Features

Conduct transparent and truthful investigation to reveal the truth behind Easter Sunday massacre

Published

6 months ago

2026/04/22

A mass funeral for some of the Easter Sunday terror victims in 2019. Image courtesy Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP

(Speech delivered, in Colombo, by His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Seventh Year Commemoration of the Easter Sunday Bomb Victims)

Most Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Nayaka Thero, Ven. Sirs, Most Rev. Dr. Andrzej Józwowicz, Apostolic Nuncio in Sri Lanka, Most Rev. Dushantha Rodrigo, Bishop of Colombo of the Anglican Church, Most Rev. Anton Ranjith, Auxiliary Bishop of Colombo and the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Batticaloa, His Excellency Andre Franchè, Permanent Representative of the United Nations in Sri Lanka, Rev.

Kannan Kurukkal of the Hindu Community, dear Moulavi Rev. Masook Shajeer, dear Rev. Fathers, brothers and sisters, family members of the Easter 2019 attack victims, Your Excellencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps, Hon. Ministers, Members of Parliament, Distinguished guests and beloved brethren,

TERROR ATTACKS

I wish to first of all thankfully welcome all of you who have accepted our invitation to join us in this 7th Anniversary commemoration ceremony of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks which took place on 21st April 2019. We are aware that due to these destructive attacks 278 people lost their lives and more than 500 people received injuries which harmed them seriously or partially. It also rendered a severe blow to the economy of Sri Lanka and dangerously disturbed the atmosphere of reconciliation and unity that was by then painstakingly established between the different religions and ethnic groups in the aftermath of the 30-year war. St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade, where we are now gathered, St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, in Negombo, Zion Church of the Pentecostal Communion in Batticaloa, Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel Colombo, Kingsbury Hotel and Tropical Inn Hotel in Colombo were the scenes of the seven bomb explosions that caused a serious bloodbath killing or maiming fully or partially the innocent worshipers in the Churches and the tourists and staff in the tourist hotels. We cannot but remember that, among the dead there were 68 children. There were 45 tourists from 14 countries who also lost their lives.

HIDDEN AGENDA

That there was a subtle but sure attempt to again create ethnic and religious disharmony in the country through these bomb attacks became clearer to us from the fact that having realised that their attempts to create inter racial and religious disturbances in the aftermath of these attacks had miserably failed due to the constant appeals made by religious leaders for calm, these plotters organised provocative attacks on the Muslim community in the Negombo Poruthota area two weeks after the April 21st attacks, on the night of the 5th May and, once again, on the 11th, 12th and 13th May starting from the Nattandiya-Madampe area, through Kotaramulla to Minuwangoda, throwing stones at Muslim houses and setting Muslim establishments on fire. One Muslim devotee was killed. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter attacks has, in its final report, in volume one, Chapter 27, spoken extensively of these subsequent provocations. The report has clearly stated that certain Police officers and security personnel had neglected their duty and had done nothing much to control the situation during these sad second series of incidents. I wish to affirm that it is equally important to investigate as to who organised these subsequent attacks. This may have a link to the main attacks on 21st April 2019. One must also verify as to whether anyone in the security establishment prevented those responsible from controlling these attacks as and when they began. In any case looking at these subsequent provocations at creating ethnic strife, one can conclude that some people who disliked the religious leaders’ move to calm down the atmosphere after the Easter attacks, wanted to somehow create strife among the religious and ethnic communities by these subsequent provocations. In this regard, we observe that the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, too, has gone on to identify several persons involved in these post-Easter Sunday attack violent incidents in the aforementioned Chapter 27, who should be further investigated, as there is a real possibility that such acts were linked to the main attack.

In any case we have to gratefully affirm that, it is due to the deep commitment of the Most Venerable Ittepane Dhammalankara Maha Nayaka Thero, the head of the Kotte Chapter of the Siyam Maha Nikaya, and Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Nayaka Thero, who is present here with us today, who joined me in appealing for calm constantly then, over repeated press conferences given, that we succeeded in preventing any violence from breaking out in the aftermath of these bomb attacks.

CULTURE OF MURDER

What we, who organising this commemoration, ask of all those in authority is to kindly inquire into these attacks with severity and seriousness and to reveal to us as to who really was behind them. We state so in the light of the fact that in Sri Lanka, over several past decades, there had come into being a dangerous tendency to let murder, disappearances and political assassinations be buried in the sands of time without any proper investigation or inquiry. This nationally disastrous policy which began in the ’70s, still continues to haunt us as a nation. It is a very sad situation indeed. The rule of law, which had been gradually weakened over this period, especially through political interference, had become a slave of selfishness, political bankruptcy, enthroning of falsity and criminality. The tragedy of all of this, is the spreading of falsity in order to suppress the truth, daring to challenge uprightness and lawfulness within a culture of corruption, leading society into a situation where holders of wealth and power determine the truth and enjoy all the benefits thus leading society into a vortex of evil and the country into a situation of serious moral and spiritual hypocrisy and decay. In this background where values have lost their importance, affecting social discipline and resulting in the deterioration of the most important value of respect for the rule of law, sense of discipline, respect for human life and dignity, civilized and principled behaviour are all seen to be moving away from our society.

