Midweek Review
New Prez on a collision course with Western powers

US Ambassador of Korean extract Chung tweeted Friday July 22 evening that she had expressed grave concern over the ‘unnecessary and deeply troubling escalation of violence against protestors overnight’. “The President and Cabinet have an opportunity and an obligation to respond to the calls of Sri Lankans for a better future. This is not the time to crack down on citizens, but instead to look ahead at the immediate and tangible steps the government can take to regain the trust of the people, restore stability, and rebuild the economy”, Chung said. During the discussion with Ambassador Chung, President Wickemesinghe is reported to have compared the seizure of the Presidential Secretariat with that of the January 06, 2021 attack on the US Capitol at a time the joint session of the US Congress was underway to affirm Joe Biden’s victory. President Wickremesinghe is also believed to have reminded that no one bothered to issue tweets when his private residence was set ablaze by a violent mob on the night of July 09. They even prevented the fire engines from reaching the site to put out the fire.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Uncompromising ardent nationalist and Sri Lanka’s former Ambassador to Myanmar Prof. Nalin de Silva has compared President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s actions with that of late President Ranasinghe Premadasa and President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
In an online article written in Sinhala and posted on July 23, the retired university mathematics don dealt with President Wickremesinghe, the Parliament and Western envoys.
Towards the end of a short piece, Prof. de Silva made reference to President Wickremesinghe’s directive to the police and armed forces to clear the Presidential Secretariat (old parliament) of protesters. The newly elected President’s no-time-to-waste move drew angry reactions from Western embassies, local and international NGOs as well as by civil society groups, mainly dependent on Western funding. They conveniently didn’t bother to acknowledge that the Galle Face protest site remained, though those who blocked the Presidential Secretariat were removed for the new President to get down to work from the rightful place.
President Wickremesinghe immediately called for a meeting with those envoys who raised concerns at his office where he briefed them. Top presidential aide Sagala Ratnayake sat next to the President. The new leader didn’t mince his words when he strongly defended the action taken by the military and the police on his directives to begin restoring order in the country, overrun by violent mobs, who often posed off as non-partisan peaceful protesters, despite JVP leaders and some members of the breakaway faction, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), openly saying that they were behind the protests, especially at the nerve centre at Galle Face.
Prof. de Silva equated President Wickremesinghe’s response to Western governments’ criticism of late President Ranasinghe Premadasa and President Mahinda Rajapaksa over their actions in response to British High Commissioner David Gladstone and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his British counterpart David Miliband, respectively.
Gladstone served as the UK’s High Commissioner in Colombo from 1987 to 1991. An angry President Premadasa declared Gladstone persona non grata over him lodging a complaint with the police over election violence in the Dickwella electorate at the Local Government election conducted on May 10, 1991. President Premadasa ordered Gladstone out after his efforts to persuade London to recall its man failed. Gladstone departed a few days before the LTTE assassinated one-time Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa without cowing down to Western pressure flatly denied a joint British–French call for an immediate ceasefire as the combined security forces thrusts were in the process of encircling the LTTE remnants, trapped in the Mullaithivu district. The President made his position clear after both Miliband and Kouchner went all the way down to meet him at remote Chandrikawewa, Embilipitiya, on April 29, 2009.
President Rajapaksa’s military brought the war to a successful conclusion on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon on May 19, 2009.
Appreciating how President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked Westerners to keep out of the war against separatist terrorists, academic de Silva asserted that in case Matara District parliamentarian Dullas Alahapperuma won the
Presidential contest, the protesters would have been still in control of government buildings seized by them on July 09. The former Ambassador alleged that the protesters would have had the backing of Western governments and India.
The ardent nationalist said that an assessment on President Wickremesinghe couldn’t be made on the basis of one incident.
Prof. de Silva quit the ambassadorial position in mid-September 2021, a posting he received courtesy the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) administration despite being a maverick all his life when it came to the national interest. He presented the Letter of Credence to Myanmar President Win Myint on 01 Sept. 2020 at the Presidential palace in Nay Pyi Taw.
Though a strong critic of Wickremesinghe and those considered Western elitists in the past, the former envoy asserted that there would have been a catastrophe if the Parliament didn’t elect the five time PM as the President. UNP
Leader Wickremesinghe secured 134 votes against Alahapperuma 82. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake came in a distant third with just three votes.
Lambasting the group that had backed Alahapperuma, Prof. de Silva strongly defended the Parliament for its endorsement of Wickremesinghe. The academic dismissed the much touted claim by interested parties that the current Parliament didn’t reflect the opinion of the electorate. The outspoken activist emphasized that it wouldn’t be realistic to expect lawmakers to consult the electorate as regards decisions taken at such a critical juncture, when mob rule was about to get established.
