Midweek Review
Annihilation of UNP et al rips apart civil society project

UNP leader Wickremesinghe with civil society activist Saman Rathnapriya while Ven. Dambara Amila thera and MP A.H.M. Fowzie look on, at a candlelight vigil held at Independence Square in Oct 2019 to mark the failed bid to oust the UNP government in late Oct 2018.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
A stunning SLPP (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) victory, at the Aug 5, 2020, general election, dealt a debilitating blow to a high profile civil society project meant to challenge President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The project, undertaken by ‘Freedom: People’s Collective,’ with the backing of some political elements, was aimed at thwarting a bid, by the SLPP, to secure a two-thirds majority at the poll.
The success of the scheme, unveiled on July 8, 2020, at the New Town Hall, largely hinged on the UNP, its breakaway faction SJB (Samagi Jana Balavegaya), the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) and the TNA (Tamil National Alliance) winning well over 75 seats, at the recently- concluded general election.
Two-thirds hadn’t been achieved by any political party/coalition, since the introduction of the Proportional Representation (PR) system, way back in 1989, by the JRJ government. The UNP that had won the previous general election with a 5/6 majority in 1977 held under the first-past-post system, put off the parliamentary poll, scheduled for Aug 1983, by way of a sham national referendum, conducted on Dec 22, 1982. Today, the UNP is left with just a solitary National List seat.
‘Forward, Nor Backward’ at a standstill
The latest civil society project, titled ‘Forward, Not Backward,’ was intended to prevent the SLPP from either doing away with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution or amending it.
Newcomer to parliamentary politics, Justice Minister Ali Sabry, PC, has been placed in charge of the ‘operation’ to bring in required constitutional changes. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s move to place the high profile mission under Sabry caused quite a stir. Some members of the SLPP were much more surprised than the depleted Opposition. Sabry’s appointment should be examined against the backdrop of ‘Freedom: People’s Collective’ appeal to the voting public. Let me reproduce verbatim the appeal made by the civil society grouping. “…the most crucial political responsibility of the voters of our country at the parliamentary election, on the 5th of August, is to make sure that it will not mark the beginning of the end of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary democracy.”
Former SLFP and then UNP heavyweight Mangala Samaraweera was to play a crucial role in the whole operation. The launch of Samaraweera’s campaign coincided with the releasing of results the day following the election. The Island announced Samaraweera’s project on its front page on Aug 6, 2020 (Mangala launches new initiative to rally masses against SLPP, with the strap line, Radical Centre claims to follow centrist path). The story was placed next to the lead story ‘SLPP confident of securing majority.’
Former editor of Ravaya Victor Ivan dealt with Samaraweera’s role, in a news piece carried on June 21, 2020, in the wake of Samaraweera jeopardizing the SJB’s campaign. Having handed over nominations from the SJB for the Matara district, on March 19, 2020, the former minister quit the contest on June 9, 2020.
There had never been any doubt about the SLPP’s victory, though two-thirds seemed impossible. The SLPP however never expected as many as 145 seats, one more than its 2010 achievement, under war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The civil society grouping, too, clearly realized a comfortable victory for the SLPP, though the level of accomplishment quite stunned them. The Opposition grouping, consisting of the UNP, the SJB, the JVP and the TNA – expected to work with the civil society grouping, post-general election – suffered an irreversible setback.
From 106 seats to 01
The UNP was reduced to just one National List MP, the TNA to 10 (one National List slot) and the JVP to three (one National List MP). The civil society project is now in tatters, with the Sajith Premadasa-led SJB very much unlikely to get involved in such an operation. The SJB is likely to follow a policy, quite contrary to that of the UNP, in respect of the civil society.
In the previous parliament, the UNP had 106 seats (13 National List slots), the TNA 16 (two National List slots) and the JVP six (two National List slots). The SLMC (Sri Lanka Muslim Congress), the ACMC (All Ceylon Makkal Congress), the JHU (Jathika Hela Urumaya) and the TPA (Tamil Progressive Alliance) were among the 106. Today, all four represented the SJB.
The UNP, now reduced to a solitary lawmaker, is no longer a viable political force. The status quo is unlikely to change for years to come. The heavily depleted TNA, ripped by internal crisis, is unlikely to get involved in the civil society project, though MP elect M.A. Sumanthiran participated at the July 8 launch, at the New Town Hall. President’s Counsel Sumanthiran, too, is struggling on the political front with Raviraj Sasikala, who contested the Jaffna electoral district unsuccessfully, causing quite a stir there. Sasikala is the wife of slain TNA lawmaker
Nadarajah Raviraj. The attorney-at-law was gunned down along with his police bodyguard in Colombo in Nov 2006. The killing was blamed on the then government.
The civil society, too, is struggling to cope up with the situation, against the backdrop of the SLPP securing a near two-thirds majority. The SLPP can easily secure two-thirds with the backing of the sole SLFP MP (Angajan Ramanathan) elected from the Jaffna electoral district, two from the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, led by Douglas Devananda, one from the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan and one from the National Congress of A L M Athaullah. Pilleyan is still in custody over the assassination of TNA MP Joseph Pararajasingham on Dec 25, 2005, inside a church in Batticaloa, during Christmas mass.
