Features

Amid Winds and Waves: Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean – IV

Published

1 month ago

2025/11/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

South Asia Shipping routes. Map courtesy Export Development Board

(Part III of this article appeared yesterday (04)

Maritime Security and the Blue Economy amid Winds and Waves

The post-war reconfiguration of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy inevitably drew the country’s gaze toward the sea. As the island sought to redefine its global relevance beyond the narratives of conflict and sovereignty, the Indian Ocean emerged as both opportunity and test. Strategic geography, once a source of vulnerability, began to be reframed as a foundation for growth, connectivity, and influence. The maritime domain offered a new framework through which Sri Lanka could integrate security, development, and diplomacy — a shift from land-locked anxieties to ocean-oriented aspiration. It is within this context that Colombo’s engagement with the Blue Economy and maritime security took shape, reflecting an effort to navigate the winds and waves of regional competition while reclaiming the sea as a space of national renewal and international partnership.

Across decades, Sri Lanka’s small-state strategy reveals a consistent pattern: the blending of prudence with principle, and the translation of anxiety into diplomacy. The island’s leaders—regardless of ideological orientation—have confronted the same structural dilemma: how to engage the world without being engulfed by it. Strategic ambiguity, embedded in a besieged mentality yet sustained by a peace drive, has been the enduring response.

The persistence of this strategy underscores a central paradox of Sri Lankan foreign policy: that autonomy must be defended not through isolation, but through participation on carefully negotiated terms. For Sri Lanka, the ocean is both lifeline and frontier—the defining feature of its geography and the principal determinant of its security and prosperity. The island’s position astride the main east–west maritime artery renders it uniquely exposed to shifts in global commerce, naval presence, and ecological change. Yet this same exposure also endows Sri Lanka with strategic visibility and economic potential. The sea, in Sri Lanka’s worldview, is not merely a boundary but a medium through which power, trade, and ideas flow.

For a small island state such as Sri Lanka, maritime security extends beyond the traditional concerns of safeguarding territorial waters, sea-lanes, and coastal infrastructure. It involves the broader task of reducing vulnerabilities and strengthening the capacity to respond to emerging maritime threats—ranging from piracy, illegal fishing, and environmental degradation to strategic competition among major powers. The modes of operation available to small states in meeting these challenges are inevitably shaped by the moral and material resources at their disposal, as well as by their geopolitical location. In recent years, the notion of maritime security has expanded to encompass the sustainable use of marine resources, the protection of ocean ecosystems, and the responsible exploration of seabed mineral resources that hold both promise and peril. Within this evolving framework, the Blue Economy has emerged as a key integrative concept, linking security, environmental stewardship, and economic diversification. It underscores the understanding that maritime stability and national prosperity are mutually reinforcing—and that enduring security for small states like Sri Lanka depends as much on prudent management and cooperation as on deterrence and defense.

From Vulnerability to Resource Governance

For small island states such as Sri Lanka, vulnerability is not merely an episodic condition but a structural reality shaped by geography, resource endowment, and external dependence. Two interrelated dimensions define this predicament: resource vulnerability and strategic vulnerability. Resource vulnerability arises from the inability to manage, monitor, and exploit oceanic assets effectively, leaving them susceptible to overuse, external extraction, or environmental degradation. Strategic vulnerability, in turn, stems from the asymmetries of power that shape maritime interactions in the Indian Ocean—where the interests of major powers, often couched in scientific or commercial terms, intersect with the sovereign space of smaller coastal states

The ocean’s promise is thus shadowed by vulnerability. Offshore and seabed mineral resources exemplify this duality. For Sri Lanka, the potential wealth of the seabed—ranging from hydrocarbons to cobalt-rich deposits—offers significant prospects for diversification and growth. Yet, this same promise can become a liability when exploration activities invite external involvement that outpaces national regulatory or scientific capacity. The entry of Chinese research vessels into Sri Lanka’s territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has underscored how scientific exploration can blur into geopolitical maneuvering, generating domestic anxiety and diplomatic tension. Similarly, the competing claims by India and Sri Lanka over two tracts in the cobalt-rich Afanasy–Nikitin Seamount demonstrate how overlapping ambitions in resource exploration can translate into strategic contestation, testing the resilience of regional cooperation frameworks.

