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Midweek Review

Missed opportunities!

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By Shamindra Ferdinando

UN Resident Coordinator in Colombo Hanna Singer-Hamdy paid a courtesy call on Defence Secretary (retd.) Gen. Kamal Gunaratne on Sept. 23 at the Defence Headquarters Complex, Sri Jayewardenepura, Kotte. The Egyptian was accompanied by the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Alan Cole, formerly of the British Royal Navy.

The discussion covered Sri Lanka’s high profile ongoing campaign against narcotics trade and the government’s response to the raging Covid-19 epidemic.

A brief press release issued by Lt. Col. Nalin Herath, Officiating Director, Army Media Centre, in Sinhala, Tamil and English didn’t make reference to any other issue. Therefore, the writer rationally ascertained that no other matter had been taken up at the discussion.

Against the backdrop of the 48th session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the 76th session of the UNGA in New York, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) government could have used the Sept. 23 meet to brief the UN Resident Coordinator Singer as regards the accountability process.

The Defence Secretary, on behalf of the government, could have handed over a comprehensive report to the top UN official in Sri Lanka, in response to one-sided and high-handed the war crimes agenda pursued by the UNHRC against the country. Unfortunately, the government didn’t. The failure on the part of the government to do so underscored the absence of a cohesive mechanism to counter the campaign targeting Sri Lanka. Shoddy handling of the accountability process is an affront to the war-winning military that sacrificed so much to fight and defeat, militarily, ‘the world’s worst terrorist outfit’. More than 12 years after the eradication of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka remains under the UNHRC microscope, while many other countries, that caused death and misery to millions by launching false pretext wars or through illegal regime change actions are allowed to go scot-free.

For some strange reason, most probably for lack of competence at the Foreign Ministry, the government is reluctant to properly present Sri Lanka’s case before the international community. Let us hope that with Prof. G.L. Peiris, the eminent former law academic at the helm of the Foreign Ministry, we can mount a relentless diplomatic campaign to have the country cleared from such blatant accusations. In the process, it could even go to the extent of exposing, particularly our main accusers, who despite having plenty of innocent blood in their hands are pursuing this vendetta against us due to geo-political agendas.

The wartime General Officer Commanding (GoC) the elite 53 Division, the then Maj. Gen. Gunaratne could have meticulously briefed the UN Chief here, who, too, has had the audacity to make public comments on the country’s internal affairs and get away with such behaviour.

The author of ‘Road to Nanthikadal’, Gunaratne commanded one of the two fighting Divisions, the other being the 58 Division commanded by the present Army Commander, General Shavendra Silva, involved in the final phase of the offensive. It would be pertinent to mention that a battalion (4 Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment) that had been under the overall command of the then Maj. Gen. Gunaratne killed Prabhakaran. The 53 Division had been involved in the unprecedented Anandapuram battle (late March-early April 2009) along with 58 Division and Task Force 8 that dealt a massive blow to the LTTE.

Why didn’t the government exploit the Sept. 23 meet that took place the day after President Rajapaksa addressed the 76th session of the UNGA in New York?

Sri Lanka’s continuing failure to set the record straight should be examined taking into consideration UNHRC Chief Michelle Bachelet’s latest oral update on the situation in Sri Lanka (on Sept. 13), Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris’ response by Zoom to the former twice Chilean President Bachelet on the following day, President Rajapaksa’s meet with UNSG Antonio Guterres (on Sept. 19), President Rajapaksa’s address to the UNGA (Sept. 20) and three meetings Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris had with Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Indian Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar also in New York.

The Defence Secretary is the ideal person to discuss the accountability issue. With Sri Lanka firmly on the UN agenda and the issue coming up for scrutiny once again at the 49th session in March 2022, the government cannot turn a blind eye to the developments taking place.

Vanni war compared with Ruwanda et al

Antonio Guterres’s predecessor, Ban Ki-moon once compared the Vanni offensive with that of Ruwanda and Serbia genocides in the 1990s. Gunaratne strongly disputed Ban Ki-moon’s comparison of Vanni offensive with clear cut cases of genocide in those two countries

South Korean Ki-moon played his part to facilitate the Western agenda in spite of his own mission in Colombo contradicting unsubstantiated accusations.

The government owed an explanation why absolutely no attempt was made in Geneva or New York to challenge the unsubstantiated war crimes allegations that paved the way for Western powers and other interested parties to place Sri Lanka on the Geneva agenda.

Instead of setting the record straight, President Rajapaksa assured his readiness to work with domestic stakeholders, international partners, UN, civil society and Tamil expatriate groups, whereas FM Peiris reiterated Sri Lanka’s commitment to some key provisions in the resolution co-sponsored by the then Yahapalana government in 2015 as fait accompli, while strongly rejecting external interventions.

In separate meetings with Aussie Foreign Minister Patricia, Scotland Marise Payne and Indian counterpart Dr. Jaishankar, Prof. Peiris explained ground realities and the hostile approach adopted by interested parties. Prof. Peiris also elucidated to Scotland the wrongness in replacing domestic accountability mechanisms with external bodies, particularly the ad-hoc mechanism approved at the 46th Geneva session.

 Bachelet declared in her Sept. 13 speech that the UNHRC was going ahead with the investigation. Sri Lanka shouldn’t expect Scotland to take a stand favourable to Sri Lanka, under any circumstances, as the organisation Bachelet leads conveniently turned a Nelsonian eye to Indian sponsored terrorism that ravaged Sri Lanka. Did Commonwealth ever take a stand on the destabilisation of the smaller neighbour by the Commonwealth giant?

