Midweek Review
Celebrating independence under a cloud

Geneva sessions: Lawmakers’ role in Western strategy
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Sri Lanka celebrates her 73rd Independence Day tomorrow (4) under a cloud, with a section of the international community pushing for intervention over unsubstantiated war crimes allegations. The grouping has the support of three political parties, represented in Parliament, as well as some civil society organizations. Among the signatories to a petition, dated January 15, 2021 that sought the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council’s intervention was the Bishop of Trincomalee. The Catholic Bishop’s Conference owed an explanation whether the decision-making body approved the Trincomalee Bishop’s move.
Strangely none of the political parties, represented in Parliament, publicly opposed the Tamil parties stand. Their failure strengthened the moves against the country.
Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch backed the petition. They urged the UNHRC, at its Feb-March 2021 session, to implement the punitive recommendations of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, in respect of Sri Lanka.
Last year, the US-based Human Rights Watch was nailed in style by a female anchor of the German national TV Deutsche Welle (DW) when she questioned the head of HRW, Kenneth Roth about them having taken money from a billionaire Saudi contractor not to report on a certain subject. Of course he claimed it was a mistake and the money had been returned. Leading Western media organisations, other than DW, refrained from raising the issue.
And HRW is also quite notorious for regularly raking up, internationally, the arrest here of a Lankan Muslim lawyer in connection with the Easter Sunday carnage even after the matter was placed before the highest court in the country.
US State Department spokesman, Ned Price declared recently the US was carefully reviewing Bachelet’s report (or report drafted by Washington for her) that targeted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s administration in addition to seeking action against war crimes, allegedly committed during the war. The report basically endorsed the Tamil parties’ stand.
Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion in May 2009. In the absence of a cohesive plan to defend the country on the diplomatic front, treachery and lack of political will, the Western powers moved the UNHRC against Sri Lanka.
The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government cooperated with the Western powers. Although Sirisena repeatedly denied backing the co-sponsorship of the Geneva Resolution 30/1 in Oct 2015, he remained very much committed to it during his presidential term. SLFP leader Sirisena is now an MP, elected on the SLPP ticket. He represents Polonnaruwa. Sirisena will probably be in the first row along with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and other dignitaries at the Independence Day celebrations in Colombo.
Sri Lanka allowed the Geneva situation to deteriorate over the years by turning a blind eye to developments, both here and abroad. Parliament never ever examined the accountability issues. Sri Lanka’s co-sponsorship of the Geneva Resolution was never properly taken up in Parliament. All political parties, including the SLPP, now in power, play politics with the war crimes issue.
Sirisena’s stand
In mid-Nov 2017, the then President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Sirisena, explained his position, pertaining to post-war accountability issues, and alleged that attempts were being made by his opponents to exploit the situation, at the expense of political stability.
Sirisena made his position clear when he addressed the Army top brass at the auditorium of the Army Hospital, Narahenpita, as his Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera delivered the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration’s third budget. Sirisena’s decision to skip the budget speech highlighted the crisis with the UNP-led coalition against the backdrop of the massive Treasury bond scams, perpetrated in Feb 2015 and March 2016.
Among the audience were the then Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva (now Commander of the Army and Chief of Defence Staff) and Director General, Infantry, Maj. Gen. Chagie Gallage (retired), both of the Gajaba Regiment.
In his address, Sirisena referred to some Western powers refusing to issue visas to both retired and serving officers on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations. Sirisena emphasized the pivotal importance of rectifying the situation. The Commander-in-Chief called for tangible measures to change the Western governments’ decision. Sirisena, however, did absolutely nothing during the rest of his term, after uttering those lofty objectives.
Unfortunately, the situation remains the same, in spite of the change of government in Nov 2019. The recently released UNHRC’s report revealed the failure on the part of Sri Lanka to address any of the issues raised therein.
Fonseka’s predicament
Sirisena was reacting to reports pertaining to the Western powers refusing to issue visas to both retired and serving officers. Sirisena refrained from mentioning names. However, war-winning Army Chief, the then Gen. Sarath Fonseka, now Field Marshal, is among those who had been affected.
Field Marshal Fonseka, in September, 2017, alleged that he had been denied a visa to attend the UNGA because of unresolved war crime allegations against the Army. Sri Lanka’s most successful Army Commander said he was due to travel to New York but he was the only one in the Sri Lankan delegation not issued a visa by the US. Fonseka said he could not accompany President Sirisena to the UNGA.
In the heat of political cockfights, having caused irreparable damage by accusing his own Army of battlefield executions during the final phase of the assault in May 2009, Field Marshal Fonseka has repeatedly underscored the pivotal importance of a comprehensive investigation into accountability issues to clear Sri Lanka’s name.
Some senior officers, including those, who had never been in actual combat or directly involved in military operations, had been denied visas.
There is no need to remind the current Sri Lankan leadership that imposition of travel restrictions is based on the outcome of UN accusations. As long as Sri Lanka is unable to disprove UN accusations, travel restrictions will remain on those who had risked their lives for the country. Among those affected is General Shavendra Silva. The US issued restrictions on the first GOC of the celebrated fighting formation, the 58 Division in Feb 2020.