Sri Lanka’s maritime domain faces multiple pressures: illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; competition over undersea resources; piracy and trafficking; and the long-term threat of climate change and sea-level rise. These challenges intersect with great-power competition in the Indian Ocean, where naval deployments, port access agreements, and infrastructure financing often blur the line between economic development and strategic dependency. In this environment, maritime security becomes inseparable from resource governance. Sri Lanka’s EEZ—almost eight times its land area—contains vast potential for fisheries, minerals, and renewable energy. However, the capacity to monitor, regulate, and exploit these resources responsibly remains limited. External assistance, while necessary, introduces new asymmetries of dependence.

The path from vulnerability to governance therefore requires institutional strengthening, regional cooperation, and a redefinition of Sri Lanka’s maritime constabulary role—not merely as a defensive function but as a mechanism of stewardship and sovereignty. Effective resource governance is thus both a developmental and a strategic imperative: it enables small states to transform exposure into agency, and to convert the ocean’s uncertainty into a managed space of opportunity.

Blue Economy as Strategic and Developmental Framework

The Blue Economy has emerged as both an economic paradigm and a strategic doctrine for oceanic and coastal states. Broadly defined, it refers to the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and ecosystem health. For small states such as Sri Lanka, the Blue Economy extends the logic of the Green Economy into the maritime sphere—combining environmental stewardship with developmental and geopolitical agency. It recognizes that the sea is not merely a frontier of extraction or defense, but a living system whose long-term health underpins national security and prosperity alike.

For Sri Lanka, located at the heart of the Indian Ocean, the Blue Economy offers a framework to transform vulnerability into opportunity. It links sustainability to sovereignty: by managing marine resources responsibly, the island can assert agency in a domain where traditional hard power is limited. This framework encourages diversification away from dependency on land-based and low-value exports toward ocean-based industries such as marine biotechnology, renewable ocean energy, sustainable fisheries, and coastal tourism. By integrating innovation and environmental ethics, Sri Lanka can build resilience against the twin shocks of climate change and external economic volatility.

The Blue Economy should therefore be viewed not only as a developmental agenda but as a key pillar of Sri Lanka’s maritime strategy. It provides a peaceful and cooperative means of leveraging geographic advantage—turning the Indian Ocean from a theatre of vulnerability into a space of managed opportunity. The island’s active participation in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), particularly in working groups on fisheries, maritime safety, and blue carbon ecosystems, reflects its emerging role as a norm entrepreneur. By promoting sustainable resource management and equitable access, Sri Lanka projects moral authority within regional diplomacy, consistent with its historical commitment to peace and neutrality.

Nevertheless, the realization of a genuinely “blue” economy remains constrained by several factors. Limited technological capacity, inadequate maritime governance frameworks, and fragmented institutional coordination hinder progress. External financing—while essential for developing port and ocean energy infrastructure—can also reproduce patterns of strategic dependence. Meanwhile, overfishing, marine pollution, and the slow pace of adaptation to climate change threaten both livelihoods and ecosystems. Sri Lanka’s successes include early policy recognition of the Blue Economy’s potential, regional leadership within IORA, and emerging partnerships in ocean observation and renewable energy. Yet, its challenges lie in translating these commitments into enforceable regulations, scientific capacity, and integrated governance mechanisms.

The way forward requires Sri Lanka to consolidate its Blue Economy strategy around three priorities: first, investing in marine science and data infrastructure to enhance resource governance; second, fostering public–private partnerships that align innovation with sustainability; and third, deepening regional and multilateral cooperation to ensure that the Indian Ocean remains a space of shared prosperity rather than strategic rivalry. By doing so, Sri Lanka can make the Blue Economy not only a developmental framework but also a foundation for a new, peace-oriented maritime order.

Despite the cooperative rhetoric surrounding the Blue Economy as a strategic and developmental framework, its security dimension remains inescapable. The Indo-Pacific discourse has intensified naval activity and security partnerships across the Indian Ocean, at times reducing smaller coastal states to little more than strategic real estate. For Sri Lanka, the challenge lies in participating in these frameworks—through exercises, information-sharing, and maritime domain awareness—without being drawn into alliance politics.