A visit to East
Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Pilleyan, held in the Batticaloa prison, on Oct 27, 2019, a few weeks before the Nov 16, 2019 presidential poll, to reach consensus on an arrangement. The TMVP backed Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the presidential poll. Pilleyan is still in prison having being arrested on Oct 11, 2015. The SLPP is now in a position to repeal the 19th Amendment. However, if the ruling party and those who back it abuse their overwhelming power in the parliament for the benefit of selected individuals, the coalition would have to face serious consequences.
Nothing can be as damaging as manipulating the parliamentary process, regardless of the power enjoyed by the SLPP at the moment. In other words, the SLPP will lose public confidence very quickly, if the government resorted to political trickery, in the aftermath of such an overwhelming victory.
Let me put it this way, the SLPP’s real enemy, or Opposition, would be its own power that can cause quite a rapid deterioration of the government, if abuses are allowed to go unchecked. Therefore, it would be the responsibility of the top SLPP leadership to act responsibly, regardless of its superiority in parliament. Those opposed to the new administration would be eagerly awaiting the top SLPP leadership taking a wrong turn.
The National Joint Committee (NJC) issued a statement on Sunday (16) expressing concern over the new government strategy as regards constitutional changes. The Island carried the NJC statement in its Aug 17 edition.
The civil society, and other interested parties, wouldn’t easily give up their efforts to undermine Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s administration. The event at the New Town Hall underscored their strategy.
Govt. again faulted over alleged Swiss Embassy abduction
Addressing the gathering, convener of the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) Prof. Sarath Wijesooriya, of the Sinhala Department of the Colombo University, was like a mercenary in his attack on the interim administration over three incidents. Wijesooriya raked up the alleged abduction of Swiss Embassy employee, Garnier Banister Francis, within days after Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election, as the President, at the Nov 16, 2019 election. The academic conveniently refrained from making reference to the current status of the high profile judicial inquiry into Garnier’s abduction. Many an eyebrow has been raised over the alleged involvement of journalist Dharisha Bastian in the Swiss case. The case was last heard on July 21, 2020. It will come up again on Sept 8, 2020. Perhaps, if Prof. Wijesooriya has any decency left in him will he explain why Garnier, portrayed by them as an angel nastily dealt by government operatives, ended up being a suspect in making a false accusation, knowingly. All, including the police, seem to have also forgotten renegade Inspector Nishantha Silva’s sordid involvement in the Swiss matter, and the despicable bid made by the Swiss embassy in Colombo to evacuate Garnier in an air ambulance. The former CID officer took refuge, in Switzerland, soon after Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory.
Prof. Wijesooriya also blamed the killing of the Chairman of the National Three-Wheeler Federation (NTWF), Sunil Jayawardena, at Mirihana, on June 10, 2020, also on the Rajapaksa government, in addition to the suicide of Rajeewa Jayaweera (64) whose body was found at Independence Square, on June 12, 2020. Prof. Wijesooriya totally ignored Rajeewa’s brother Sanjeewa Jayaweera’s assertion that there was no doubt as regards his brother committing suicide leaving behind a plethora of clear cut evidence.
Prof. Wijesooriya, and several other speakers, at the event, urged the electorate to thwart the SLPP’s plans. Among the speakers was attorney-at-law Javid Yusuf, one of the three civil society representatives at the Constitutional Council, chaired by then Speaker Karunaratne Jayasuriya. One-time Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Riyadh, Yusuf had the guts to stand his ground, in spite of criticism over him taking a political stand. Interestingly, except The Island, no other print, or electronic media, took up this issue.
The unexpected outcome of the August 5 poll has dealt a heavy blow to the civil society grouping, opposed to the Rajapaksas’ way of governance. In addition to the NMSJ, Purawesi Balaya, spearheaded by Gamini Viyangoda, campaigned hard for Maithripala Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election. They played a significant role in the overall political strategy, during that period. It would be pertinent to mention that the yahapalana project went awry from the word go due to sinister objectives, wrong decisions, and lapses, on the part of their political leadership.
Beginning of the end
The yahapalana setup suffered a debilitating setback, in late Feb 2015, within 50 days after the presidential election. The first Treasury bond scam, involving the Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL), carried out by Singaporean Arjuna Mahendran, handpicked for the top Central Bank job by Ranil Wickremesinghe began the downfall of that government. Then, the second and much bigger Treasury bond scam was perpetrated, in late March 2016. The then President Sirisena delayed the appointment of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (P CoI) till late January 2017. The civil society largely remained silent on the issue thereby giving away their sinister motives. The P CoI that probed the unprecedented scams comprised Supreme Court Judges Kankani Tantri Chitrasiri, Prasanna Sujeewa Jayawardena and retired deputy Auditor General Velupillai Kandasamy.
In a way, the UNP paid a huge price for strategic miscalculations and mistakes. The UNP would never have suffered an irreversible humiliating defeat, it experienced at the August 5 general election, if not for those wrongful miscalculations on their audaciousness to think that they could get away with anything by pretending to be the clean guys backed by the ‘democratic’ West to the hilt. Thereby, the UNP allowed the unprecedented rapid growth of an Opposition movement, led by twice President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s intervention, in 2016, by way of his own civil society grouping Viyathmaga, initially unsettled some sections in the Opposition grouping. But gradually, the wartime Defence Secretary brought the situation under his control and by early 2019 was in a strong position to secure the Opposition candidature.