Prof. G.L. Peiris told his Australian counterpart Marise Payne how Bachelet followed a policy extremely detrimental to Sri Lanka as regards the accountability process. A Foreign Ministry press release quoted Prof. Peiris as having told Payne: “….there is a need to allow local institutions the space and opportunity to carry out their mandates and the establishment of an ad-hoc external mechanism that overrides this work is unnecessary and detrimental. It is premature and inappropriate to have a mechanism selectively targeting Sri Lanka that goes against the very principles of the UN Charter.”

Australia is aware of the Geneva project meant to undermine Sri Lanka. Regardless of close bilateral relations between Australia and Sri Lanka, the former will abide by the US position vis-a-vis Sri Lanka. The Australian policy should be examined, keeping in mind its role in the US-led alliances against China and extremely close relationship between Sri Lanka and China, the emerging world power.

The surprise Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS) alliance struck recently, at the expense of France, on supplying a nuclear powered submarine fleet to their colonial cousin Australia should be an example of the old adage that blood is thicker than water.

The new three nation Anglo-Saxon alliance suddenly arrayed against China should also serve as a warning to New Delhi that it is already an odd partner, though one of the earliest to sign up for Quad, comprising the US, Japan, India and Australia ranged against China. If they could ditch long standing European ally France without batting an eye lid, Delhi can imagine how they will treat her if they suddenly see India too as a rival like China.

French Foreign Minister Jan-Yves Le Drian went to the extent of alleging US President Joe Biden of stabbing France in the back.

“It’s really a stab in the back. We had established a relationship of trust with Australia, this trust has been betrayed”, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info radio. “I’m very angry today, and bitter… this is not something allies do to each other”, he said, noting that Australia would now have to explain how it would exit the contract.

A lesson for France

So Sri Lanka should not depend on foreign powers, entirely. It would be Sri Lanka’s responsibility to present its case before the global community. Major Western powers will never take a stand in support of a smaller nation at the expense of their overall strategy and lucrative business interests, the only exception being the case of Israel. There cannot be a better example than Australia going back on an agreement with France for what it considered a much better arrangement for Canberra. Obviously, not only Biden but the British and Australian leaders, too, stabbed France in the back.

In his talks with Dr. Jaishankar, Prof. Peiris declared Sri Lanka couldn’t accept external mechanisms active on the ground whereas the Indian Minister underscored the need for a fair and just resolution of residual issues in the interest of both countries.

Sri Lanka seems trapped in the eneva machinations. India, too, should be wary as its much touted relationship with the US does not mean a thing if one examined the way the US, the British and Australians sprang quite a despicable surprise.

Hope the world hasn’t forgotten how the US discarded Pakistan after having used the country in its proxy war to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan and to intimidate India when it was seen as being in Soviet camp. New Delhi remained noncommittal regarding the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In fact, Indian destabilisation of Sri Lanka, in the 80s, is in line with its overall strategy to counter domestic threats emanating from Tamil Nadu in the backdrop of perceived threat of Sri Lanka being a base for US-Israeli operations.

However, for want of cohesive policy Sri Lanka, at least after the end of the war hadn’t made a genuine effort to set the record straight.

Prof. Peiris during his interactions with foreign dignitaries, has quite clearly explained Sri Lanka’s refusal to accept external mechanisms. President Rajapaksa, too, stressed the importance of domestic mechanisms in achieving reconciliation. Both the President and the Foreign Minister declared Sri Lanka’s readiness to work with domestic stakeholders, including the civil society, Tamil expatriate groups, international partners and the UN to accomplish genuine peace.

Pompeo on Shavendra

However, the incumbent government has so far failed to question the very basis for domestic mechanisms set up by the previous government on the strength of unsubstantiated allegations. The government owed an urgent explanation. There cannot be any excuse for not presenting a proper defense on behalf of the war-winning armed forces. Commander of the Army Gen. Shavendra Silva remains blacklisted by the US on unsubstantiated allegations. Let me reproduce the former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declaration on Feb 14, 2020: “I am designating Shavendra Silva making him ineligible for entry into the U.S. due to his involvement in extrajudicial killings during Sri Lanka’s Civil War. The U.S. will not waver in its pursuit of accountability for those who commit war crimes and violate human rights.”

The US made the announcement after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named Silva the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Another Gajaba Regiment veteran Chagie Gallage highlighted Sri Lanka’s pathetic failure to defend the military when he retired on August 31, 2018.

There had never been a previous instance of a senior officer in his farewell speech questioning the overall failure to counter the foreign project. This happened at Saliyapura, the famed Gajaba Regimental Headquarters.

He said: “Gajaba is engraved in golden letters in the annals of the Sri Lanka Army’s history, if not in the history of Sri Lanka … and I’m certain it will never be reversed by any. So, I’m happy to be retired being a tiny particle of that proud chapter of the history, though designated as a ‘War Criminal”.

About 10 months before Gallage’s retirement, Lord Naseby made a stunning revelation in the House of Lords. On the basis of hitherto confidential dispatches from the British High Commission in Colombo, during January-May 2009, the Conservative politician contradicted the very basis of the three-member Darusman report. This report, released on March 31, 2011, had been the primary reason for the 2015 accountability resolution that faulted the Sri Lanka Army.

