Midweek Review

Sri Lanka conflict: ICRC footprint

Published

2 years ago

2024/02/21

Sri Lanka, 1991: Bodies of government soldiers transported from Jaffna by the ICRC await the last stage of their journey before being handed over to the Sri Lanka Navy (ICRC wording)

For some strange reason Sri Lanka never asked the international community to examine a report released by the UN Country Team that dealt with the situation in the Vanni from Aug 2008 to May 13, 2009. That report, prepared with the help of the ICRC and the national staff of the UN and NGOs, placed the number of dead during this period at 7,221 and wounded 18,479 (both civilians and LTTE). The UN findings contradicted the Report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts (PoE), which was more like a handpicked kangaroo court out to hang Sri Lanka on Accountability (section 134). As to how it plucked the figure of an estimated number of dead at 40,000 civilians (section 137) out of nowhere, when Amnesty International placed the number of dead at 10,000, is anybody’s guess.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

‘Humanity in War: Frontline photography since 1860’, an ICRC publication that dealt with wars and conflicts, included two photographs of Sri Lanka’s war against separatist terrorists.

The Island recently received a 247-page book from Ruwanthi Jayasundare, Head of Communication at the International Committee of the Red Cross – ICRC, Colombo. One of the pictures taken in 2007, in the eastern Batticaloa district, depicted the scene in a camp for the displaced.

Dominic Sansoni captured that scene at a time the military had been making steady progress in the Eastern theatre of operations where major battles erupted in August 2006. Incidentally, Dominic is the son of the late Edward Claude Sansoni (18 November 1904 – 1979), the 32nd Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, then Ceylon. Justice Sansoni, during his retirement, also presided over a Presidential Commission of Inquiry that looked into the incidents which took place between 13th August and 15th September 1977, soon after the UNP was swept into power with a record 5/6th majority in Parliament, and findings of that Commission, released in 1980, might be a dispassionate eye-opener to the roots of the ethnic conflict.

The other picture (published in this page) that had been taken by Alfred Grimm, for the ICRC, in 1991, at an undisclosed location, illustrated the severe difficulties experienced by the military on the northern front.

Having lost the overland Main Supply Route (MSR) to the Jaffna peninsula to the LTTE, the year before, within months after the Indian Army completed its withdrawal in March 1990 (July 1987 to March 1990), the Army had to depend on the ICRC to arrange transfer of bodies of officers and men killed in action from LTTE-held areas to government controlled regions in the North and East.

That pathetic picture of coffins placed on a dilapidated jetty before being loaded to a vessel carrying the ICRC flag aptly reflects the much repeated adage that a picture paints a thousand words. A senior retired Navy officer asserted that the picture could have been taken at the Point Pedro jetty that had been under LTTE control at that time. Obviously, the ICRC preferred to use PPD to please the LTTE as the neighbouring Kankesanthurai harbor had been under Navy control throughout the war.

In some instances, the LTTE refused to arrange the transfer of bodies overland. Instead, the group insisted on the ICRC’s involvement as part of its overall strategy meant to humiliate the military, struggling to cope with the onslaughts.

Alfred Grimm’s still image explained the developing precarious situation in the northern theatre of operations, at that time, in the wake of the Army losing all detachments north of Vavuniya, right up to Elephant Pass, on the Kandy-Jaffna A 9 road. It would be pertinent to mention that the Army had to launch the largest single amphibious operation ‘Balawegaya,’ in 1991, to thwart an LTTE attempt to overrun the Elephant Pass base after laying siege to it. There hadn’t been such a large operation until the combined armed forces brought the war to a successful conclusion on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon in 2009.

In the Jaffna peninsula, the entire military deployment was restricted to the Palaly-Kankesanthurai sector and the Jaffna Fort at a time the international community believed the LTTE could ultimately overwhelm the government forces. Having been in touch with the ICRC since its initial deployment here during the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s tenure (1989-1993), the writer felt the Geneva-headquartered organisation, too, believed the LTTE couldn’t be defeated militarily by our security forces.