In recent years, Colombo has pursued a delicate equilibrium: engaging with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) countries on maritime safety while sustaining defence cooperation with China and aligning with India’s Neighbourhood First policy. This calibrated engagement reflects the broader pattern of strategic ambiguity typical of small-state behaviour. It enables Sri Lanka to derive capacity-building benefits from multiple partners while avoiding deeper entanglements.

Here again, the island’s besieged mentality resurfaces—not as paralysis but as prudence. The lingering fear of encirclement translates into a strategy of controlled openness: welcoming maritime partnerships but resisting their militarization. By emphasizing the Blue Economy, Colombo shifts the discourse from confrontation to cooperation, repositioning itself not as a pawn in great-power rivalries but as a facilitator of inclusive ocean governance.

The Ocean as Moral and Strategic Space

The moral geography of the Indian Ocean is also reflected in the island’s collective psychology—a continuous oscillation between a besieged mentality and cosmopolitanism. The sea evokes both fear and freedom: the fear of encirclement and exploitation, and the freedom of connection and exchange. This dual consciousness, formed through centuries of colonial intrusion and maritime coexistence, continues to inform Sri Lanka’s strategic imagination. To perceive the ocean as moral space is, therefore, to reconcile these inner contradictions—to convert the anxiety of smallness into an ethic of responsible openness.

For Sri Lanka, the sea is not only an economic and security frontier but also a moral geography. The island’s historical experience has always been marked by duality: exposure and connection, vulnerability and possibility. As an island, Sri Lanka has lived with the perpetual tension between openness and insecurity—its shores have invited commerce, migration, and cultural fertilization, yet also conquest and exploitation. This tension gives moral depth to the maritime imagination: the ocean is not merely a space of movement or material extraction but a field where moral choices are enacted—between domination and reciprocity, extraction and stewardship, isolation and coexistence. The moral properties of this space arise from its capacity to bind peoples and histories across differences, to remind coastal societies of their interdependence, and to reveal the ethical consequences of maritime engagement. In this sense, Sri Lanka’s relationship with the Indian Ocean has never been simply strategic; it has been existential—a dialogue between geography and responsibility.

Beneath this duality lies a deeper social–psychological rhythm: the interplay between a besieged mentality and a cosmopolitan impulse. The sea has long evoked for Sri Lankans both fear and fascination—the fear of encirclement, invasion, and dependency, and the fascination with connection, exchange, and self-renewal.

The besieged mentality stems from the memory of colonial exploitation and from the perpetual sense of smallness in a world dominated by larger powers. Yet, alongside this anxiety runs a countercurrent of cosmopolitanism rooted in centuries of maritime coexistence—Arab, Malay, Indian, European, and African influences that made the island a microcosm of the Indian Ocean world. These two sensibilities—protective insularity and ethical openness—have coexisted, shaping Sri Lanka’s moral geography of the sea. To imagine the Indian Ocean as a moral space is thus to reconcile these inner contradictions: to transform the fear of exposure into a philosophy of connection, and to redefine security as the practice of responsible engagement.

Understanding the ocean as moral space also means acknowledging its place in the making of maritime moral geography. Across centuries, the Indian Ocean has been a medium of moral and cultural exchange: the spread of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity; the circulation of traders, monks, and ideas; the coexistence of diverse communities bound by the ethics of navigation and hospitality. These histories form a counter-narrative to imperial cartographies that reduced the sea to a zone of control. By reclaiming this moral geography, Sri Lanka situates itself within a long tradition of ethical connectivity—one that predates and transcends the modern nation-state. The island’s strategic choices, therefore, cannot be divorced from this inheritance: to act justly in the oceanic realm is to honor a legacy of coexistence and shared stewardship.