A section of the civil society grouping, affiliated with the UNP et al pushed for the then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya nomination as their presidential candidate. They also tried to disqualify SLPP candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa by moving court against him claiming highly contentious citizenship issue. They almost succeed. If not for the last minute Supreme Court decision, in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s favour,
Chamal Rajapaksa would have contested the 2019 presidential poll. The threat was so high; the SLPP had no option but to field Chamal Rajapaksa, in his capacity as a sitting lawmaker.
The NGO cabal played a high profile role in the government strategy. So much so, the government accommodated civil society members, even in the Geneva-led accountability process. Many an eyebrow was raised when Executive Director of the National Peace Council (NPC) Dr. Jehan Perera accompanied the government delegation to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council sessions.
The then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe packed the Consultations Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CRFRM) with prominent civil society activists. Executive Director of Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, functioned as its Secretary. In its report, the CTFRM, headed by Manouri Muttetuwegama, recommended the inclusion of foreign judges in war crimes courts to be established in terms of the 30/1 Geneva Resolution, co-sponsored by Sri Lanka, in Oct 2015. The CTFRM included Gamini Viyangoda, Visaka Dharmadasa, Shantha Abhimanasingham, PC, Prof. Sitralega Maunaguru, K.W. Janaranjana, Prof. Daya Somasundaram, Dr. Farzana Haniffa, Prof. Gameela Samarasinha and Mirak Raheem.
The writer in the same breath strongly believes that inclusion of foreign judges, as well as participation of foreign personnel, in the accountability process, is a prerequisite for successful reconciliation process.
However, in addition to those unsubstantiated allegations, on which Geneva adopted accountability resolution, subsequently revealed British wartime dispatches from its Colombo High Commission, too, should be examined. Lord Naseby, in Oct 2017, disclosed the hitherto confidential dispatches which disputed the very basis of the Geneva resolution.
Most of those who had been involved in various civil society initiatives, over the years, worked overtime to thwart the Rajapaksas. Sometimes, they contradicted themselves. Many an eyebrow was raised when some members of the civil society, on behalf of the UNP, demanded that Field Marshal Fonseka be appointed the Law and Order Minister. Among them were Ven. Dambara Amila and Saman Ratnapriya Silva, who was lucky to enter parliament several weeks before the dissolution, on March 2, 2020. They quite conveniently and shamelessly forgot how they and those near and dear to them accused Fonseka’s army of war crimes.
UNP down to 249,435 countrywide votes
Whatever the setbacks, the civil society sustained its project. However, the outcome of the general election, close on the heels of presidential election debacle, ripped apart the UNP. The party’s failure to at least do better than the JVP-led Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB), and the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), in countrywide rankings, reflected the actual ground situation. Reduced to just one National List Member of Parliament, the UNP lacked even a basic strategy to address the crisis. The UNP at least couldn’t quickly reach a consensus on whom to appoint to its National List slot. The move to bring back former Speaker, 80-year- old Karu Jayasuriya, highlighted the absence of a cohesive strategy. The UNP continued its silly games, with some proposing to continue with Wickremesinghe for six months, pending determination on its new Leader.
Would anyone really want to take over the UNP at this moment? Having lost the presidential, by a staggering 1.4 mn votes, the UNP ended up in fifth position at the Aug 5, 2020 general election. The overwhelming SLPP victory is not really an achievement on its own. The UNP did everything possible to inflict the worst ever defeat on itself. The UNP’s destructive strategy seemed quite deliberate and fashioned to cause maximum possible damage. Shall we call it Divine retribution?
The SLPP should understand why the voting public handed it such a massive victory. The SLPP polled 6,853,693 (59.89%), the SJB 2,771,984 (23.98%), JJB 445,958 (3.84 %), ITAK 327,168 (2.82%), UNP 249,435 (2.15%) and Ahila Illankai Thamil Congress 67,786 (0.58%). There were altogether 353 registered political parties, and independent groups, in the fray. The independent group 9 that contested Trincomalee was placed last in terms of the number of votes obtained. It received just 15 votes.
The new government and political parties need to overhaul the entire political system soon. Outside assistance is not required at all. Quite corrupt continuing practice of fielding proxies by way of independent groups and privilege status enjoyed by former lawmakers to contest presidential poll without hindrance should be done away with. The Election Commission should take the lead in this project. Having repeatedly said that unnecessary large number of presidential candidates, as well as extraordinarily high number of contesting parties and independent groups, increased the burden on taxpayers, the EC should take tangible remedial measures. Thirty-five candidates contested the last presidential election. Of them, 15 were former members of parliament.
Over the years, the number of contestants, at presidential elections, gradually increased as all sorts of people joined the fray. Sri Lanka cannot continue to squander public funds on foolish endeavours. The national economy is in such a mess, unless tangible measures are taken to stop waste, corruption and irregularities, there’ll be far reaching consequences. Hence the annihilation of the political Opposition certainly shouldn’t be a reason for the SLPP to be reckless, under any circumstances. Let us hope the SLPP conducts affairs of the State prudently and attend to the grievances of the public without delay.