The Interim Secretariat for Truth and Reconciliation Mechanism (ISTRAM), busy in building required legal and policy framework, operational procedures and guidelines for the proposed Commission for Truth, Unity and Reconciliation (CTUR), should examine the gradual development of the conflict in proper context to ensure a precise narrative.

Fifteen years after the end of the conflict, ISTRAM faces a daunting task, especially against the backdrop of various interested parties seeking to influence the overall process. The crux of the problem is, in the absence of a proper government strategy, all stakeholders seemed to be bent on holding the military and police responsible for alleged atrocities perpetrated during the conflict, while numerous wily deadly acts, committed by terrorists, are hardly ever mentioned, even though even the US Federal Bureau of Investigation called the LTTE the most ruthless terrorist organisation.

Canada, playing politics with voters of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, has, without any inquiry whatsoever, blindly declared that the country committed genocide during the conflict All major political parties there have bent backwards to appease the Tamil electorate and they are going to increase pressure on Sri Lanka as the next Canadian federal election approaches. The election is scheduled for Oct 20, 2025, or before, and already the Tamil electorate is exploiting the situation to tarnish Sri Lanka even more with their wild allegations that are lapped up by Canadian politicians with an eye on Tamil votes.

The recent attack on Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) office, in Canada, by obvious terrorist sympathisers, for them having been part of a Tamil Diaspora team that met former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and continuing controversy over a statement attributed to incumbent Canadian High Commissioner here, Eric Walsh, by the President of the Canada branch of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), over the Himalayan Declaration, propagated by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), underscored how important the Tamil Canadian vote is for unscrupulous politicians.

The recent declaration by Canada’s Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, that he would take Sri Lanka to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and appoint lawyers to pursue charges against “accused” war criminals in the International Criminal Court (ICC), should be examined against above apt background.

Obviously, most of these people are only out for revenge from those who defeated LTTE terrorism, in the battlefield, and not reconciliation by any stretch of the imagination, as happened in South Africa, where despite white rulers having treated blacks worse than animals under apartheid rule, the black and other oppressed people there were willing to forgive and forget things done to them far worse than anything that happened in Sri Lanka.

Premadasa invites ICRC

Let us examine the deployment of ICRC here in late 1989. By then, the JVP terror campaign had run out of steam. A few months after the arrival of ICRC here, the Army captured and executed JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera. At that time, the Indian Army, too, was deployed in the North East and controversy was brewing over President Premadasa’s declaration that India should immediately call off its Sri Lanka mission.

President Premadasa invited the ICRC to meet humanitarian needs caused by the second JVP terrorist campaign and equally murderous government response to it at a time President Premadasa was having a honeymoon (May 1989-June 1990) with Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Just months after the ICRC’s arrival, the government eradicated the JVP, but fighting erupted in the north in June, 1990, paving the way for the group to expand its operations to cover the entire country. The ICRC deployment covered the area under government control as well as the LTTE-held area. The ICRC played a significant role with President Premadasa’s government in disarray in the wake of the LTTE’s resumed violent campaign to divide Sri Lanka was making rapid progress.

By then the Indian Army had left our shores following a spat between President Premadasa and then Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi.

A case in point is the ICRC’s high profile intervention to declare a demilitarised zone in the area covering the Jaffna Fort and the Jaffna hospital in the last week of July 1990, several weeks after the LTTE launched Eelam War II. The LTTE made repeated attempts to overrun the isolated Jaffna Fort, at that time held by the Sixth battalion of the Sinha Regiment. The ICRC pushed for a tripartite agreement involving the government, the LTTE and the ICRC on the basis that such an understanding could prevent the battle for the Dutch-built Jaffna Fort from jeopardizing the lives of those seeking treatment at the premier medical institution in the peninsula, as well as its staff.