What is most distressing is the fact that political leaders had developed a culture where they instrumentalised the security establishment to get them to do illegal acts, violating all codes of decency and good order.

In such a situation searching for the truth, behind some of the major acts of violence and terror that have marked our recent history, has become extremely difficult and cumbersome. An honest search for the truth behind some of the murders, disappearances and acts of corruption has become extremely difficult due to political interference and lying. Even though there is constitutional support for the faithful execution of the law, due to the fact that the institutions guiding these processes are run by people who think and act politically, abusing their freedom and authority, truth will never emerge and often looks so unreachable and distant. We face a question as to whether these institutions or persons handling the search for the truth and manning them do ever comprehend the untold pain that the victims of this violence continue to experience. We do not understand how some people can become so cruel as to do everything in their power to block or obstruct or even willfully seek to mislead these investigations with their own politically motivated fairy tales.

What is surprising is that, when investigations on several of the other past murders and assassinations, as well as disappearances, are also being conducted, some people who have never spoken about those investigations seem to be super interested in airing out their own so called presentations and views on the Easter Sunday 2019 attacks all the time. It is the only matter on which they seem to be active. We ask them why? Is it because of a fear that the truth may finally be found and it is likely to hurt them? What I see in these interferences is an attempt to hide the truth or to sabotage the investigations from taking their objective path. The attempt by these forces, who seem to represent certain political orientations, to block the investigators, from conducting their search for the truth freely, from questioning important players behind the Easter attacks, from engaging in a search for the truth behind new revelations that have surfaced lately, is to be clearly condemned. The attempt by some people to present their own theories concerning these attacks neglecting the possibility that there could have been other hands behind these attacks is also to be flatly rejected. The Easter attacks need to be investigated in all their different aspects, nuances, new revelations, contradictions in evidence that seems to disapprove a purely one-sided analysis. The insistence by one particular political orientation in Sri Lanka to lay the blame only on one group of people, ignoring all the contradictory evidence that has since emerged, is indicative of a certain fear on their side that if all the evidence is sifted through a more complex picture, involving the past political leaders of the country in this attack, could emerge. Else one cannot understand as to why the people representing these political orientations are so excited about the manner in which these investigations are now being conducted.

OTHER ELEMENTS

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry which investigated the Easter Sunday 2019 massacre

, mentioned in its final report that due to time constraints and other factors it could not look into some of the matters that needed special attention. Among these as indicated in the first volume of their report – pages 93-94, the Commission calls upon the authorities to investigate into the role of “Abu Hind” in the plot. On this matter the Commission in the same volume quotes Hadia the wife of Zahran Hasheem, whose evidence is reported in the 17th Chapter of the first volume, pages 218, 219 and 220 and pages 82 and 222. In that statement, Hadiya mentioned that each time her husband was on a call with this “Abu Hind” he asked her to leave the place. The Commission report also affirms that this person, “Abu Hind,” was mentioned again by the then Director of State Intelligence, Nilantha Jayawardena, in his own evidence before the Commission [First Volume p. 218]. And so, it is important to further investigate and find out who this secretive person “Abu Hind” was and whether he had any connection to the Easter Sunday attacks. Indeed, the Commission report does call upon the CID to investigate this matter further [ref. Volume 1 p. 222].

Second, the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry has decreed as follows on the matter concerning Sarah Jasmin, the wife of Hashtoon, the bomber who blew himself up at St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya: “the COI received evidence of two witnesses who testified that Sara was seen alive after the Easter Sunday attacks and had fled to India. In her testimony Hadiya said that after the blast at Sainthamaruthu on 26th April 2019, she lost consciousness. After she regained it, she could faintly hear a voice of a woman which sounded like Sarah. The DNA analysis with the mother of Sarah did not establish that Sarah had died in the blast. In view of this testimony the COI recommends that investigations into Sarah be continued ….” [p. 223, PCOI Final Report Vol. 1].

Another riddle to be solved on this matter is that of verifying if any higher up political or security figure was involved in ordering repeated DNA tests on the alleged piece of spinal bone found at the site of the Sainthamaruthu blast seeking to attribute it to Sarah and to conclude that indeed she died in that blast and did not survive, as alleged by other evidence including that of Hadiya, the wife of Zaharan. Finding out as to what really happened to Sarah after this blast is important as she is said to have known a lot of information about these attacks as the wife of one of the main suicide bombers, Hashtoon.

