Midweek Review

India’s Vietnam moment, US pullout and Afghan dilemma

Published

4 years ago

2021/08/25

UNP’s call to terminate diplomatic relations with Taliban questionable

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Can the recent US pullout, from Afghanistan, be compared with the Indian withdrawal, from Sri Lanka ,in late March 1990? Some sections of the Western media, at that time ,called the disastrous Indian military intervention here (July 1987-March 1990) India’s Vietnam. Reference was also made to what some called India’s Vietnam moment. The Washington Post report, that dealt with the situation in Sri Lanka, in the wake of ‘Operation Pawan,’ was aptly headlined, India’s Vietnam? The US media giant declared: “One reason that Sri Lanka had been unable to tame the ‘Tamil Tigers’ was the support that an indulgent New Delhi had let flow to them from India’s 50 million Tamils.”

What the Washington Post report, dated Oct 27, 1987, left unsaid, was that New Delhi armed over a half a dozen terrorist groups, in Sri Lanka, on the specific instructions of the then Indian Premier, Indira Gandhi, though Tamil Nadu was routinely blamed for the aggression. No less a person than the late Indian National Security Advisor and veteran diplomat J.N. Dixit, who had been Indian High Commissioner in Colombo (1985-1989) in his memoirs ‘Makers of India’s Foreign Policy’ acknowledged the executive prime ministerial decision to arm terrorists here.

Dixit’s declaration should be examined against the backdrop of Indira Gandhi‘s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards, on Oct 31, 1984. When did Indira Gandhi actually authorise arming of terrorist groups in Sri Lanka?

May be we shouldn’t be so unkind to Mrs. Gandhi, for obviously she was also a victim of circumstances, clearly sowed by the West. Mind you this was a time when the West was clearly lighting separatist fires right across India, be it in Punjab, Assam or Tripura. And the separatist fire that was lit here had, as its final aim, the breakup of India. The July ’83 riots, in the country, were clearly due to manipulation of the police here not to nip it in the bud by powerful interests. We even saw at firsthand how police, in different areas, went round egging the poor, among the Sinhalese and Muslims, to attack Tamils, who were considered the haves. So, in the resultant picture of mob violence, against hapless Tamils, that was created, can we blame Mrs. Gandhi for the counter steps that she took? She wanted to show the huge long restless Tamil population, in Tamil Nadu, that it was not the West that would give succor and protection to Tamils, in Sri Lanka, but mother India. The West even would have had plenty of infiltrators among her intelligence to feed her fears. From the word go, mind you, it was not in India that many of these separatists had their rear bases but in the capitals of the powerful West. For example, the LTTE International Secretariat was based in London, even after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by it. Of course, their lame excuse was that the LTTE had not violated British laws!

She may have even assented to the ambush of a Sri Lankan military patrol, by Tamil terrorists, at Thinnavely, Jaffna, that was used by vested forces to trigger the anti-Tamil violence, in the south, with police not lifting a finger to stop it, let alone even firing a warning shot.

There had been an interesting incident, around 1977, at a cocktail party, in Manila, where a big talking American, who was obviously after one too many, had boasted to our Ambassador there, the late Oliver Perera, that soon there would be an armed rebellion, by Tamils, in Sri Lanka!

Obviously, Indira Gandhi’s assassination didn’t halt the despicable Indian project which culminated with the deployment of the Indian Army here. She was succeeded by son Rajiv, 40, the sixth and the youngest Indian Premier who intensified assistance to terrorist groups here. PM Gandhi also intervened, on behalf of the LTTE ,when the latter faced certain defeat in the hands of the Sri Lankan military.

If Rajiv Gandhi returned at the 1989 general election, the then Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, elected in the previous year, wouldn’t have succeeded in getting rid of the Indian Army. Those who propagated, and justified, New Delhi’s direct intervention, here, following the July 1983 violence, directed at the Tamil community, conveniently ignored the truth that India triggered the riots by causing the deaths of 13 soldiers at Thinnaveli, in Jaffna. There had never been such a devastating attack on the Army, until Indian trained terrorists wiped out the lightly armed mobile patrol.

Can the US invasion of Afghanistan, in the wake of the 9/11 carnage, and the Indian military misadventure, in Sri Lanka, be compared? In the case of Afghanistan, the US invaded that country, on the pretext of going after those responsible for 9/11, receiving refuge there, whereas New Delhi forced Army deployment here to impose a ‘political’ solution. Over 30 years later, the Indian solution is on the Geneva agenda!

On both occasions, powerful foreign forces had pathetically failed to achieve their primary objectives, though the circumstances were totally different. For the US, both Afghanistan and the fall of Saigon, way back, in late April 1975, meant the humiliating failure of Washington’s strategic policy. In other words, the US abandoned South Vietnam and Afghanistan administrations, and here, in Sri Lanka, India gave up a Tamil administration, installed by its Army. India went to the extent of forming, what was dubbed, Tamil National Army (TNA) to protect the NE provincial administration.