However, the audacious LTTE disregarded the ICRC. Prabhakaran sensed an impending significant battlefield victory. The LTTE fought hard to force the beleaguered troops to surrender. Finally, President Premadasa authorised the military to break the siege on the Jaffna Fort. The ICRC hadn’t been happy with that move but what no one really anticipated was Premadasa’s government quirky decision to vacate the Jaffna Fort two weeks after having ended the siege at great cost. Nearly 50 officers and men made the supreme sacrifice and over 100 were wounded in that operation to break the siege. Did they die in vain? What made Premadasa to vacate the Jaffna Fort in late Sept 1990? The Army moved to Jaffna Fort in 1985 as Indian trained terrorists intensified attacks in the Jaffna peninsula. Don’t forget half a dozen terrorist groups, including the LTTE operated at that time.

By the time of Eelam war 11 entered its fourth year in 1993, the ICRC had quite a substantial presence in the North-East.

ICRC negotiating for policemen’s release

The LTTE massacred several hundred policemen after they were ordered to surrender to the Tigers by President Premadasa’s government. However, some of them, approximately 50, including several Tamil law enforcement personnel, were held in detention camps in the north. Some of them were lucky to communicate with their families, through the ICRC.

Dominique Dufour, who succeeded ICRC head in Colombo, Wettach Pierre ,in late 1992, on a number of occasions provided useful information regarding policemen in captivity. Dufour was willing to be quoted and once explained to the writer, at his Colombo office, the ICRC’s efforts to help the detained men communicate with their loved ones against the backdrop of disagreement between the LTTE and the government regarding the families visiting the captives. During Wettach Pierre’s tenure, the ICRC made a determined bid to take families of captives to the north in a ship. According to Dufour, there had been 39 policemen and one soldier (Languishing in Tiger captivity: The forgotten 39, The Sunday Island, Oct 11, 1992).

The ICRC’s role here should be examined, taking into consideration Sri Lanka’s readiness to secure assistance provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Medecins Sans Frontieres, in addition to several other relief organisations. The UNHCR launched its mission here in 1987, two years before the arrival of the ICRC on the invitation of President Premadasa. The MSF first positioned personnel here in 1986, the year before the signing of the Indo-Lanka accord that paved the way for the deployment of the Indian Army. The MSF called off its Sri Lanka mission in March 2004 in the wake of the signing of the secretly arranged Ceasefire Agreement between Sri Lanka and the LTTE by the Norwegians. It was signed by then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe without the approval of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, even though she was the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. But, the MSF returned nine months later, after the tsunami disaster struck Sri Lanka, and remained till the end of 2005.

The MSF re-deployed in the war zone in 2007 and remained here till 2012. On the part of Sri Lanka, there had never been an effort to block foreign assistance reaching the Tamil community in the North-East. In fact, successive governments went out of their way to ensure the supplies reached civilians though they knew the LTTE siphoned a significant portion of the relief sent.

ISTRAM must be aware of ground realities in those days – one such instance had been the UNHCR’s efforts to arrange food convoys across the Jaffna lagoon, using the Sangupiddy ferry.

The then UNHCR’s senior protection officer in Colombo, Dr. Peter Nicolaus, explained to this writer their negotiations with the LTTE to open a supply route, via the Jaffna lagoon, at that time the scene of frequent clashes between Sea Tigers and Navy patrols launched from the Nagathivanthurai naval detachment. The Sunday Island received a briefing after Dr. Nicolaus and UNHCR’s regional legal advisor Bo Schack on Dec 09, 1992, discussed the issue with Anton Balasingham, the LTTE’s theoretician and Yogiratnam Yogi in Jaffna (Major role for international relief organizations in NE war, The Sunday Island, January 3, 1993).

