Features
Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka says Channel 4 documentary on Easter massacre raises ‘reasonable doubt’ about covert involvements
In an interview given to Hiru TV on September 4, 2023, the day after the Channel 4 documentary on the 2019 Easter bombing in Sri Lanka was aired in the UK, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, a former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, France, UNESCO and Russia, said that investigations into the Easter bombings have raised more questions than answers and that the latest documentary released by Channel 4 succeeds in creating “reasonable doubt” in the minds of the viewers that the official investigations may not yet have revealed the whole truth.
The Channel 4 documentary he said, would accumulate over time a potentially huge global audience— 2.5 billion Christians, including 1.4 billion Catholics— who would be concerned at allegations that a former Sri Lankan intelligence official and current head of the SIS, had met with members of the group that eventually carried out the attack on Easter Sunday, at a secret location.
The shocking allegation of the whistle-blower that this officer had told him that an “unsafe environment” in Sri Lanka was required to ensure the electoral victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whether truthful or not, needs an urgent, comprehensive and clarificatory response from the GoSL, he said.
If it wants to prevent possible action in other, non-Lankan jurisdictions, the government should remove the sense of opacity that surrounds security officials’ non-response to vital foreign intelligence, their surreal behaviour on the day of the attack and their intervention during subsequent investigations.
Indian revelations at Russian Conference
Asked what information he had at the time of the Easter attack as a serving ambassador, Jayatilleka said he was Ambassador to the Russian Federation at the time of the bombings. He said that at the High-Level International Conference on Security held in the city of Ufa in June
2019 which he attended, together with a delegate from the Ministry of Defence of Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Modi’s Deputy National Security Advisor at the time, Rajinder Khanna announced to the conference that India had passed on urgent intelligence to their security counterparts in Sri Lanka about a likely terrorist attack in Colombo. Khanna, a former chief of India’s external intelligence, had expressed his bafflement at the lack of action by the Sri Lankan officials in response to such deadly serious information.
Jayatilleka said that the Commission of Inquiry report revealed that five ranking security officials who received this intelligence prior to the bombings took no action to pass on this information to their superiors. Nor did they take any action which could have prevented the large-scale massacre of innocents. He expressed his dismay that not one, but five chose to remain inexplicably silent.
Suggesting that people even in their ordinary lives usually warn their relatives and friends when there is an impending water cut or torrential rains in their areas, five officials whose main job it was to receive and pass on warnings of threats to the country, had mysteriously failed to do so. He said an urgent, rigorous investigation into their silence is imperative in the context of the Channel 4 allegations.
Close Encounter with a suicide bomber
A more curious incident was the mysterious intelligence officer who is reported by the Commission of Inquiry as having actually met with one of the suicide bombers on the day of the attack. This bomber who left the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo after receiving a telephone call, was met by a Sri Lankan intelligence official who then let him go on his way and blow himself up at a more modest hotel in Dehiwala. Jayatilleka asks why the unnamed intelligence official did not arrest the bomber when he met him. He says it is a world’s first where such a person, most likely carrying the bomb on himself at the time, was allowed to go his way unhindered by a security official.
According to the report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and notes kept by the lawyers representing the Catholic Church at the inquiry, this official was summoned by the CID special team investigating the massacre, but was soon removed by Sri Lankan Intelligence who swooped in on the proceedings, claiming that this person was one of their operatives and the questioning pertained to one of their operations—and therefore he should not be questioned further. Jayatilleka says this must be another world record, where the state official who actually met the suicide bomber on the day of the bombings, and only minutes before he blew himself up, was not allowed to be questioned by the government’s own CID and COI set up to investigate the very event.
Jayatilleka says this sort of behaviour by some government agencies lend sufficient credibility to allegations of a conspiracy. He warns that clearing up these issues is critical to preventing the allegations of involvement of covert state networks or operatives in the Easter Sunday massacre. Blanket denials of the sort engaged in by the government in and outside parliament, including the argument that ‘Islamic religious extremists will never engage in suicide missions to bring a Sinhala Buddhist President to office’, will simply not suffice, since the plotting and manipulation as distinct from the execution, could have been done by someone other than the bombers themselves.
He gave the example of the murder of former Italian PM Aldo Moro in 1978, where two decades later in two BBC programs – including TIMEWATCH by John Simpson—it was eventually revealed that though the execution was by a young Red Brigades member, that cell was manipulated and the actual plotting probably done by a clandestine network called Gladio, set up
by NATO intelligence agencies with the collaboration of ex-Mussolini fascists. ‘Gladio’ was initially formed as a resistance in case of Soviet invasion but later carried out a ‘strategy of tension’ supporting rightwing terrorism.