The US-led NATO forces, invaded Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban administration, accused of providing safe haven to those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, though, at the end, the US negotiated with them whereas the Indian military mission was meant to disarm Tamil groups, once sponsored by New Delhi. It would be pertinent to mention that the US invaded Afghanistan, though the majority of those involved in the 9/11 attacks, were Saudis. Of the 19 attackers, 15 were Saudi citizens, two were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one was from Lebanon, and one from Egypt.

India destabilised Sri Lanka in a bid to create a situation, conducive for deployment of its Army, followed by Provincial Council elections, rigged in favour of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). With the Indian Army deployed in Sri Lanka, New Delhi forced the then JRJ administration to introduce the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. As the writer pointed out before, the 13th Amendment has ended up in the Geneva agenda.

Perhaps, those who had referred to New Delhi’s military misadventure here as India’s Vietnam may consider calling the US withdrawal, from Afghanistan, America’s Sri Lanka moment. The US pullout caused the immediate collapse of 72-year-old Mohammad Ashraf Ghani’s Afghan administration. Twice President Ghani, with the knowledge of the US, secured political asylum in the UAE. Ghani couldn’t have done so without the blessings of the Biden administration. International media coverage of the pathetic scenes at the Kabul airport must have deeply embarrassed the US. Those who believed the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces — including an 180,000 strong Afghan National Army, and a police force with 150,000 personnel, besides an Air Force, and other security wings — trained by the US military, NATO and India – could face up to the Taliban. They simply folded up like a house of cards, proving utterly unequal to the task of holding on to territory, and containing the Taliban. The Afghan imbroglio cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the US-Taliban agreement, finalised in Doha, in Qatar, in February, last year. In other words, Biden implemented the agreement between his predecessor Trump and the Taliban. Most probably, the US must have sealed the fate of its costly mission by its blind drone strikes there, which would have killed many hundreds, if not thousands, of innocents, thereby turning many more Afghans against the whole false façade of the West, fighting for human rights and fair play for their much-exploited women. Surely, how many times did they strike funeral processions, or weddings, while targeting the Taliban, using their smart missiles? Now, they and their allies have turned tail and run, leaving behind for the Taliban to use billions of dollars’ worth of state-of-the-art weapons!

India also stepped up engagement with Taliban, in the wake of US moves to bring the 20-year-old disastrous Afghan chapter to an end. One shouldn’t be surprised by the Indian strategy, as India cannot lose its relationship with Afghanistan, in the wake of the US pullout. That would be a major blunder on India’s part. Perhaps, the Afghan military received instructions, from those who sponsored them, to quickly give up the fight. That possibility cannot be ruled out. Perhaps, Ghani knew of that likelihood. In spite of being trained and equipped by US and its NATO allies, the Afghan Army didn’t have the guts to face the Taliban, who advanced to Kabul without facing any organised resistance. Quad member India, too, provided training to thousands of Afghan officers, and men, both in Afghanistan as well as at various training facilities, in India, over a period of time. India also provided a range of weapons, including helicopter gunships to Afghanistan. Of several Mi-24 helicopter gunships provided by India, the Taliban seized one as the Afghan Army quickly gave up the fight for Kabul. The swift collapse of the Afghan Army must have definitely embarrassed those who trained them.

India deployed Mi-24s against the LTTE here whereas the Sri Lanka Air Force acquired the same, in 1995, after the LTTE introduced surface-to-air heat seeking missiles.

In 1990, Sri Lanka faced a situation similar to that faced by the Afghan military. The Sri Lankan military struggled to cope up with an unprecedented crisis. The vacuum created by the Indian withdrawal had to be filled quickly but the Army lacked the strength. However, the country’s intrepid armed forces faced the challenge. The military saved the country from a catastrophe, in the wake of the Indian pullout.

The writer was among a group of journalists, invited to board INS Magar,on the morning of March 24, 1990, at the Trincomalee harbour, soon after the last contingent of Indian troops boarded the troop-carrier. The vessel left the port to the farewell strains of Auld lang syne, played by the Sri Lankan military. Before their departure, the Indian Commander, here, Lt. General A.S. Kalkat, declared, on board INS Magar: “We came as a proud force and are leaving as a proud force.” India lost 1,155 IPKF officers, and men, on top of 2,984 personnel wounded. India never bothered to build a monument for those who perished during the conflict here.

The Afghan Army didn’t have the stomach to fight the Taliban though there were some confrontations between them, as the US stepped up withdrawal. India re-trained Tamil terrorists, belonging to several groups, as well as new cadres, including underage children, as a last minute effort to establish, what was then known as the Tamil National Army. The TNA was meant to protect the then North-East administration of EPRLF strongman Varatharaja Perumal. However, the TNA collapsed, even before India completed its withdrawal, under controversial circumstances. India evacuated Perumal, along with those near and dear to him. The LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi over a year later. Gandhi’s crime was sending the Indian Army here. Prabhakaran conveniently forgot how Gandhi saved him, in 1987, when the Sri Lanka Army was advancing on his hideout in the Vadamaratchchy region.