From this perspective, framing the Indian Ocean as a space of peace, sustainability, and shared heritage becomes both a moral and strategic act. It enables Sri Lanka to transform its geopolitical vulnerabilities into a diplomatic asset—an articulation of responsibility rather than merely of interest. This approach has situated the island within the Global South’s broader moral economy of international relations: an effort to humanize strategy through principles of equity, care, and cooperation. The Blue Economy, in this light, becomes not only policy but philosophy—a moral response to the ecological and political anxieties of smallness. It seeks to reimagine security as coexistence, and prosperity as stewardship, turning the Indian Ocean into a living archive of ethical possibility. By projecting a moral vision of the sea, Sri Lanka asserts that strategy itself can be a form of moral imagination—one that binds survival to responsibility and geography to conscience

The Indian Ocean: Moral Geography and the Global South Perspective

The moral geography of the Indian Ocean, as seen through Sri Lanka’s experience, offers a vital lens for understanding how the Global South imagines space, agency, and ethics. For Sri Lanka, the ocean has always been more than a route of trade or a theatre of strategy—it has been a living archive of connection and vulnerability, a mirror of its historical condition as both a crossroads and a frontier. This maritime consciousness has located Sri Lanka within a broader Global South tradition that seeks to reclaim moral agency from the margins of global politics. In this context, the Indian Ocean becomes a space through which postcolonial societies articulate a humane alternative to the dominant logic of power—an attempt to redefine the global order through the language of reciprocity, stewardship, and coexistence (Acharya 2014; Bose 2006).

The Indian Ocean has long functioned as an ethical commons of the Global South—a space that historically linked African, Arab, South Asian, and Southeast Asian societies in networks of exchange, pilgrimage, and pluralism. Before the colonial era imposed boundaries and hierarchies, the ocean connected communities through practices of trade and mutual care that reflected a shared moral economy (Chaudhuri 1985). Sri Lanka was integral to this oceanic world: its ports from Manthai to Galle were nodes of cosmopolitan encounter, where diverse peoples negotiated differences through hospitality and cultural translation. This deep history of connectivity offers an ethical counterpoint to the militarized and extractive geographies imposed during the colonial and Cold War periods. To retrieve this past is to affirm the Global South’s claim to historical agency and to challenge the reduction of the ocean to a mere space of rivalry or resource competition (Bose 2006).

From a Sri Lankan perspective, moral geography provides an idiom for transforming the anxieties of smallness into a vision of ethical leadership. The island’s postcolonial diplomacy—particularly its advocacy of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace in the 1970s and its later embrace of the Blue Economy—reflects this enduring aspiration to balance survival with moral responsibility (Gunasekara 2021). These initiatives exemplify the Global South’s wider effort to humanize international relations: to shift the vocabulary of strategy from control to coexistence, from competition to cooperation. For Sri Lanka, the moral geography of the sea thus becomes a method of asserting presence in global affairs without recourse to dominance—what could be termed strategic ethics, or the art of wielding moral imagination as a form of soft power.

This moral reorientation resonates with broader Global South perspectives that critique the moral asymmetries of the international system. As Amitav Acharya (2014) argues, Global South approaches to world order seek to pluralize international relations by foregrounding non-Western traditions of thought and coexistence. Similarly, Walter Mignolo (2011) and others have described this as border thinking—the effort to imagine global ethics from the margins, drawing from subaltern histories of encounter and exchange. In this sense, Sri Lanka’s oceanic worldview embodies a form of Southern cosmopolitanism: grounded in local experience but open to the universal, protective yet participatory. It extends the moral geography of the Indian Ocean into a planetary register, proposing that the future of maritime order must be built on the ethical lessons of its past.

In the end, to conceive the Indian Ocean as a moral space is to articulate a Global South vision of world order—one that binds geography to responsibility and history to justice. The sea becomes not merely a surface of strategy but a metaphor for relational being: fluid, interconnected, and morally consequential. Sri Lanka’s perspective, shaped by both exposure and resilience, exemplifies how small states can contribute to the moral imagination of the Global South. By invoking the Indian Ocean as a shared moral frontier, Sri Lanka gestures toward a post-hegemonic internationalism—an oceanic humanism that reclaims the sea as a site of ethical possibility and cooperative survival. The Global South does not merely navigate the world; it redefines what it means to inhabit it together.

(To be concluded tomorrow)

Prof. Gamini Keerawella

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Features

Trade preferences to support post-Ditwah reconstruction

Published

11 hours ago

2025/12/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

Ditwah disaster

The manner in which the government succeeded in mobilising support from the international community, immediately after the devastating impact of Cyclone Ditwah, may have surprised many people of this country, particularly because our Opposition politicians were ridiculing our “inexperienced” government, in the recent past, for its inability to deal with the international community effectively. However, by now it is evident that the government, with the assistance of the international community and local nongovernmental actors, like major media organisations, has successfully managed the recovery efforts. So, let me begin by thanking them for what they have done so far.