None of those shedding crocodile tears for the Tamil community today dared at least to appeal to the LTTE not to block food convoys. Instead, they cooperated with the LTTE efforts to compel the military to give up control over civilian entry/exit points, namely the Elephant Pass causeway, the Sandupiddy-Pooneryn ferry, Kilali route and Kombadi and Orriyan points.

The LTTE later informed the senior Jaffna-based UNHCR officer that food convoys couldn’t be allowed through Sangupiddy unless the government vacated the area to facilitate the international relief effort.

The government, if it is so keen to establish the truth should undertake a thorough examination of developments throughout the conflict.

The high-handed LTTE refused to drop its prerequisite (vacation of Pooneryn-Sangupiddy area by government troops) even after Western powers intervened. In Feb 1992 Dr. Nicolaus told the writer that UNHCR gave up their efforts, disclosing the UN organisation went to the extent of offering to send a delegation from Geneva or New York to Jaffna to discuss the issue at hand (Opening ‘safe passage’ to Jaffna peninsula: Despite appeals Tigers refuse to negotiate with UNHCR, The Island, February 18, 1993).

Later, the LTTE indicated its willingness to drop any perquisites for the opening of a safe passage and participate in negotiations. Dr. Nicolaus confirmed this development. However, at the end the ferry remained non-operational while the Navy and Sea Tigers battled it out in the Jaffna lagoon.

In early Nov 1993, the LTTE smashed through Pooneryn and Nagathivanthurai defences, thereby ended the siege on the Jaffna peninsula (Re-opening of Pooneryn ferry: Tigers drop Army pull-out call, The Island March 21, 1993). The Navy abandoned Nagathevanthurai.

ICRC’s role during Eelam War IV

Sri Lanka never made an honest attempt to build a proper defence against war crimes accusations. In the absence of a cohesive bi-partisan strategy on our part, those campaigning against the war-winning country built a strong case on the basis of repeating the widespread lies that Sri Lanka waged a war without eyewitnesses. Successive governments never bothered to at least examine how the wartime presence of major international NGOs and the UN could have easily countered those allegations as they bore witness as to how the war was conducted.

ISTRAM should examine all relevant factors, especially records of international NGOs and Indian medical teams deployed in the East during the last phase of the offensive against the LTTE on the Vanni east front. It would be silly to entirely depend on claims and allegations made by those who are still smarting from the battlefield defeat of the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit with conventional fighting capabilities at the hands of the security forces despite overt and covert help extended to them by the West and Western-funded NGOs operating from Colombo. They literally built up the LTTE image to the level of invincibility.

Special attention should be paid to the World Food Programme (WFP) records and that of the ICRC as they proved the existence of a sea supply route to Puthamathalan, the last LTTE-held area in the Mullaithivu district. As soon as the land supply route to Mullaithivu had been closed due to intense fighting, the government, the ICRC and WFP launched an operation on February 10, 2009, to move supplies by sea and then use the same vessel to evacuate the wounded to Pulmoddai where they were handed over to the Indian medical team.

The final ICRC vessel reached Puthumathalan on May 09, 2009, just 10 days before Prabhakaran was killed on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon. Actually, the war ended on the previous day when the Army brought the entire Mullaithivu district under its control. Prabhakaran, his wife Mathivathani, daughter Duvaraga and younger son Balachandran had been hiding within the Army controlled area as the Army declared the war over. Prabhakaran’s eldest son Charles Anthony was killed in a separate confrontation just before the Army declared the end of war.

It would be the responsibility of ISTRAM to establish the total amount of food, medicine and other supplies moved to the LTTE-held area overland and by sea during January 1, 2009, to May 09, 2009. That would help establish how Sri Lanka allowed the international community to facilitate supplies, though there could have been shortcomings.

The ICRC (international staff) also had access to Puthumathalan until May 09, 2009 whereas the UN (international staff) maintained presence in the war zone till January 29, 2009, and those wounded civilians evacuated from Puthamathalan under ICRC supervision were handed over to Pulmoddai-based Indian medical team.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka never argued its case properly before the international community. Let us hope ISTRAM succeeds in reaching consensus on the Sri Lanka narrative.