Perhaps, the SLPP should be cautious that it wouldn’t do anything to warrant a Presidential Commission of Inquiry in the future. That’ll be a challenge as big as securing a two-thirds majority in parliament. Hope all concerned keep in mind that the SLPP fell short of five seats to reach the magical two-thirds majority, and the target had to be achieved with the support of four parties.
Midweek Review
Pahalgam massacre, Indian denial of Trump claims and Sri Lanka’s triumph over LTTE

There hadn’t been a previous instance of India having to contradict a sitting US President, literally, to his face. But, the swift Indian rejection of President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate in the renewed Indo-Pakistan conflict over flashpoint Jammu and Kashmir underscored India’s longstanding national policy that Kashmir wouldn’t involve any third party, under any circumstances.
US President Donald Trump’s claim that he warned both India and Pakistan that there would be significant increase in trade if they agreed on an immediate ceasefire was rejected by India. Pakistan appreciated the US President’s initiative.
Responding to Indian Premier Narendra Modi’s strongly worded statement on May 12, Pakistan, while declaring its backing for a “peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people, reiterated their support for President Trump’s efforts aimed at the resolution of this dispute, which remains a source of instability in South Asia.”
For whatever reasons, Modi wanted to be in the high company of white Western powers and jumped headlong into being a member of the US-led quad to rub it into China without realising that the West only wanted to use India against Beijing and there was no quid pro quo in the event of an unforeseeable need for help by New Delhi. Had he not been so cussed to Chinese, Beijing would have been a friend- in-need whatever their differences of the past.
India, however, was explicit in its response to President Trump’s cheap shot that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. In the wake of the humiliating Indian rejection, the US was compelled to call for direct communication between India and Pakistan.
In spite of the Indian blunt denial, President Trump, like so many of his other wild claims in recent weeks, on how he has got lucrative trade deal offers from many countries advantageous to Washington, reiterated his preposterous claim with regard to the ceasefire, nuclear escalation and trade when he addressed the US military, based in Qatar. India, in no uncertain terms, has denied President Trump’s repeated claims of nuclear escalation.
Close on the heels of the now-rejected claims regarding the ceasefire, nuclear escalation and increased trade, President Donald Trump again surprised India with another unsubstantiated declaration when he asserted, at a business forum in Qatar, that India had offered the United States a trade deal with “literally zero tariffs”.
Responding to President Trump’s claim, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar declared that the ongoing negotiations were complex and far from final. Having to contradict a sitting US President is no easy task.
If India found the US propagating a narrative of its own problematic to counter, one can understand Sri Lanka’s plight in countering Western propaganda projects targeting it. But, India, unlike Colombo, swiftly and decisively set the record straight thereby prevented the US from disseminating a false narrative.
The Indian High Commission in Colombo recently reacted strongly to the Tribune report, headlined “India removes its top military spy after RAW leaks”, reproduced in the May 05 edition of The Island. Having faulted The Island for carrying the said factually incorrect news item on page 02 without a fact check, the Indian HC reminded us of the devastating 2019 Easter Sunday carnage here caused by terrorism. As expected the Indian HC statement made no reference to terrorism caused by India in Sri Lanka in the early ’80s. Terrorism sponsored by India bled Sri Lanka till May 2009.
India, too, paid a heavy price. The Indian-led destabilisation project almost overwhelmed Sri Lanka. India simultaneously conducted a proxy war while spearheading high profile diplomatic efforts meant to advance its own interests. The Indian intervention here in the ’80s should be examined keeping in mind their extremely close relationship with the then Soviet Union.
Universities of global terrorism
Prime Minister Modi’s May 12th address to the nation explained India’s stand on Pakistan vis-à-vis what he called terrorism. The Pahalgam massacre carried out on April 22, 2025, brought the country together and the armed forces were authorised to wipe out terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Modi declared: “Terrorist bases, like Bahawalpur and Muridke, are universities of global terrorism. The big terrorist attacks of the world, be it 9/11, be it London Tube bombings, or the big terrorist attacks which have happened in India in the last many decades their roots are somehow connected to these terrorist hideouts. The terrorists had wiped out the Sindoor of our sisters and India responded by destroying their terrorist headquarters. More than 100 dreaded terrorists have been killed in these attacks by India. Many terrorist leaders were roaming freely in Pakistan for the last two and a half to three decades who used to conspire against India. India killed them in one stroke.”
Of course there was no reference to Sri Lanka. The English rendering of the Indian leader’s original speech, made in Hindi, conveniently left out Sri Lanka though there cannot be a better example than Sri Lanka to highlight the successful eradication of terrorism here through military means.
Modi joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1987, the year India forced Sri Lanka to accept the deployment of the Indian Army here. One of the key objectives was to supervise the swift disarming of separatist Tamil groups that were fully sponsored by them. The Indian destabilisation project was meant to compel Sri Lanka to forgo its right to deal with terrorists militarily. A case in point is the Indian demand to call off ‘Operation Liberation’ aimed at clearing Vadamarachchi. India deployed its Air Forces across the Palk Straits in late June 1987 to rescue Prabhakaran and finalise an agreement that suited their overall objectives. Five years later Prabhakaran ordered the assassination of Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi who deployed the Indian Air Force to save Prabhakaran from certain death at the hands of the Sri Lanka Army. Had that happened, the India-created terrorist project could have collapsed. Thousands of lives, including that of Gandhi, and over 1,300 Indian soldiers, could have been saved and a sea-borne attack on the Maldives wouldn’t have materialised.