The President’s Media Division (PMD) quoted President Wickremesinghe as having told Western envoys that both Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 14 (1) (b) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka, which governed the rights of peaceful assembly, would be upheld by the Government.
The President also explained that the instructions given by the American Civil Liberties Union stated that protesters were not permitted to block government buildings and interfere with other purposes the property was designed for.
Unfortunately, the UNP leader didn’t say so before those who converged in Colombo since April 09 with overwhelming reinforcements paid for by hidden hands with deep pockets, finally overran the President’s House, Temple Trees and the Presidential Secretariat.
The declarations made by National Freedom Front (NFF) Leader Wimal Weerawansa, in Parliament, and former General Secretary of the Communist Party DEW Gunasekera that US Ambassador in Colombo Julie Chung interfered in an operation planned by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government cannot be simply forgotten.
President Wickremesinghe has pointed out to these blind critics that contrary to their claims ‘Gotagogama’ hasn’t been removed as alleged by various parties.
Stability and uncertainty
Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa never addressed the threat posed by the public protest movement. The previous government lacked a cohesive strategy to meet the daunting challenge. However, the government’s pathetic failure should be examined, taking into consideration a long list of disasters caused by its actions and inactions. The government never comprehended that the public protest movement drew its strength from those badly affected by the economic downturn. Instead of addressing economic issues, the previous government badly handicapped by financial constraints played politics with the issues at hand until it was too late.
The UNP that backed the protest campaign received an unexpected opportunity to secure the presidency, courtesy of the ‘Gotagogama’ campaign.
In hindsight, the crises that ultimately compelled Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the wartime Defence Secretary who secured nearly seven million votes at the 2019 presidential election, to flee the country in the early hours of July 13, 2022, couldn’t have been dealt with security measures alone. Obviously the security setup rapidly deteriorated since the March 31, 2022, attempt to storm his private residence, instigated by an organized gang, to such an extent all overland routes to Colombo remained opened in spite of the protest movement vowing to oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on July 09 with courts refusing to issue injunctions to stop such acts.
There had never been an attempt to estimate the strength of the growing movement. Those who blamed various interested parties, including the Tamil Diaspora and Western embassies of fomenting the public against the government never bothered to acknowledge their own blunders that created an army of angry youth.
Now, President Wickremesinghe has sought to reassert government authority, while acknowledging the right of the protest movement to continue its struggle, albeit without violence.
Ironically Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa, who had been targeted by the protesters on May 09 at Galle Face, was among those who issued statements condemning President Wickremesinghe’s actions. Can President Wickremesinghe’s actions be compared with the unleashing of a goon attack on the Galle Face protesters from Temple Trees by some of those who came to bid farewell to then PM Mahinda Rajapaksa?
Police headquarters issued a detailed statement on the situation leading to the clearing of protesters and the situation thereafter. However, the police should respond to protesters’ claims that the military moved in regardless of their announcement to vacate the environs of the Presidential Secretariat. Perhaps, the government should have waited a little longer before deploying the military. It would also be pertinent to mention that repeated attempts by the police to persuade the protesters to vacate those places had been ignored and law enforcement officers were repeatedly humiliated for the public to see. The police released video footage of such an encounter between the police and protesters, which were earlier posted on social media obviously by those backing the protesters.
There is no doubt we cannot allow mob rule to destroy this country and early restoration of stability largely depends on tangible measures taken by the new administration to rebuild the economy. It would be a grave mistake on the part of the political parties represented in Parliament to prioritize constitutional and electoral reforms at the expense of the financial sector. Ugly confrontations between the government and the Opposition in Parliament and street battles would not in any way help rebuild the economy. Let there be a ceasefire on all fronts until the executive, the legislature and the judiciary address the issues at hand.
The Opposition, particularly those who voted for lawmaker Alahapperuma at the presidential contest should realize that further destabilization wouldn’t benefit the already deeply wounded country at all.
Foreign projects
Foreign governments shrewdly exploited situations here to pressure post-war Sri Lanka. Wartime disappearances and the Colombo Swiss Embassy drama staged in Nov 2019 can be cited as two such issues.
The latter was meant to humiliate Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the immediate aftermath of his magnificent victory over UNP candidate Sajith Premadasa at the presidential election.
The Swiss project received the backing of Western missions before the government exposed it. Peter Hans Mock, the then Swiss Ambassador here made a desperate bid to make the trumped up allegation stick. Then US Ambassador Alaina Teplitz was among those envoys who questioned Sri Lanka’s right to challenge the Swiss allegation. Teplitz went to the extent of taking up the issue with popularly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the real Swiss target.
It would be pertinent to discuss Wickremesinghe’s response to wartime disappearances when he served as Prime Minister of the yahapalana administration.