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Midweek Review

Aragalaya: GR blames CIA in Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s explosive narrative

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Asanga

Did CIA chief William Burns visit Colombo in Feb 2023? Sri Lanka and the US refrained from formally confirming the visit. The Opposition sought confirmation of the then CIA Chief’s visit to Colombo in terms of the Right to Information Act but the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government sidestepped the query. A former Republican congressman from Texas and Director of National Intelligence (2020–2021) John Ratcliffe succeeded Burns in late January 2025.

On the sheer weight of new evidence presented by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s ‘Winds of Change’, readers can get a clear picture of the forces that overthrew President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

Even five years after the political upheaval, widely dubbed ‘Aragalaya,’ controversy surrounds the high-profile operation that forced wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa to literally run for his dear life.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, formerly of the Army but a novice to party politics, comfortably won the 2019 November presidential election against the backdrop of the Easter Sunday carnage that caused uncertainty and suspicions among communities. The economic crisis, also clandestinely engineered from abroad, firstly by crippling vital worker remittances from abroad, almost from the onset of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, overwhelmed the government and created the environment conducive for external intervention. Could it have been avoided if the government, that enjoyed a near two-thirds majority in Parliament, sought the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?

The costly and well-funded book project, undertaken at the time Abeyagoonasekera was working on a governance diagnostic report for the IMF, in the wake of the change of government in Sri Lanka, meticulously examined the former Lieutenant Colonel’s ouster, taking into consideration regional as well as global developments. Abeyagoonasekera dealt efficiently and furiously with rapidly changing situations and developments before the unprecedented 03 January, 2026, US raid on Venezuela.

Lt. Col. (retd) Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for some unexplainable reason and a considerable time after the events, has chosen to blame his ouster on the United States. We cannot blame him either, by the way we have seen how other regime changes had been engineered, in our region, by Washington, since and before Gotabaya’s ouster. The accusation is extraordinary as Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his memoirs ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ refrained from naming the primary conspirator, though he clearly alluded to an international conspiracy.

April 8, 2019 meeting

Launched in March 2024, in the run-up to the presidential election that brought Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) to power, almost in a dream ride, if not for the intervening outside evil actors, ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ discussed the international conspiracy, but conveniently failed to name the primary conspirator. What made the former President speak so candidly with Abeyagoonasekera, the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, from 2016 to 2020?

Abeyagoonasekera also served as Executive Director at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute (LKI), under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2011–2015), during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The author, both precisely and furiously, dealt with issues. Readers may find very interesting quotes and they do give a feeling of the author’s general hostility towards the US, India, as well as to the US-India marriage of convenience. Those who sense so may end up thinking ‘Change of Winds’ being supportive of the Chinese strategy. Among the highly sensitive quotes that underlined the Indian approach were attributed to Indian Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra. The author quoted Mitra as having declared: “We need the MRCC centre [Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre], and you cannot give it to another nation.” As pointed out by the author, it was not a request but an order given to Sri Lanka on 8 April, 2019, meant to prevent Sri Lanka from even considering a competing proposal from China. Against that background, the author, who had been present at that meeting at which the Sri Lanka delegation was led by then Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, questioned the failure on the part of the delegations to take up the Easter Sunday attacks. Terrorists struck two weeks later. Implications were telling.

That particular quote reveals the circumstances India and the US operated here. No wonder the incumbent government does not want to discuss the secret defence MoUs it has entered into with India and the US as they would clearly reveal the sellout of our interests.

The following line says a lot about the circumstances under which Gotabaya Rajapaksa was removed: “In Singapore, a senior journalist recounted how Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation was scripted, under duress, at a hotel, facilitated by a foreign motorcade.”