Yet, some may argue that it is not difficult to mobilise the support for recovery efforts from the international community, immediately after any major disaster, and the real challenge is to sustain that support through the next few weeks, months and years. Because the recovery process, more specifically the post-recovery reconstruction process, requires long-term support. So, the government agencies should start immediately to focus on, in addition to initial disaster relief, a longer-term strategy for reconstruction. This is important because in a few weeks’ time, the focus of the global community may shift elsewhere … to another crisis in another corner of the world. Before that happens, the government should take initiatives to get the support from development partners on appropriate policy measures, including exceptional trade preferences, to help Sri Lanka in the recovery efforts through the medium and the long term.

Use of Trade Preferences to support recovery and reconstruction

In the past, the United States and the European Union used exceptional enhanced trade preferences as part of the assistance packages when countries were devastated by natural disasters, similar to Cyclone Ditwah. For example:

After the devastating floods in Pakistan, in July 2010, the EU granted temporary, exceptional trade preferences to Pakistan (autonomous trade preferences) to aid economic recovery. This measure was a de facto waiver on the standard EU GSP (Generalised Scheme of Preferences) rules. The preferences, which were proposed in October 2010 and were applied until the end of 2013, effectively suspended import duties on 75 types of goods, including textiles and apparel items. The available studies on this waiver indicate that though a significant export hike occurred within a few months after the waiver became effective it did not significantly depress exports by competing countries. Subsequently, Pakistan was granted GSP+ status in 2014.
Similarly, after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, the United States supported Nepal through an extension of unilateral additional preferences, the Nepal Trade Preferences Programme (NTPP). This was a 10-year initiative to grant duty-free access for up to 77 specific Nepali products to aid economic recovery after the 2015 earthquakes. This was also a de facto waiver on the standard US GSP rules.
Earlier, after Hurricanes Mitch and Georges caused massive devastation across the Caribbean Basin nations, in 1998, severely impacting their economies, the United States proposed a long-term strategy for rebuilding the region that focused on trade enhancement. This resulted in the establishment of the US Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), which was signed into law on 05 October, 2000, as Title II of the Trade and Development Act of 2000. This was a more comprehensive facility than those which were granted to Pakistan and Nepal.

What type of concession should Sri Lanka request from our development partners?

Given these precedents, it is appropriate for Sri Lanka to seek specific trade concessions from the European Union and the United States.

In the European Union, Sri Lanka already benefits from the GSP+ scheme. Under this arrangement Sri Lanka’s exports (theoretically) receive duty-free access into the EU markets. However, in 2023, Sri Lanka’s preference utilisation rate, that is, the ratio of preferential imports to GSP+ eligible imports, stood at 59%. This was significantly below the average utilisation of other GSP beneficiary countries. For example, in 2023, preference utilisation rates for Bangladesh and Pakistan were 90% and 88%, respectively. The main reason for the low utilisation rate of GSP by Sri Lanka is the very strict Rules of Origin requirements for the apparel exports from Sri Lanka. For example, to get GSP benefits, a woven garment from Sri Lanka must be made from fabric that itself had undergone a transformation from yarn to fabric in Sri Lanka or in another qualifying country. However, a similar garment from Bangladesh only requires a single-stage processing (that is, fabric to garment) qualifies for GSP. As a result, less than half of Sri Lanka’s apparel exports to the EU were ineligible for the preferences in 2023.

Sri Lanka should request a relaxation of this strict rule of origin to help economic recovery. As such a concession only covers GSP Rules of Origin only it would impact multilateral trade rules and would not require WTO approval. Hence could be granted immediately by the EU.

United States

Sri Lanka should submit a request to the United States for (a) temporary suspension of the recently introduced 20% additional ad valorem duty and (b) for a programme similar to the Nepal Trade Preferences Programme (NTPP), but designed specifically for Sri Lanka’s needs. As NTPP didn’t require WTO approval, similar concessions also can be granted without difficulty.