Premier Modi, too, contradicted President Trump’s claims of direct US role in the halt to Indian offensive action. Modi declared that the suspension of their retaliatory action was the result of the Pakistan Army reaching out to the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), India.
Premier Modi’s declaration that their greatest strength is India’s unity against all forms of terrorism. “This is certainly not the era of war but this is also not the era of terrorism. Zero tolerance against terrorism is the guarantee for a better world.”
Obviously that hadn’t been India’s position during the Congress reign in the 1980s. India owed Sri Lanka an apology, at least now. Modi’s India should set the record straight, particularly against the backdrop of Western powers pursuing an anti-Sri Lanka campaign.
The anti-Sri Lanka project has taken a new turn with the unveiling of the Tamil genocide monument in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The monument is widely reported to have been dedicated to the memory of Tamils killed in the war. The unveiling of the monument coincided with the preparations for commemorative events to mark, what the interested parties called, the Mullivaikkal massacre – 40,000 according to the highly exaggerated hatchet job of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts (PoE) that inquired into military operations conducted in the Vanni theatre.
A section of the media quoted Mayor of Brampton Patrick Brown as having told the monument unveiling ceremony: “Genocide deniers, you are not welcome in Brampton, you are not welcome in Canada. Go back to Colombo.” Brown surely knows how to inspire Tamils living in his area. The Canadian media reported that about 12,000 Canadians of Sri Lankan origin live in the Brampton area.
Canada has some nerve to rake up such unsubstantiated claims against Sri Lanka despite so much innocent blood of natives there on its own hands from its colonial past. Even if we just go back to as recently as the mid-1990s when a growing outcry there forced them to close down for good church-run schools after finding remains of several thousand native children in unmarked graves on grounds of those schools that were used to ‘civilise’ them.
Tamil victims
Those who propagate the lie about deliberate massacre of Tamils during the last phase of war that was brought to a successful conclusion on May 18, 2009, conveniently forget that India launched the Sri Lanka terrorism project way back in early ’80s. Over the years various interested parties, both here and abroad, gave unsubstantiated claims regarding the number of dead. But their focus was always on those killed fighting for the LTTE. Let us remind the likes of Patrick Brown who spotlighted the fact that thousands of Tamils were killed by Tamils fighting for supremacy in the Northern and Eastern regions during the conflict.
(1) Members of various Tamil terrorist groups killed in intra-group fighting.
(2) Those killed in fighting between/among Tamil groups sponsored by India
(3) Members of Tamil groups killed in fighting Sri Lankan military and police
(4) Tamil youth killed during weapons training in India and transfer to and from Tamil Nadu via sea
(5) Terrorists killed by rival groups during their stay in India. The killing of 13 Sri Lankans, including EPRLF leader K. Padmanabha in Madras (now Chennai) in June 1990, about three months after the Indian military pulled out from Sri Lanka, exposed New Delhi’s failure to neutralise the LTTE. Their next major target was the assassination of Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi in the following year.
(6) LTTE terrorists killed by the Indian military in the Northern and Eastern regions
(7) LTTE terrorists killed during confrontations with the Indian Navy/Coast Guard
(8) Members of PLOTE (People’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) killed by Indian forces deployed to avert Sri Lankan terrorist attack on the Maldives
(9) Tamil National Army (TNA), a group that had been hastily established by India ahead of the Indian military pullout from Sri Lanka in early 1990 to protect the EPRLF puppet administration, suffered significant loss of life as a result of LTTE operations facilitated by Sri Lanka. That was the period, May 1989 to June 1990, when slain President Ranasinghe Premadasa played ball with Velupillai Prabhakaran
(10) LTTE cadres killed on the orders of Velupillai Prabhakaran. Gopalswamy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya, whom the writer met at Koliyakulam, near Omanthai, in early January 1990, was the senior most LTTEer executed on the orders of Prabhakaran. Having accused Mahattaya of betraying the LTTE’s cause to India, Prabhakaran demanded his surrender and carried out his execution.
(11) Indian law enforcement authorities killed those who had been involved in the heinous LTTE plot to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. Those who had been demanding justice for Tamils killed during the conflict do not talk of members of that community who perished in India following Gandhi’s assassination.
(12) Tamils who paid the supreme sacrifice fighting for the Sri Lankan government.
(13) Deaths among the LTTE fighting cadre following the breakup of the group in 2004 that eventually paved the way for the armed forces’ success in the north.
(14) The LTTE deployed thousands of children for combat. The number of children killed due to battlefield deployment remains unknown. Those who shed copious tears for terrorists must be reminded that until the Sri Lankan military eradicated the LTTE, Velupillai Prabhakaran continued the despicable practice of forcible recruitment of children.
Elimination of Tamil political leadership
The Tamil Diaspora believe that the world can be deceived with the blatant lie that all Tamils who had been killed during the conflict were civilians. If their lies were accepted, people from the moon must have fought for the LTTE.
