Editorial

Fake news over the grand snub

Published

5 years ago

2021/12/26

We are happy to join former President Chandrika Bandanaike Kumaratunga and Ven. Omalpe Sobitha in congratulating some graduands of the University of Colombo, for snubbing their university’s new Chancellor, Ven. Muruththetuwe Ananda Thero, who was chief guest at its recent convocation where he was to hand over their degree certificates to the class of 2019. Tens of thousands of social media and television viewers were treated to images of what seemed a gigantic snub which left the venerable monk clearly bewildered and obviously embarrassed. Several young graduands, both men and women, walked past the monk holding the scrolls in which their certificates were enclosed without accepting their degrees from him. This forced the Vice-Chancellor to take the scrolls from Ven. Ananda and do the honours, posing briefly with the new graduates for the customary photographs. We did seen a few graduands accepting their certificates from the venerable Chancellor; but the vast majority did not snub the monk although social media clips attempted to project such a scenario; a clear lesson to us all not to take such clips at face value.

Earlier, Ven. Ananda was conducted to the platform at the head of the customary procession of the university’s faculty clad in their academic regalia. Not being a graduate, perhaps he was not entitled to be similarly attired though he did add a silk sash to his robe. However that be, he was installed on an ornate chair, draped with a white cloth as is traditional, to do the honours of handing over the degree certificates. What happened thereafter is now well known though the picture painted was much blacker than reality. No doubt the snub, however big or small it was, has been widely welcomed by a nation angered by what is widely considered a rank bad and inappropriate appointment similar to that of the serving head of the One Country, One Law Presidential Task Force.

The Colombo University chose to largely ignore what happened, issuing a short statement titled “Statement from University Colombo on Ceremonial Graduation 2019.” This was distinguished by not what it said but what it did not say. Some bland sentences were strung together in a few paragraphs reporting that three day-long physical ceremonial graduation of 2,668 graduates of the 2019 graduation class had been duly completed. “All those who graced the occasion and supported us” were thanked. So was the “Venerable Chancellor,” who was specifically named though what happened to him was politely ignored. Various others who helped organize the convocation were mentioned by title as were the young graduates and their parents who too were thanked for their support. To crown it all, the university reiterated its commitment to “uphold decent behavior and attitudes among all sectors of the university and regretted any misrepresentation of the university’s reputation and good name in producing the best of global citizen,” whatever that may mean.

This statement issued through the Government Information Department was unsigned. Presumably the Vice Chancellor takes responsibility for it. But what could the poor lady do? She can’t stand up like the rest of us ordinary folk and say “serves him right, he damned well deserved it.” After all the President made the appointment. Can the university collectively thumb its nose at him? And would the president have got the message that was clear though blatantly exaggerated? The usually vociferous monk has attempted to brush off the incident which will be long remembered even in this nation of notoriously short memories. At a press conference, an acolyte (golaya) was sharply critical of the Vice-Chancellor who Ven. Ananda’s supporters seem to regard very negatively over what happened. She, after all, handed over the degree certificates to some graduands who refused to accept them from the monk and posed for photos.

Ven Ananda’s already got what used to be Thimbirigasyaya Road named after him. His temple served as a political office for the ruling Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) before the presidential and parliamentary elections. More recently he was a familiar presence on national television, stridently critical of those he helped elect on various issues over which the government had become massively unpopular. It would not be unreasonable to ask whether the recent appointment was an attempt to shut his mouth.

Opinions widely differ on whether some jobs are not for the clergy. There are those who strongly believe that Parliament is not a place for Buddhist monks. But several members of the Buddhist clergy have been elected to our legislature by the votes of the people and others have been appointed thorough party National Lists. Archbishop Makarios was President of Cyprus. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist Minister who led the American civil rights movement. Clergymen of various religious persuasions would surely have run for and been elected public office in many parts of the world. The Sorbonne-educated Prof. Ven. Kollupitiye Mahinda Sangharakkhitha Nayake Thero is the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya and not even a whisper of criticism has ever been heard about that appointment.

Apart from Chancellors, there have been eminent Buddhist monks who have served as Vice-Chancellors, the chief executives of universities, and two notable names readily come to mind – Ven. Welivitiye Sri Soratha, who became the first Vice-Chancellor of the Vidyodaya University when the Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara Pirivenas were accorded university status, and Ven. Walpola Rahula who was also Vice-Chancellor of Vidyodaya. Ven. Soratha, a scholar monk of revered memory, was credited as being a fount of great wisdom and his appointment adorned the university he headed. So also the highly accomplished Ven. Rahula, the first Buddhist monk to be appointed a professor of a Western university when he was appointed to the Chair of History and Religions at Northwestern University in the USA.