The World War 11 fighter pilot fought a near three-year battle with the British administration to secure the confidential dispatches and was finally able to obtain a highly redacted version to contradict the lies in the second week of Oct 2017. Although the then Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana, PC, in his address to the UNHRC made a reference to Lord Naseby’s revelations, Sri Lanka has so far not requested Geneva to examine the British dispatches.

The author of British dispatches Lt. Col. Anthony Gash has never challenged the authenticity of heavily censored dispatches disclosed by Lord Naseby.

Sri Lanka earlier squandered a similar golden opportunity to make a strong case for a revisit of the Darusman report in June 2011. The then US Defence Advisor in Colombo Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith quite convincingly defended the Sri Lanka Army at the 2011 Colombo Defence Seminar. The American contradicted unsubstantiated allegations raised by a retired Indian Major General Ashok K. Metha, formerly of the IPKF. Lt. Col. Smith must have made that declaration, based on information available to the US Embassy in Colombo as well as other dispatches from our war zone. And most importantly, the American officer made the declaration within three months after the releasing of the Darusman report. Sri Lanka is yet to use British and American dispatches in her defence.

Western powers continue to harass Sri Lanka on the basis of unsubstantiated war crimes accusations. Bachelet’s move to further investigate Sri Lanka should be challenged as the previous accusations that led to the 2015 Geneva resolution remained uninvestigated.

According to the Darusman report (paragraph 23: Confidentiality of the Panel’s records), the accusations cannot be examined till 2031. This strange stipulation has a further clause stating that the time bar could be extended for a further period. We must be the only country not allowed to see our accusers or the case against us for so long! But, successive governments never took the entire gamut of issues into consideration before making representations on behalf of the country. The incumbent SLPP is no exception. In spite of repeated vows to defend the armed forces, the SLPP had pathetically failed in its duty and responsibility.

Predicament of former SLAF Chief

As a result of sheer negligence, Sri Lanka has ended up being categorised as a perpetrator of war crimes, and those who had fought for the country are targeted. There cannot be a better example than Air Marshal Sumangala Dias who suffered due to Sri Lanka’s failure. Canada refused to accept Dias as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner though the former Sri Lanka Air Force Commander is not under human rights scrutiny. Subsequently, the government proposed Dias as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Italy. However, we are yet unaware of Italy’s position. Italy as a member state of the EU, pursuing war crimes accusations against Sri Lanka, may not accept the retired SLAF Chief.

Prominent civil society activist Harsha Kumara Navaratne has quit the Human Rights Commission to take over the country’s mission in Ottawa. The former head of the NGO Seva Lanka, with his experience with the HRC, hopefully would be able to improve Sri Lanka’s image in Canada. The decision to name former minister Mahinda Samarasinghe as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Washington, too, is an interesting development. Samarasinghe handled human rights and related matters during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency and was part of Sri Lanka’s delegation to Geneva. Perhaps the government expects missions in Washington (non- career diplomat), Ottawa (non- career diplomat) and London manned by career diplomat Saroja Sirisena to improve the ground situation. New Delhi should be part of the operation. Milinda Moragoda, who had served Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government as a Cabinet minister before switching allegiance to Mahinda Rajapaksa, recently took over the New Delhi mission. So, we now have two former ministers as heads of missions in New Delhi and Washington and prominent civil society activist in Ottawa.

Samarasinghe last served as the Ports and Shipping Minister. Having succeeded Arjuna Ranatunga (UNP), Samarasinghe, who represented the SLFP at that time, signed the 99-year-lease on the Hambantota port. Navaratne quit Seva Lanka chairmanship last month having disengaged from the NGO’s activity, beginning January this year. Navaratne’s appointment is in line with the government entering into a dialogue with the local civil society as well as President Gotabaya Rakapaksa’s declaration in New York his readiness to talk with Tamil expatriate groups. Whatever, the SLPP government does, it should set up a mechanism, without further delay, to counter those propagating lies in support of the Geneva project.

A role for ex-CNI

Perhaps former Chief of National Intelligence (CNI), Maj. Gen. Kapila Hendavitharana can be engaged to work out a proper strategy. Intelligence veteran Hendavitharana can be part of a special team assigned to build a strong case on behalf of the country on the basis of available information.

The information unintentionally made available by those pursuing war crimes probe can be quite useful to Sri Lanka as they are astonishing. Let there be a meticulous study of statements, accusations, documents and reports pertaining to accountability issues. Bachelet rushing to accuse the Sri Lanka Army of being responsible for so-called mass graves in Mannar, discovered in 2019, exposed the irresponsible conduct of the Geneva body, when a reputed US lab determined that those remains belonged to the colonial era.

Bachelet obviously acted on information provided by some Colombo-based diplomatic missions. There is no doubt that the British HC and the German Embassy in Colombo (both members of the self-appointed Sri Lanka Core Group in Geneva) influenced Bachel’s decision.

Due to petty political backbiting, Sri Lanka then lacked the political will to expose the Geneva project. As the simmering controversy over Mannar mass graves erupted during the yahapalana administration, the Foreign Ministry conveniently remained silent. That was nothing but treacherous behaviour and the Ministry, as one of the most important institutions, should be ashamed.

Sri Lanka didn’t have the guts to use Bachelet’s irresponsible conduct to challenge the overall process. Had there been a proper review of facts, since the change of government in Nov 2019, Gen. Gunaratne could have exploited his meeting with Hanaa Singer-Hamdy.