Gallage’s dilemma
In the wake of the recent damning Bachelet’s report, the writer sought retired Maj. Gen. Gallage’s opinion on the war crimes issue and his own dilemma. Gallage said that no one in authority bothered even to inquire from him when he was denied the Australian visa. The denial of visa was nothing but an affront to the war-winning Army, the one-time strategist said, condemning the failure on the part of Sri Lanka to set the record straight. Gallage said that he had been only to the Middle East since 2015. There cannot be a better example than that of Maj. Gen. Gallage, a key strategist who had earned the admiration of officers and men over the years, to highlight Sri Lanka’s pathetic failure on the ‘Geneva front.’
Australia deprived Gallage of an opportunity to visit his brother, an Australian citizen, after the change of government, in January 2015. Australia found fault with the Gajaba veteran for being in command of the 59 Division, from May 7, 2009, to July 20, 2009. The Australian High Commission in Colombo asserted that a visa couldn’t be issued as the Division, under his command, had certainly committed war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection has extensively cited the Report of the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) on Sri Lanka (OISL) to refuse Gallage a visa. On the basis of the OISL report, Geneva adopted Resolution 30/1 to pave the way for foreign judges in a domestic judicial mechanism, though the UNP still defends its decision to co-sponsor the Resolution.
Geneva released the OISL report on Sept. 16, 2015. Sri Lanka co-sponsored the Geneva Resolution 30/1 on Oct. 1, 2015, in spite of Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, rejecting the draft resolution. The government dismissed Ambassador Aryasinha’s concerns.
President Sirisena never intervened in the UNP’s strategy. He conveniently turned a blind eye to the project. The SLPP, in spite of SLFP treachery, had no qualms in accommodating the much weaker party in a coalition at the last parliamentary election for political expediency. The SLFP parliamentary group comprises 13 elected on the SLPP ticket and one on the SLFP ticket.
Australia also cited the UN PoE report on accountability issues released on March 31, 2011. The PoE accused Sri Lanka of massacring over 40,000 civilians and depriving the Vanni population of their basic needs. Canberra also cited a statement attributed to the then GOC 58 Division Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) real time footage had been made available to ground commanders marking targets, to justify its (Australia’s) decision. On the basis of Maj. Gen. Silva’s statement, it alleged that Maj. Gen. Gallage had been aware of artillery strikes on the third no fire zone. Can there be any justification in the Australian assessment? There hadn’t been specific allegations against Gallage before.
Contrary to the Australian assessment, the deployment of Israeli built UAVs was meant to direct accurate attacks on the enemy. Australia has accused Gallage of planning, implementing and supporting war crimes and crimes against humanity. Australia also held him responsible, as a serving officer, for failing to prevent troops, under his command, from committing war crimes. The Australian report, while identifying Gallage as ‘potential controversial visit’, alleged that the SLA committed atrocities, even after the conclusion of the war. Gallage has been screened by Australian authorities following him seeking a visa for a month long visit. The Australian stand on this visa matter meant that it believed the Sri Lankan Army carried out systematic attacks against Tamil civilians. Australia has identified the 59 Division, credited with wresting control of the LTTE Mullaitivu bastion, in late January 2009, as one of the formations responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Formed in Jan, 2008, the 59 Division, deployed on the Eastern flank, aka the Weli Oya front, fought under then Brig. Nandana Udawatte’s command, for one year, to cross the Anandakulam and Nagacholai forest reserves, which served as natural defences for the LTTE Mullaitivu stronghold.
Over the years, the US and some other countries have denied visas to senior commanders, on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations. In the case of Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe (now retired), the US refused to accommodate him on a programme as he commanded the elite 53 Division in peacetime. The 53 Division killed LTTE leader Prabhakaran.
The situation, faced by the Army, is nothing but a crisis. The bottom line is that any officer, attached to those formations, involved in operations, either in peace or wartime, can be denied a visa on the basis of unsubstantiated UN allegations. Western restrictions, now in place, can affect those who had served the 57 Division, Task Force I /58 Div, 59 Div, 53 Div, 55 Div as well as other Task Forces deployed on the Vanni front. The same unreasonable rule can be applied on those taking over command of the Divisions or Brigades or Battalions attached to them as part of UN measures directed at Sri Lanka.
A confused US stand
In spite of referring to the visa matter, the Office of the President, and the Foreign and Defence Ministries never bothered to take up the issue with Western powers. Those who had been in power ignored the threat. They never bothered to exploit Lord Naseby’s disclosure of the bogus Vanni death toll on the basis of wartime military dispatches from the British Embassy in Colombo. The shocking revelation that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had desperately tried to withhold information, sought by Lord Naseby, on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), underscored the need to revisit the Sri Lanka issue. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is yet to use Lord Naseby’s revelation though both the previous and current administrations made reference to the UK revelations.