Resumption of hostilities

March 24, 1990, Trincomalee harbour: The last batch of Indian Army to leave Sri Lanka at the end of the disastrous mission

Less than three months, after India quit Sri Lanka, the LTTE resumed hostilities. Having gained valuable experience in fighting South Asia’s largest Army, the LTTE obviously believed the relatively smaller Sri Lanka Army could be overwhelmed in a meticulously planned offensive. By the end of June 1990, the LTTE had taken control of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, with the military confined to major bases. The police remained within their stations. When the writer, accompanied a group of journalists, assigned to cover the Indian departure ,from Trincomalee, the eastern port city was under threat. Both police and the military therein had no qualms in acknowledging the growing threat posed by LTTE units, operating just outside the town. Had the LTTE plan succeeded, Sri Lanka would have suffered an irrevocable setback in the Northern theatre of operations. As a result of miscalculations, on the part of the then political leadership, the LTTE had an opportunity to build up the required strength for a major offensive. The LTTE had the wherewithal to neutralise the Army, north of Vavuniya. Destruction, and the vacation of Army detachments, along the Kandy-Jaffna A9 road, isolated the Jaffna peninsula.

The LTTE couldn’t achieve its primary objective as the Army, in spite of being surrounded, managed to hold onto its strategic Elephant Pass base. The public would be surprised to know, at the time the LTTE resumed hostilities, the Army didn’t even have two battalions deployed in the entire Northern and Vanni regions. The then political and military leaderships never bothered to make contingency plans, as the Indians gradually withdrew from the Northern and Eastern regions. The last Indian contingent left by air, and sea, from Trincomalee, leaving the LTTE to isolate and destroy the police and the military. The LTTE realised the difficulties experienced by the military, primarily due to them not being at least engaged in proper patrolling. The armed forces, and the police, had been successful in neutralising the JVP threat (1987-1990) though the conventional LTTE challenge was not anticipated. The military hadn’t been prepared in the immediate aftermath of the Indian pullout.

Once the LTTE resumed hostilities, in the East, where the group massacred several hundred policemen, after they surrendered, on a government directive, the fighting quickly spread to the Northern theatre. The LTTE overran the Kokavil detachment, north of Vavuniya, in June 1990, and swiftly established control over the Vanni region. Successive governments had to move supplies, required by the military, and police, deployed in the Jaffna peninsula, by sea and air. The overland Main Supply Route (MSR) was restored in January 2009, during the final phase of the Vanni offensive.

The military and the police thwarted two JVP insurrections in 1971 and 1987-1990 and defeated conventional military challenges posed by the LTTE.

When the LTTE resumed hostilities, within months after the Indian withdrawal, in March 1990, the total strength of the Army had been 60,596 officers, and men, in both the Regular and Volunteer Forces. They had been deployed in isolated bases, with the majority outside the Northern and Eastern regions and, if not for the bravery of ordinary men and resolute leadership, given by some officers, they would have been overwhelmed in the Northern Province. Of the total strength at that time, the Regular Army comprised 2,221 officers and 36,304 other ranks. The Sri Lanka Army must have found the ground situation extremely difficult to handle as, at the height of the Indian Army deployment here, the IPKF comprised approximately 100,000 officers and men.

TNA’s view on Taliban

Jaffna District Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) MP Sivagnanam Sridharan recently compared the spectacularly successful Taliban advance, on Kabul, and the Tamil community’s struggle. Sridharan declared that struggles, undertaken by minority communities, could erupt at any moment. Justifying their struggle, MP Sridharan warned of dire consequences if the community was suppressed. Obviously, the Jaffna District lawmaker believed the Taliban’s return to Kabul boosted the Tamil community. Sridharan should be reminded that his political party served the LTTE’s terror project, from 2001 until the crushing military defeat of the organisation, in May 2009. The TNA believed in the LTTE’s capability to bring its terror project to a successful conclusion. MP Sridharan, expecting Taliban to provide a boost, shouldn’t come as a surprise, as another TNA lawmaker. M.A. Sumanthiran, PC, attempted to exploit the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks. The TNA heavyweight had no doubts in issuing a warning, a week after the Easter Sunday carnage (at the BMICH), when he declared that such attacks should be expected if grievances of minorities weren’t addressed.

Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, 32, shocked the world, in late July 2011, by massacring 90 and wounding over 300 in two separate incidents. Breivik made references to the LTTE as a role model in his ‘manifesto’ that was released to the web, hours before the devastating bomb attack, in central Oslo, and the subsequent shooting rampage in an island resort. So no one should be surprised over MP Sridharan talking in glowing terms about Taliban’s triumph, or MP Sumanthiran seeing the Easter Sunday massacre as a way to pressure the government over minority rights.