The 2015 presidential election brought an end to the war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s rule. The Rajapaksa administration was repeatedly accused of running secret detention facilities, both in the Northern and Eastern provinces. A section of the Western powers, too, subscribed to these unsubstantiated allegations. In spite of the change of the government, in 2015, accusations persisted.
In the run-up to the 2015 Geneva sessions, Sri Lanka was repeatedly accused of still operating secret detention facilities. In the then administration Maithripala Sirisena served as the President whereas UNP leader Wickremesinghe held the post of the Prime Minister.
In 2015, Sri Lanka agreed to set up (I) a judicial mechanism with a Special Counsel to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international human rights law, (II) a Commission on truth, justice, reconciliation and non-recurrence, (III) an Office on missing, and (IV) an office for reparations.
In the run-up to the Geneva sessions, Premier Wickremesinghe set the record straight, at a ceremony at Rukmale Sri Dharmaloka Vijayaloka Maha Viharaya, on March 01, 2015, to felicitate the newly appointed Maha Nayaka Thera Ven. Ittapane Dharmalankara. Among those present was Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo.
Premier Wickremesinghe declared that as all those who had been taken into custody, during the war and the post-conflict period, were being held in legally run facilities, all detainees/prisoners could be accounted for. The UNP leader didn’t mince his words when he emphasized that those missing, but not listed among those in government custody, had either perished during the conflict or were living overseas ‘(Prime Minister denies existence of secret detention camps’. with the strap line ‘Those not among prison population either perished during the war or living overseas’- The Island March 04, 2015.)
A couple of days later, Premier Wickremesinghe challenged the much-touted UN claim of over 40,000 civilians killed on the Vanni east front, in 2009. Wickremesinghe also stressed the urgent need to verify the UN claims, as well as various other accusations. Unfortunately, Wickremesinghe did nothing. In spite of countering allegations, his government conveniently failed to bring the issues to a successful conclusion. Wickremesinghe’s handling of the post-war accountability issue, too, contributed to the humiliating defeat his party suffered at national level elections.
More than seven decades old, the UNP ended up without a single elected MP. The party filled its National List slot in June 2021 with the nomination of its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The UNP leader Wickremesinghe however clearly indicated in an exclusive interview with the Indian Thanthi TV in which he insisted that figures, quoted by the UN or other organizations, couldn’t be accepted without being verified. The March 6, 2015, interview couldn’t have been conducted at a better time, though Wickremesinghe did nothing subsequently to examine the Vanni death toll. Instead, Wickremesinghe gave the then Foreign Minister late Mangala Samaraweera the go ahead to co -sponsor the accountability resolution, in Geneva, on Oct 01, 2015. The rest is history.
When the interviewer, S.A. Hariharan, pointed out that the Tamil Diaspora had estimated the number of civilian deaths closer to 100,000, Wickremesinghe asserted that it wouldn’t even come up to 40,000. Wickremesinghe pointed out that, in addition to the PoE (Panel of Experts) report, there had been other official reports that dealt with accountability issues. The Premier emphasized the pivotal importance of verifying such accusations to establish the number of civilian deaths.
The Premier said that some official reports placed the number of civilian deaths at 5,000. The UNP leader however never called for the verification of the UN report until he was humiliatingly turned out of parliament by the electorate at the last general election.
In spite of underlining the importance of verifying accusations, Wickremesinghe didn’t take any follow-up action. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government conveniently refrained from using heavy ammunition in our rightful defence, provided by Lord Naseby, in Oct 2017, to counter the PoE report. The Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, too, never formulated a cohesive strategy to use Lord Naseby’s bombshell disclosure.
Now, Wickremesinghe, who re-entered Parliament in late June 2021, 10 months after the last general election, is at the helm. As the President, Wickremesinghe has been compelled to face Western criticism. In a way, the Western reaction to the clearing of protesters blocking the entrance to the Presidential Secretariat can be compared with the staged Swiss Embassy drama soon after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected with a record majority to tarnish his image.
Midweek Review
Canada plays politics with Sri Lanka again ahead of its national election

UK Premier Keir Starmer reiterated his Government’s commitment to addressing justice, accountability of reconciliation in Sri Lanka and issues faced by Tamils, including advocating for human rights and justice for Tamil victims.
The often repeated declaration was made at the Thai Pongal celebration at 10 Downing Street on 20th January. The Indian High Commissioner in the UK Vikram Doraiswami was among those present. Perhaps Starmer hadn’t considered India’s culpability as the regional sponsor of a terror project in Sri Lanka that claimed the lives of as many as 70,000 combatants and civilians. Among the dead were former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and over 1,300 Indian soldiers.