The murder of Moro was because he was trying to form a coalition government of the Italian Communist Party and the Governing Christian Democrats but some powerful quarters were apprehensive that Italy, a NATO member, would be thereby penetrated by Communist and Soviet influence. The young Red Brigades members who carried out the attack had no idea of the forces manipulating these events in the shadows. The Channel-4 documentary raises doubts that a model of ‘remote end-user’ manipulation may have been used in Sri Lanka’s Easter Massacre Jayatillake said.
2018-2019 Political Context
Dr. Jayatilleka says the political context in which the Gotabaya camp or the Gotabaya project operated must be understood in relations to the allegations. The Yahapalanaya government was in power at the time of the Easter attack. The Presidential elections were only months away. Although it was clear that the SLPP would win against the widely unpopular government, Jayatilleka says that the extremist group in the state institutions and civil society supporting Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for president since 2012 –the “Gotabaya Project” as he called it—was anxious that Mahinda Rajapaksa may either give the nomination to his politically experienced elder brother Chamal, oldest in the family, or support incumbent President Sirisena and place himself as the powerful Prime Minister.
When President Sirisena removed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2018, replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, this fear was evident as supporters of the Rajapaksa brothers Gotabaya and Basil studiedly withheld their considerable resources, human and organizational, which prevented the consolidation of the MS-MR alliance in the face of challenges by the UNP which questioned its constitutionality. Even after the 52-days interlude was over, the SLPP knew the UNP could be defeated at any election. That was not the real fear of the ‘Gotabaya camp’ as distinct from the Rajapaksas as a whole or even the SLPP.
“Their real fear” Jayatilleka said, “was that Gotabaya may not get the nomination, frustrating their hopes and pet project of many years”. That was the real context, he said. The Channel 4 report notes that days after the Easter bombing, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa put his hat into the ring as the law-and-order candidate, was nominated by the SLPP as its presidential nominee and soon swept into office.
Jayatilleka said that the Sri Lankan judicial system should be assisted to reveal the truth to its citizens and to bring the perpetrators to justice. He said there will have to be foreign expert elements in the mix. He suggested using Interpol and forensics experts from other countries to assist in the investigations. He said he was against an international inquiry which was made up of agencies of individual countries because those countries have their own geopolitical agendas in the region and in the current period of big power contestation in this area, it is unwise to trust any of the dominant players to act outside their national interest.
He said the FBI was invited to help and did come in and sweep the locations and took back vital evidence including mobile phones for analysis but Sri Lankans are none the wiser today about the results of their investigations. Multilateral agencies are much better to conduct an impartial inquiry and he recommended using UN agencies to help with the process.
by Kaushalya Perera
Time has, by and large, stood still in the business of academic staff recruitment to state universities. Qualifications have proliferated and evolved to be more interdisciplinary, but our selection processes and evaluation criteria are unchanged since at least the late 1990s. But before I delve into the problems, I will describe the existing processes and schemes of recruitment. The discussion is limited to UGC-governed state universities (and does not include recruitment to medical and engineering sectors) though the problems may be relevant to other higher education institutions (HEIs).
How recruitment happens currently in SL state universities
Academic ranks in Sri Lankan state universities can be divided into three tiers (subdivisions are not discussed).
* Lecturer (Probationary)
– recruited with a four-year undergraduate degree. A tiny step higher is the Lecturer (Unconfirmed), recruited with a postgraduate degree but no teaching experience.
* A Senior Lecturer can be recruited with certain postgraduate qualifications and some number of years of teaching and research.
* Above this is the professor (of four types), which can be left out of this discussion since only one of those (Chair Professor) is by application.
State universities cannot hire permanent academic staff as and when they wish. Prior to advertising a vacancy, approval to recruit is obtained through a mind-numbing and time-consuming process (months!) ending at the Department of Management Services. The call for applications must list all ranks up to Senior Lecturer. All eligible candidates for Probationary to Senior Lecturer are interviewed, e.g., if a Department wants someone with a doctoral degree, they must still advertise for and interview candidates for all ranks, not only candidates with a doctoral degree. In the evaluation criteria, the first degree is more important than the doctoral degree (more on this strange phenomenon later). All of this is only possible when universities are not under a ‘hiring freeze’, which governments declare regularly and generally lasts several years.