The Army headquarters, too, failed in its responsibility. The then Army Chief Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake never pushed the government to take tangible measures. Having pathetically failed to counter the lies, propagated by interested parties, since Gen Fonseka’s abrupt removal by the previous Rajapaksa administration, Army headquarters did nothing to rectify the failures. Instead, Senanayake took advantage of the humiliating failure to thwart the Easter Sunday attacks by claiming police never shared vital intelligence with the DMI despite Military Intelligence running one of the biggest contingents of spooks of its own and politically motivated violence directed at the Muslims weeks after the Easter carnage, to contest 2019 presidential election. Senanayake ended up in fourth place with less than 50,000 votes.
The US refusal to issue a visa to Field Marshal Fonseka should be examined against the backdrop of three critically important factors: (a) The US backed Fonseka’s candidature at the 2010 January presidential poll. The US formed a political alliance that included the then four-party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by R. Sampanthan, now an ordinary member of Parliament. There cannot be any dispute over the US role in that poll in the wake of Wikileaks revelation, pertaining to secret discussions between a Colombo-based US diplomat and Sampanthan. Sampanthan gave into US pressure though he had initially resisted the proposal. Sampanthan must have been deeply embarrassed to publicly urge Tamils to vote for Fonseka, after having accused, out of thin air, his Army of killing thousands of civilians, raping Tamil women and disappearances. The Tamil electorate obliged. Fonseka was able to secure the predominantly Tamil administrative districts, including Jaffna, though he suffered a heavy defeat at the presidential poll. (b) The US picked Fonseka as the common presidential candidate in spite of the then US Ambassador Patricia Butenis calling him a war criminal along with the Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda, Basil and Gotabaya (c) Colombo-based US Defence Attache Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith’s declaration in June 2011 (over two years after the conclusion of the war) that there had never been an agreement between the Army and the LTTE regarding an organized surrender on the Vanni east front. The US official disputed widespread claims of battlefield executions in spite of an arranged surrender of LTTE cadre to the advancing Army.
The US also denied visas to Majors General Prasanna Silva, wartime GoC, 55 Division and Jaffna Security Forces Commander Mahinda Hathurusinghe. The then Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva was denied entry into US War College though he functioned as Sri Lanka’s Deputy Permanent Representative in New York.
GoC, 57 Division Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias, and Military Secretary Sudantha Ranasinghe, too, were denied visas. Ranasinghe’s application was turned down in spite of him receiving command of the 53 Division after the end of the conflict. The then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa personally brought the situation to the notice of the US Embassy though he couldn’t achieve the desired policy change.
In late 2010, the Tamil Diaspora activists made a failed bid to secure a warrant, in the UK, to detain Gallage who was at that time the head of President Rajapaksa’s security. Although they couldn’t move the British judiciary against the officer, the move underscored the need to address the high profile international campaign meant to portray the Army as a criminal organization.
Sooka’s letter
A letter of protest, written by PoE member Yasmin Sooka (South African Tamil), to US multinational Coca Cola, for sponsoring the Gajaba Super-Cross 2017, organized by Shavendra Silva, in his capacity as the Colonel Commandant of the celebrated Regiment, should have jolted the Army and the government to take remedial measures. They did nothing. Having called the most successful GoC, a notorious war criminal, the NGO guru demanded explanation from Coca Cola why it financed a project undertaken by Silva. Sooka called both the Gajaba Regiment as well as the 58 Division criminal organizations on the basis of UN reports. She played a major part in one such report prepared by the so-called Panel of Experts, obviously cherry picked by the shameless world body. The Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry for some strange reason, turned a blind eye to Sooka’s attack.
Sri Lanka never took up the unfair decision to deny visas to senior military officers on the basis of the unsubstantiated OISL report and other accusations. Those who had accused the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government of betraying the armed forces should also accept responsibility for their pathetic failure to counter blatant lies. They owe an explanation to the nation.
President Sirisena’s Nov 9, 2017 address at the Army Hospital caused some concern among his advisors handling the media. They issued two separate media releases on Nov 10, with the second one leaving out some critically important sections pertaining to the Geneva intervention. The Island also compared the statements issued by the President’s Media Division with the one posted on the Army website. The Army website report headlined “No war hero would be subjected to appear before any foreign tribunals – President assures”
Basically, the first statement that had been issued by the President’s Media Division tallied with the Army headquarters post in respect of the Geneva issue. The second statement issued by the President’s Media Division conveniently left out sections that may attract the attention of the UN pushing hard at Sri Lanka to implement Geneva Resolution 30/1.
Sri Lanka, at least now, needs to take a clear stand in Geneva. The government should re-examine Sri Lanka’s strategy or absence of strategy so far and explore the possibility of initiating a dialogue with Geneva in respect of concerns raised by Lord Naseby and other sources, such as Wikileaks cables.
What really surprised the writer is Sisisena’s failure to take any concrete action on the basis of Lord Naseby’s disclosure during his tenure. Sri Lanka is yet to take appropriate measures to set the record straight in Geneva. Let us hope the powers that be examine the progress made/absence of progress since the change of government in Nov 2019.
