer, the revered Greek poet of antiquity. Along with its forerunner, The Iliad, it is regarded as one of the foundational works of Western Literature. Both epics were transmitted for generations through the oral tradition by travelling bards before being committed to writing several centuries later. In 2026, it has received a major cinematic adaptation, and is currently being screened in theatres around the world. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the movie has a renowned ensemble cast including Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway, and is expected to top the charts this year.

The enduring interest in the Odyssey is reflected in its continuing reinterpretation across the arts and psychology. My interest in the epic is in the deeper meaning to the narrative – ‘the subterranean flow’ – which I have endeavoured to explore in light of the theoretical concepts developed by pioneer psychiatrists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, mainly the latter, while also appreciating the aesthetic dimensions of its cinematic presentation. My attempt, admittedly, is no road less travelled; yet each journey along it may reveal something new beneath the surface of the narrative!

Applicable Psychoanalytical Concepts

The psychoanalytical concepts developed by Freud and Jung concerning the structure and workings of the human mind are complex, but I shall restrict myself to outlining those aspects that are relevant to exploring the deeper meaning of the narrative in The Odyssey.

In psychoanalytical terms the human mind is divided into two domains – the conscious and the unconscious. Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche was primarily applied to the individual. It consists of the ‘personal unconscious’, which harbours experiences that have been repressed or kept beneath the ‘conscious’ level.

In contrast, Carl Jung, Freud’s junior colleague, conceived the idea of a ‘collective unconscious’ as a deeper and a universal layer of the psyche shared by humanity as a whole. It contains innate patterns of psychological experience, which Jung called archetypes. An archetype may therefore be understood as an underlying psychic pattern or predisposition. In a narrative, such a pattern may appear in the form of a character, theme, image or symbol that becomes recognisable to consciousness. It is capable of presenting in different cultures and historical periods. What we encounter in a narrative, therefore, are archetypal manifestations rather than the archetype itself.

The Narrative

The Odyssey is a mythical tale; its setting and characters probably would have been familiar to the original Greek audience. A modern day audience, however, may find it ludicrous!

It is the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his struggle to return home after the victory at Troy, longing to be united with his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, Penelope is besieged by a group of conceited suitors who pressure her to remarry, assuming that Odysseus is dead. Telemachus, now grown up, sets out in search of news of his father.

Odysseus embarks on a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea with his fellow soldiers, but his homeward voyage becomes a ten year ordeal as he encounters not only the forces of nature but also an array of hostile gods and mythical creatures.

The journey had a calamitous start with a raid on the Cicones at Ismarus where Odysseus loses many of his men. Soon afterwards, storms drive them to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, where some of his crew consume the intoxicating lotus and lose all desire to return home.

Odysseus rouses his men from their lethargy and moves on to confront the Cyclops, particularly the gigantic Polyphemus, son of the sea god Poseidon. Odysseus blinds Polyphemus who is blocking the cave they were trapped in, and escapes by clinging beneath a flock of sheep. It provokes the enduring wrath of Poseidon, god of the sea.

As the fleet sailed on, lost across the vast seas, Aeolus, keeper of the winds, gives Odysseus a bag of winds that might carry them home. While Odysseus sleeps, however, his suspicious crew opens the bag, believing it contains treasure. The released winds drive the ship away from their planned direction.

They next encounter the Laestrygonians, a race of gigantic cannibals who destroy most of the fleet. Odysseus escapes, but grimly continues his voyage.

He then reaches the island of Circe, where the powerful enchantress transforms some of his men into swine, who indulge in gluttony. Odysseus overcomes her spell, and Circe becomes his ally. At her direction, he consults the prophet Tiresias in the Underworld, who warns him about the continued hostility of Poseidon and advises him to refrain from harming the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios.

Returning to the sea, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, who use alluring sounds to lure sailors to their deaths. Forewarned by Circe, he orders his men to plug their ears with wax and bind him tightly to the mast so that he can hear their songs without steering the ship towards them.

He then navigates between Scylla, a six-headed sea monster, and Charybdis, a terrifying whirlpool. Choosing the lesser danger, he loses six of his men to Scylla. The incident becomes one of the most painful episodes of his journey.

With the surviving crew, Odysseus reaches the island of Thrinacia, where his starving men slaughter the sacred cattle of Helios, against the wishes of the prophet Tiresias, while he is asleep. In response to Helios’s demand, Zeus destroys their ship with a thunderbolt, killing all the men except Odysseus.