Similarly, country-specific requests should be carefully designed and submitted to Japan and other major trading partners.

(The writer is a retired public servant and can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

by Gomi Senadhira

Features

Lasting power and beauty of words

Published

11 hours ago

2025/12/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

Novelists, poets, short story writers, lyricists, politicians and columnists use words for different purposes. While some of them use words to inform and elevate us, others use them to bolster their ego. If there was no such thing called words, we cannot even imagine what will happen to us. Whether you like it or not everything rests on words. If the Penal Code does not define a crime and prescribe a punishment, judges will not be able to convict criminals. Even the Constitution of our country is a printed document.

A mother’s lullaby contains snatches of sweet and healing words. The effect is immediate. The baby falls asleep within seconds. A lover’s soft and alluring words go right into his or her beloved. An army commander’s words encourage soldiers to go forward without fear. The British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s words still ring in our ears: “… we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender …”

Writers wax eloquent on love. English novelist John Galsworthy wrote: “Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always wild.” While living in a world dominated by technology, we often hear a bunch of words that is colourless and often cut to verbal ribbons – “How R U” or “Luv U.” Such words seem to squeeze the life out of language.

Changing medium

Language is a constantly changing medium. New words and forms arrive and old ones die out. Whoever thought that the following Sinhala words would find a place in the Oxford English Dictionary? “Asweddumize, Avurudu, Baila, Kiribath, Kottu Roti, Mallung, Osari, Papare, Walawwa and Watalappan.” With all such borrowed words the English language is expanding and remains beautiful. The language helps us to express subtle ideas clearly and convincingly.

You are judged by the words you use. If you constantly use meaningless little phrases, you will be considered a worthless person. When you read a well-written piece of writing you will note how words jump and laugh on the paper or screen. Some of them wag their tails while others stand back like shy village belles. However, they serve a useful purpose. Words help us to write essays, poems, short stories and novels. If not for the beauty of the language, nobody will read what you write.

If you look at the words meaningfully, you will see some of them tap dancing while others stand to rigid attention. Big or small, all the words you pen form part of the action or part of the narrative. The words you write make your writing readable and exciting. That is why we read our favourite authors again and again.

Editorials

If a marriage is to succeed, partners should respect and love each other. Similarly, if you love words, they will help you to use them intelligently and forcefully. A recent survey in the United States has revealed that only eight per cent of people read the editorial. This is because most editorials are not readable. However, there are some editorials which compel us to read them. Some readers collect such editorials to be read later.

Only a lover of words would notice how some words run smoothly without making a noise. Other words appear to be dancing on the floor. Some words of certain writers are soothing while others set your blood pounding. There is a young monk who is preaching using simple words very effectively. He has a large following of young people addicted to drugs. After listening to his preaching, most of them have given up using illegal drugs. The message is loud and clear. If there is no demand for drugs, nobody will smuggle them into the country.

Some politicians use words so rounded at the edges and softened by wear that they are no longer interesting. The sounds they make are meaningless and listeners get more and more confused. Their expressions are full of expletives the meaning of which is often soiled with careless use of words.

Weather-making

Some words, whether written or spoken, stick like superglue. You will never forget them. William Vergara in his short essay on weather-making says, “Cloud-seeding has touched off one of the most baffling controversies in meteorological history. It has been blamed for or credited with practically all kinds of weather. Some scientists claim seeding can produce floods and hail. Others insist it creates droughts and dissipates clouds. Still others staunchly maintain it has no effect at all. The battle is far from over, but at last one clear conclusion is beginning to emerge: man can change the weather, and he is getting better at it.”

There are words that nurse the ego and heal the heart. The following short paragraph is a good example. S. Radhakrishnan says, “In every religion today we have small minorities who see beyond the horizon of their particular faith, not through religious fellowship is possible, not through the imposition of any one way on the whole but through an all-inclusive recognition that we are all searchers for the truth, pilgrims on the road, that we all aim at the same ethical and spiritual standard.”

There are some words joined together in common phrases. They are so beautiful that they elevate the human race. In the phrase ‘beyond a shadow of doubt’, ‘a shadow’ connotes a dark area covering light. ‘A doubt’ refers to hesitancy in belief. We use such phrases blithely because they are exquisitely beautiful in their structure. The English language is a repository of such miracles of expression that lead to deeper understanding or emphasis.