Midweek Review
Ranil in Head-to-Head controversy

Former Commander-in-Chief and ex-President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s inadequate defence of the war-winning armed forces underscores the failure on the part of successive governments to address war crimes allegations. Wickremesinghe’s responses highlighted Sri Lanka’s collective and pathetic failure to defend its armed forces. The country missed an opportunity to question the absurdity of UN war crimes accusations based on claims by persons who couldn’t be questioned till 2030 as a result of shocking confidentiality clauses in the Panel of Experts’ report. Imagine a one sided trial where you cannot cross examine your accusers for 30 long years. No wonder much of the world is increasingly demanding urgent reforms in the United Nations as much of its system is rigged by the collective West since its formation.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Al Jazeera’s Head-to-Head presenter Mehdi Hasan and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in an interview recorded in February but released last week, dealt with the conclusion of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 without referring to the origins of terrorism here, while prolonging the narrative we were the bad guys throughout and not a word about the LTTE and how it terrorised this country for about 30 years.
The chosen audience at London’s Conway Hall, too, conveniently refrained from bringing up accountability on the part of India in sponsoring terrorism, beginning early ’80s. The issue is would there have been Mullivaikkal bloodshed if India didn’t step in here to pacify Tamil Nadu sentiments? Separatist terrorism received extensive backing in the West and there couldn’t be a better example than the LTTE being allowed to operate its International Secretariat in London, even after it assassinated former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, while campaigning in Tamil Nadu.
The discussion covered heavy defeat suffered by Wickremesinghe at the last year’s presidential election, still unfinished investigations into the 2019 Easter bombings, the failure on his part to prosecute the Rajapaksas, as well as why punitive measures weren’t taken against Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and unleashing the military on Aragalaya immediately after Parliament elected him President, in July 2022.
Hasan had conveniently forgotten that Wickremesinghe earlier threw his weight behind Aragalaya . Harin Fernando, who had been a SJB member of Parliament at the time of the Aragalaya, is on record as having said that Wickremesinghe directed him to join the campaign to oust Gotabaya Rajapaksa. One-time UNP MP Prof. Ashu Marasinghe, too, disclosed the UNP’s role in Aragalaya.
UK-born British-American broadcaster Hasan aggressively pushed Wickremesinghe on the accountability issues while the UNP leader, at least ended up defending General Shavendra Silva, the wartime General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the celebrated 58 Division (former Task Force 1) accused by the US and UN of perpetrating war crimes without providing any evidence.
Wickremesinghe should have exploited the reference made by the audience to the 1983 violence directed at the Tamil community to remind the world of the events leading to the unprecedented riots. Let me stress that no right thinking person would condone targeting civilians, under any circumstances. However, the country wouldn’t have erupted in July 1983 if not for the Indian military training Tamil terrorist groups and for some inexplicable reason, most probably out of fear, the failure on the part of JRJ to nip the riots in the bud. There were also some extreme elements of the UNP, led by its notorious trade union arm JSS, that perpetrated some of the violence. Some in the police, too, played a part in encouraging rioters, often to make a killing for themselves by taking part of the looted items. President Jayewardene even failed to address the issue for several days. The 1983 riots should be always examined, taking into consideration how the Indian trained LTTE terrorists successfully attacked an Army patrol at Thinnaweli, Jaffna. Of the 14-man contingent, only one survived. There had never been such a devastating attack on the Army, though there were sporadic small arms attacks on police.
Strangely, Hasan and Wickremesinghe discussed war crimes, atrocities and war-related allegations without once referring to the war waged by the Indian Army in the Northern and Eastern regions as if Indians were sacred cows. The audience, too, remained silent. Those who had been demanding accountability on the part of Sri Lanka never once questioned India’s culpability or the innumerable acts of terrorism resorted to by the LTTE, probably taking more Tamil lives, especially those of its rivals and moderate Tamils, who dared to speak up, than the number of security forces personnel and innocent Sinhalese civilians it killed. The fact that India suffered 1,300 officers and men killed and nearly 3,000 others wounded in encounters with the LTTE during July 1987-March 1990 deployment of its euphemistically called Indian Peace Keeping Force here proved the massive security crisis New Delhi helped to create here.
Have you ever heard of anyone seeking an explanation from New Delhi for the 1988 PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam) raid on the Maldives? Indian trained PLOTE cadres carried out the sea-borne operation, targeting the then Maldivian leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom at the behest of influential Maldivian Abdulla Luthufee. Would Hasan, born to parents from Hyderabad, and nine at the time of the PLOTE raid, dared to question India’s culpability. We haven’t heard anyone demanding to know the identities of those who perished in the failed Maldivian operation or Sri Lankan Tamils killed in India after the assassination of its one-time Premier Rajiv Gandhi by a teenage suicide bomber in Tamil Nadu.