We are not admirers of much of what university students in this country do, notably the savage ragging that have too long been permitted to continue. But in this instance, though infinitely smaller than falsely projected, we join a cross-section of the country in applauding what a decided small minority of the students did.

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Editorial

Conspiracies galore!

Published

9 hours ago

2026/07/18

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 18th July, 2026

US President Donald Trump has accused China of interfering in the 2020 US presidential election and alleged “shocking vulnerabilities” in American voting systems. Speaking from the White House on Thursday, he repeated unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign meddling in the 2020 election, which he lost.

Trump claimed he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files which supported his claim that Beijing tried to sway the election in his rival, Joe Biden’s favour. However, the US intelligence agencies have concluded that China did not interfere in the 2020 election. One may recall that there were allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, which Trump won. After securing the presidency, Trump insisted that those allegations were false, politically motivated and an attempt to delegitimise his victory.

Trump’s allegation against China has come three months ahead of crucial US midterm elections, where the Republicans are expected to suffer a setback. Trump is doing everything in his power to prevent a situation that will make his position as a lame-duck President even weaker. So, it is only natural that he is concocting conspiracy theories and resorting to hard power projections, such as using military force, and economic coercion to influence other nations, in a bid to shore up the crumbling image of his government. However, it is doubtful whether his tactics will pay off.

Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance has accused a section of the Israeli government of trying to sway US public opinion against a peace deal to end the Iran war. He said so in an interview with a podcaster on Wednesday. Defending a deal that the US reached last month to end the war with Iran, Vance said, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign,” according to media reports. Vance’s allegation followed a Time magazine story that a former Trump campaigner had been hired to influence US views of Israel and the Iran war. Vance’s allegation is damning; he has called the Israeli efforts “very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal”.

That Israel does not want the US to enter into a peace deal with Iran is obvious. It wants the US to go on attacking Iran until there is a regime change in Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes no bones about the fact that he was not well-disposed towards the interim peace deal signed between the US and Iran. The resumption of hostilities must have gladdened his heart as well as those of all other hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv.

There is no way Israel can prevent the US from signing a peace agreement with Iran if President Trump so desires strongly. What has stood in the way of efforts to end the Iran war is Trump’s intransigence. Iran is not without blame, but the US is to be blamed more for the resumption of war. Trump knows he cannot go on attacking Iran indefinitely for economic and strategic reasons. The US weapons stockpiles have to be replenished, and the economic cost of war is escalating. The war has also driven oil prices and the cost of living high in the US, much to the consternation of the US public, the majority of whom are against the ongoing war, which they think Israel manoeuvred the Trump administration into. Trump only made a virtue of necessity when he agreed to a ceasefire, but wanted to end the war on his own terms; he failed because Iran did not give in to US pressure.

As for the aforesaid ‘conspiracies’ Trump is in a position to order a thorough probe into the alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 US election and get to the bottom of it, and instead of blaming Israel, Vance can ask his boss, Trump, to stop attacking Iran.

Editorial

Overwhelming fire power and stubborn resilience

Published

1 day ago

2026/07/17

Thilina Walpola

Friday 17th July, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be on cloud nine. The US is now doing exactly what he wanted it to do; it is attacking Iran without Israeli involvement. Israeli officials have told the media that they do not expect Israel to become directly involved in the new phase of fighting though the Israel Defence Forces remain on alert should the conflict expand. This can be considered another dream come true for Netanyahu, who said after the first round of US-Israeli airstrikes which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he had been dreaming of attacking Iran for 40 years.

What is unfolding in West Asia is an asymmetric conflict where the US firepower is far superior to that of Iran, which is resisting Trump’s “Epic Fury”. Tehran’s resilience is remarkable. The US cannot go on carrying out airstrikes indefinitely. Only a ground war will determine a clear winner.

Trump has threatened a ground assault in Iran, but he has the war powers resolution passed by the Congress recently to contend with. A ground operation won’t be a walk in the park. Deploying ground troops is a high-risk gamble that did not pay off for the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan. A steady flow of body bags from a foreign theatre of war that lacks popular support at home has the potential to unsettle any government.

Weapons stockpiles are not unlimited for any nation however mighty and wealthy it may be. The ongoing conflict has depleted the weapons inventories of both sides to it. However, it can be considered a matter of greater concern to the US than Iran in that Washington has to fire a large number of missiles at multiple targets in Iran as part of its strategy to keep Tehran under pressure. Michael O’Hanlon, who leads the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy research, has been quoted by the media as saying that the US weapons stockpiles are doubtlessly lower than Washington would prefer.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, has reportedly said that by the time full-scale fighting between the US and Iran stopped in April, the Pentagon had fired at least half of its THAAD ballistic missile interceptors, nearly half of its Patriot air defence interceptors, and around 30% of its Tomahawk land-attack missiles. This revelation runs counter to President Trump’s boastful claim that the US has a never-ending supply of missiles. Besides, in March, Trump said that his officials had met the heads of US arms manufacturing companies and they had promised to increase production.