Third, it has been mentioned in evidence on 16th December 2020 before the PCOI by Chief Inspector Sampath Kumara that all data in the cellular phone and the laptop handed over by the then SIS Director Nilantha Jayawardena to the CID had been found to have been deleted. This is a serious matter and one has to investigate as to whether the said officer Nilantha Jayawardena deliberately erased off all these vital data in order to hide facts pertaining to the attacks and if so why he did that. Further, one needs to investigate thoroughly as to why this same officer tried to mislead the public on the murder of the two policemen at a check point in Batticaloa [Vavunathivu] seeking to protect Zaharan’s group who were the real authors of that murder which was, however, wrongly attributed by Jayawardena to an ex-LTTE cadre. One has to find out as to who prompted this officer to mislead the investigations into these murders and why?

Fourth, it is extremely important to find out as to why, when certain high up officials of the Police and the Security establishment were warned about these attacks several times, by the Indian intelligence services, well ahead of time, they did not take any effective action to prevent them and whether there was a superior involvement in this their gross inaction.

Fifth, it has been reported that the FBI investigations had handed over to the CID, the Internet Protocol [IP] address of a person who spoke frequently with Zaharan Hasheem and “when this person was arrested and was being questioned by the officers of the CID, the then Director of Military Intelligence, Brigadier Chula Kodithuwakku was sent by the Ministry of Defence to prevent the CID from detaining and questioning this person stating that since this person’s activities are a part of a secret military intelligence operation and it would affect national security, he cannot be questioned.” [No. 59 of the FR Petition presented by Shani Abeysekera before the Supreme Court]. We need to find out as to why and who blocked that investigation from proceeding. Who sought to protect the Military Intelligence and the Ministry of Defence from being investigated and why. We demand answers for that too.

Sixth, it has been found by now that the person who had used a pen name called “sonic-sonic” and had been in close contact with a person called “Matale Zaharan” or “Podi Zaharan”, had induced the latter to call a top level member of the ISIS overseas with whom he was in touch and plead with them to claim ownership for the Easter Sunday attacks in order to cover up the real authors behind these attacks. Why was this officer of the State Intelligence Service keen to get the ISIS to claim ownership of the attacks? Still intriguing is the fact that when investigations on the role of “sonic-sonic” or IP Bandara were proceeding the State Intelligence Service intervened urging the CID not to investigate this further as it was a matter of national security. Who then decided that contacts between State Intelligence and the ISIS was a matter of national security and why? We need to study this issue, too.

Seventh, it is necessary to investigate the matter concerning an instruction purported to have been given by the then DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon via telephone to two police officers who had sought to check the contents of a suspicious lorry exiting the Gelanigama gate of the southern highway and to let it pass through. The call had been given at 3.00 a.m. in the morning of the 5^th April 2019. Why was the DIG himself giving these instructions and at that hour? What was being transported? Where was it going to in Panadura? Were the contents of that lorry transported elsewhere before or after the attacks? Where was it transported to from Panadura? It is known that Zaharan Hasheem and his team were staying at a rented house in Walana, Panadura, before the Easter attacks.

THE PAIN OF THE VICTIMS

It has to be affirmed at this point that all these years the families of those who lost their loved ones are in deep sorrow and pain, coming to us often sharing such pain with us and asking us as to when they will know the truth about those who perpetrated this crime. Since then there have been two committees and a Presidential Commission that conducted inquiries. Several smaller level committees, too, were appointed. And it is five years since the 1^st volume (containing recommendations) of the Presidential Commission was published. The other volumes however, are still a secret.

And so in this kind of secretiveness the search for truth has become a cause of deep pain to all of us. Since most of those who died were Catholic faithful, and since these attacks took place in our churches, on our most holy day, Easter Sunday, the search for the truth behind these attacks becomes our basic right, that of the victim families as well as of the Church. The search for all those responsible for these murders and destruction is a right not only of the victims but of all of us, citizens of this country, and it is the duty of those in charge of the country to render justice to us on this in a fair and transparent manner.

HIDING THE TRUTH

It has to be sadly affirmed that, unlike the present leaders of the country, almost all the power holders since these sad incidents in 2019, including former Presidents, Heads of the Police and the AGs department officials instead of sincerely finding out as to who and what was behind these dastardly attacks, tried their best to confuse the public, muddle up the investigations and appointing all kinds of committees with highly suspect investigators in order to come out with conclusions crafted by them, tried to sabotage the truth from emerging.

The incumbent government that came to power in 2024 is indeed taking a more positive attitude with regard to the Easter massacre. Yet certain officials of the “deep state” are seeking to obstruct the smooth flow of these investigations. For example, in spite of the fact that the PCOI had given clear directives to the Attorney General and to that department to take clear legal and disciplinary actions against some of the political figures, officials of the security establishment and organisations for criminal neglect of duty, very little has so far been done on this matter by them.

At the same time, what is emerging through the latest investigations pointing to the involvement of some top-level officials of the security establishment in these attacks, especially from evidence found in the British Channel Four TV programme, need to be courageously explored. This kind of investigation seems to have rubbed a raw nerve among certain political groups who are reacting to these in a most revealing way, revealing the possibility that these investigations are indeed on the right track. These politically oriented reactions seem to be the result of a certain fear and anger at the possibility that they too might be exposed in some way.