Seasoned politician Wickremesinghe could have taken advantage of the Head-to-Head ‘show’ to set the record straight in the presence of Frances Harrison, former BBC-Sri Lanka correspondent, Director of International Truth and Justice Project and author of ‘Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War,’ and Dr. Madura Rasaratnam, Executive Director of PEARL (People for Equality and Relief in Lanka), that was formed in 2005 in the run-up to the Eelam War IV (2006 August to 2009 May). The other panelist was former UK and EU MP and Wickremesinghe’s presidential envoy, Niranjan Joseph de Silva Deva Aditya whose interventions didn’t help Wickremesinghe at all. Aditya’s declaration towards the tail end of the 49-minute programme that Wickremesinghe caused a devastating split in the LTTE, in 2003, during Oslo arranged talks, seemed absurd.
Addressing a hastily arranged press conference in Colombo, Wickremesinghe alleged that the husband of Executive Director, PEARL and senior lecturer at City University of London Dr. Madura Rasaratnam, had been an associate of LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham. Wickremesinghe asked her to correct him if he was wrong. It would have been better if Wickremesinghe reminded that the late Balasingham had been a British citizen and his Australian-born wife Adele, who promoted recruitment of child soldiers and appeared in LTTE ‘uniform’ and garlanded LTTE female soldiers with their trade mark cyanide capsule, which they always carried around their necks, as they passed out after undergoing training for propaganda purposes. She is now living in the UK, so perhaps Al Jazeera can interview Adele about her sordid role in marching those girls, many of them being underage, to a certain gory death, especially in the event of being captured, as they had been ordered by the LTTE to bite their cyanide capsules.
Hasan accused the Sri Lankan military of depriving the Tamil people of food, medicine and other basic essentials during the war. Unfortunately, former president and six-time Premier Wickremesinghe pathetically failed to counter often repeated lies. Had Wickremesinghe perused the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts (PoE) report (read Darusman report) released in 2011, he could have comfortably defended the war-winning military. The UN report acknowledged that the ICRC (International Committee for Red Cross)-run ships evacuated the wounded and the WFP (World Food Programme) sent food to Puthumathalan until the very end. Though the programme is headlined Head-to Head, our ex-President pathetically failed to counter Hasan with credible answers on one-sided questions raised by the interviewer.
Forgotten Lord Naseby’s disclosure
It would be pertinent to mention that Wickremesinghe’s UNP never backed our fighting the Eelam War IV. The UNP quite confidently thought the LTTE could never be defeated, militarily. Actually, the UNP humiliated the military and questioned Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s suitability to lead the Army. One of its top rung Ministers, the late Mangala Samaraweeer,a even claimed in public that Fonseka was not fit even to lead the Salvation Army, that would have been a case of USAID money disbursed underhand to people like him, working overtime.
Hasan accusing Wickremesinghe of defending the military and the Rajapaksas seemed ridiculous against the backdrop of the latter’s treacherous co-sponsorship of an accountability resolution against one’s own security forces at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by his government.
Then Premier Wickremesinghe teamed up with Yahapalana President Maithripala Sisisena to betray the warwinning military. In line with a backdoor agreement with the US and Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the Yahapalana government agreed to establish hybrid war crimes mechanism to investigate alleged war crimes.
The former President could have used Lord Naseby’s disclosure of confidential wartime British High Commission dispatches from Colombo to question Hasan and the audience on war dead. Both British diplomatic cables and a UN report that had dealt with war dead placed the figure between 7,000 and 8,000 whereas the PoE estimated 40,000 dead. Wickremesinghe couldn’t have been unaware of Lord Naseby’s revelation and the much discussed Colombo based US Defence Attaché Colonel Lawrence Smith’s declaration at the first ever Colombo Defence seminar, in 2011, regarding claims of planned surrender by a section of the LTTE. The writer was present at the event when Smith responded to questions raised by Maj. Gen. Ashok Mehta, who had served as the Indian commander in charge of the Barricaloa-Ampara sector during the 1987-1988 period.
“Hello, may I say something to a couple of questions raised. I’ve been the Defence Attaché here at the US Embassy since June 2008. Regarding the various versions of events that came out in the final hours and days of the conflict — from what I was privileged to hear and to see, the offers to surrender that I am aware of seemed to come from the mouthpieces of the LTTE — Nadesan, KP — people who weren’t and never had really demonstrated any control over the leadership or the combat power of the LTTE.
“So their offers were a bit suspect anyway, and they tended to vary in content hour by hour, day by day. I think we need to examine the credibility of those offers before we leap to conclusions that such offers were in fact real.
“And I think the same is true for the version of events. It’s not so uncommon in combat operations, in the fog of war, as we all get our reports second, third and fourth hand from various commanders at various levels that the stories don’t seem to all quite match up.
“But I can say that the version presented here so far in this is what I heard as I was here during that time. And I think I better leave it at that before I get into trouble”, he said.
No point in blaming Wickremesinghe for not exploiting such available information in the public domain when the warwinning team (read Rajapaksa governments) shamefully failed to mount an effective counter attack. The Rajapaksas were always in denial mode and never really wanted to address issues in a methodical way. Instead of using all available information to mount an effective defence, the Rajapaksa government squandered millions of USD for propaganda efforts in the US.