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Midweek Review

Millennium City raid: A far reaching SC judgment

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Shirani Bandaranayake

The late IGP Mahinda Balasuriya, who had been the Senior DIG in charge of the Central Province at the time of the ASP Kulasiri Udugampola’s raid on the DMI safehouse at the Athurugiriya Millennium City housing complex, in January 2002, categorised it as an excellent operation. Having commended Udugampola, Balasuriya directed SSP Kandy, Asoka Rathnaweera, to provide the required support to Udugampola. Rathnaweera issued the detention orders in terms of Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Accordingly, six men, including Captain Shaul Hameed Mohammed Nilam (he now lives overseas with his family), and Subashkaran, were detained first at the Kandy Police Station and subsequently at Katugastota. High Court judge Patabendige mentioned this in his ruling, dated March 27, 2025.

Last week The Island examined the circumstances leading to a high profile police raid on a safe-house run by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) way back in early January 2002.

The article headlined, “Raid on ‘Millennium City DMI safe-house: A forgotten story,” dealt with the controversial but legitimate police action against the DMI in the backdrop of Colombo High Court judge A.K.M. Patabendige issuing an order to exonerate former Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Kulasiri Udugampola accused of leading the raid that undermined national security.

At the time of the Millennium City raid, Udugampola had been the senior officer in charge of the Kandy unit of the Police Kennel Division.

The raiding party included Major Clifford Soysa of the Military Police. Major Soysa’s inclusion in the raiding party should be discussed, taking into consideration magisterial blessings to do so as he accepted police a complaint that the Army didn’t cooperate with an investigation into the killing of 10 Muslims and causing serious injuries to four more at Udathalawinna in the Wattegama police area on Dec, 5, 2001. Therefore, the raid on the DMI safe-house had been mounted, believing Chanuka, one of the then Deputy Defence Minister Anruddha Ratwatte’s sons, was hiding there. The police earlier searched Minister Ratwatte’s residence, Sinha Regiment camp at Yatinuwara road, Mahanuwara, and the Boyagane Army camp, in Kurunegala, looking for Ratwatte’s son.

The Millennium City case in which the State moved court against Kulasiri Udugampola was heard over a period of 20 years.

The acquittal of now frail Udugampola cannot be discussed without taking into consideration a far reaching Supreme Court judgement in respect of a fundamental rights application filed by five military personnel who had been attached to the raided safe house.

The SC bench consisted of then Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva, Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, who wrote the ruling with the other justice P. Edissuriya, also agreeing. Justice Bandaranayake said that due to the actions of Kulasiri Udugampola, and several other personnel under him, those who served the country at the risk of their lives were killed and others faced death threats. Kulasiri Udugampola was represented by Shibly Aziz and Faiz Musthapha.

Having ruled that the fundamental rights of the soldiers had been violated, the SC in January 2004 -two years after the raid – ordered ASP Udugampola to pay Rs. 50,000 each to Mohamed Nilam, P. Ananda Udalagama, H. M. Nissanka Herath, I. Edirisinghe Jayamanne and H. Mohamed Hilmy. The State was ordered to pay Rs. 750,000 to each of them as well. The State and Udugampola paid that amount within three months after the SC order. Each received cheques written in their names to the tune of Rs 800,000.

They received the cheques from the Registrar of the Supreme Court. The full extent of the damage caused by irresponsible action on the part of top UNP leadership as well as those in the Army and police, who callously undermined national security due to political reasons, professional jealousies as well as enmity caused by disciplinary action, has never been fully assessed, even after over two decades.

Arrested Army men and an ex-LTTEer Subahskaran were detained in early January 2002 at Kandy and Katugastota police stations. According to court records, the then Defence Secretary Austin Fernando refused to authorise Udugampola detaining them in terms of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for a period of 90 days. However, they had been held under Detention Orders issued by Kandy-based senior law enforcement officers. But, Austin Fernando’s refusal to authorise invoking the PTA compelled Udagampola to hand them over to the Army.

This particular DMI operation involved both regular personnel, particularly Muslim officers, those who had switched their allegiance to the Army and informants.

The January 2 raid led to the arrest of Captain Mohamed Nilam, Staff Sgt. P. Ananda Udulagama, Staff Sergeant I. Edirisinghe Jayamanne, Corporal H.M. Nissanka Herath, Lance Corporal H. Mohamed Hilmy and a suspected LTTE operative, identified as Niyaz/Subashkaran. Others involved in that particular operation had been living in the East and were called into join operations depending on the requirement. On the instructions of Lt. Gen. Balagalle, those tasked with carrying out attacks on selected targets had an opportunity to train under Special Forces instructors from Maduru Oya. They underwent training at the Panaluwa Test Firing Range, where firing special weapons was a key element in the training schedule.

In a bid to ensure secrecy, those operatives mostly operated on their own, and had their own arsenal, which included a range of weapons, including claymore mines. In fact, those involved in the operation functioned on a need-to-know basis. Even senior DMI officials, as well as the Army top brass, except a few, weren’t aware of what was going on. Even the then powerful Deputy Defence Minister, Anuruddha Ratwatte, hadn’t been aware of the Millennium City safe-house, though he knew of the ongoing hits behind enemy lines.