Odysseus is subsequently washed ashore on the island of Ogygia, where the nymph Calypso keeps him captive because she loves him. She commands the waves to wash him back to shore, each time he tries to make a raft and sail to sea. Odysseus turns down her offer to make him immortal if he remains with her. He longs to return home. At the command of Zeus, the God of the Heavens, Calypso eventually releases him, and Odysseus sets sail once more.

Angered by the release, Poseidon, the god of the seas, summons the winds and smashes Odysseus’s raft. Thrown overboard, an exhausted Odysseus manages to swim ashore in the land of the Phaeacians, a peaceful people living in relative isolation. With the help of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, he is brought before their king and queen. Moved by his story, they offer him hospitality and provide him with a ship, which finally carries him safely to Ithaca.

In Ithaca, Penelope has been besieged by numerous suitors, who have consumed his wealth and assumed that he was dead. With the help of Athena, he disguises himself as a beggar and secretly returns to his palace. Penelope meanwhile remains faithful to Odysseus, and has devised strategies to postpone remarriage. She announces that she will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s great bow and shoot an arrow through a series of axe-heads. None of the suitors succeeds. The disguised Odysseus effortlessly strings the bow and reveals his identity. With Telemachus and a few loyal servants, he kills the suitors and restores order to his household and reunites with Penelope.

Exploration of the ‘Subterranean Flow’ of the Narrative

Derived from the Greek root odussia, the word odyssey has entered the English language, meaning ‘long adventurous journey’ while, interestingly, some linguists argue that it is also linked to the word odyne meaning ‘pain and suffering, distress or consuming grief’.

The Odyssey can be understood as more than an adventure story. It is an archetype of the journey through life itself: departure, ordeal, wandering, self-discovery and return.

The narrative embodies three archetypal elements – a character [a hero], a theme [his journey] and a symbolic destination [home]

The character of Odysseus represents a pattern of struggle, confrontation with danger and transformation. He emerges as the archetypal ‘hero’, fighting the Trojan War to secure the release of Helen, who has been taken from her husband, Menelaus, the king of the allied nation of Sparta. Helen came to be known as ‘Helen of Troy’, an enduring archetypal image of feminine beauty. The war was brought to a dramatic conclusion by Odysseus’s ingenious stratagem: he and his men concealed themselves inside a giant wooden horse which was brought into Troy enabling them to launch a surprise attack. The ‘Trojan Horse’ has since become a lasting allegory for deception and cunning.

Odysseus is characterised as a ‘hero’, not only due to his military prowess, but also to the courage, resourcefulness and perseverance he displays throughout his archetypal journey home. Tested by forces both external and within, he endures suffering, confronts his limitations and undergoes a process of transformation before finding his way home.

He encounters storms, monsters, seductive enchantresses, intoxicating flora [lotuses: the ‘lotus eaters’ becoming an allegory for Indulgence in idle pleasure], enthralling music and the supernatural world – a realm divided between forces that protect, obstruct, tempt and test him. Yet his journey is not without errors of judgement or disagreement with his fellow crew members, and he must face the consequences of his actions, and most poignantly, the loss of his companions. His greatest challenge, however, is not merely survival, but the preservation of his identity and sense of purpose. He must resist the temptations that threaten to keep him from home, recognise the limits of his own pride and ingenuity, and ultimately learn the value of humility. The theme represents, in varying degree, a recurring pattern or journey of human experience, transformation and self-discovery, beyond its literary presentation.

Ithaca becomes not merely a geographical destination but an archetypal ‘home’, a symbol of selfhood, continuity and the restoration of order after chaos and suffering. One must not overlook the crucial role played by Penelope in preserving the home, enduring her own trials, sustaining the household and preserving its continuity against overwhelming odds.

In essence, the archetypal pattern beneath the narrative in Homer’s Odyssey is the human journey home – through danger, temptation, loss and transformation – towards identity, belonging and restoration.

Conclusion

A good piece of Art – literary or cinematic – much like Psychology, seeks to illuminate the complexities of human experience. In this regard, The Odyssey can be seen as a timeless metaphor for the human journey – the difficulties, hardships, setbacks and emotional challenges that people inevitably encounter throughout their lives: the trials and tribulations that may alter the course of a life. Such trials are not merely tests of character in the face of suffering but, more importantly, they may serve as opportunities for self-discovery, growth and transformation.

As Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist, postulated, much of this experience is rooted in the ‘collective unconscious’, a deeper layer of the psyche beneath conscious thought and individual experience. It is perhaps this deeper, often unspoken dimension of our shared humanity that enables The Odyssey to transcend its ancient origins and continue to resonate universally, across cultures and generations.

[sirigalhenage@gmail.com]

Opinion

Meritocracy or seniority number for pilot promotions in commercial airlines?