Wickremesinghe should have mentioned before the Conway Hall WikiLeaks revelations pertained to the war. WikiLeaks revealed a US dispatch that quoted ICRC Head of Operations for South Asia Jacques de Maio as having told US Ambassador in Geneva, Clint Williamson, though there had been serious violations of International Humanitarian Law, there was no genocide.
Perhaps, one of the most significant declarations that had been made by de Maio was that the Army actually could have won the military battle faster with higher civilian casualties, yet chose a slower approach which led to a greater number of Sri Lankan military deaths. Obviously Wickremesinghe hadn’t been aware of developments he should have been conversant with and as a result the former President couldn’t hit back hard.
How could Yahapalana Premier Wickremesinghe fail to mention two mega lies that had been propagated during his tenure, but subsequently exposed? High profile accusations regarding Mannar mass graves accepted no less a person than UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet and the then Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran’s claim of the Army poisoning over 100 LTTE cadres in custody proved to be nothing but lies.
The Fonseka factor
Wickremesinghe could have mentioned conscription of children by the LTTE and indiscriminate use of women in high intensity battles, particularly in the Northern theatre. The ex-President failed to do so. Perhaps, Wickremesinghe should have reminded the Conway Hall crowd that the people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces had clearly disregarded unsubstantiated war crimes accusations by overwhelmingly voting for retired General Sarath Fonseka at the 2010 presidential election. Although Fonseka lost by a staggering 1.8 mn votes, he comfortably won eight predominately Tamil-speaking administrative districts, including Jaffna, just nine months after the conclusion of the war.
War crimes allegations ended up in a wastepaper basket the day the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), one-time LTTE mouthpiece, declared its support for Fonseka. Against the backdrop of the TNA backing Fonseka, whose Army had been accused of human rights violations on a massive scale, often repeated allegations seemed untenable.
Wickremesinghe cannot, under any circumstances, forget that episode as it was his project that brought UNP-TNA-JVP-SLMC and CWC together in 2010. WikiLeaks exposed US dispatches from Colombo pertaining to the US hand in the political project.
We haven’t heard of PEARL or any other organization with similar vision requesting the LTTE to release civilians held during the last phase of the fighting as a human shield by the besieged LTTE. Having forced over 300,000 people to accompany retreating LTTE units, they used them as human shields. The bottom line is that the Diaspora remained blind to civilian sufferings as long as they felt the LTTE could deliver a knockout blow to the Army on the Vanni east front. Canada-based veteran journalist, D. B. S Jayaraj, then considered as an authority on the conflict by many, confidently predicted, in late Dec. 2008, an impending devastating LTTE counter attack and the rolling back of the Army. Then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had been a frontline combat officer during his entire military career till he retired in the early ’90s , told the writer at the time that the LTTE was not in a position to reverse the situation. Within two weeks, the Army overran Kilinochchi, the headquarters of the LTTE. That was the end of the story.
Wickremesinghe and none of those seated at the Conway Hall ever anticipated the fall of Kilinochchi in early January 2009 and the total collapse of the Tiger fighting formations, within five months.
RW’s response to Aragalaya
Hasan questioned Wickremesinghe regarding his response to Aragalaya as well as what was known as the Batalanda torture camp that existed in the late’ 80s.
Hasan never sought Wickremesinghe’s opinion on the alleged US role in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ousting, in spite of recent US declarations about USAID interventions in many parts of the world and accusations the US intervened in support of Aragalaya. Interestingly, Hasan found fault with Wickremesinghe for ordering the military to restore law and order while the former President recalled massive destruction caused by Aragalaya and the bid to storm Parliament. Wickremesinghe reminded Hasan how Aragalaya activists killed SLPP parliamentarian Amarakeerthi Atukorale at Nittambuwa. Atukorale was the last MP killed in violence. The LTTE and the JVP killed over 50 serving and ex-parliamentarians and many lesser politicians.
Batalanda operation, whether we like it or not, had been in line with President JRJ counter insurgency strategy at a time the JVP threatened to overwhelm the UNP-led dictatorial government, taking advantage of the Indo-Lanka accord and the deployment of the Indian Army here to inspire violence. Countries that had been threatened by terrorism adopted controversial measures such as ‘extraordinary rendition’ (apprehending/kidnapping suspected terrorists and detain them in countries where torture is widely practiced. The US-led operation received the backing of many countries, including the UK and Sri Lanka).
The second JVP insurrection had to be crushed, whatever the consequences were, though President JRJ should be held responsible for the catastrophic political measures that plunged the country into turmoil. Wickremesinghe had been a member of JRJ’s Cabinet and should be held collectively responsible for the mayhem the then President caused.
Proscription of the JVP in the run-up to the 1982 presidential election and the postponement of parliamentary election that was to be held in 1983 to 1989 caused resentment among all communities and set the stage for terrorist campaigns in the North and the South. The UNP that had caused so much political destruction is today represented in Parliament by just one MP (CWC member as the party contested under the Elephant symbol).