UNP Chairman Vajira Abeywardena’s recent call to terminate diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, in the wake of the Taliban triumph, reminded the writer of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe assuring Japan (now a Quad member) that the LTTE hadn’t been involved with Al Qaeda. The assurance was given at a meeting organised by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention (JCCP) at the Imperial Hotel. The writer accompanied the GoSL delegation, led by the then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe whose task was to appreciate the Japanese role in the Oslo-led peace process (LTTE not linked to al-Qaeda, PM tells Japan-The Sunday Island, Dec 8, 2002). The Taliban provided a safe haven for those who had fought the Soviet Union, in the wake of its invasion of Afghanistan, in Dec 1979. Osama bin Laden had been among those who secured the protection of Taliban, having served US interests during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The Western media, and top US officials, have routinely referred to Afghanistan being the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. Decades later, the same fate has befallen the US military.

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Midweek Review

UNHRC in Mullivaikkal dirty politics

Published

4 days ago

2025/06/18

Sahan Weerasooriya

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is scheduled to visit Colombo later this month. The House on June 5 announced the visit, two days after the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Marc-André Franche, informed Speaker, Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne, of the impending visit.

A press release issued by the Parliament, dated June 5, 2025, mistakenly identified Volker Türk as the High Commissioner of the International Commission on Human Rights. Parliament never bothered to correct the statement posted on its website. Franche was accompanied by UN Peace and Development Resident Advisor Patrick McCarthy.

BTF (British Tamil Forum) General Secretary V. Ravi Kumar, in a letter dated May 27, 2025, urged the UN rights chief to visit Mullivaikkal where he alleged a genocide was committed in 2009. Kumar also requested the Austrian lawyer to visit Chemmani, where mass graves have been unearthed recently, as alleged by the BTF. Kumar, a former member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), received British citizenship many years ago. The Tamil Diaspora, spread over Europe, Canada and various other parts of the world, includes a significant number of former members of Tamil terrorist organisations.

The National People’s Power (NPP) government, without hesitation, should allow the UN official to visit Mullivaikkal, Chemmani or any other place desired by the Tamil Diaspora. The government shouldn’t allow the BTF and other interested parties to make wild allegations on the basis of not including Mullivaikkal and Chemmani in the UN official’s itinerary. The government should also invite Volker Türk to visit Nanthikadal lagoon where the Army eliminated the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his remaining diehard members in a last encounter on May 19, 2009, the day after Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion.

Senior military commanders, who spearheaded the successful war against the LTTE, should declare their support for the UN Human Rights chief’s visit to Sri Lanka. Whatever the differences they may have had among themselves during the war, retired Army, Navy and Air Force officers must sink their differences to set the record straight.

The BTF shouldn’t be allowed to manipulate the forthcoming UN human rights chief’s visit here. Perhaps, they should consider seeking a meeting with the UN official to explain their position. There is absolutely no harm in making representations on behalf of Sri Lanka as all stakeholders want to ascertain the truth.

As for the impartiality of previous High Commissioners, like South African of Indian Tamil origin Navaneethan ‘Navi’ Pillai, the less said is better.

The last UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Colombo was Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. The Jordanian was here in 2016, the year after Yahapalana leaders Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe betrayed the war-winning military by co-sponsoring a US-led resolution against Sri Lanka at the Geneva-based UNHRC. A treacherous act, indeed. There had never been a previous instance of a government betraying its own war-winning military. The UN official must be reminded that a terrorist organisation had never been defeated before the way the Sri Lankan military crushed the LTTE in a relentless combined security forces campaign (August 2006 to May 2009) that brought the LTTE to its knees by January 2009.

Those who cannot stomach Sri Lanka’s victory over the LTTE conveniently forget that Prabhakaran launched Eelam War IV on August 11, 2006, with the intention of capturing the Jaffna peninsula. They tend to forget how the Nordic truce monitoring mission found fault with the LTTE for launching the war. Declaring that the LTTE advanced over the forward defence lines near Muhamalai entry/exit point and cadres landed on several beaches on Kayts and Mandaithivu islands, the Norwegian-led five-nation truce monitoring mission said: “…. considering the preparation level of the operations it seems to have been a well prepared LTTE initiative.” (SLMM blames LTTE for Jaffna battle, The Island, Sept. 08, 2006).

Human shields

The majority of those who had been demanding accountability on the part of the Sri Lankan military and war-winning political leadership never asked Prabhakaran not to compel the civilians to accompany the retreating LTTE units. After having fiercely resisted the fighting formations on the Vanni front for several months, the LTTE began gradually withdrawing and, by January 2009, Prabhakaran was in a desperate situation. The man who ordered former Indian Prime Minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was taking cover among hapless Tamil civilians.