And this also means that if anyone, sitting in high positions in any area of life be it in the political arena, the security establishment or in the commercial field, if found to have had any link should be called upon to give evidence or be prosecuted without considering the service they rendered in the past. No person is above the law and cannot go unpunished if found to have been involved even if that person has served the country with dedication earlier. Such persons indeed are expected to behave better even after their actions of heroism. If a good person does an evil deed he is accountable for that. Our call to investigate, question, hold to account anyone involved is not a condemnation of everyone else involved in that service.

If an official of the security establishment is involved in a crime he, too, is liable before the law. To interpret bringing before the law of any such security official as betrayal of one’s country, is totally lop sided and wrong. Truth and justice overrides all such petty considerations and we strongly condemn the instrumentalisation of such a false sense of patriotism by certain parties in this case. We want to know the truth in its totality and that is our right.

On 6th October 2024, His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka on a visit to St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, pledged to a gathering of Easter attack victims and well-wishers of their families that he will not allow

“the sands of time to bury the truth“ behind these attacks and so we call upon him to make that promise a reality by conducting a full, transparent and truthful investigation into these murders and to reveal the truth behind this brutal massacre courageously.

OUR PRAYER

Here we draw strength in the faith we profess. Justice belongs to the Lord. The blood that was shed was of innocent men, women and children which cries out to heaven for justice. The Lord we know will surely heed this prayer somehow, someday.

He will surely render us justice. Until then our struggle will continue.

We are grateful to every one of you for the fraternity you show us in this pursuit. We wish you God’s abundant blessings.

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Features

The Great AI Schism: When the Titans of Tech tell us to slow down

Published

17 hours ago

2026/10/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Prof. C. A. Saliya

Something extraordinary happened in September 2026. The very people who have spent the last decade pouring tens of billions of dollars into building artificial intelligence, the visionaries, the investors, the CEOs, suddenly started telling the world to hit the brakes. It’s a bit like the captain of a speeding train leaning out of the window and shouting, “Actually, maybe we should slow down a bit!” The public, understandably, is confused. We’ve been told AI will cure cancer, solve climate change, and give us all free time. Now we’re being told it might kill us all. Welcome to the great AI schism.

To understand what’s happening, you have to listen to the people in the room. These are not wild-eyed doomsayers on the internet. They are the titans of the industry. And they are starting to argue with each other.

Dario Amodei: The Insider Who Wants to Hit Pause

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic (Claude AI), is the man who kicked the hornet’s nest. In a 3,800-word essay, posted on his website in mid-September 2026, he didn’t just suggest caution, he demanded a slowdown. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” he wrote. His reasoning is simple and terrifying: the technology is moving faster than our ability to control it. He warned that AI could be misused for cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption.

What makes Amodei’s warning so chilling is that it comes from a man whose company, Anthropic, builds one of the most powerful AI models in the world, Claude. He’s not a critic on the sidelines. He’s in the driver’s seat, and he’s telling us the car might not have brakes. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said he agreed with a departing Anthropic researcher who claimed AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade. That researcher, 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, resigned in protest, saying the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all”. When the people building the technology start resigning because they’re afraid of it, you should pay attention.

Bill Gates: The Elder Statesman with a Warning

Bill Gates has been around long enough to know a paradigm shift when he sees one. The Microsoft co-founder, who spent decades warning the world about pandemics and climate change, has now turned his attention to AI. And he’s not mincing words. In September 2026, Gates warned that AI is “powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths”.

Gates is not worried about Terminator-style robots. He’s worried about people. “There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he said. His solution is simple: regulation. “No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. He even offered to be the man to convince President Trump to regulate AI. Gates is a pragmatist. He knows the technology is coming. He just wants to make sure it doesn’t get us first.

Sam Altman: The Showman with a Conscience (Maybe)

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (Chat GPT), has always been the industry’s greatest showman. He’s the man who told us AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is “just around the corner” and that AI will soon be a “genie that can grant any wish”. But even Altman is now singing a different tune. In September 2026, he ruled out an OpenAI IPO in 2026, citing safety concerns. He called even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction “unacceptable”.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman posted on X. This is a remarkable shift. Altman has spent years being criticised for moving too fast, for prioritising profit over safety. Now, facing mounting evidence that AI models can cause real harm, from cyberattacks to mental health crises, he’s suddenly the voice of caution. Is it genuine? Or is it a PR move? The cynics will tell you it’s the latter. But the fact remains: when Sam Altman says we need to slow down, the world listens.

Elon Musk: The Provocateur Who Saw It Coming

Elon Musk has been warning about AI for over a decade. He’s the man who called AI “more dangerous than nuclear weapons” long before it was fashionable. So it’s no surprise that he joined the chorus of slowdown calls in September 2026. But Musk being Musk, he couldn’t resist a bit of dark humour. When asked if we’re all going to die within 10 years, he replied, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but we’re all going to die someday anyway”.