Doraiswami joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1992, the year after the LTTE assassinated Gandhi at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. Would Starmer dare to raise India’s accountability and also look into the UK role in bolstering Tamil terrorism? The UK allowed a free hand to the LTTE with the group’s International Secretariat functioning from London without any restrictions. The LTTE wouldn’t have achieved status as a major terrorist organization if UK didn’t facilitate its operations. The writer’s assessment is that the British backing for Tamil terrorism was much more than that of Canada.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Over 17 years after the decimation of the terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with a conventional fighting might militarily by our security forces, Canada and the UK are still seeking to punish Sri Lanka for pulling off that most unlikely victory against their deadly pet that they nurtured covertly.
Both the British and Canadian governments alike play politics at Sri Lanka’s expense. Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre recently stated that he would lead the world in seeking prosecutions in international courts of the Rajapaksas and other “criminals” who have persecuted the Tamil people. Influential groups of Sri Lankans of Tamil origin are represented in both the UK and Canadian parliaments.
Poilievre, whose party is widely expected to win the election, was speaking at the ‘Harvest of Hope’ event in Toronto on 18 January, marking Thai Pongal and Tamil Heritage Month. Obviously, the Conservative Party leader seems to be confident that he could win over Canadians of predominantly Sri Lankan Tamil origin at the October parliamentary elections.
Poilievre sought to appease the Tamil Canadians close on the heels of Premier Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he would resign after a successor is chosen. Rightwing Poilievre, early last year, declared he would seek to prosecute Sri Lanka at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and appoint lawyers to pursue charges against Lankan “war criminals” in international criminal courts.
However, the Conservative Party wouldn’t find it easy to entice Tamil Canadians as during Trudeau’s 10-year premiership, when Canada went out of its way to attack Sri Lanka. The Liberal Party, under Trudeau’s leadership, humiliated war-winning Sri Lanka at any given opportunity.
Recently, the Canadian media quoted Trudeau as having said: “I intend to resign as party leader, as Prime Minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process.” Whoever replaces Trudeau will continue hostile policy towards Sri Lanka. One-time central banker Mark Carney and former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland are in the fray. The Liberal Party is scheduled to announce the winner on 09 March.
All political parties represented in the Canadian Parliament, in May 2022, unanimously and arrogantly agreed that Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide during the war against the LTTE. On the basis of that unsubstantiated decision that had been endorsed by both Liberal and Conservative Parties, the Canadian Parliament recognized 18 May as the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day. These overwhelmingly white accusers, however, forget the fact that like all of Americas, Canada, too, was established by committing numerous acts of genocide against its first citizens. And, to this day, they continue to perpetrate such acts with impunity. Such pale faces, with so much innocent blood on their hands, have the audacity to accuse small countries, like Sri Lanka, that refused to yield to terrorists, who were subtly supported by them, the same way they back even Islamic terrorists when it suits them as we clearly saw in Syria for example.
Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion on May 18, 2009 though LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was only killed on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon at the dawn of the following day as his surviving band tried to breakthrough security forces lines.
What the Conservative Party Leader Poilievre could do to outdo Trudeau who had glorified Prabhakaran’s macabre project by targeting some Sri Lankan leaders responsible for eradicating the LTTE terrorism?
Over the years, those who had received Canadian citizenship, as well as others awaiting same, funded the LTTE as it killed and maimed thousands of Sri Lankans. Obviously, both Liberals and Conservatives, as well as other political parties, represented in Canadian Parliament, have conveniently forgotten thousands of Tamils killed by the LTTE. Canadian political parties are also silent on the origins of terrorism in Sri Lanka that may have claimed the lives of as many as 70,000 people. The dead included 1,300 Indian soldiers, members of rival Tamil terrorist groups, several dozens of politicians, like President Ranasinghe Premadasa as well as one-time Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi, among many others.
Canadian political parties have bent backwards to appease Tamil Canadian voters. With their eyes on the still growing significant number of Tamil Canadian votes, they haven’t at least bothered to examine why Sri Lanka took on the separatist conventional military challenge. Canada never realized the need for a negotiated political settlement in Sri Lanka as long as the LTTE wielded conventional military power. Had the LTTE overwhelmed Sri Lankan military, Canada would have been one of the first countries to congratulate the triumph of terrorism here. That is the reality.
Fortunately, by the time Trudeau received the Liberal Party leadership in 2013, and became the Premier in late 2015, more than four years after Sri Lanka brought the LTTE to its knees, called “the deadliest terrorist group” even by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was not in a position to resurrect its military. In other words, once considered invincible by so-called experts, had been truly defeated. Canada, like many other like-minded countries, responded with shock and dismay at the way the LTTE collapsed after having vowed to defeat the military.
Sri Lanka created history by eradicating the LTTE militarily. Sri Lanka’s triumph dispelled the myth spread by interested parties that our armed forces were incapable of defeating a major terrorist group with conventional fighting means, like the Tigers.