“Those entering LTTE-held territory wore LTTE uniforms to avoid detection in case of coming across terrorists or civilians. We had about 100 uniforms, though the number of those conducting hits in LTTE-held areas was very much lower than the number of uniforms we had,” a person who had been with the DMI, said. “The operation was a new experience. It was to be a sustained assassination campaign, something we had never tried before. Had the politicians allowed it to continue, it could have had a devastating impact on the morale of the LTTE’s fighting cadre. The UNP never realised the dynamics of the DMI action.”

Shortly after the exposure of the DMI operation, Lt. Gen. Balagalle sought a meeting with then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe to explain the secret operation against the LTTE. The Army chief had been accompanied by officials, including Hendarawithana, while one-time Attorney General Tilak Marapana, National List MP holding the Defence portfolio, and Minister Milinda Moragoda, too, were present.

“Except for Minister Moragoda, the others obviously didn’t realise what we were doing. They acted as if we were conspiring to do away with the political leadership so as to undermine the Norwegian initiative,” he said “We quickly realised we were up against a government, which simply wanted to negotiate a deal with the LTTE at any cost. The LTTE and the Norwegians exploited the situation to the hilt.”

A section of the media, too, campaigned against the Army, particularly the DMI chief Hendarawithana, who played a pivotal role in the intelligence set-up. He remained high on the LTTE hit list for over a decade. The LTTE went to the extent of exploring the possibility of having him assassinated in Colombo, with the help of an Army officer, who allegedly conspired with terrorists to kill Lt. Col. T. N. Muthalif in May 2005. The DMI head was constantly portrayed as a threat to the peace process and an obstacle to the UNP’s efforts to reach an understanding with the LTTE, regardless of the consequences.

In the run-up to the raid on the DMI safe house, an officer attached to the organisation had aroused suspicions due to his attempt to obtain the address of the safe house. He had casually made inquiries from those who were believed to be involved in the operation. Although not being successful, initially, the detractor had finally managed to secure the required information.

Having won the parliamentary election in Dec. 2001, the UNP unceremoniously terminated operations inside enemy lines, which could have helped the government debilitate the LTTE. The DMI never conducted operations involving ex-LTTE cadres again, though Lt. Gen. Balagalle got the DMI to launch an operation which enabled the Special Forces to carry out some devastating attacks on the enemy.

It would be pertinent to examine an operation launched in July 2001 by the DMI until its conclusion in December, 2001. In spite of the failure of the first and second operations in Batticaloa South to eliminate the intended targets, subsequent strikes sent shockwaves through the LTTE.

The first targeted assassination attempt was directed at an LTTE cadre, identified as Jim Kelly, on July 18, 2001, followed by a foray on September 12, 2001. The second operation targeted a military wing cadre, identified as Jeevan. On September 17, operatives carried out a successful attack on ‘Major’ Mano Master, who was at that time in charge of the communications network in the area.

The LTTE curbed movements of its senior cadres as it struggled to thwart infiltrators causing havoc in areas under its control. Despite a major surveillance operation, undercover operatives successfully ambushed Karikalan’s vehicle on October 18, 2001. The destruction of the vehicle fuelled speculation of Karikalan’s demise, with a section of the media reporting him killed in a special operation. Shortly after the attack on Karikalan’s vehicle, the Army intercepted a radio conversation between Karikalan and his wife, a medical doctor by profession, serving in the Northern Province. “She simply begged him to leave Batticaloa and take refuge in the North to avoid the Army’s deep penetration operations.

“We scored a significant success on Prabhakaran’s birthday on Nov. 26, 2001. Troops finished off ‘Major’ Swarnaseelan and ‘Captain’ Devadas in the Pulipanjikkal area. It was the last operation before the Dec. 5 General Election. In fact, we weren’t too concerned about the political factor,” the official said.

Unknown to the Army, the Norwegians, the LTTE and the government had been engaged in serious negotiations, with the Norwegians eyeing a comprehensive agreement. Due to unprecedented success in their strategy, the LTTE pushed for a specific clause, prohibiting forays by Deep Penetration Units.

Amidst a furore over the UNP allegations that the Army was conspiring to assassinate Wickremesinghe, operatives blew up a truck killing five LTTE cadres on Dec. 11, 2001. Then again, they destroyed an LTTE bunker, at the entrance to a base used by Karuna, in the Kokkadicholai area, on Dec. 21, 2001.

Some of those officers involved in special operations and ex-LTTE cadres had mutual trust and friendship. One of the ex-LTTE men, holding the rank of a ‘Major’ killed in an LTTE attack at Kalubowila, sometime after the exposure of the Millennium City safe house, had played a pivotal role in the DMI operations.

Having failed to persuade the ‘Major,’ known as Suresh, to poison one of the intelligence officers spearheading covert operations in the East, the LTTE sent a hit squad to finish him off. “In spite of being outnumbered, Suresh fought back courageously. When Suresh refused to open the door to admit strangers, whom he swiftly identified as assassins sent from the East, one of the armed men shot at the door lock. Reacting to the threat, Suresh had thrown a hand grenade at the raiders, though one of them swiftly picked it up and flung it away. The hit squad fled the scene after taking the target. During a routine search, we found a diary maintained by Suresh. According to his diary, Suresh’s wife had been in touch with the LTTE for some time. On the instructions of the LTTE, she had asked him to invite the officer, whom the LTTE considered as a major threat, to their Kalubowila home, where she planned to offer him poisoned cake. Suresh had met the intended target and made an attempt to brief him on the LTTE plan. Unfortunately, the officer had reacted angrily when Suresh sought a private meeting to discuss the issue. According to the diary, Suresh had left without revealing his secret.”