There is no doubt that Tamils – men, women and children who had nothing to do with the LTTE or other Tamil terrorist groups that entered the political mainstream during President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s tenure – perished in government military action. There had been serious human rights violations. There is no point in claiming ‘zero’ casualties. That claim is stupid and the government shouldn’t have resorted to such foolish propaganda projects.
Immediately after the government declared victory over the LTTE on May 18, 2009, it should have tendered an apology to the innocent Tamil speaking people killed due to military action. The government should have explained the efforts made over the years to reach a consensus with Tamil terrorist groups with the direct involvement of India. Unfortunately, the war-winning government pathetically failed in its responsibility. President Mahinda Rajapaksa gravely erred in his refusal to make representations to the UN PoE. Had that happened, Sri Lanka could have explained the circumstances leading to the war in August 2006 and avoided falling victim to hatchet jobs done by UN bodies in support of Western agendas.
Those who had been propagating Tamil genocide narrative deliberately forget how the LTTE and other Tamil groups killed elected representatives of Tamil speaking people. They should be ashamed for playing politics with slain Tamil politicians. Have you ever heard of LTTE sympathisers questioning the assassination of Tamil political leader and former opposition leader Appapillai Amirthalingam along with ex-Jaffna MP Vettivelu Yogeswaran on July 13, 1989 at a rented house in Colombo 07.
Yogeswaran’s wife, Sarojini was shot five times at her residence near Jaffna on May 17, 1998. The LTTE assassinated her because she accepted the post of Jaffna Mayor. The LTTE killed indiscriminately. Sarojini Yogeswaran was killed as the LTTE couldn’t stomach Sri Lanka’s efforts to restore normalcy in the Jaffna peninsula.
Many people tend to forget that the Jaffna peninsula and the nearby islands were brought under government control in 1995 during Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s tenure as the President. The TULF decision to contest the Jaffna Municipal Council election on January 29, 1998, infuriated the LTTE. The TULF’s move weakened the LTTE’s position. Political process always frightened the LTTE.
The writer covered the Jaffna district local government elections conducted on January 29, 1998. The TULF contested only the Jaffna MC and Waligamam (north) Pradeshiya Sabha out of 17 local government authorities
Those who organised high profile events in honour of the LTTE dead must make a genuine effort to identify and formulate a list of Tamils – members of rival groups and politicians killed during the conflict. And a separate list of forcibly conscripted children. If Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is so concerned about Tamils, he can easily check why those 12,000 Sri Lankan Tamils ended up in his area. Did they flee Sri Lanka armed forces, Indian military, or the LTTE? An attempt should be made to identify those who had fought for the LTTE or other Tamil groups living therein.
‘Forgotten Sri Lanka’s exiled victims’
Those who had been accusing Sri Lanka of, what they called, enforced disappearances during and after the conclusion of the war in May 2009, refuse to acknowledge thousands of ex-terrorists (of LTTE and other groups) who live overseas. Refusal on the part of Western governments to share information with Sri Lanka has deprived the country of an opportunity to address accusations of disappearances.
Sometime ago, an expensive survey carried out by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), affiliated to the Foundation of Human Rights in South Africa, revealed ex-LTTE cadres taking refuge in western countries. The survey was titled ‘Forgotten Sri Lanka’s exiled victims.’
The release of the report in June 2016 coincided with the commencement of the on-going 32 sessions of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The report inadvertently revealed the existence of clandestine networks, facilitating Sri Lankans of Tamil origin, including former members of the LTTE, reaching Europe, through illegal means.
The study disclosed that LTTE personnel, including those who had been with Shanmugalingam Sivashankar alias Pottu Amman’s dreaded intelligence service, had secured citizenship in European countries, including the UK.
The report dealt with information obtained from 75 Tamils, living in the UK, France, Switzerland and Norway. Almost all of them had fled Sri Lanka after the conclusion of the war, in May, 2009. The vast majority of interviews had been conducted in London. However, an ITJP bid to include some of those ex-LTTE cadres, based in Germany, had gone awry. The report claimed that the targeted group declined to participate in the process, in protest against the role of the international community in supporting the transitional justice process in Sri Lanka.
Surprisingly, ITJP hadn’t bothered about those who took refuge in India during the conflict and post-conflict period.
A group of human rights experts, international prosecutors, investigators and transitional justice experts, who had previously served the United Nations (UN) International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), produced the report under the guidance of Yasmin Sooka, one of the three persons on UNSG Ban Ki-moon’s PoE on Sri Lanka. Sooka teamed up with Marzuki Darusman and Steven R. Ratner to produce a Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. Sooka functions as the executive director of the Foundation as well as ITJP
According to the report: “She is a former member of the South African & the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and was a legal advisor to Ban Ki-moon on Sri Lanka. She was the Soros inaugural Chair at the School of Public Policy and recently sat on the Panel investigating sexual violence by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic.”
The writer sought a clarification from UNSG’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, regarding Sooka’s tenure as a Legal Advisor to UNSG on Sri Lanka. The Island received the following response from Haq: “Yasmin Sooka has been on high level panels, including on Sri Lanka, but she has not been the legal adviser to the Secretary-General.”
Unfortunately, Sri Lanka never really bothered to conduct a comprehensive investigation into unsubstantiated allegations taking into consideration all available facts. Thereby Sri Lanka deprived itself an opportunity to set the record straight, even 17 years after the conclusion of the conflict.