The then National List member and presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa received a one-page missive on Feb. 16, 2009, from the then Norwegian Ambassador, Tore Hattrem. The following is the text of Ambassador Hattrem’s letter, addressed to Basil Rajapaksa: “I refer to our telephone conversation today. The proposal to the LTTE on how to release the civilian population, now trapped in the LTTE controlled area, has been transmitted to the LTTE through several channels. So far, there has been, regrettably, no response from the LTTE and it doesn’t seem to be likely that the LTTE will agree with this in the near future.” (Secret missive to Basil Rajapaksa revealed: Norwegians believed LTTE won’t release hostages, The Island, April 01, 2015).

Unfortunately, the war-winning government and post-war governments never made an honest attempt to use all available information to prove that the LTTE used civilian shields to hinder the advancing Army. Perhaps, the retired military commanders should bring Hattrem’s letter to UN Human Rights official’s attention.

Having succeeded Michelle Bachelet (2018 to 2022) Volker Türk may not be aware of some of the developments and some interested parties in Geneva are widely believed to have suppressed vital information contrary to their narrative.

The BTF never asked Prabhakaran not to hold civilians hostage. Tamil Diaspora never appealed on behalf of the civilians forcibly held by the LTTE. Regardless of anti-government/military propaganda, civilians sought refuge in the government-held areas at an early stage of the Vanni offensive that was launched in March 2007.

In February, 2007 the LTTE detained two UN workers for helping civilians to reach government lines (LTTE detains UN workers, The Island, April 20, 2007). The NGO community and the truce monitoring mission remained silent to protect Tiger interests. What really baffled the government was the UN Office in Colombo having secret negotiations with the LTTE for the release of its workers (UN workers in LTTE custody: “UN had talks with Tigers on the sly,” The Island, April 23, 2007).

The so called human rights defenders turned a blind eye to the developing situation. Western powers, Tamil Diaspora and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that infamously declared the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil-speaking people in the run-up to the Eelam War IV, remained silent. Had they taken a stand against holding civilians against their will, the armed forces could have eradicated the LTTE’s conventional fighting power much quicker and spared many a life on both sides.

In the wake of The Island revelation, then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa urged the UN not to mollycoddle terrorists. Rajapaksa questioned the rationale in the UN trying to secure the lease of its abducted workers through secret negotiations (UN workers in LTTE custody: Lanka urges UN not to shield Tigers, The Island, April 25, 2007).

The UN mission in Colombo not only kept the government in the dark, it refrained from informing the UN Secretary General’s Office of the abduction of UN workers. When the media raised the abduction of UN workers at their daily press briefing in New York, the Secretary General’s spokesman Michele Montas disclosed they weren’t alerted (The Island expose of UN employees abducted by LTTE: UN HQ admits Colombo Office kept it in the dark, The Island April 28, 2007).

In other words, the UN mission in Colombo in a way facilitated the LTTE’s sordid operations. Had the UN resorted to tough action, the LTTE wouldn’t have held Tamil civilians as human shields for their protection.

No basis for comparison with Israeli actions

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher made reference to Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE when he addressed the United Nations Security Council in May this year on the massive death and destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza.

It would be pertinent to remind all concerned that the Israeli military action directed at Gaza and other countries, with the backing of the US-UK combine, cannot be compared in any way to Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE simply because of the terrible monstrosity of Israeli actions. Top British diplomat Fletcher cannot be unaware how successive UK governments encouraged the LTTE to wage war here with covert support, especially by the partial British media that white-washed LTTE atrocities, while magnifying even the slightest transgression by the Sri Lankan security forces, with the help of NGOs funded by them.

However, the British provided critical support during JRJ’s time by allowing ex-British personnel to train Sri Lankans.

The UK allowed the LTTE to establish its International Secretariat in London at a time India sponsored several terrorist groups fighting to divide Sri Lanka on ethnic lines.

It would be pertinent to ask whether the UK at least secretly urged Prabhakaran to give up human shields as the Army pressed its dwindling fighting cadre on the Vanni east front. Instead, the UK, with the French backing, sought to pressure President Mahinda Rajapaksa to halt the offensive. The President and his brother, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, steadfastly refused to bow down to combined British-French pressure. They sustained the offensive until the eradication of the terrorist organisation. The war could never have been won without their resolute leadership.

Geneva must recognise that until the eradication of the LTTE, conscription of Tamil children continued. The LTTE sacrificed thousands of children in high intensity battles with the military after a steep decline in adults joining the fighting cadre. The UN had been so concerned about deaths of children it sought to reach a consensus with the LTTE to halt deployment of child combatants.