Social media

Social media use words powerfully. Sometimes they invent new words. Through the social media you can reach millions of viewers without the intervention of the government. Their opinion can stop wars and destroy tyrants. If you use the right words, you can even eliminate poverty to a great extent.

The choice of using powerful words is yours. However, before opening your mouth, tap the computer, unclip a pen, write a lyric or poem, think twice of the effect of your writing. When you talk with a purpose or write with pleasure, you enrich listeners and readers with your marvellous language skills. If you have a command of the language, you will put across your point of view that counts. Always try to find the right words and change the world for a better place for us to live.

By R. S. Karunaratne
karunaratners@gmail.com

Features

Why Sri Lanka Still Has No Doppler Radar – and Who Should Be Held Accountable

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/14

Thilina Walpola

Eighteen Years of Delay:

Cyclone Ditwah has come and gone, leaving a trail of extensive damage to the country’s infrastructure, including buildings, roads, bridges, and 70% of the railway network. Thousands of hectares of farming land have been destroyed. Last but not least, nearly 1,000 people have lost their lives, and more than two million people have been displaced. The visuals uploaded to social media platforms graphically convey the widespread destruction Cyclone Ditwah has caused in our country.

The purpose of my article is to highlight, for the benefit of readers and the general public, how a project to establish a Doppler Weather Radar system, conceived in 2007, remains incomplete after 18 years. Despite multiple governments, shifting national priorities, and repeated natural disasters, the project remains incomplete.

Over the years, the National Audit Office, the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA), and several print and electronic media outlets have highlighted this failure. The last was an excellent five-minute broadcast by Maharaja Television Network on their News First broadcast in October 2024 under a series “What Happened to Sri Lanka”

The Agreement Between the Government of Sri Lanka and the World Meteorological Organisation in 2007.

The first formal attempt to establish a Doppler Radar system dates back to a Trust Fund agreement signed on 24 May 2007 between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This agreement intended to modernize Sri Lanka’s meteorological infrastructure and bring the country on par with global early-warning standards.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on March 23, 1950. There are 193 member countries of the WMO, including Sri Lanka. Its primary role is to promote the establishment of a worldwide meteorological observation system and to serve as the authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth’s atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, and the resulting climate and water resources.

According to the 2018 Performance Audit Report compiled by the National Audit Office, the GoSL entered into a trust fund agreement with the WMO to install a Doppler Radar System. The report states that USD 2,884,274 was deposited into the WMO bank account in Geneva, from which the Department of Metrology received USD 95,108 and an additional USD 113,046 in deposit interest. There is no mention as to who actually provided the funds. Based on available information, WMO does not fund projects of this magnitude.

The WMO was responsible for procuring the radar equipment, which it awarded on 18^th June 2009 to an American company for USD 1,681,017. According to the audit report, a copy of the purchase contract was not available.

Monitoring the agreement’s implementation was assigned to the Ministry of Disaster Management, a signatory to the trust fund agreement. The audit report details the members of the steering committee appointed by designation to oversee the project. It consisted of personnel from the Ministry of Disaster Management, the Departments of Metrology, National Budget, External Resources and the Disaster Management Centre.

The Audit Report highlights failures in the core responsibilities that can be summarized as follows:

· Procurement irregularities—including flawed tender processes and inadequate technical evaluations.

· Poor site selection

—proposed radar sites did not meet elevation or clearance requirements.

· Civil works delays

—towers were incomplete or structurally unsuitable.

· Equipment left unused

—in some cases for years, exposing sensitive components to deterioration.

· Lack of inter-agency coordination

—between the Meteorology Department, Disaster Management Centre, and line ministries.

Some of the mistakes highlighted are incomprehensible. There is a mention that no soil test was carried out before the commencement of the construction of the tower. This led to construction halting after poor soil conditions were identified, requiring a shift of 10 to 15 meters from the original site. This resulted in further delays and cost overruns.

The equipment supplier had identified that construction work undertaken by a local contractor was not of acceptable quality for housing sensitive electronic equipment. No action had been taken to rectify these deficiencies. The audit report states, “It was observed that the delay in constructing the tower and the lack of proper quality were one of the main reasons for the failure of the project”.