Wartime GoC of the celebrated 58 Division Shavendra Silva, who retired on Dec. 31, 2024, after serving the military for over four decades on the eve of 16th anniversary of triumph over the LTTE, squarely blamed successive governments of failing to counter war crimes accusations. In his exclusive interview with Derana anchor Chathura Alwis the Gajaba Regiment veteran held the governments, including the war-winning Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, of failing to clear the armed forces of false allegations.
Isn’t it an indictment on the entire political party leadership of this country?
Midweek Review
Jairam Ramesh’s “THE LIGHT OF ASIA: the poem that defined THE BUDDHA” – II

(Continued from Monday 12th May 2025)
Light of Asia’s ‘stunning impact in Ceylon’ forgotten and the ‘Uncrowned King’ buried
One of the dozen of books that Nehru got from his father, when he was imprisoned in a Lucknow jail by the British in 1922, was a copy of The Light of Asia. Eighteen years later, in February 1940, Nehru himself sent his daughter (Indira), who was convalescing in a hospital in Switzerland, ‘Arnold’s two little books The Light of Asia and The Song Celestial’ to keep her company’. (The Song Celestial was Edwin Arnold’s 1885 English translation of the Sanskrit language ‘Bhagavad Gita’ or literally ‘Song of the Lord’. Arnold’s choice of ‘Celestial’ as an English equivalent to Sanskrit ‘Bhagawad’ in the title reflects his deep insight into the Hindu sacred text which, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada called, in 1984, ‘a definitive guide to the science of self-realization’.)
No doubt, The Light of Asia was Edwin Arnold’s most inspired poetic work. He drew upon many previously existing sources and his own personal interactions with the scholars as well as the ordinary people of India whom he loved. The inscription set up at the university chapel at Oxford where his ashes were deposited after his death contained the following information: Born June 10th, 1832, Died March 24th 1904. Newdigate Prizeman. (While a student at Oxford he won this prestigious prize for his poem ‘The Feast of Belshazzar’) These lines were inscribed there, too:
‘He found his sympathy with – Eastern religious thought
Inspiration for his great –
Poetical gifts.
’
Arnold had a strong moral character, a sharp intellect, a deep commitment to family and work, and meticulously cultivated social graces that enabled him to navigate interactions with people of high society as well as the common masses.That is why Jairam describes him as ‘a quintessential Victorian in every way’. He was a dedicated servant of the Empire, who was compassionate towards the subject people; he believed the British imperial system to be a protector and promoter of civilisation. A polyglot of rare ability, he was conversant in at least ten foreign languages (and indeed quite knowledgeable in some of them): Greek, Latin, Arabic, Turkish, French, German, Japanese (His third wife Tama Kurokawa, born in 1869 and hence less than half his age, was from Japan), Hebrew, Persian, Sanskrit and Marathi. Arnold’s remarkable multilingual capabilities stood him in good stead in serving the Empire in the cultural sphere through his translations between languages, thereby supporting mutual understanding among imperial subjects of different linguistic and religious cultures.
In a passing reference to Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia, reputed Indian historian A. L. Basham, in his 1954 book ‘The Wonder that was India’, mentioned that it was based on the Lalitavistara (a Mahayana Sutra in Sanskrit that describes the life of Gautama Buddha from his descent from Tushita heaven to his first sermon in the Deer Park at Sarnath near Varanasi or Baranas Nuwara as it is known among Sinhala speaking Buddhists. A different scholarly proposal mooted in 1960 was that Arnold’s principal source for his epic poem was Professor Samuel Beal’s translation of the Abhinishkramana Sutra (1875) combined with lesser borrowings from Spence Hardy and Arnold’s firsthand experience of Buddhism and his life in India. The year 1972 saw the emergence of yet another conclusion according to which he drew upon the knowledge he had gathered before 1879 by reading books, and also through his contact with sources of Theravada Buddhism in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
There is lexical evidence of Arnold’s probable contact with Sinhala literary sources in the book. This is my supposition based on the fact that he was a language genius. Although Arnold had not been to Sri Lanka before 1886, he definitely had learned some Sinhala (though Jairam doesn’t mention this). When I read The Light of Asia as a teenager, I was fascinated by the fact that Edwin Arnold uses a few words of Sinhala (my native tongue) as substitutes for the Pali words which the context demands, for maintaining the metrical consistency of the lines, such as ‘sakwal’ or universes (for Pali ‘cakkavala’), ‘Seriyut’ (for the Pali name ‘Sariputta’) “Mugalan’ (for the Pali name ‘Moggallana’, ‘gow’ for Pali ‘gavuta’, and ‘dasa sil’ (for Pali ‘dasa sila). Jairam probably has no knowledge of Sinhala to have detected these Sinhalised Pali terms.
But Jairam’s apparent unfamiliarity with Sinhala has not been an impediment to his understanding of ‘the stunning impact in Ceylon’ that Arnold’s epic poem generated there, a mark of which was the annual ‘Light of Asia oratory contest’ for school children that had been conducted in Colombo for a long time. Incidentally, Jairam’s mention of this event brought to my mind the late Lakshman Kadirgamar. My article is a memorial tribute paid to him on the Vesak Day that, in Sri Lanka, fell on May 12, 2025. Though he was born into a traditional Christian family and had remained a Christian for most of his life until, in his senior years, he became an interfaith person who was, nevertheless, deeply inclined towards Buddhism (as his daughter Ajita says in her biography of her father ‘The Cake that Was Baked at Home’ (2015).