Wickremesinghe should be grateful to Hasan for not asking him to explain how under his watch the UNP deteriorated to such an extent that it was reduced to zero in Parliament. It would have been better if Hasan asked Wickremesinghe to explain why the Yahapalana administration from 2015 to 2019 borrowed billions of dollars from the international bond market, at high interest, and contributed to the economic bankruptcy of the country in 2022.
Midweek Review
Guru Geethaya:

A Melancholic Song for Public Education and Social Enlightenment
by Liyanage Amarakeerthi
Guru Geethaya , the song of a teacher, the Sinhala version of Chingiz Aitmatov’s famous novel, The First Teacher, is one of the most inspirational novels among Sinhala readers. Rendered to Sinhala by the veteran translator, Dedigama V. Rodrigo, the novel entered the Sinhala literary scene through the admirable efforts of the Progress Publishers of the former Soviet Union. And like many other Russian and Soviet classics, Guru Geethaya was available at a cheap price. Progress Publishers must be commended for that service. With the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the phenomenal entities that shaped our literary knowledge and taste, the Progress Publishers fell apart. Now, those Russian classics are not easily available, certainly not at an affordable price. Perhaps, a separate essay must be written about the progressive contribution that the Progress Publishers made to enrich Sinhala literary culture. And of course, those Russian classics were translated into Tamil as well.
Sinhala film of a Soviet Novel
Upali Gamlath has made a Sinhala film out of Guru Geethaya, and after waiting in line for many years, the film was recently released. It was heartening to see a sizable audience attended an evening show of Guru Geethaya last weekend at Kandy. I came to know that the film was doing well. Guru Geethaya, the film, regardless of its quality as a work of art, must continue to attract audiences, and it has potential to contribute to the rebuilding of the Sinhala film industry.
As a work of art, I have mixed feelings about Guru Geethaya. After all, it is the first film by the director. Here and there, there are glimpses of cinematic excellence. The actors in the leading role make an admirable effort to create the Duishen and Altynai, one of the best-known fictional couples in the Sinhala literary world. The Sinhala film version of the novel focuses mostly on the latent romantic relationship between the central couple. When Duishen arrives in this remote Kirgiz village in 1924 to establish a school, Altynai was just fourteen years old, and Duishen is, perhaps, in his late twenties. Just seven years after the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union is in the process of propagating modern education even to distant villages in massive Soviet Russia. This idealist young teacher from the communist party wants the children of these backward hinterlands to receive modern education. When he arrives there, both parents and children of these mountains are illiterate and trapped in a tribal mode of existence. If there is anything called ‘education’ they have received, it is the religious dogma passed on to them by Islamic mullahs.
Youthful Idealism
In an extremely patriarchal world, a fourteen-year-old girl, an orphan, living under the oppression of distant relatives, Altynai has no hope for a happy future. And there is no hope for modern education. Right at that moment, Duishen arrives at the village as an agent of the Russian revolution and as a harbinger of revolutionary modernity. He is passionate about establishing a school there. By the third decade of the twentieth century, education is a right, and every child born into this world must be educated. In Soviet Russia, educating the Russian population was a goal of the revolution. ‘Abolition of illiteracy’ was a revolutionary goal often articulated by Lenin himself.
Among those village kids, only Altynai can share the idealism of Duishen. She has never known a school. But she instinctively knows that education is something desirable and the only way to get out of the trap of ignorance and poverty. In that male-dominated world ruled by Mullah-ethics, she is sold to be the second wife of a much older man. Duishen must liberate the girl from those uncultured men before she is sent away to Moscow for an education institute newly established by the Soviet government. The teacher manages to get her away those men but not before she was abducted and raped.
This slim novel, less than one hundred pages, captures the essence of what the agents of revolution had to face when modernising distant Soviet lands. Of course, they had to engage in this process of social development while the liberal West led by the US, and the religious West, led by the Catholic church, were unitedly working to defeat the revolution. Ironically, the Russian revolution shared many ideals of Western modernity. For example, the liberal West could have supported what people like Duishen were doing in these remote Kirgiz villages in the 1920s. But geopolitics did not work that way, especially during the cold war. It may be cold, but it was certainly ‘war’, and the West was so sure of it. We may have all kinds of issues about the brutality of Stalinist Russia, but the early idealism of the Russian revolution represented in this slim novel, The First Teacher or, Guru Geethaya, has been so inspirational for many of us in the developing world.
Growing up as a son of a working-class family in rural Sri Lanka, I would not have become a professor at a university without the free education system of our country. When I first read Guru Geethaya as a teenager in the mid 1980s, I literally fell in love with the novel. Of course, like many others, I too idealised the teacher, Duishen. Many years later, I learned that there were greater novels. Even among Russian novels, this is not the greatest. I would rate Doctor Zhivago, a critique of revolutionary violence and idealism, much higher than Guru Geethaya. Aitmatov himself has written greater novels- many of which have been translated into Sinhala. But people adore this slim novel about a devoted teacher. Perhaps, the love for our free education system is unconsciously projected onto Duishen. Sinhala people often liken good schoolteachers to Duishen.