Published

2 days ago

2026/10/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Capt. (Ret) G.A.Fernando

‘Meritocracy’ is held to be an essential part of good governance in any organisation. The other two essential components are ‘pragmatism’ and ‘honesty as in Singapore’. Unfortunately, meritocracy is also subjective. Reportedly, in the early days of Air Ceylon, the first officer (co-pilot) would sometimes help to pack the operations manager’s bags before an impending trip, in order to gain ‘merit’ in the airline. Alternatively, the first officer considered for command may have been a ‘boozing buddy’ of the captain. In short, there was no system.

In Air Lanka all our managers, instructors and chief pilots were expatriates. Fairly or unfairly, a rumour had it that pilot promotions were decided at the whites-only Colombo Swimming Club. There were many instances when promotions were offered to someone of so-called ‘good standing’, or ‘a friend of the family’, in the eyes of airline management. Thus, some junior pilots were unfairly by-passed for no valid reason. Such was life in those days.

Consequently, in the mid-1980s the Pilots’ Guild declared that ‘enough was enough’, and after a quick survey of other airline practices, using data supplied by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA), it was demanded of Air Lanka management that they too should establish a seniority list to ensure that no-one will be overlooked when it came to pilot promotions.

Essentially, a pilot would be given a ‘seniority number’ at the time of joining the airline. If the date of joining was the same for a batch of pilots, then the number of hours of experience at the time of joining in decreasing order would be the factor in determining individual pilots’ seniority within that batch. The lower the seniority number the greater the seniority of the pilot. That, and only that, would be the consideration. In other words, it was a pecking order of sorts. In case a pilot was bypassed due to some valid requirement, that pilot would be entitled to a good and acceptable reason, and then to a bypass allowance.

While accepting it on principle, no one in the Flight Operations department was willing to ‘bell the cat’ or buck the system.

Therefore, it fell upon the Pilots’ Guild, and specifically me as its secretary, to establish a draft copy of a seniority list, which was eventually accepted by the management of Air Lanka, for pilot promotions.

The pilot was to carry that number until his career with the airline ended. It also gave an opportunity for management to pick candidates out of sequence (for good reason), as the seniority will eventually be re-established. However, if the pilot left the airline for greener pastures and returned, he/she would have to join at the bottom of the list (as the most junior pilot).

Opinion

When crime speaks louder than politics

Published

3 days ago

2026/09/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

Narcotics, firearms, capital flight and a daylight massacre, and the duty of the security state

By Mahil Dole

Senior Superintendent of Police (Retired) | Former Head of Counter-Terrorism, State Intelligence Service

The past fortnight has not been a collection of isolated crime stories. It has been a pattern: a large maritime narcotics seizure in the North, inland heroin and ICE hauls in the West and South, a cache of military-pattern firearms on the outskirts of Colombo, a multi-billion-rupee foreign-exchange fraud through shell companies, and, worst of all, a daylight shooting in Halpethota, Baddegama. Gunmen in a car intercepted a three-wheeler and fired at point-blank range, leaving a man and a woman dead. Another woman succumbed to her injuries.

These are not good signs for a peace-loving people. Criminals operating in tandem, brandishing firearms, and treating a public road as an execution ground advertise an insecure environment. When that coincides with Easter Sunday judgments and a presidential claim that politics has been turned from a business into public service, the temptation in Colombo is to treat security as background noise. That would be a serious error.

What the record of two weeks actually shows

On 27 September, personnel of the Northern Naval Command and SLNS Agbo intercepted a consignment at Kusumanthurai Beach, Madagal, Jaffna. One suspect was arrested and a small boat recovered. Examination with the Police Narcotics Bureau established approximately 45.5 kilograms of ICE and 35.7 kilograms of heroin, nearly 81 kilograms, with a street value exceeding Rs. 1.5 billion. It was described as the Navy’s largest ICE-and-heroin haul from northern waters.

That same morning, in Halpathota, Baddegama, the victims were said to have been returning after signing at the Galle Crimes Division. Motive can wait. The method cannot: pursuit, interception and execution in daylight, with a military-pattern weapon, in a populated southern town.

In the days immediately preceding these events, officers of the Western Province North Crime Division arrested suspects in Bokundara, Piliyandala, with more than 11 kilograms of heroin and more than 6 kilograms of ICE, valued in the region of Rs. 300 million. In Walgama, Matara, a man and a woman were arrested with nearly 22 kilograms of ICE, together with cash and vehicles suspected of being used in trafficking. In Kolonnawa, raids recovered a 9mm pistol, seven firearms capable of firing T-56 ammunition, and more than 600 rounds of 9mm ammunition. The Financial Crimes Investigation Division produced before court a suspect alleged to have aided remittances equivalent to some Rs. 24.8 billion through shell companies, against imports that never arrived. He has been remanded until 1 October. The file sits inside a wider inquiry into scores of companies and tens of thousands of telegraphic transfers.