Tamil electorate on a new path
Eradication of the LTTE is no longer a major issue at national or lower level elections in Sri Lanka. Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s superlative performance in the Northern and Eastern regions, at the last presidential and parliamentary elections in Sept. and Nov., last year, respectively, proved that predominantly Tamil electorates couldn’t be significantly influenced by post-war issues.
Regardless of much touted accountability issues and assurances to pursue the Geneva agenda, Tamil parties failed to garner the required support of the Tamil electorate. They overwhelmingly voted for Tamil candidates fielded by the National People’s Front (NPP) at the general election and thereby inflicted unprecedented defeat on the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK).
Finally, the JVP-led NPP won all the Northern and Eastern electoral districts. The Tamil-speaking people declared beyond doubt that they wanted to move ahead and not be entrapped in the past. They obviously realized that a politically motivated high profile Western campaign against Sri Lanka is not meant to help restore their shattered lives but play politics with an issue. Those who cannot stomach Sri Lanka’s triumph over terrorism still want to haul up the war-winning country before international criminal courts. However, ITAK, and smaller Tamil political parties, have now realized that accountability issues do not attract voters. Over 17 years after the end of the war, young voters, in no uncertain terms, had indicated that they aren’t interested in pursuing a political agenda, based on accountability issues.
Earlier, the ITAK-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) wholeheartedly represented the LTTE interests.
Perhaps, the NPP, too, has realized that its often repeated promise to release political prisoners is irrelevant. Even if the NPP wanted to release some to deceive the people, no such prisoners are held by the government. There are only a handful of Tamil convicts and few others held in terms of the PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). The convicts are responsible for major attacks and high profile assassinations. Actually political prisoners are nothing but a non-issue and those demanding their release from detention are only fooling themselves.
It is high time Tamil political parties give up their primary strategy revolving around accountability issues. Having received the LTTE’s backing both in and out of Parliament at the outset of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s second term, the ITAK is now struggling to come to terms with unfavourable situations in the North.
Failure on the part of M.A. Sumanthiran, PC, to retain his Jaffna district seat, meant that the ground situation had changed drastically. That was nothing but a severe warning issued not only to Sumanthiran but to all Tamil politicians who have been essentially advancing an accountability agenda like a beggar’s wound. However, Canada appeared to have failed to recognize the changing situation on the ground. Perhaps, the Canadian High Commission (CHC) should re-examine post-national election developments closely. The CHC should wait till the conclusion of the Local Government polls early this year to carry out reassessment as at least a section of the Tamil electorate may switch their allegiance back to the ITAK.
But, the writer is of the view that dynamics have changed and those genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of the Tamil people shouldn’t depend on accountability issues to promote political agenda. In fact, having played ball with the LTTE throughout the war and backed Prabhakaran’s decision to indiscriminately use hapless Tamil civilian human shields on the Vanni east front, the ITAK should be investigated for its culpability for war crimes. The ITAK had no shame at all as it fully cooperated with the LTTE’s despicable strategies. Today, the ITAK wouldn’t dare to mention that it recognized the LTTE in 2001 as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people. Of course that was done at gunpoint. The late R. Sampanthan had no choice but to cooperate with Prabhakaran’s strategy meant to build a political front subservient to them.
Canada had no qualms in mollycoddling the ITAK in spite of that political party endorsing recruitment of child soldiers. The highpoint of the LTTE-ITAK/TNA relationship was the engineering of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s defeat at the 2005 Nov. presidential election that paved the way for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory, resumption of war in August 2006 by the LTTE and its decimation militarily by the armed forces.
Canada seeks Tamil Canadians support
Against the backdrop of the 2015, 01 Oct. Geneva Resolution that had been treacherously backed by the then Sri Lankan government, headed by Maithripala Sirisena, and Ranil Wickremesinghe as the President and Prime Minister, Canada took a series of measures to step up pressure on the war-winning country. In May 2022 Canada publicly announced that Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide. Trudeau dismissed Sri Lanka’s protests though Ottawa didn’t have absolutely anything to back its extremely politically motivated claims. Shame on Canada and its Premier.
It would be pertinent to mention that Premier Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, too, couldn’t stomach Sri Lanka’s triumph over terrorism. In fact, both Conservatives and Liberals competed with each other to censure Sri Lanka. They felt Canadians of Sri Lankan origin could be easily won over by censuring Sri Lanka.
In May 2014, the Canadian High Commission in Colombo asked the writer whether The Island could publish a hard-hitting statement issued by the then High Commissioner Shelley Whiting prominently ahead of Sri Lanka’s Victory Day parade. The writer, in his capacity as the News Editor of The Island, gave the HC an assurance that regardless of what Whiting had to say it would receive front-page coverage. The HC wanted to know whether any sections would be deleted. Assurance was given that it would be carried, sans any alterations. As promised The Island carried the Whiting’s statement that challenged President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decision to celebrate the country’s triumph over terrorism.