In the first Chapter that incisively dealt with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the author was so lucky to secure an explosive quote from the ousted leader in an exclusive, hitherto unreported, interview in June 2024, a few months after the launch of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s memoirs. The ex-President hadn’t minced his words when he alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated his removal. He also claimed that he had been under US surveillance throughout his presidency.

The ousted leader has confidently cleared India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of complicity in the operation. What made him call Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval ‘a good man,’ in response to Abeyagoonasekera’s pointed query. Abeyagoonasekera quoted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as having said: “… he would never do such things.” The ex-President must have some reason to call Doval a good friend, regardless of intense pressure exerted on him and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government by the Indians to do away with large scale Chinese-funded projects. (Doval in late October last year declared “poor governance” was the reason behind uprisings that led to change of governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka over the period of past three-and-a-half years. The media quoted Doval as having said, during a function in New Delhi, that democracy and non-institutional methods of regime change in countries, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, created their own set of problems. That was the first time a senior Indian government official made remarks on Nepal’s government change, followed by the Gen Z uprising in early September, 2025.)

Gotabaya Rajapaksa also cleared the Chinese of seeking to oust him. It would be pertinent to mention that China reacted sternly when at the onset of the Gotabaya presidency, the President suggested the need to re-negotiate the Hambantota Port deal.

During the treacherous ‘Yahapalana’ administration (2015 to 2019) Gotabaya Rajapaksa told me how Doval had pressed him to halt not only the Colombo Port City project but to take back Hambantota Port as well. By then, the Chinese had twisted the arms of the Yahapalana leaders Mairthpala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe and secured the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease in a one-sided USD 1.2 bn deal. The Colombo Port City project, that had been halted by the Yahapalana government, too, was resumed possibly under Chinese threat or for some money incentive.

Once Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, declared, at a hastily arranged media briefing at Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF), that Sri Lanka would be relentlessly targeted as long as the Chinese held the Hambantota Port. The writer was present at that media briefing.

Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said so in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, while disclosing his abortive bid to convince the Yahapalana government to abrogate the Hambantota Port deal. Did the parliamentarian know something we were not aware of? The author’s assessment, regarding the Easter Sunday attacks, based on interviews with Chinese officials and scholars, is frightening and an acknowledgement of a possible Western role in Sri Lanka’s destabilisation plot.

The ousted leader, in his lengthy interview with Abeyagoonasekera, made some attention-grabbing comments on the then US Ambassador here, Julie Chung. The ex-President questioned a particular aspect of Chung’s conduct during the protest campaign but his decision not to reveal it all in his memoirs is a mystery. Perhaps, one of the most thought-provoking queries raised by Abeyagoonasekera is the rationale in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s claim that he didn’t want to suppress the protest campaign by using force against the backdrop of his own declaration that the CIA orchestrated the project.

Author’s foray into parliamentary politics

Gotabaya

For those genuinely interested in post-Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga developments, pertaining to international relations and geopolitics, may peruse ‘Winds of Change’ as the third of a trilogy. ‘Sri Lanka at Crossroads’ (2019) dealt with the Mahinda Rajapaksa period and ‘Conundrum of an Island’ (2021) discussed the treacherous Sirisena–Wickremesinghe alliance. The third in the series examined the end of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rule and the rise of Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) whom the author described as a Marxist, though this writer is of the view the JVP and NPP leader AKD is not so. AKD has clearly aligned his administration with US-India while trying to sustain existing relationship with China.

Among Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s other books were ‘Towards a Better World Order’ (2015) and ‘Teardrop Diplomacy: China’s Sri Lanka Foray’ (2023, Bloomsbury).

Had Abeyagoonasekera succeeded in his bid to launch a political career in 2015, the trilogy on Sri Lanka may not have materialised. Abeyagoonasekera contested the Gampaha district at the August 2015 parliamentary election on the UNP ticket but failed to garner sufficient preferences to secure a place in Parliament. That dealt a devastating setback to Abeyagoonasekera’s political ambitions, but the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena administration created the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, for him. Abeyagoonasekera received the appointment as the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, from 2016 to 2020.