But behind the joke is a serious point. Musk believes AI models could escape their constraints, take control of military systems, and even launch nuclear weapons. His solution is mutual oversight: leading AI companies should test each other’s systems for safety before release, and he even suggested a deal with China to make it happen. Musk is a provocateur, but he’s also a visionary. And his vision is one where AI is a weapon that we might not be able to control.

Satya Nadella: The Quiet Strategist

While the others are shouting about doom, Satya Nadella is quietly building an empire. The Microsoft CEO doesn’t talk about extinction risks. He talks about “agentic AI”, AI that can act autonomously, which he calls “a new paradigm”. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which powers these AI agents, grew 43% in the last quarter, surpassing $100 billion in annual revenue.

Nadella’s view is simple: don’t compete to build the most powerful model; compete to control the “orchestration layer”, the systems that connect different AI models. He wants to build the infrastructure that everyone else relies on. It’s a smart play, and it’s making Microsoft a fortune. But Nadella’s silence on safety is deafening. While Amodei and Altman wrestle with their consciences, Nadella is counting the money. It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s that his business model depends on AI being adopted, not regulated.

Jacob Coxon: The Whistleblower Who Lit the Fuse

You may not have heard of Jacob Coxon. He’s not a billionaire. He’s not a CEO. He’s a 27-year-old researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic. And in September 2026, he resigned from Anthropic with a warning that shook the industry. “Neither company is acting responsibly,” he wrote on X. “They are launching themselves directly toward a superintelligence capable of self-improvement, and gambling with our lives”.

Coxon’s warning was remarkable because it came from inside the machine. He said the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. He called for a temporary freeze on advanced AI training. His resignation triggered a wave of concern, and even Dario Amodei admitted he agreed with Coxon more than he disagreed. Coxon is the canary in the coal mine. And the canary is not looking well.

Donald Trump: The Wildcard

And then there’s Donald Trump. The US President has consistently downplayed AI fears, calling them a “hoax” and a “sick conspiracy”. But even Trump is starting to change his tune, sort of. In September 2026, he announced plans to create an “AI Force” and appoint an AI “Czar”. He said the government would look for “bad” uses of AI through the existing criminal and civil justice systems.

But Trump’s priority is clear: winning the AI race against China. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry,” he said. He wants AI to account for 25% of US GDP. Trump is not a technologist. He’s a businessman and a nationalist. He sees AI as a tool for economic dominance, not an existential threat. Whether he’s right or wrong, his stance puts him at odds with almost every expert in the field.

The Bottom Line: A House Divided

So where does this leave us? We have the CEOs of the world’s leading AI companies, Amodei, Altman, and Musk, all calling for a slowdown. We have Bill Gates, the elder statesman of tech, warning of a billion deaths. We have a whistleblower who says the industry is gambling with our lives. And then we have Satya Nadella, quietly building the infrastructure that powers it all, and Donald Trump, who wants to speed up.

The irony is hard to miss. The people who built the AI train are now telling us to slow down. The people who profit from the AI economy are the ones building the tracks. And the public is caught in the middle, trying to figure out who to believe.

Maybe the most honest thing anyone said came from Jacob Coxon, the 27-year-old researcher who quit. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he wrote. “This is not a marketing stunt”.

If the people building the technology believe it could kill us, perhaps we should listen. Before it’s too late.

(Prof. C. A. Saliya, is a charted accountant, academic, researcher and former banker. He is the author of SAMAJA GAVESHAKAYA and Springer Publication DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH. He can be contacted at saliya.ca@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations with which he is affiliated.)

Features

Preventing grievances from becoming communal

Published

2 days ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

Police removing the Thileepan statue

by Jehan Perera

The death sentence on Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan citizen convicted of blasphemy in Saudi Arabia has taken a central place in national consciousness for the past several weeks. It has been in the headline news since it was first reported last month. There have been many initiatives taken locally to get a more lenient sentencing by the Saudi authorities. There is also an undercurrent that is critical of both the culture and religion from which this sentencing emanates. This also sustains the widespread publicity being given nationally to the issue. By way of contrast, the controversy caused by the forcible removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna has not significantly impacted upon the national consciousness. There was only passing mention of the incident in the national media which has been overtaken by other events.

However, in the north and east of the country, and in the diaspora, the removal of the Thileepan statue has become a major issue. It has led to protest marches led by university students and widespread condemnation by civil society and political groups. The issues underlying the Thileepan statue have deep undercurrents in the Tamil consciousness particularly in the north and east which time is unlikely to dispel. The real test of harmony in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Sri Lanka is not whether communities coexist peacefully when nothing controversial is at stake. Rather, the test is how they respond when an event touches their identities and grievances. The death sentence imposed on Anojan in Saudi Arabia and the removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna carry the risk of becoming grievances to entire communities.