Whiting, who had served at their Kabul mission prior to being posted to Colombo, declared that Canada wouldn’t be represented at the Victory Day parade that was to be held in Matara on May 18, 2014. In spite of proscribing the LTTE and the World Tamil Movement in 2006 and 2008, respectively, funds flowed to the LTTE. The LTTE couldn’t have sustained conventional fighting for over two decades without uninterrupted funding from the West. Canada remained a major source of funding until the very end when the Sri Lankan military decimated the LTTE militarily in a series of operations on the Vanni east front.
Having won the 2015 presidential election, Maithripala Sirisena, in consultation with Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, cancelled the Victory Day parade. Canada must have been thrilled. Whiting’s condemnation of the military celebration was the only instance a foreign government called for the ending of the annual event held to mark a worthy victory clinched against so many odds.
In Oct. 2015, treacherous Yahapalana leadership (UNP-SLFP combine) co-sponsored a US-led accountability resolution against the Sri Lankan military. There hadn’t been a previous instance of any country moving/backing a resolution targeting its own armed forces and political leadership at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
In May 2022 Canada declared Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide. In early January 2023, Ottawa sanctioned former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Staff Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake and Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi. Both Ratnayake and Hettiarachchi had been earlier sanctioned by the US, one of the worst human rights offenders, for committing what it called serious crimes.
Interestingly, no Western government has so far sanctioned war-winning Army Chief Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka though a number of senior officers, including General Shavendra Silva (US) and Maj. Gen. Chagie Gallage (Australia). The US threw its weight behind Fonseka at the 2010 presidential election. Having accused Fonseka’s Army of murdering thousands of Tamils, the LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance (TNA) formed an alliance with the UNP and the JVP to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa. Their project failed pathetically as the electorate inflicted a massive defeat on the celebrated Sinha Regiment hero. The drubbing was such Mahinda Rajapaksa polled over 1.8 mn votes more than Fonseka.
In the absence of cohesive policy on the part of Sri Lanka in countering unsubstantiated war crimes accusations, Western powers pursued an agenda inimical to Sri Lanka. The idea was to push Sri Lanka to offer a political package that addressed Tamils’ aspirations. In other words, Western powers wanted Sri Lanka to grant what the LTTE couldn’t secure through terrorism driven war.
Midweek Review
It reeks in the Palk Bay!

A shooting involving Indian fishermen and Sri Lanka Navy personnel within the island’s territorial waters, and injuries sustained in apprehending the poachers is in the news, yet again. And as is often the case in these countless and never-ending confrontations and competing claims and counter claims in state rituals, we have two versions of the event. But one thing is indisputable: Indian fishermen had entered Sri Lankan waters illegally and thereby came within the jurisdiction of the island nation’s laws and legal apparatuses including interventions by its navy.
Naval action followed by competing statements by India and Sri Lanka are mere state rituals that have not been able to address long-standing practices that pre-existed the formation of nation-states. For the longest time, when national identities, citizenship, and maritime borders did not exist in the legal sense we understand them today, what we now call Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen waded undeterred into each other’s waters and engaged in fishing to their hearts’ content. They even lingered for extended periods of time in each other’s lands during specific fishing periods. I recall engaging in a conversation at the turn of the century with one such fisherman from South India who had decided to settle in Chilaw long ago. In his case and that of many of his comrades at the time, it was a matter of marrying into the Sinhala speaking fisher families. Over time, these people blended into local communities. At the height of these activities and even after both India and Sri Lanka gained independence, the long arm of the nation-states’ laws and national interests did not intervene in such activities beyond a point. But this changed as nation-states evolved into what Ashish Nandi has called ’garrison states’, militarised borders were drawn and bodies of laws developed governing cross-border travel.
Notwithstanding national borders and the associated practices of statecraft and competing nationalisms, fishermen in the two neighbouring countries have continued to wade into each other’s waters consciously disregarding what is known as the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) due to its invisibility. Such border violations are often deliberate and a matter of routine because fishermen often get away with this infringement. However, the kind of intrusion followed by violence now in the news is not the norm, but the exception.