Taken separately, each arrest is a success. Taken together they describe a market: drugs arriving by sea, broken and distributed inland, protected by firearms, and accompanied by money moving through corporate vehicles that look lawful until they are examined.

Non-traditional threats in a crowded political climate

National security in Sri Lanka is still too often imagined as the business of preventing another Easter Sunday or another armed insurgency. Those remain real responsibilities. The Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar has just convicted 15 of 24 accused in the principal Easter Sunday case and imposed sentences running to two centuries of rigorous imprisonment. That judgment matters for victims, for the record, and for deterrence. It does not, by itself, close the file on intelligence failure, institutional negligence, or the wider architecture that allowed a conspiracy to mature. Into that same week has come another publication, and it requires a different kind of honesty.

A book titled Navayay Paha Vikurthiya– (9:5 Distortion), has been launched after Qur’an 9:5. There is a particular hypocrisy in that naming while refusing to read 9:1 to 9:7. The verse is not a licence. It is a wartime clause after a broken treaty, a four-month warning, and an order to honour pacts that were kept. The next line requires safe-conduct for an enemy who only wants to hear the Word of God. To lift “kill the polytheists” and sell it as the meaning of Islam is not scholarship. It is the method Surah Al-Imran 3:7 condemns: those in whose hearts is deviation chase isolated lines to create fitnah, while those firm in knowledge take the Book as a whole.

The vested interest is not hard to see. The same launch that branded a Qur’anic verse as “distortion” was used to seek another presidential pardon and the cover of the Maha Sangha. A cleric already convicted for insulting Islam now packages that faith as a public threat, then asks the State for mercy so that he may continue the same politics. That is not national security. It is the old trade: isolate a line, inflame a crowd, and convert communal fear into personal and political capital. Sri Lanka has paid for that trade before, in broken streets, in a community placed under blanket suspicion after Easter, and in an intelligence culture that watched identity instead of behaviour. Say so plainly, without matching abuse with abuse, and without letting a slogan stand in for the text.

Narcotics, underworld firearms, capital flight dressed as trade, and contract-style public shootings are not “ordinary crime” in a country that still lives with organised violence. They feed corruption and create the cash and firepower on which larger threats later ride. A state that treats them as a blotter problem, while its political class argues in Colombo, has misread its own risk register.

From politics as business to public service, a test, not a slogan

At a mass rally in Gampaha this Sunday, under the theme “People’s Rule – Two Years Strong. Progress for All,” the President said that politics which had become a business has been transformed into public service. The sentence is well aimed. For decades office was inventory: licences, contracts, land, appointments and silence. That marketplace ran into Customs sheds, bank counters, landing points and the underworld’s procurement of weapons. If politics is now public service, the claim must be tested in the court and on the road.

The courts, in recent weeks, have not been idle. Political figures, public servants and entrepreneurs have been produced on corruption charges: a sitting parliamentarian on an alleged aircraft-procurement bribery file; a former Krrish Group director over an alleged Rs. 70 million payment tied to a Fort property; the former chairman of Lanka Mineral Sands; the General Manager of Lanka Salt; a former National Transport Commission chairman over Expressway permits; a former minister’s secretary over an alleged Rs. 8.1 million bribe. Earlier this year CIABOC reported more than thirty public officials arrested in four months. These files are the visible edge of an effort to make “politics as business” expensive.

That effort is a condition of national security, not a side-issue to be parked with the bribery commission. A dinghy does not beach at Kusumanthurai without facilitators. A T-56 does not appear in Kolonnawa or Baddegama without a supply chain that has passed through a compromised official or a bank that asked too few questions. Phantom imports on the FCID’s scale are the financial twin of the narcotics trade. Clean politics starves those networks. Dirty politics feeds them. But a remand is not yet public service, and a rally sentence is not yet a secure street. If directors are in court while a three-wheeler is raked in Halpethota, and if ICE still moves by the kilo through northern waters, the citizen is entitled to ask which marketplace has actually been closed.

There is a further caution. Campaigns against corruption succeed only when they are even-handed and evidence-led. Selective zeal recreates the old business of politics under a new label. An intelligence service used to settle scores will not be trusted when it later asks the public about a landing or a weapons dump. The Gampaha formulation is useful if it becomes an operational standard: the law applies to the powerful and the obscure alike, and the State’s first business is the ordinary person on an ordinary road.