Suresh wrote in his diary that he didn’t want to carry out the LTTE order as the Army looked after him and his family well. Even after his killing, the Army continued to look after his children for some time, though they were subsequently handed over to their mother.

Despite the setback suffered due to the Millennium City raid, the Army gradually redeveloped its capability in conducting operations behind enemy lines, with significant success during General Sarath Fonseka’s tenure as the Commander of the Army. With the expansion of security forces’ frontlines as troops advanced on several fronts against the LTTE held Vanni region, those conducting operations behind enemy lines had a wider area to operate and relatively easy access and exit after a major hit as the enemy no longer had any respite to plan counter measures.

Perhaps the most important target that had been taken out on information received by the DMI before the UNP put an end to such operations was Vaithilingam Sornalingam alias Col. Shankar Sornalingam, a close confidant of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Special Forces targeted Shankar’s vehicle with a claymore mine on the Puthukkudiyiruppu – Oddusuddan road on the morning of Sept. 26, 2001. Nothing could have shaken the top LTTE leadership more than Shankar’s killing by Special Forces. That particular operation stunned the LTTE as it had come to consider itself as invincible, helped by supporting propaganda, especially from the West, and by willing so called defence experts at a stage of the conflict where the then government clearly, out of fear or lacking any feelings for the country, was literally suing for peace on its knees and busy negotiating with the LTTE through the Norwegians. This was clearly revealed by the one-sided ceasefire agreement, advantageous to the Tigers drawn up by the Norwegians and signed blindly by then Premier Wickremesinghe even without the knowledge of the then Commander in Chief President Chandrika Kumaratunga and much of his government. Not that she was more suited for the job as she being more or less like a proverbial busybody with no sense of time and only good for idle chatter most of the time. The intelligence needed for the hit on Shankar had been provided by an informant working for the DMI, who, in fact, accompanied the patrol tasked with the operation, though not being present at the time the target was taken, those who were involved with clandestine operations said.

During Eelam War IV (2006-2009), the Army expanded operations behind enemy lines. Special Forces veteran Major J.A.L Jayasinghe, who had spearheaded the attack on Shankar, was killed in what a colleague described as a suicide mission on the Vanni east front on Nov 26, 2008 in the Oddusuddan area. At the time of the death, Jayasinghe was attached to the 3rd Special Forces Regiment, which specialised in action deep inside the LTTE-held area. Twice honoured with Weera Wickrama Vibushana (WWV), Jayasinghe was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, posthumously.

Since its inception, the DMI has steadily grown into a large organisation that played a critical role over the years. At the time the combined security forces brought the war to an end, the DMI had six units deployed.

The country’s premier wartime intelligence setup DMI suffered irreparable damage as a result of the January 2002 raid. Of the five men who received compensation in 2004, retired Sgt. Major Jayamanne committed suicide in Oct. 2016 at his Kegalle residence by hanging himself. He left a note accepting responsibility for the assassination of The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga in January 2009. P. Ananda Udalagama has been investigated for the abduction of Wickrematunga’s driver and the attack on one-time Divaina Editor Upali Tennakoon.

(Concluded)

 

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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Midweek Review

Inequality is killing the Middle Class

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Gary Stevenson

Diary of a CitiBank Trader:

“I would like to have kids one day… and I’ll have to tell them, I made my money betting on the collapse of society, that’s the truth…”

–– Gary Stevenson

Gary Stevenson is a highly successful financial trader formerly employed at Citibank, in London’s historic central business district (CBD), colloquially called “The City”. A talented mathematics student, he earned a full-scholarship to the London School of Economics (LSE) and recalls noticing immediately that there were not many students at LSE with his background: “poor, working class” and even fewer at Citibank, where Stevenson earned an internship by winning a national mathematics contest. The 38-year old carries a strong East London accent that he admits made him stand-out quite a bit. Early on during his time at Citibank, somebody asked him “where’s that accent from, I love it”, he had to tell them that he was from East London, where they were standing, in Canary Wharf.

Speaking on a UK television interview show from February 2025, Stevenson says: “My YouTube channel, we got 1.2 million views yesterday in one day, ONE DAY… there’s a reason why I used to get paid 2 million pound-a-year to do this, because I’m [very] good at this okay, I shouldn’t be on YouTube, I shouldn’t be here, it doesn’t make no sense, I should be working for a hedge fund making 5 million pound-a-year… I’m here talking to you, talking to your audience because I can see… that the middle class, ordinary people, are going to be driven into desperate poverty…”

At Citibank in 2008, Stevenson earned a basic salary of GBP 36,000 but his first full-year bonus was GBP 400,000; he had amassed more money in 18 months than his father had in his entire lifetime. “Listen … these guys that tell you economics on the news, they get paid one hundred, two hundred grand a year, I got paid millions of pounds a year to do it because I’m the best at it and I still beat them, every year…The best economists in the world are all traders… the best-paid ten thousand economists in the world are all traders …”

By some estimates the Bank of England, the UK’s Central Bank, has injected around One Trillion Pounds (over GBP 1,000,000,000,000) into the UK economy since the 2008 financial crisis, during which period, living standards in the UK have been steadily deteriorating as a stagnant middle class struggles amidst a cost of living crisis.