In the case of Anojan, a young Tamil migrant worker, he was first sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of three million Saudi riyals over a Facebook comment. Both he and the Saudi prosecution appealed, with the appeal court raising the sentence to death. This has led to public sympathy for him in Sri Lanka.

Appeals for clemency have come from the President, government and opposition leaders, clergy of all faiths and Muslim political leaders. At the same time there is a need to reject attempts to turn the case into a source of anti-Muslim sentiment or collective blame. Peacebuilding therefore has to be within Sri Lanka as well as diplomatic. Religious leaders and civil society in the country should be ready to quell rumour, even as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian leaders stand together publicly.

Thileepan Statue

The Thileepan controversy has had a different trajectory. Many Tamils admire Thileepan, the LTTE name of Rasaiah Parthipan, who died on 26 September 1987 after a twelve-day fast. His demands were addressed to India but included matters pertaining to the Sri Lankan government including the release of detainees held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The statue put up during this year’s commemoration was removed by police in the early hours of 27 September, a day after the commemoration ended. The government’s legal concern, as articulated by its spokesperson, was the LTTE remains a proscribed organisation and before removing the statue, police had presented facts to the court. But law and memory answer different questions and the depth of Tamil anguish cannot be disregarded.

For many Tamils, remembrance of Thileepan is connected to their sense of loss and historical memory. The memorial has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once, and each destruction has added to the meaning it carries. Many who mourn Thileepan are grieving a young man who died without violence and by his own fast. They also grieve an era of loss of the struggle for Tamil rights and self-determination for which Thileepan has become a symbol. The Office for Reparations Act, No. 34 of 2018, provides for collective reparations and gives the Office for Reparations a role in policies on memorialisation. This does not automatically permit any particular statue, nor does it override laws on public places or proscribed organisations. But it shows that memorialisation is recognised within Sri Lanka’s framework for reparations and reconciliation. There is also a wider question of equality.

The JVP that now leads the NPP government was itself once proscribed when it took up arms against the state in which tens of thousands died, later entered democratic politics, and now for many years has publicly commemorated its own fallen. The opportunity to remember those who died should not belong to one community alone.

A commitment to peacebuilding requires that the same trust that has been given to former militants of one community needs to be given to members of other communities if equal citizenship and equal rights are to have meaning. Further, the Office for Reparations Act provides for reparations through livelihood. It is today a fact that those former LTTE members who went through the government’s rehabilitation process find it difficult to get jobs in the private sector.

Private sector employers are reluctant to come under surveillance for employing former LTTE members. There needs to be equal access to employment and removal of unjustified barriers to reintegration, with targeted public programmes where necessary. Until this situation is realized on the ground, the government needs to consider employing those who went through the government’s rehabilitation process and still unable to find suitable employment.

Continuing Peace

The challenge that post-war Sri Lanka faces, a full 17 years after the end of war, is to strengthen the foundations of trust between communities rather than deepen existing suspicions. Anojan is an individual Sri Lankan citizen facing a severe sentence in another country. His case should not become a reason to blame Sri Lankan Muslims. Thileepan is remembered differently by different communities, but the dispute over his memorial should not become a reason to revive the communal divisions of the past. The cases are also mirror images in an important respect. In the Anojan case, the state is an advocate pleading before another government. In the Thileepan case, the state is the actor whose decision is being judged. The first calls for quiet diplomacy and restraint in public language. The second calls for fairness and explanation, and the burden on the state is heavier.

The common roots of the two cases lie in mistrust that does not belong to one community alone. It has been produced by experiences of discrimination, violence, insecurity and loss that have been interpreted differently by different communities. Grievances turn communal when an individual is seen as a representative of a community, when institutions seem to treat communities unequally, and when people feel their pain goes unacknowledged. Each of these can be addressed. The system change that the Sri Lankan people voted for in 2024 would need to include a government that rejects collective blame, acknowledges grief and explains its decisions openly. It also requires state institutions to act transparently and consistently, so that no citizen feels that the law protects some communities more than others.

This peacebuilding imperative requires enlightened leadership as much as legal authority. It requires leaders who will speak to their own communities against prejudice, even when this is politically inconvenient. It requires religious leaders who will demonstrate solidarity across religious boundaries. And it requires civil society to recognise that peacebuilding is not simply preventing violence after tensions have risen, but is addressing the mistrust and grievances that allow tensions to rise in the first place. Sri Lanka has learned, at great cost, that communal divisions can become much larger than the events that initially give rise to them. The Anojan and Thileepan cases give Sri Lanka an opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned from its past. The test of Sri Lanka’s continuing peace is whether we can address difficult grievances without turning them into communal ones.