Agency responsibilities: who must do what.

Figure: The citizen on an ordinary road is the test. The Navy, Police and Narcotics Bureau, intelligence desks, FCID and banks, Customs and the FIU, CIABOC, the courts and the National Security Council are not rival press offices. They are one picture — or they are three press releases.

The Navy’s duty on the northern and southern approaches is not ceremonial. The Palk Strait remains a preferred corridor: the crossing is short and fishing provides cover. Interdiction at Kusumanthurai is valuable only if it is followed by source-to-market mapping, packers, landing points, inland receivers, offshore facilitators. That work requires the Police Narcotics Bureau, Customs, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and a fusion cell that treats a dinghy, a bank transfer and a T-56 as one picture.

The Police duty is to prevent the next daylight murder, not merely to investigate the last. When a T-56 is used on a public road against people returning from a crimes division, the question is how the weapon moved, who sanctioned the hit, and why threat assessment failed. Inland ICE and heroin finds must be treated as distribution nodes, not trophies. A 22-kilogram haul in Matara and an 18-kilogram mixed find in Piliyandala, days apart from an 81-kilogram coastal seizure, should be one picture, not three press releases.

The FCID and the banks have a national-security function whether or not the statute uses that phrase. Phantom imports drain reserves, can wash criminal proceeds, and can pay for the consignments the Navy pulls off beaches. The Kotikawatte arrest should open a network case, not close a headline.

Intelligence agencies must resist waiting for a “terrorism” label before they sit up. Organised narcotics, contract killing and covert capital movement are intelligence problems. They require sources, financial intelligence, maritime awareness and the courage to share what is known before the next three-wheeler is stopped on a southern road.

Preventive measures that can be taken now

Prevention is a set of unglamorous tasks. First, a standing joint cell, Navy, Police Narcotics Bureau, Customs, FCID and the Financial Intelligence Unit, with one target list and one weekly assessment to the National Security Council. Measure networks dismantled, not only kilograms.

Second, treat firearms recovery as a campaign. The Kolonnawa cache is a logistics dump. Every recovery should be traced: origin, last custodian, end-user, cash trail. Unaccounted military-pattern weapons remain an unfinished post-conflict item.

Third, close the gap between court appearance and street vulnerability. People required to sign at a crimes division are known to the system. The system then owes a threat assessment. Public roads in Baddegama should not become killing grounds because two factions have a rifle.

Fourth, match telegraphic transfers against Customs and shipping data as routine, not as a special project after a complaint reaches Police Headquarters. The Rs. 24.8 billion file should rewrite that routine.

Fifth, political controversy must be ring-fenced from operational command, and the anti-corruption drive must speak to the anti-narcotics drive. A National Security Council on a fixed cycle, with a fused assessment and written tasking, keeps the permanent State at work while the temporary Government argues its constitutional case. CIABOC, the FCID, the Police Narcotics Bureau and Customs should not discover at a press conference that they have been chasing the same names.

The test that matters

Sri Lanka has spent a generation learning, at terrible cost, that security is not the same thing as the absence of a declared war. The peace-loving public does not ask the State to win arguments in Colombo, or to win applause at a Gampaha rally. It asks that a three-wheeler on a southern road can pass a car without being raked by a T-56; that a northern beach is watched before the dinghy beaches, not after; that a house in Kolonnawa is not a magazine; that billions of rupees cannot leave the country dressed as imports that never were; and that the man who once sold a licence and the man who now fires a rifle are both answerable to the same law.

The detections of the past two weeks prove that parts of the system still work. The Baddegama murders prove that other parts do not work in time. The court list proves that another part has at last been put to work. National security is the closing of that gap, by agencies that know their duty, by a centre that refuses to be distracted, and by a standard that treats public service as the protection of the ordinary citizen from the old business of politics and the new business of crime.

(This analysis is offered in the interest of national security, institutional reform, and public safety)

The writer is a Senior Superintendent of Police (Retired), former Head of the Counter-Terrorism Division of the State Intelligence Service, and a former Member of the Sri Lanka Wakfs Board. He writes on national security, intelligence and institutional reform. Email- mahildole54@gmail.com

Sources:

contemporaneous reports of the Sri Lanka Navy, Police spokesmen, CIABOC and court proceedings, News First, Newswire, Ada Derana, Daily Mirror and related parliamentary reporting, 21–27 September 2026; Qur’an 9:1–7 and 3:7; book launch of Navayay Paha Vikurthiya, 20 September 2026.