The Uk are not alone, Governments and Central Banks around the world have injected hundreds of billions of dollars into their economies in the past two decades in response to extreme economic and social crises; eg: 2008’s financial crisis and the Covid19 global pandemic. The broad instruments were (1) quantitative easing (QE) – Central Banks purchasing financial assets such as government bonds and (2) direct fiscal ‘stimulus’ payments to business sectors and even individuals, usually funded by the Treasury.

In early 2011, Stevenson got called into a meeting with one of the Citibank’s top economists who went through the financial situations of a lot of the world’s major governments “so Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland but also the UK, US, Japan and what he said was basically, all of these governments are effectively bankrupt, they spend more than their income every year and they’re going further and further into debt… they’re being forced to sell their assets ….”

Where did all that Money go?

In response to the Covid19 pandemic of 2020, the UK Government engaged in QE using a 2009 program called the ‘Asset Purchase Facility’ (APF) and a fiscal stimulus called the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) popularly known as the Furlough Scheme. The CJRS subsidised employee wages (up to 80% capped at GBP 2,500 per month), totalling GBP 70 bn from March 2020 to September 2021. The APF totalled GBP 450 Bn of UK Govt Bonds (and a small amount of UK Corporate Bonds) from 2020 onwards; the total portfolio peaked at GBP 895 Bn in late 2020 and was around GBP 680 Bn by end 2024.

Stevenson’s analysis suggests that QE has led to funds flowing into financial markets, inflating asset prices, be they stocks, bonds or property, thus disproportionately benefiting the owners of these asset classes – mostly the wealthy and ultra-wealthy.

Having graduated to a permanent position on the Trading Floor of Citibank in 2007, Stevenson’s job was to analyse and trade on interest rates. In the aftermath of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, the US Federal Reserve slashed interest rates from 5% to 1% by October 2008 and before the end of the year rates were cut to a target range of 0.00% to 0.25%. In the UK, a similarly dramatic collapse of interest rates: 5% in October 2008 down to 2% in December 2008. Stevenson recollects that “suddenly, we’re all betting on when will the economy recover… bringing rates to zero is like an emergency measure… and the economic theory tells you this should cause a massive economic recovery and we obviously know now, it didn’t happen but at the time, every single year, the economists, the traders, the markets said: ‘next year rates will go up, which means next year the economy will recover’, literally every year 2009, 2010, 2011 all the way until 2020 and it wasn’t until Covid when they finally said, ‘okay rates will stay zero forever’ and then of course, rates immediately went to 5% ….”

This sequence of events suggested to Stevenson that, other than the elite Trading Desks of the world’s largest banks and hedge funds, most economists and market participants were not very good at predicting what would happen in their economies. “The way I became a millionaire is, after the financial crisis, I realised that because of a massive growth in inequality, we would basically never come out of that crisis and I started to put massive bets… that the economy would get worse and worse… and within a year of doing that, I became Citibank’s most profitable trader in the world ….”

The ‘Living Standards Outlook’ for 2023 by UK-based think-tank, Resolution Foundation, stated that “Absolute poverty is set to rise in the short-run, from 17.2 per cent in 2021-22 to 18.3 per cent in 2023-24 (or an additional 800,000 people in poverty). Child poverty in 2027-28 is forecast to be the highest since 1998-99, with 170,000 more children in poverty than in 2021-22”. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that “More than 1 in 5 people in the UK (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. A 2024 report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) highlights that Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) per person had grown at the slowest pace for the poorest 50% of the population and income inequality is widening, those in the lower 20% of the income distribution have seen stagnant or even falling real incomes over the last two decades.

A 2018 Bank Of England report titled, ‘The Distributional Impact of Monetary Policy Easing in the UK 2008 – 2014’, (Bunn et al) states that while in percentage terms, the gains were evenly spread, there were still major distributional issues such as wealthier households gaining more because they held more assets that appreciated due to QE: “the overall effect of monetary policy on standard relative measures of income and wealth inequality has been small.

Given the pre-existing disparities in income and wealth, we estimate that the impact on each household varied substantially across the income and wealth distributions in cash terms ….”

From Progress to Poverty 

In 2014, ThinkTank, Centre for American Progress (CAP) released a report titled ‘The Middle-Class Squeeze’ submits that American “middle-class share of national income has fallen, middle-class wages are stagnant, and the middle class in the United States is no longer the world’s wealthiest… The cost of being in the middle class—and of maintaining a middle-class standard of living—is rising fast too ….”

In his 2019 book, ‘Third Pillar’, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan discusses the impact of the middle-class squeeze on communities: “The anxieties of the moderately educated middle-aged white male in the United States are mirrored in other rich developed countries in the West… moderately educated workers are rapidly losing, or are at risk of losing, good ‘middle-class’ employment, and this has grievous effects on them, their families, and the communities they live in… as public anxiety turns to anger, radical politicians see more value in attacking imports and immigrants. They propose to protect manufacturing jobs by overturning the liberal rules-based postwar economic order, the system that has facilitated the flow of goods, capital, and people across borders”.

Stevenson notes that “we increased inequality at the fastest rate in the history of this country during a time when the economy was closed. Only luxury and non-essential spending reduced during covid; they gave money to furloughed workers, who… then had to spend most of it immediately to pay bills”. Furlough was not a gift but a replacement of a portion of wages of working people who transferred that to: landlords through rent, shareholders of Banks through mortgage payments and shareholders of energy companies through higher bills. Stevenson says the wealthiest in society earn massive amounts of passive income from the assets they own; monthly incomes so large it is impossible to spend it all on consumer goods so instead it leads them to hoard wealth by buying assets.