In a statement issued on 28 January 2025, India’s Ministry of External Affairs noted that “an incident of firing by the Sri Lankan Navy during the apprehension of 13 Indian fishermen in the proximity of Delft Island was reported in the early hours of this morning.” It further noted, that “out of the 13 fishermen who were on board the fishing vessel, two have sustained serious injuries and are currently receiving treatment at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital.” But the statement from the Sri Lanka Navy differs in important details. It notes that Sri Lanka’s “Northern Naval Command observed a cluster of Indian fishing boats poaching in the Sri Lankan waters off Valvettithurai, Jaffna in the dark hours of 27 Jan 25.” This location is much closer to the Sri Lankan coast than what the Indian statement claims, yet it is evident from both statements that the incident took place well within Sri Lanka’s territorial waters. This discrepancy in the statements is intriguing as the two locations are approximately 62.4 km apart. Interestingly, the contested island of Kachchatheevu is 22.4 km from Delft, the location given in the Indian statement, and 84.7 km from Valvettithurai. Therefore, a careful reader may not be faulted in wondering if locating the scene closer to Kachchatheevu is deliberate, given that the island is a bone of contention between the two countries.
The Navy statement further states, “subsequently, the Northern Naval Command mounted a special operation to send away those fishing boats from the island waters, deploying naval craft. During this operation, the Navy seized an Indian fishing boat [that] continued to remain in Sri Lankan waters, while marshalling illegal fishing activities and collecting the fishing harvest. The operation also led to the apprehension of 13 Indian fishermen aboard the fishing boat.”
For Sri Lanka, this is not merely an accident that can be wished away as the somewhat clinical Indian statement does. It goes beyond protecting the maritime borders of the country, to preserving a crucial source of livelihood of many people in northern Sri Lanka and other parts of the island. It is both a bread-and-butter issue as it is a matter of national interest. Therefore, the Sri Lanka Navy has acted precisely in the manner that it should, as is expected and is within its mandate. Is it also not ironic that the bleeding hearts of southern Indian politicians who are up in arms about the so-called discrimination and abuse of their Tamil brethren in Sri Lanka by its government, seem to turn bone dry when their constituent fishermen callously plunder the resource-rich fertile waters of Sri Lanka, thereby remorselessly depriving their Tamil brothers and sisters of their livelihood.
The Sri Lankan statement further notes, “the Sri Lanka Navy boarding team was compelled to conduct noncompliance boarding as the Indian fishing boat continued to maneuver aggressively, without complying with the Navy’s lawful orders and its duty, during the process of taking the boat into custody. On this occasion, the Indian fishermen have acted aggressively, maneuvering their fishing boat in a hostile manner and behaving confrontationally with the Navy. However, while boarding the fishing boat in accordance with the authority vested in the Navy, the Indian fishermen, as an organized group, have attempted to assault naval personnel and made an attempt to snatch a firearm from a naval officer, endangering the lives of the naval personnel. In the process, an accidental fire has taken place, causing slight injuries to two Indian fishermen.” So unlike in the Indian statement which refers to ‘serious injuries’ the Sri Lankan statement refers to ‘slight injuries.’
What is seen here is not a deliberate act of shooting as the Indian statement and much of the Indian reporting on the incident insinuates, but an accident that has occurred due to the aggression and unlawful behaviour of Indian fishermen in a location in the sovereign territory of another country, they had no business of being in, in the first place. Intriguingly, none of these details are present in the Indian statement. It merely says that in addition to lodging a ‘strong’ complaint against the incident with the Acting High Commissioner in Delhi and the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “government of India has always emphasized the need to treat issues pertaining to fishermen in a humane and humanitarian manner, keeping in mind livelihood concerns. The use of force is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever. Existing understandings between the two Governments in this regard must be strictly observed.”
India’s Ministry of Externa Affairs lodging a complaint with our Acting Hish Commissioner in Delhi and a similar complaint being made by its High Commission to our Foreign Ministry is the height of absurdity. While our Foreign Ministry and missions may be numb to such action, we should be mindful that the main infraction — Indian poaching — happened in our waters and therefore comes under the jurisdiction of Sri Lankan laws, in the dispensation of which accidents can also happen.
In any case, this statement itself may seem well articulated in the lofty corridors of performative and orchestrated diplomacy and the Indian Ocean conference circuit. But it makes little sense beyond as an example of excessive verbosity in the real world of cross-border poaching and naval action in the darkness of the night involving aggressive culprits and the threatened livelihoods of citizens of a sovereign country. Besides, it was just over six months ago that a young Sri Lankan sailor brutally met his end because of the aggressive manoeuvering of an Indian trawler in Sri Lankan waters. Therefore, these statements are naught but mere rhetoric, of no use to the Sri Lankan fishermen who — through no fault of their own — have to bear the brunt of Indian infractions and incursions into their bread-basket.
What is obvious in these rituals of statecraft is the woeful absence of proactive action on the part of Sri Lanka. If India can summon our Acting High Commissioner to their Ministry of External Affairs and lodge a ‘strong’ complaint over an accident stemming from an illegal Indian activity that took place in our waters, did our Foreign Ministry summon the Indian High Commissioner to protest against his compatriots illegally and perpetually entering our waters, behaving aggressively towards our navy and depriving a section of our citizens of their only livelihood? Did our Foreign Ministry ask him why they have opted to report basic facts wrong in their statement? Silence in such situations is not only extremely dangerous but also smacks of pusillanimity. This kind of institutionalized timidity on the part of Sri Lanka does not augur well for the country at the time we are celebrating our supposed ‘Independence,’ and is also counterintuitive to the notion of national interest.