Problem type 1
– Archaic processes and evaluation criteria
Twenty-five years ago, as a probationary lecturer with a first degree, I was a typical hire. We would be recruited, work some years and obtain postgraduate degrees (ideally using the privilege of paid study leave to attend a reputed university in the first world). State universities are primarily undergraduate teaching spaces, and when doctoral degrees were scarce, hiring probationary lecturers may have been a practical solution. The path to a higher degree was through the academic job. Now, due to availability of candidates with postgraduate qualifications and the problems of retaining academics who find foreign postgraduate opportunities, preference for candidates applying with a postgraduate qualification is growing. The evaluation scheme, however, prioritises the first degree over the candidate’s postgraduate education. Were I to apply to a Faculty of Education, despite a PhD on language teaching and research in education, I may not even be interviewed since my undergraduate degree is not in education. The ‘first degree first’ phenomenon shows that universities essentially ignore the intellectual development of a person beyond their early twenties. It also ignores the breadth of disciplines and their overlap with other fields.
This can be helped (not solved) by a simple fix, which can also reduce brain drain: give precedence to the doctoral degree in the required field, regardless of the candidate’s first degree, effected by a UGC circular. The suggestion is not fool-proof. It is a first step, and offered with the understanding that any selection process, however well the evaluation criteria are articulated, will be beset by multiple issues, including that of bias. Like other Sri Lankan institutions, universities, too, have tribal tendencies, surfacing in the form of a preference for one’s own alumni. Nevertheless, there are other problems that are, arguably, more pressing as I discuss next. In relation to the evaluation criteria, a problem is the narrow interpretation of any regulation, e.g., deciding the degree’s suitability based on the title rather than considering courses in the transcript. Despite rhetoric promoting internationalising and inter-disciplinarity, decision-making administrative and academic bodies have very literal expectations of candidates’ qualifications, e.g., a candidate with knowledge of digital literacy should show this through the title of the degree!
Problem type 2 – The mess of badly regulated higher education
A direct consequence of the contemporary expansion of higher education is a large number of applicants with myriad qualifications. The diversity of degree programmes cited makes the responsibility of selecting a suitable candidate for the job a challenging but very important one. After all, the job is for life – it is very difficult to fire a permanent employer in the state sector.
Widely varying undergraduate degree programmes.
At present, Sri Lankan undergraduates bring qualifications (at times more than one) from multiple types of higher education institutions: a degree from a UGC-affiliated state university, a state university external to the UGC, a state institution that is not a university, a foreign university, or a private HEI aka ‘private university’. It could be a degree received by attending on-site, in Sri Lanka or abroad. It could be from a private HEI’s affiliated foreign university or an external degree from a state university or an online only degree from a private HEI that is ‘UGC-approved’ or ‘Ministry of Education approved’, i.e., never studied in a university setting. Needless to say, the diversity (and their differences in quality) are dizzying. Unfortunately, under the evaluation scheme all degrees ‘recognised’ by the UGC are assigned the same marks. The same goes for the candidates’ merits or distinctions, first classes, etc., regardless of how difficult or easy the degree programme may be and even when capabilities, exposure, input, etc are obviously different.
Similar issues are faced when we consider postgraduate qualifications, though to a lesser degree. In my discipline(s), at least, a postgraduate degree obtained on-site from a first-world university is preferable to one from a local university (which usually have weekend or evening classes similar to part-time study) or online from a foreign university. Elitist this may be, but even the best local postgraduate degrees cannot provide the experience and intellectual growth gained by being in a university that gives you access to six million books and teaching and supervision by internationally-recognised scholars. Unfortunately, in the evaluation schemes for recruitment, the worst postgraduate qualification you know of will receive the same marks as one from NUS, Harvard or Leiden.
The problem is clear but what about a solution?
Recruitment to state universities needs to change to meet contemporary needs. We need evaluation criteria that allows us to get rid of the dross as well as a more sophisticated institutional understanding of using them. Recruitment is key if we want our institutions (and our country) to progress. I reiterate here the recommendations proposed in ‘Considerations for Higher Education Reform’ circulated previously by Kuppi Collective:
* Change bond regulations to be more just, in order to retain better qualified academics.
* Update the schemes of recruitment to reflect present-day realities of inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary training in order to recruit suitably qualified candidates.
* Ensure recruitment processes are made transparent by university administrations.
Kaushalya Perera is a senior lecturer at the University of Colombo.
(Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.)
This week, too, the spotlight is on an outfit that has gained popularity, mainly through social media.
Last week we had MISTER Band in our scene, and on 10th February, Yellow Beatz – both social media favourites.
Talento is a seven-piece band that plays all types of music, from the ‘60s to the modern tracks of today.
The band has reached many heights, since its inception in 2012, and has gained recognition as a leading wedding and dance band in the scene here.