This correlates to rising house prices, which Stevenson analyses as occurring in a context where almost all other asset classes have seen broad and significant appreciation over the last 20 years: major stock indexes such as S&P 500, FTSE 100 and FAANG (tech stocks), Real Estate, Bonds (until the 2022 crash), Gold etc. Stevenson’s basic claim is that the ultra-rich are buying up all the assets with the excess liquidity and driving up the prices of those assets. “If you have the wealth of the rich going up 5% and an economy that’s growing at 1 or 2%, there is nothing they can do, they outgrow the economy. The rich are squeezing the middle class out.”

A Betting Man

Sri Lanka’s own growing wealth and income disparities are well-established. A December 2022 report by the Department of Census and Statistics (Dharmadasa et al) notes that “the highest 10 percent of the population shared 32 percent of total income in 2016 while the lowest 10 percent of the population shared 3 percent in the same year”. The World Inequality Lab states that the “top 10% of Sri Lankans… own 64% of all personal wealth; the top 1% have 15% of all income and 31% of all wealth. The bottom 50% of Sri Lankans have just 17% of all income and only 4% of all personal wealth”.

A report by the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) from January 2021 prior to the economic crisis and the worst impacts of the pandemic, states that, “more than half the total household income of the country is enjoyed by the richest 20%… while the bottom decile (poorest 20%) gets only 5%, with share of household income being just 1.6% for the poorest 10%.”

Dr. Vagisha Gunasekera, an Economist attached to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was quoted in a poverty report from 2023: “The top one percent of Sri Lankans own 31 percent of the total personal wealth, while the bottom 50 percent only own less than 4 percent of the overall wealth in the country. This provides us with a snapshot of how unequal our country is”. The UNDP report called Sri Lanka one of the most unequal societies in the South-East Asian region.

Gary Stevenson is part of a group of UK-based high net-worth individuals called Patriotic Millionaires who are campaigning for a minimum 1% wealth tax on wealth over ten million pounds: “if you were worth 12 million pounds you pay 1% on 2 million pounds, which is 20,000 a year”. This would only impact a very small portion of tax payers and would raise between 10 and 20 billion pounds annually; in a context where the new Labour Government under Prime Minister Starmer has announced plans to cut more than five billion pounds from its welfare budget by 2029/30.

Sri Lanka, almost 3 years after a once-in-a-generation economic collapse and an IMF-backed revenue-based fiscal consolidation program, has barely been able to improve its income tax to GDP, depending instead on VAT and other indirect taxes as well as excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes. Corporate Tax to GDP on average was 1.5% for ten years before increasing to 2% in 2024, woefully below what more successful countries in our development peer-group tend to generate. While the government lost some Rs. 950 Bn in tax revenues from corporates in the last 21 months due to incentives, the working people of Sri Lanka continued to carry the burden of government revenue growth through VAT. Health, education systems are crumbling, more than 50% of households receive cash stipends from the government while demand for luxury vehicles remains, with depreciating assets like luxury SUVs priced at the same level as a luxury condominium unit in central Colombo. The prevalence of these dynamics and what it says about the internal economic distribution systems point to unsustainable economic arrangements and asset bubbles amidst rising income and wealth inequalities.

Stevenson notes that “My dad lived in an era of house price two-times income, I live in house-price 20-times income, my kids will live in 40-times income…” The point is simple: inequality is driving a historic concentration of wealth at the top of income and wealth structures. “Nobody likes paying tax, but the fact of the matter is, the wealth of the middle class and the wealth of the government is being drained by this super-rich group, how do we get it back? Rishi Sunak is worth 700 million pounds, that means he has a passive income every year of 30 million pounds… they use their passive income to buy more assets… tax is the only way that you, a regular working person, can protect yourself from the superrich”.

What makes Stevenson a fascinating and effective messenger is that he is still trading, making bets on the economy: “I don’t get paid to have opinions… I was one of the best paid and most successful traders in the world at one of the biggest banks in the world, I place bets and l’ve been betting for 14 years that the working class in my country and the working class in your country will collapse into desperate worsening poverty year after year and, I’m a multi-millionaire from doing that… I don’t just say this, I don’t just come on here and give my opinions, I’m betting on everything I’ve told you today….”

The writer has 15 years of experience in the Financial and Corporate sectors after completing a Degree in Accounting and Finance at the University of Kent (UK). He also holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Colombo.

He is a media presenter, political commentator and Foreign Affairs analyst, invited regularly on television broadcasts as a resource-person.

He is also a member of the Working Committee of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

By Kusum Wijetilleke
kusumw@gmail.com
Twitter: @kusumw

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Midweek Review

Of Books and Bread

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By Lynn Ockersz

A learned judge across the Palk Strait,

Had certainly got his basics in place,

When he held for the primacy of Bread,

And received wisdom freshly upheld,

That it is to the eatery and not the library,

That a starving human drags himself,

Thus putting to rest at first blush,

The Bread or Books first debate,

But rush not to conclusions in this instance,

For, while Bread satisfies the physical self,

It’s Books that nourish the heart and mind,

So, let not Books and Bread futilely contend.

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