Features

Sri Lanka Cricket Bill: Governance reform is not yet a cricket strategy – Part II

Published

2 days ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Sarath S. Kodithuwakku

President, Institute of Management of Sri Lanka; Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya

(Continued from yesterday)

Representation, Independence and Decision-Making

The membership-based electoral structure should provide representation without becoming a substitute for executive management. The seven Elected Directors would bring the perspectives of the SLC membership into the Board, while the seven Independent Directors would provide additional professional expertise and independence. The model’s effectiveness will, therefore, depend on whether the Board can integrate these perspectives into coherent strategic decisions while maintaining a clear boundary between governance and day-to-day management.

The equal division between Elected and Independent Directors also raises a governance-design question. An even-numbered Board can create a tie. The Bill addresses this directly: in the event of equality, the Chairperson has a casting vote; in the Chairperson’s absence, the Deputy Chairperson has a casting vote; and if both are absent, an Independent Director, elected to preside, has the casting vote. The issue is, therefore, not whether a tie can be resolved, but how this mechanism affects the balance between representation, independence and accountability.

The leadership structure reinforces this balance: the Chairperson is elected from among the Independent Directors and the Deputy Chairperson from among the Elected Directors. The casting-vote arrangement makes the Chairperson’s role and perceived independence particularly important, especially when a major strategic decision divides the two components of the Board.

The Bill’s committee provisions could support a disciplined model of delegation, but implementation will depend heavily on the terms of reference adopted by the new Board. The framework could be strengthened by requiring a published cricket-development strategy, a clear division of powers among the Board, executives and selection committees, transparent principles for major development allocations, and periodic reporting on outcomes across men’s, women’s, schools and domestic cricket. These measures would strengthen accountability without legislating the details of team selection or tournament scheduling.

From Measurement to Strategic Accountability

If the Board is to hold management accountable for strategy rather than simply for short-term results, it needs a performance framework that captures both outcomes and the capabilities that produce them.

SLC should consider requiring an explicit multi-year cricket-development strategy, supported by measurable objectives and an annual strategy review. Such a strategy should identify the development pathway from schools and grassroots cricket through domestic competitions to high performance; define major capability priorities such as coaching, sports science, data and analytics; set resource-allocation principles; and establish indicators against which progress can be assessed.

The purpose would not be to turn cricket into a bureaucratic exercise. Strategic accountability simply creates a disciplined basis for asking whether the organisation is doing what it said it would do, whether its assumptions remain valid, and whether resources are producing the intended results.

From Measurement to Organisational Learning

SLC should, therefore, consider adopting a formal Balanced Scorecard. Rather than measuring success solely through international match results or annual financial audits, the framework could track four interdependent perspectives:

Financial Sustainability:

commercial growth, financial discipline and compliance.

Internal Processes:

domestic tournament quality, development pathways and selector-process integrity.

Stakeholder Value:

grassroots development, school cricket and women’s cricket expansion.

Strategic Capability:

coaching quality, sports science, talent development, data and analytics capability, and the organisation’s ability to convert investment into sustainable performance.

The purpose of such a framework would not be to reduce cricket development to a collection of numbers. Rather, it would create a disciplined process for asking four fundamental management questions:

What did we expect to achieve?

What actually happened?

Why was there a difference?

What should we change as a result?

Evaluating these dimensions periodically would help SLC move beyond performance reporting towards genuine organisational learning.

ICC as a Stakeholder in Governance Reform

The ICC is another important stakeholder whose interests should be recognised in the reform process. SLC’s governance arrangements do not operate solely within Sri Lankan law; they also have to be compatible with the governance obligations associated with ICC membership. The ICC’s Articles of Association require each Member to provide for free and democratic elections (or nominees from outside its members) and to manage its affairs autonomously, without government or other public-body interference in the governance, regulation or administration of cricket.

International experience demonstrates that ICC engagement in member governance restructuring is not unusual. In the United States, after the ICC expelled the old national association for chronic governance failures, the ICC directly oversaw a multi-year project to design a new governance model. The ICC Board formally approved the constitution for a replacement body (USA Cricket) before it was adopted. The resulting structure combined elected constituent directors with independent directors, showing that an ICC-backed framework can accommodate both forms of representation.

In Nepal, the ICC established a Nepal Advisory Group comprising stakeholders from across the game to recommend constitutional amendments, with adoption of the revised constitution and subsequent elections forming part of the conditions for reinstatement of ICC membership.[8] The ICC subsequently facilitated an independent panel that included ICC nominees together with representatives of Nepal’s National Sports Council and the existing cricket administration to map the election process, guidelines and timelines.[9] More recently, in 2026, an ICC delegation visited Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.[10] The ICC has also reported that its Deputy Chair and another ICC Board representative visited Sri Lanka and met relevant stakeholders to assess ongoing developments, while the ICC Board reiterated the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

These precedents make the ICC a legitimate stakeholder in considering the governance implications of the proposed Bill. This does not mean that the ICC should determine Sri Lanka’s domestic legislation, nor that every feature of the Bill requires prior ICC approval. It does, however, suggest that early and formal engagement with the ICC would be prudent, particularly where the proposed arrangements concern Board independence, elections, government involvement and the transition to the new governance structure.