Military analysts are of the view that it could take between one to four years for the US to replenish its vital munitions stockpiles and restore them to the pre-Iran war levels, according to an Al Jazeera report. Speculation is rife in international defence circles that if the depletion of the US weapons stockpiles continues at this rate, Washington may find it difficult to face a military conflict elsewhere.

Global oil prices are rising again due to the closure of the Hormuz Strait. A US naval blockade will be of little use. The global economy will be the biggest loser. Oil supply disruptions will take a heavy toll on the US economy as well. The first phase of the Iran war sent the US fuel prices up, and the closure of the Hormuz chokepoint will make the situation far worse. Trump is fighting a war that a vast majority of Americans are opposed to, according to opinion survey results. US farmers have been complaining of production cost escalations due to the knock-on economic effects of the West Asia conflict, according to media reports. US midterm elections are due in a few months and the Republicans are not doing well on the political front.

The White House will have to justify the colossal amounts of funds being spent on the current war. The financial cost of the conflict is still being calculated, but according to some estimates the direct military cost ranges from about USD 40 billion to more than USD 100 billion, with equipment losses, base repairs and weapons replenishment being taken into account. The cost continues to escalate. These politico-economic factors will also have a bearing on Trump’s military campaign.

Editorial

The strange case of Kanjipani Imran

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 16th July, 2026

Occasions are not rare when absurd twists and turns in Sri Lanka’s legal system remind us of Mr. Bumble, the famous Dickensian character, who declared, “The law is an ass”. The police arrest criminals, after months of meticulous planning, risking their life and limb, but the latter obtain bail, go into hiding, either here or overseas, and continue to run their illegal operations. The police have to launch fresh operations to arrest the criminals on the run.

The police have sought information about Mohommad Najim Mohommad Imran alias Kanjipani Imran, who is wanted under an INTERPOL Red Notice. He is running his criminal operations from overseas, according to a report published in this newspaper yesterday. It defies comprehension why he was released on bail in 2021 though it was patently clear that he would flee the country.

Quoting the police, our news item has said intelligence reports point to links between Imran and international terrorist organisations as well as major mafia syndicates, which enable him to use transnational networks and technology to manage drug trafficking and other criminal operations.

Much is being spoken these days about the need to strengthen public confidence in the judiciary. There is no gainsaying that everything possible must be done to preserve the integrity and dignity of the judiciary. Worryingly, some issues crop up, making one wonder whether a section of the law enforcement authorities and some members of the legal fraternity bend the law to safeguard the interests of wealthy underworld figures at the expense of the judicial process and public security.

The police and the state prosecutor take great pains to prevent some suspects, especially the political opponents of governments in power, from obtaining bail. They invoke all laws and come out with various arguments to have such suspects held on remand for extended periods. Instances abound where their investigations get underway in earnest only after suspects are arrested and remanded for weeks, if not months, while ruling party politicians conduct social media trials, as it were, and declare the suspects guilty, with no heed for the presumption of innocence or the fact that public speculation is prohibited when cases are sub judice.

When Imran was arrested in Dubai and extradited in 2019, it was widely thought that he would have his work cut out to secure bail because Sri Lanka police and their UAE counterparts had worked tirelessly for months to arrest him and Makandure Madush, known as Sri Lanka’s Napoleon of Crime, and bring them here. Madush was shot dead while in custody, and the then government claimed that he had been caught in the crossfire between police and an underworld gang while being taken to a place where a haul of narcotics was believed to have been buried. It is doubtful whether the discerning public bought into that claim.

The news of Imran being released on bail raised many an eyebrow. We said in an editorial comment dated 02 January 2023 that having secured bail he would flee the country and carry out his illegal operation from overseas as other criminals did.

However, Imran is not the only criminal to have jumped bail and fled the country. Janith Madushanka de Silva alias Podi Lasi, a dangerous underworld character, fled to India after being released on bail in 2024. He even claimed that his life was in danger and asked for police protection. It was obvious that he would flee the country, and he did so soon afterwards. One may recall that in 2020, while being detained at the Boossa high-security prison, he and two other criminals, known as Kosgoda Tharaka and Pitigala Keuma, threatened to kill the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne and several senior prison officers. Podi Lasi bragged that their private armies were capable of striking anywhere at will. He was arrested in India and brought back in 2026. Thus, criminals are caught, released and caught again. Now, the police are trying to arrest Imran.

Only a thorough probe into the circumstances that led to the release of Imran on bail will reveal how he managed to manipulate the legal process and flee the country.