The members that makeup the outfit have a solid musical background, which comes through years of hard work and dedication
Their portfolio of music contains a mix of both western and eastern songs and are carefully selected, they say, to match the requirements of the intended audience, occasion, or event.
Although the baila is a specialty, which is inherent to this group, that originates from Moratuwa, their repertoire is made up of a vast collection of love, classic, oldies and modern-day hits.
The musicians, who make up Talento, are:
Prabuddha Geetharuchi:
Geilee Fonseka: Dynamic and charismatic vocalist
Prabuddha Geetharuchi: The main man behind the band Talento
(Vocalist/ Frontman). He is an avid music enthusiast and was mentored by a lot of famous musicians, and trainers, since he was a child. Growing up with them influenced him to take on western songs, as well as other music styles. A Peterite, he is the main man behind the band Talento and is a versatile singer/entertainer who never fails to get the crowd going.
Geilee Fonseka (Vocals):
A dynamic and charismatic vocalist whose vibrant stage presence, and powerful voice, bring a fresh spark to every performance. Young, energetic, and musically refined, she is an artiste who effortlessly blends passion with precision – captivating audiences from the very first note. Blessed with an immense vocal range, Geilee is a truly versatile singer, confidently delivering Western and Eastern music across multiple languages and genres.
Chandana Perera (Drummer):
His expertise and exceptional skills have earned him recognition as one of the finest acoustic drummers in Sri Lanka. With over 40 tours under his belt, Chandana has demonstrated his dedication and passion for music, embodying the essential role of a drummer as the heartbeat of any band.
Harsha Soysa:
(Bassist/Vocalist). He a chorister of the western choir of St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa, who began his musical education under famous voice trainers, as well as bass guitar trainers in Sri Lanka. He has also performed at events overseas. He acts as the second singer of the band
Udara Jayakody:
(Keyboardist). He is also a qualified pianist, adding technical flavour to Talento’s music. His singing and harmonising skills are an extra asset to the band. From his childhood he has been a part of a number of orchestras as a pianist. He has also previously performed with several famous western bands.
Aruna Madushanka:
(Saxophonist). His proficiciency in playing various instruments, including the saxophone, soprano saxophone, and western flute, showcases his versatility as a musician, and his musical repertoire is further enhanced by his remarkable singing ability.
Prashan Pramuditha:
(Lead guitar). He has the ability to play different styles, both oriental and western music, and he also creates unique tones and patterns with the guitar..
The JJ Twins, the Sri Lankan musical duo, performing in the Maldives, and known for blending R&B, Hip Hop, and Sri Lankan rhythms, thereby creating a unique sound, have come out with a brand-new single ‘Me Mawathe.’
In fact, it’s a very special milestone for the twin brothers, Julian and Jason Prins, as ‘Me Mawathe’ is their first ever Sinhala song!
‘Me Mawathe’ showcases a fresh new sound, while staying true to the signature harmony and emotion that their fans love.
This heartfelt track captures the beauty of love, journey, and connection, brought to life through powerful vocals and captivating melodies.
It marks an exciting new chapter for the JJ Twins as they expand their musical journey and connect with audiences in a whole new way.
Their recent album, ‘CONCLUDED,’ explores themes of love, heartbreak, and healing, and include hits like ‘Can’t Get You Off My Mind’ and ‘You Left Me Here to Die’ which showcase their emotional intensity.
Readers could stay connected and follow JJ Twins on social media for exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and upcoming releases:
Instagram: http://instagram.com/jjtwinsofficial
TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jjtwinsmusic
Facebook: http://facebook.com/jjtwinssingers
YouTube: http://youtube.com/jjtwins
Trump says Iran war projected to last 4 to 5 weeks, could go ‘far longer’
Qatar downs two Iranian fighter jets as conflict widens
Jammu and Kashmir’s long road to India cricketing glory
Rembrandt painting worth millions rediscovered after 65 years
Zimbabwe, West Indies delayed from returning home following West Asia airspace closure
Dry weather will prevail in most parts of the island
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
Opinion4 days agoJamming and re-setting the world: What is the role of Donald Trump?
-
Features4 days agoAn innocent bystander or a passive onlooker?
-
Features5 days agoRatmalana Airport: The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth
-
Features6 days agoBuilding on Sand: The Indian market trap
-
Opinion6 days agoFuture must be won
-
Business6 days agoDialog partners with Xiaomi to introduce Redmi Note 15 5G Series in Sri Lanka
-
Business5 days agoIRCSL transforms Sri Lanka’s insurance industry with first-ever Centralized Insurance Data Repository
-
Opinion1 day agoSri Lanka – world’s worst facilities for cricket fans