This is particularly relevant because the Bill creates two institutional arrangements that deserve careful scrutiny from an autonomy perspective. The Transformation Committee is responsible for managing the transition until the First Board is constituted, while the Nomination Committee, although structurally independent of the SLC Board, includes representatives connected with the Sports Ministry and the National Sports Council. Neither arrangement, by itself, establishes government interference. However, taken together, they make it important that the independence of the incoming Board is demonstrable through transparent procedures rather than assumed from the structure alone.

Given the professional calibre and international exposure of the members of the Transformation Committee, it would be reasonable to expect that the importance of ICC engagement would have been recognised. Although any such consultation has not been evident in the public domain, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the ICC has either already been consulted or will be consulted before the Bill is enacted. Such engagement would allow potential incompatibilities to be identified before the new structure is enacted and implemented, rather than after the fact.

The Transition Is Itself a Governance Challenge

The transition provisions introduce a significant organisational-change challenge. Replacing the existing club- and association-based governance structure with a new hybrid Board and governance architecture is not simply a legal exercise; it is an organisational change programme. The Sri Lanka Cricket Transformation Committee is required to manage the transition until the First Board is constituted and, during that period, to establish rules covering matters including tournament structure, domestic governance, selection committee appointments, committee terms of reference, the Nomination Committee process and the election of the Elected Directors.

Structural reform on paper can encounter resistance from established interests, institutional habits and existing routines. The implementation phase will therefore require a clear change-management framework, including stakeholder engagement, transparent onboarding for Independent Directors, clarification of decision rights, alignment of legacy committees, and careful transfer of information and responsibilities.

Without attention to these organisational factors, cultural friction could undermine the intended administrative improvements. The success of the reform will therefore depend not only on the text of the legislation but also on the quality of the rules, appointments, delegation arrangements and organisational behaviours that follow it.

From Governance Reform to a Cricket Strategy

The Bill deserves credit for addressing how SLC is constituted and for creating places for specialist advice. It should not be dismissed simply because it does not prescribe a batting order or a domestic fixture list. Those are not appropriate tasks for legislation.

Its limitation is more precise: the proposed governance arrangements do not, by themselves, assure the strategic capability of the Board or the quality, independence and accountability of the decisions made beneath it. They establish the architecture. The future Board and management must supply the strategy, capabilities, discipline and learning mechanisms that make the architecture work.

A stronger reform would connect four elements: a Board selected for collective strategic capability; professional cricket management with clear delegated authority; transparent but non-mechanical selection and investment processes; and systematic evaluation of development outcomes. Within the first of these, information technology and computer science should be recognised as distinct from the broader capability to understand and govern data science, analytics and emerging AI-enabled decision support.

Ultimately, the governing question is not only who gets a seat at the SLC Board table. It is whether that Board can build, fund, execute and learn from a credible strategy for Sri Lankan cricket.

References

1. Department of Government Printing, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Cricket Bill, Gazette Supplement, Part II of September 25, 2026, issued on 28 September 2026.

2. International Cricket Council. Media release, 15 July 2026, reporting the ICC Board discussion of Sri Lanka Cricket and the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

3. Sport New Zealand – Ihi Aotearoa. Nine Steps to Effective Governance, particularly Step 1: Define and Agree the Board’s Role; Step 4: Provide Strategic Leadership; Step 5: Employ and Support a Chief Executive; and Step 8: Get the Right People on Board.

4. Cricket South Africa. Governance and management frameworks, including the delegation-of-authority framework, Board committees, Cricket Committee, Cricket Pipeline Committee and CEO accountability.

5. International Cricket Council. ICC Articles of Association, provisions requiring free and democratic elections and autonomous administration without government or other public-body interference. ICC. https://images.icc-cricket.com/image/upload/prd/f7vm88yw1933dc38cgtg.pdf

6. International Cricket Council. “ICC outlines proposed USACA constitution.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/icc-outlines-proposed-usaca-constitution

7. International Cricket Council. “Approved constitution marks historic landmark for cricket in USA.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/approved-constitution-marks-historic-landmark-for-cricket-in-usa

8. International Cricket Council. “ICC welcomes Nepal Special General Meeting to adopt revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-welcomes-nepal-special-general-meeting-to-adopt-revised-constitution

9. International Cricket Council. “Independent Panel meet to progress Nepal elections under revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/independent-panel-meet-to-progress-nepal-elections-under-revised-constitution

10. International Cricket Council. “ICC delegation visits Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.” ICC, 2026. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-delegation-visits-bangladesh-to-engage-with-stakeholders-on-governance-and-electoral-matters

11. International Cricket Council. “ICC Board approves governance, membership and member support decisions.” ICC, 2026; see also “ICC Board Meeting,” 2026, reporting ICC representatives’ meetings with stakeholders in Sri Lanka. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-board-approves-governance-membership-and-member-support-decisions

(Concluded)