This general lack of intent towards meaningful action is also evident in the Joint Statement of 16 December 2024, issued during President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka’s visit to India which states that “acknowledging the issues faced by fishermen on both sides and factoring in the livelihood concerns, the leaders agreed on the need to continue to address these in a humanitarian manner. In this regard, they also underscored the need to take measures to avoid any aggressive behaviour or violence. They welcomed the recent conclusion of the 6th Joint Working Group Meeting on Fisheries in Colombo. The leaders expressed confidence that through dialogue and constructive engagements a long-lasting and mutually acceptable solution could be achieved. Given the special relationship between India and Sri Lanka, they instructed officials to continue their engagement to address these issues.” Here, the omission of any reference to the destructive bottom-trawling fishing method is conspicuous by its stark absence. It is indeed unfathomable that the Sri Lankan team did not insist on the inclusion of this critical reference in the statement.
Rampantly used by Indian fishermen, bottom-trawling disrupts the seabed, marine ecosystem and biodiversity of the Palk Bay, while boosting India’s seafood exports and yielding high profits while destroying the Sri Lankan fishermen’s livelihoods. For this reason, Sri Lanka banned bottom-trawling in 2017. However, none of these are in the Joint Statement of 16 December 2024 or the Sri Lanka Navy statement of 28 January 2025, and have also not been taken up with the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo. This is not only a failure of Sri Lankan foreign policy in action but also a complete compromise of our country’s national interest.
In this context, the real culprits in the failure to resolve the problem definitively are the leaders of the Indian and Sri Lankan states — politicians and bureaucrats alike. Why has technology not been resorted to more thoughtfully in this situation where the required technology actually exists? For the longest time, both sides have been waxing eloquent about attaching non-tamperable and permanently switched-on transponders to fishing boats which will inform the Navies or Coast Guards of the two countries when maritime border violations take place. As a technologically advanced country, India has the higher capacity to produce the required innovative mechanisms and tools for this purpose that can be used in both countries for mutual benefit. Bilateral collaboration of this nature can actually bear fruit rather than the hollow discourses of rhetorical diplomacy and statecraft.
For India, these issues are important only insofar as they resonate with Tamil Nadu politics and therefore possible vote banks. In reality, it is never about the lives or livelihoods of poor South Indian fishermen or their confiscated properties. For Sri Lanka, it is a matter of ill-defined sovereignty and the livelihood of a significant section of the people in the north. At the same time, this unfolds in a situation where the Sri Lankan Navy is unable to patrol the country’s maritime borders effectively, a known fact which Indian fishermen exploit as a matter of routine.
If both countries are adequately serious beyond issuing mere statements after the fact, these incursions are easily stoppable. However, once the technology is put in place as a matter of law, both countries must enforce them to the letter, and patrol the borders more effectively. But, pending the fruition of such law, Indian fishermen, cannot be allowed to plunder Sri Lankan resources. It is also high time, the Sri Lankan government, with the kind of overwhelming mandate it has received from the people, make it very clear to the Indian state that endless incursions into our territorial waters and ravishing of the country’s natural resources can no longer be tolerated. And if legitimate deterrence is to be used in protecting our borders and resources as do all sovereign states including India, so be it. This is the minimum we expect from our government in its pursuit of our national interest.
Midweek Review
The Teen Mum Question

By Lynn Ockersz
Into the shadows of shame,
Is the Teen Mum slinking,
Now that the seed in her womb,
Which she didn’t aim at planting,
Is almost close to ripening,
Rendering her heavy with child,
But judge her not in haste,
And go for the First Stone,
For, she’s a hapless victim,
Of an education needing updating,
With a knowledge of do’s and don’ts,
On the question of human mating,
And going into ‘proud independence’,
May this issue be taken up for discussing.
-
News4 days ago
Musk reveals ‘crazy waste’ of USAID funds in Sri Lanka
-
News7 days ago
CID questions top official over releasing of 323 containers
-
Opinion7 days ago
A singular modern Lankan mentor – Part III
-
News7 days ago
Harry and Ken pass away
-
Features7 days ago
The President’s Jaffna visit and its implications
-
News2 days ago
SLAS senior to be HC in London, several new dpl appointments
-
Midweek Review6 days ago
Canada plays politics with Sri Lanka again ahead of its national election
-
Business5 days ago
UNDP, ADB pledge support to SL on its public digital journey at key summit