Ajita Kadirgamar mentions a little-known fact about her father’s school days at Trinity College, Kandy, which is that he took pride in having won the Light of Asia contest organised by the Colombo Young Men’s Buddhist Association as a student of that Christian school. She gives some information about the contest. The particular contest was inaugurated under the leadership of the then Governor of Ceylon Herbert Stanley in 1925 and was ‘dedicated to developing oratory skills in English and inculcating Buddhist ethics and values among the younger generation of the country’. The contestants were required to recite some verses from the Edwin Arnold classic ‘Light of Asia’ and give an explanation in English in their own words. “Thus”, Ajita adds, “one sees that LK’s great interest in Buddhism began while still a schoolboy and continued throughout his lifetime to be a topic close to his heart”. This interactional contact with The Light of Asia, as in the case of Swami Vivekananda, Anagarika Dharmapala, and many other renowned personalities of the past earlier mentioned in this article, must have had its characteristic developmental impact on the formation of Lakshman Kadirgamar’s noble personality. It was not for nothing that his schoolmates at Trinity called him ‘P of P’ ‘Personification of Personality’ as Ajita mentions in her book on her father. On his brutal assassination in 2005 at the age of 73, he came to be celebrated by journalists as ‘the Uncrowned King of Sri Lanka’, as the Editor of The Island newspaper eulogised him on his death in a front page editorial as another journalist named Arjuna Hulugalle later remembered in an anecdote (that Ajita records on pp.178-9). “To many he (Lakshman Kadirgamar) was also ‘the noblest son of Sri Lanka in recent times”, Arjuna Hulugalle added. That exalted image of Kadirgamar epitomises the influence that The Light of Asia had on the thinking minds of the culturally literate intelligent Sri Lankan youth of his time.
Ajita also records something that she heard from Ajith Samaranayake, a veteran journalist and newspaper editor (who was himself no more among the living at the time she was writing ‘The Cake that …’) about her father’s humility and generosity. Samaranayake was one of the journalists included in the entourage that accompanied Kadirgamar on his first official tour abroad as the newly appointed Foreign Affairs Minister in president Chandrika Bandaranayake’s government in 1994. They were on a visit to India. Kadirgamar was accommodated in the Hyderabad House, the Government of India’s State Guest House, along with High Commissioner for India designate Mangala Moonasinghe, and Jayantha Dhanapala (formerly of the UN, and later to become the Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat). Kadirgamar arranged for the journalists also to be accommodated and to have their meals in the same hotel. What was more, on his express request, the Indian government put an Air Force helicopter at their disposal for visiting sacred sites associated with the Buddha, including Buddhagaya (Bodh Gaya). This was a double privilege (as Ajita says) for the state visitors from Sri Lanka, for Mangala Moonasinghe was a descendant of Anagarika Dharmapala, well known in Sri Lanka and other Buddhist countries like Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, China, Japan, etc., for having made concerted efforts with the help of the likes of Sir Edwin Arnold to reclaim the sacred Buddhagaya site for the global Buddhists.
In fact, The Light of Asia author was the virtual progenitor of the very idea of reclaiming Bodh Gaya for world Buddhists. The famous Panadura Vadaya (Panadura Debate) between some members of the local Christian clergy and some Buddhist monks in 1873, in which the leading debater on the Buddhist side, a learned Buddhist monk by the name of Migettuwatte Gunananda Thero, well versed in English and Latin, in addition to Sinhala, Pali and Sanskrit, who, with his advanced knowledge of Buddhism and the Bible, and his superior oratorical skills, convincingly beat his Catholic opponents. The news of the debate was widely reported in newspapers circulated in Europe and America. This drew the attention of orientalist scholars and theosophists in the West like the American Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (a veteran of the American Civil War of 1861-65), Madame Blavatsky, and others, to the fact that Buddhist monks were challenging intrusive anti-Buddhist Christian missionary activity in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The arrival of Olcott, Blavatsky, and others in Ceylon in 1880 and their passionate activism accelerated the pace of the burgeoning local Buddhist revivalist movement. Sixteen-year-old David Hewavitarana joined them, originally as their translator. In 1885, David changed his name to Dharmapala and took the Buddhist religious vow of ‘homelessness’ with his parents’ permission and became known as Anagarika Dharmapala (Dharmapala the Homeless). (To be concluded)
by Rohana R. Wasala
Midweek Review
Journalistic Brilliance Joins Humanity

For the late Louis Benedict who blazed a quiet trail,
In the fast paced Sri Lankan newspaper world,
Journalism was not just a job but a great calling;
An elixir which gave his life full meaning,
And when he penned his thoughts,
The results were things of exceeding beauty,
Because with clear-water clarity did he unravel,
The most complex of realities, so much so,
If there ever was a Golden Pen, it was Louis’,
But name and fame sat lightly on him,
For in humility, he took after ‘The Man from Galilee’.
By Lynn Ockersz
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