The NGO community, or Tamil Diaspora, never asked the LTTE to stop throwing children into battle. In spite of agreeing to halt child recruitment, following talks with Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), Prabhakaran never stopped the despicable practice (Pledge to stop using children in combat: UN, LTTE to discuss modalities, The Island, May 11, 1998). UNICEF, too, appealed to the LTTE not to forcibly conscript children. The LTTE simply ignored such requests. Otunnu travelled to the North, in May 1998, to meet Prabhakaran’s representatives, British passport holder Anton Balasingham (died and buried in the UK in December 2006) and S.P. Thamilselvam (killed in SLAF strike in November 2007). They agreed on halting children, below 18, in combat operations and stopping recruitment of those under 17 (Tigers agree to end use of children below 18 in combat, The Island, May 9, 1998).

The Tamil Diaspora never ever demanded an end to child conscription. They felt comfortable as their children were not living in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Child recruitment had never been an issue for the Tamil Diaspora or the TNA. The child recruitment was finally brought to an end after the combined security forces eradicated the LTTE.

How many children escaped with their lives thanks to the annihilation of the LTTE militarily? The LTTE had to be destroyed at any cost. Sri Lanka paid a very heavy price to restore peace. The Gaza conflict with Sri Lanka’s war against the separatist Tamil terrorism cannot be equated as the modern massive firepower of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) by land, air and sea is simply overwhelming in comparison to the combined Sri Lanka security forces, under any circumstances.

Sri Lanka actually fought a lone battle against the most ruthless terrorist outfit with immense conventional capability. Western covert support and availability of ship loads of arms, ammunition and equipment and a steady sea supply allowed the LTTE to wage war until Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda’s Navy sunk their floating warehouses on the high seas. Intelligence provided by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), and the US, led to the total destruction of the LTTE. Therefore, the US, too, helped Sri Lanka to save children by hastening the LTTE’s destruction, albeit only to speed up its fall when it became clear that the Tigers were not invincible as they earlier tried to make them out to be.

The Air Force carried out operations in support of the Army while carrying out a strategic campaign that relentlessly targeted the enemy. That was meant to break the backbone of the LTTE.

Dhanapala’s advice disregarded

One of Sri Lanka’s famed career diplomats, the late Jayantha Dhanapala, discussed the issue of accountability when he addressed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), headed by one-time Attorney General, the late C. R. de Silva, on August 25, 2010. Dhanapala, in his submissions, said: “Now I think it is important for us to expand that concept to bring in the culpability of those members of the international community who have subscribed to the situation that has caused injury to the civilians of a nation. I talk about the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary; harboured; and supplied with arms and training by some countries with regard to their neighbours or with regard to other countries. We know that in our case this has happened, and I don’t want to name countries, but even countries which have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be abused in such a way that money can flow from their countries in order to buy arms and ammunition that cause deaths, maiming and destruction of property in Sri Lanka are to blame and there is therefore a responsibility to protect our civilians and the civilians of other nations from that kind of behaviour on the part of members of the international community. And I think this is something that will echo within many countries in the Non-Aligned Movement, where Sri Lanka has a much respected position and where I hope we will be able to raise this issue.”

Dhanapala also stressed on the accountability on the part of Western governments, which conveniently turned a blind eye to massive fundraising operations in their countries, in support of the LTTE operations. It is no secret that the LTTE would never have been able to emerge as a conventional fighting force without having the wherewithal abroad, mainly in the Western countries, to procure arms, ammunition and equipment.

Sri Lanka could have built its defence on Dhanapala’s statement to the LLRC. Even more importantly Sri Lanka ignored wartime US military advisor Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith’s defence of the Army that it didn’t execute surrendering LTTE cadres. In other words, the US official contradicted the then retired General Sarath Fonseka, who, with no shame whatsoever, accused the Army (that he earlier led to victory against all odds), of war crimes, to curry favour with the LTTE lackey TNA ahead of the 2010 presidential election.

Similarly Lord Naseby provided a golden opportunity to counter lies when he obtained confidential British diplomatic cables that were sent to the Foreign Office in London from Colombo during January-May 2009. In spite of them being heavily censored, the cables that had been sent by Smith’s British counterpart in Colombo, Lt. Col. Anthony Gash, effectively countered the wild UN allegation pertaining to the deaths of over 40,000 civilians on the Vanni east front.

The British estimated the number of deaths around 7,000. The British figure tallied with a survey carried out by the UN in Colombo during August 2008 to May 13, 2009, in the Vanni region. The UN recorded over 7,000 deaths but Sri Lanka never had a cohesive strategy to utilise all available information in a manner to counter lies.

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How Geneva erred on Mannar mass graves

Michelle Bachelet

The Tamil Diaspora wants United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to visit what they call Chemmani mass graves. There must be mass graves all over the northern and eastern provinces. Have they forgotten the large number of Tamils executed by the LTTE? Where did the LTTE bury the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran’s deputy Gopalswamy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya? Mahattaya was executed on the mere suspicion of serving India’s interests. There can be skeletons of Indian officers and men killed in the northern and eastern regions during 1987-1990 deployment here. India altogether lost well over 1,300 personnel here.