In October 2012, when the supplier commenced installation, the work was soon abandoned after the vehicle carrying the heavy crane required to lift the radar equipment crashed down the mountain. The next attempt was made in October 2013, one year later. Although the equipment was installed, the system could not be operationalised because electronic connectivity was not provided (as stated in the audit report).

In 2015, following a UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) inspection, it was determined that the equipment needed to be returned to the supplier because some sensitive electronic devices had been damaged due to long-term disuse, and a further 1.5 years had elapsed by 2017, when the equipment was finally returned to the supplier. In March 2018, the estimated repair cost was USD 1,095,935, which was deemed excessive, and the project was abandoned.

COPA proceedings

The Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) discussed the radar project on August 10, 2023, and several press reports state that the GOSL incurred a loss of Rs. 78 million due to the project’s failure. This, I believe, is the cost of constructing the Tower. It is mentioned that Rs. 402 million had been spent on the radar system, of which Rs. 323 million was drawn from the trust fund established with WMO. It was also highlighted that approximately Rs. 8 million worth of equipment had been stolen and that the Police and the Bribery and Corruption Commission were investigating the matter.

JICA support and project stagnation

Despite the project’s failure with WMO, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) entered into an agreement with GOSL on June 30, 2017 to install two Doppler Radar Systems in Puttalam and Pottuvil. JICA has pledged 2.5 billion Japanese yen (LKR 3.4 billion at the time) as a grant. It was envisaged that the project would be completed in 2021.

Once again, the perennial delays that afflict the GOSL and bureaucracy have resulted in the groundbreaking ceremony being held only in December 2024. The delay is attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and Sri Lanka’s economic crisis.

The seven-year delay between the signing of the agreement and project commencement has led to significant cost increases, forcing JICA to limit the project to installing only one Doppler Radar system in Puttalam.

Impact of the missing radar during Ditwah

As I am not a meteorologist and do not wish to make a judgment on this, I have decided to include the statement issued by JICA after the groundbreaking ceremony on December 24, 2024.

“In partnership with the Department of Meteorology (DoM), JICA is spearheading the establishment of the Doppler Weather Radar Network in the Puttalam district, which can realize accurate weather observation and weather prediction based on the collected data by the radar. This initiative is a significant step in strengthening Sri Lanka’s improving its climate resilience including not only reducing risks of floods, landslides, and drought but also agriculture and fishery“.

Based on online research, a Doppler Weather Radar system is designed to observe weather systems in real time. While the technical details are complex, the system essentially provides localized, uptotheminute information on rainfall patterns, storm movements, and approaching severe weather. Countries worldwide rely on such systems to issue timely alerts for monsoons, tropical depressions, and cyclones. It is reported that India has invested in 30 Doppler radar systems, which have helped minimize the loss of life.

Without radar, Sri Lanka must rely primarily on satellite imagery and foreign meteorological centres, which cannot capture the finescale, rapidly changing weather patterns that often cause localized disasters here.

The general consensus is that, while no single system can prevent natural disasters, an operational Doppler Radar almost certainly would have strengthened Sri Lanka’s preparedness and reduced the extent of damage and loss.

Conclusion

Sri Lanka’s inability to commission a Doppler Radar system, despite nearly two decades of attempts, represents one of the most significant governance failures in the country’s disastermanagement history.

Audit findings, parliamentary oversight proceedings, and donor records all confirm the same troubling truth: Sri Lanka has spent public money, signed international agreements, received foreign assistance, and still has no operational radar. This raises a critical question: should those responsible for this prolonged failure be held legally accountable?

Now may not be the time to determine the extent to which the current government and bureaucrats failed the people. I believe an independent commission comprising foreign experts in disaster management from India and Japan should be appointed, maybe in six months, to identify failures in managing Cyclone Ditwah.

However, those who governed the country from 2007 to 2024 should be held accountable for their failures, and legal action should be pursued against the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for disaster management for their failure to implement the 2007 project with the WMO successfully.

Sri Lanka cannot afford another 18 years of delay. The time for action, transparency, and responsibility has arrived.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of any organization or institution with which the author is affiliated).

By Sanjeewa Jayaweera