As I said earlier, the focus of Upali Gamlath’s film version of the novel is on the unexpressed romantic love between Duishen and Altynai. In the novel as a man of revolution and as an adult, Dushen controls his emotions about the pretty and intelligent Altynai. In the Sinhala film, his love is much more pronounced though never expressed in words. In the novel, Altynai from her Moscow school writes a letter to Duishen expressing her love. We do not get to know whether he ever received it. By this time, World War II was around the corner, or the war had already arrived, and the counter-revolutionary forces in Russia were also creating troubles. Stalinist state machine is doing all the bad things that we now know. So, Duishen must have been preoccupied with other things. Or being an ideal teacher, he did not want to accept her love.
Creative Readings and a slim novel
It may be slim in terms of number of pages, but Aitmatov’s novel offers so much to an inventive reader. One could even argue that it is implicitly critical of the Soviet education endeavor. For example, with all due respect to the idealism and kindness of Duishen, he is an extremely limited first teacher. Except for his idealist loyalty to the communist party, he does not have any serious idea of education. In that sense, the novel can be read as an implicit critique of the kind of education the Soviet government established in distant villages. Except for just one girl, we do not know how many others were freed from illiteracy. During much of the early decades of the twentieth century, Lenin wrote extensively about the need for ‘proper education.’ Many of those writings have been collected as On Public Education (1975), again, by Progress Publishers. Writing to safeguard the revolution, by education Lenin meant, a kind of indoctrination aimed at liberating people from ‘bourgeois ideologies’ and getting them under the dictatorship of one party. For me, it is an extremely limited understanding of education. But when he firmly believed that “Russia is the country assigned by history the role of trailblazer of the socialist revolution(p. 77)”, it was easy for Lenin to see education as a huge propaganda programme intended to establish the dominance of a single party, by extension the dominance of a single ideology. When Duishen starts his school in the Kirgiz village, he pastes a photo of Lenin on the wall. There Duishen is an instrument of spreading the ideology of a single party. But with all those ideological limits, the revolutionary government was trying to make the Russian population literate. In a short essay called, “About our schools” written in 1913, included in the book mentioned above, Lenin explains how badly funded and poorly administered Russian schools were under the Tsar administration and religious authorities. It was clear that for the Tsar regime illiteracy was a tool of ruling. The role of teachers such as Duishen needs to be appreciated in that context.
By now history has given Guru Geethaya its proper place. It is a simple, short novel, about a teacher who attempted to live an ideal life within his own historical context.
In the novel, Aitmatov does not tell us what Dushen teaches. The content of that education is not known to us. Reading the novel now, and of course watching the movie, exactly one hundred years after Duishen arrived in that village, we are experienced and theoretically equipped enough to see beyond the context of the novel’s original context. The Sinhala movie, however, does not provide us with such rich artistic experience.
Saving the Girl/Women
When the revolutionary guards arrive in this remote village to assist Duishen, Altynai has been abducted and raped. If the education system was better planned the girl would have had a much more dignified life without going through that humiliation. Her traumatic experience is so much that she does not return to her village until after she becomes a professor, and she is invited to attend a function.
The Sinhala film industry seems to be making a comeback. And it needs a wide variety of movies to regularly attract a diverse audience. In that sense, I am more than happy that Guru Geethaya is doing well. At the same time, in the context of recent political change, where the need for revitalising our free education system is voiced from many quarters, this film is a melancholic song for an uplifting education. Not to get everyone under the ideological will of a single party, our education must be one that liberates us from all forms of dominance and authority.
Though written in 1962, the novel is set in 1924, which was also the year of Lenin’s death -an incident beautifully described in the novel. There he is represented as a visionary man who wanted to create a better future for these rural children. Within a very different context those who initiated the free education system in Sri Lanka also envisioned a better future for us. That is perhaps why Guru Geethaya has been a beloved piece of literature that draws crowds even to its film version.
Midweek Review
Her Story and His Come Together

By Lynn Ockersz
She and He have stood their ground,
In factories and farms down the ages,
Braving the lashings of manor and nature,
Invisible yet radiating the Dignity of Labour,
Giving selflessly the Bread of the nations,
And in March when She is celebrated,
For very good reason too, I assert,
It is apt to revisit the timeless lesson,
That in the matter of feeding the masses,
Her Story and His come together
-
Foreign News3 days ago
Search continues in Dominican Republic for missing student Sudiksha Konanki
-
Features6 days ago
Richard de Zoysa at 67
-
News7 days ago
Alfred Duraiappa’s relative killed in Canada shooting
-
Features3 days ago
The Royal-Thomian and its Timeless Charm
-
Midweek Review7 days ago
Ranil in Head-to-Head controversy
-
Features6 days ago
SL Navy helping save kidneys
-
News4 days ago
DPMC unveils brand-new Bajaj three-wheeler
-
Features3 days ago
‘Thomia’: Richard Simon’s Masterpiece