Let me remind you of the Mannar mass grave farce. Radiocarbon dating analysis by the Beta Analytic Testing Laboratory in Florida, US, in respect of six skeletal samples sent there in January 2019 with the intervention of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) established in accordance with October 2015 Geneva Resolution, proved that the skeletons belonged to a period that covered the Portuguese and the Dutch rule.

This was after Volker Türk’s predecessor Michelle Bachelet, typical of UN hacks negatively dealt with Mannar mass grave site in a report titled ‘Promoting Reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’ submitted to the ongoing 40th session of the HRC.

The following is the relevant section bearing No 23: “On May 29, 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in Mannar (Northern Province), Excavations conducted in support of the Office on Missing Persons, revealed a mass grave from which more than 300 skeletons were discovered. It was the second mass grave found in Mannar following the discovery of a site in 2014. Given that other mass graves might be expected to be found in the future, systematic access to grave sites by the Office as an observer is crucial for it to fully discharge its mandate, particularly with regard to the investigation and identification of remains, it is imperative that the proposed reforms on the law relating to inquests, and relevant protocols to operationalise the law be adopted. The capacity of the forensic sector must also be strengthened, including in areas of forensic anthropology, forensic archeology and genetics, and its coordination with the Office of Missing Persons must be ensured.”

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

A tale of two dams and destruction of a national asset

Published

4 days ago

2025/06/18

Sahan Weerasooriya

Maussakele Reservoir

The idea in the development process, particularly where developing countries are concerned, is to keep the cost of development as low as possible. That is why most developing countries have given priority to developing the heavy construction industry, as it affects the development of infrastructure. In some developing countries, until very recently, heavy construction had been a no-go area for foreign contractors.

First Major Development Project

The Gal Oya scheme was the first major development project in post-Independence Sri Lanka. As the country did not have the ability to construct such a large project at the time, the contract was awarded to a US company Morrison-Knudsen. The total cost of the project in 1949 prices was around $100 million according to information from Hansard. The contract itself was a cost-plus contract, where the contractor was paid for all expenses plus a fee for profit and risks.

The next major scheme was the Udawalawe project which was delayed due to many reasons, including the government’s financing constraints. After the Gal Oya Project, the financial position of the government had deteriorated quite fast, which led to the 1953 Hartal and a change of government in 1956. In early 1961 the government took over the fuel distribution from the foreign companies without paying compensation. As most of them were US companies, the US government cut off aid and the World Bank stopped funding.

The government’s finances were such that undertaking a major project like Udawalawe was difficult without external funding.

In the meantime, a local company, Ceylon Development Engineering Co. Ltd. (CDE), pioneered in the field of heavy construction. CDE was set up by the late Pin Fernando, long before the state organisations, and handled over a hundred projects, including contracts for the Irrigation Department and other government agencies. Some of CDE’s projects included Chandrika Wewa, Pimburettawa, Rajangana (one of the largest projects it undertook with no foreign assistance was in the early 1960s), Bowatenna, Rathkinda and Inginimitiya.

Gal Oya reservoir

Transfer of Technology for Udawalawe

The Udawalawe project was about the same size as the Gal Oya project. Since the government had no funds, it thought of giving the contract to a local company. The only local company capable of such a project was CDE, but it had not done a project of that magnitude before and required technical expertise from outside. The transfer of technology to a local company, for the first time in Sri Lanka, happened with this project.

The Sri Lankan government had established good relations with the socialist countries, which were supporting major industrial projects in the country. The government requested technical expertise for the project from Czechoslovakia, which readily agreed to give the required technical help and supervise CDE. Skoda Export of Czechoslovakia was the main contractor, alongside Technoexport, while CDE was the approved sub-contractor. The entire project included two power houses. The project was started in the mid-1960s and was completed in 1968.

The project was completed at a cost of less than $10 million. This was almost fifteen years after Gal Oya, which had cost around $100 million. This was revealed by the late Eddie de Zilwa, who was the Commercial Director of CDE from its inception, when I became the CEO of the company in the mid-1980s.

The Mousakelle Dam

Once the Udawalawe project was off the ground the government requested assistance from Yugoslavia for technical help for the Mousakelle project, which included the dam, tunnels, and power house.

The Yugoslav government readily agreed and nominated an experienced Yugoslav company, Ingra of Zagreb to work with CDE as sub-contractor. This was Sri Lanka’s largest concrete dam until Victoria was built in the 1980s.

The cost of the project was even less than that of Udawalawe. The local company had by then gained enough experience in these types of projects and was pre-qualified to bid for projects funded by the Word Bank and Asian Development Bank. This is what technological transfer is all about!

The CDE should have been further developed. It was saving the government millions of dollars (billions in the present context) in foreign exchange. It would have been treated as a national asset if it had been in a high performing Asian economy.

The late Gamini Dissanayaka, after taking over as the Minister of Mahaweli Development, described CDE as a ‘National Asset’. However, after 1977, attitudes changed. The acceleration of the Mahaweli programme was high on President J. R. Jayewardene’s agenda. The original plan was for the project to be completed in a thirty-year period by utilising local capacity.

Instead, foreign companies invaded the heavy construction field (tied up with the development aid) leaving little room for local companies like CDE, which had built up its capacity for such work. The experience I gained from the exposure to Sri Lanka’s development effort in the 1980s and 1990s convinced me that Sri Lanka was not going anywhere with the thinking prevalent at the time. I tried to convince ministers that we were on the wrong path, but in vain.

In a serious development effort, building local ability and capacity should be the goal of any government. The opposite of this holds true for Sri Lanka. It was not only the heavy construction industry that suffered – most industries that had made some progress perished due to economic liberalisation.

A country that cannot identify the companies which are an asset to its development process and others that are a drain on its foreign reserves, it faces a serious issue. The impression one gets is that Sri Lanka expects some foreign country to come and develop it.

The Turning Point

President Jayewardene’s thinking came to light in 1981, when the Mahaweli Authority called for International Competitive Bids (ICB) for the Mahaweli system ‘C’ canal project.

CDE was the lowest bidder at Rs. 194 million, and the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) recommended to the Cabinet to award this tender to CDE. At the Cabinet meeting, the President took his own minister by surprise saying that the contract for the project could not be awarded to a local company and it must be given to a Japanese company, whose bid was almost double that of the local company. He probably did so, expecting to please the Japanese and beg for more aid.

In the meantime, a state bank, expecting the tender to be awarded to CDE rushed in and offered to open the Letters of Credit for machinery, which they did with no documentation being signed by the company. When the machinery started arriving, there was no work for the machines.

The cost of machinery at the time was Rs. 77 million and the company was stuck with a huge debt without sufficient revenue to service it. The company later signed the documentation in good faith, though the bank did not appreciate this fact.

The company made a request that it be considered a development loan and the Central Bank refinance this. No response was received from the Central Bank.

The fact that CDE had helped the country save millions of dollars (billions in the present context) on projects had no effect on the government.

The state bank concerned had been taken over by some neoliberal thinkers, who were happy to lend money to importers rather than development-oriented companies.

The bank earlier had visionary leaders who understood the development needs of the country and played a dual role of commercial bank as well as an unofficial development bank. However, with the ‘Washington Consensus’ of the 1980s all that changed.

The Samanalawewa Dam

Samanalawewa reservoir

When the Samanalawewa project was to be undertaken on a Japan-UK loan, the Japanese company approached me and wanted CDE to price the Japanese part of the project, which was the dam, while the tunnels and power house were to be the British part.

They promised sub-contract work for CDE, which was desperately needed at the time. However, they bid for the project at three times the price we had quoted and were awarded the tender. I immediately met President Jayewardene and briefed him on what had happened. He told me that we needed aid.

I told him that if that process continued, there would come a time when our loans would be beyond our ability to repay.

The Bottomline

The purpose of this article is to highlight the fact that Sri Lanka has not yet understood the basics of development and how to build up its capacity. The destruction of an industry in which we reached international standards and others that could be of use in the future has happened over the past 45 years.

The ultimate result of destroying the only company that had received international recognition was that our costs of development hugely increased, including part of the foreign debt and infrastructure costs. This has not been understood, and the mistakes are being repeated.

If CDE had been in any of the East Asian countries, one could imagine how they would have reacted. Innovation and research and development have yet not been identified as core areas of development. The IMF and other agencies will not encourage developing countries on these lines.

Inability to understand that we can’t depend on low-tech development anymore and that we have to move into high-tech development is far beyond the ability of the authorities to understand.

As the volume of work for local companies was dwindling, I contacted a prominent Middle-Eastern company, Abu-Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) with the intention of a joint venture in West Asia. Being impressed with the track record of CDE, they agreed to form a joint venture named CDE-Al Safya, to bid for work in the region. When it came to obtaining bid-bonds, we had to cover our part. Our bank, a state-owned one, refused to issue a bid-bond, and that was the end of the joint venture. If it had supported CDE in this joint venture, it probably would have been a major foreign exchange earner for the country, with many others finding work as sub-contractors.

The negative mindset is found not only among the politicians but also those in state institutions. A campaign to change thinking is required if this country is to move forward.

(Sunil Abhayawardhana was CEO of Sri Lanka’s largest heavy construction company. He has a master’s degree from the University of Wales and is working on a PhD in economics. He is a member of the Asia Progress Forum, which can be contacted at asiaprogressforum@gmail.com).

By Sunil Abhayawardhana