Several persons dealt with ‘Aragalaya’ (the late Prof. Nalin de Silva used to call it (Paragalaya) before Abeyagoonasekera though none of them examined the regional and global contexts so deeply, taking into consideration the relevant developments. Having read Wimal Weerawansa’s (Nine: The hidden story), Sena Thoradeniya’s (Galle Face Protest; Systems Change or Anarchy?). Mahinda Siriwardena’s (Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival – Reflection on the Journey from Crisis to Recovery) and Prof. Sunanda Maddumabandara’s (Aragalaye Balaya), the writer is of the opinion Abeyagoonasekera dealt with the period in question as an incisive insider.

Abeyagoonasekera, as a person who left the country, under duress, in 2021, painted a frightening picture of a country with a small and vulnerable economy trapped in major global rivalries. The former government servant attributed his self–imposed exile to two issues.

The first was the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage. Why did the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena government ignore the warning issued by Abeyagoonasekera, in his capacity as DG INSS, in respect of the Easter Sunday bombing campaign? There is absolutely no ambiguity at all in his claim. Abeyagoonasekera insists that he alerted the government four months before the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) bombers struck. The bottom line is that Abeyagoonasekera had issued the warning several weeks before India did but those at the helm of that inept administration chose to turn a blind eye.

The second was the impending economic crisis that engulfed the country in 2022. Abeyagoonasekera is deeply bitter about his arrest on 21 July, 2024, at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) over an alleged IRD –related offence as reported at that time, especially because he was returning home to visit his sick mother.

Asanga’s father Ossie, a member of Parliament and controversial figure, was killed in an LTTE suicide attack at Thotalanga in late Oct. 1994. The Chairman and leader of Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya had been on stage with then UNP presidential election candidate Gamini Dissanayake when the woman suicide cadre blasted herself. The assassination was meant to ensure Kumaratunga’s victory. The LTTE probably felt that it could manipulate Kumaratunga than the experienced Dissanayake who may have had reached some sort of consensus with New Delhi on how to deal with the LTTE.

Let me reproduce a question posed to Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and his response in ‘Winds of Change’ as some may believe that the author is holding something back. “Didn’t they listen?” a US intelligence officer had asked me incredulously after the bombings. Years later, during my role as a technical advisor for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid Sri Lanka’s collapse, the question resurfaced: “How did you foresee the collapse of a powerful regime with a majority in parliament?” My answer remained the same—patterns. Rigorously gathered data and relentless analysis reveal the arcs of history before they unfold.

Perhaps, readers may find what former cashiered Flying Officer Keerthi Ratnayake had to say about ‘Aragalaya’ and related developments (https://island.lk/ex-slaf-officer-sheds-light-on-developments-leading-to-aragalaya/)

Bombshell claim

Essentially, Abeyagoonasekera, on the basis of his exclusive and lengthy interview with former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, confirmed what Wimal Weerawansa and Sena Thoradeniya alleged that the US spearheaded the operation.

But Prof. Maddumabandara, a confidant of first post-Aragalaya President Ranil Wickremesinghe has bared the direct Indian involvement in the regime change operation. In spite of Gotabaya Rajapaksa confidently clearing Indian NSA Doval of complicity in his ouster, Prof. Maddumabandara is on record as having said that the then Indian High Commissioner here Gopal Baglay put pressure on Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to take over the government for an interim period. (https://island.lk/dovals-questionable-regional-stock-taking/)

Obviously, the US and India worked together on the Sri Lanka regime change operation. That is the undeniable truth. India wanted to thwart Wickremesinghe receiving the presidency by bringing in Speaker Abeywardena. That move went awry in spite of some sections of both Buddhist and Catholic clergy throwing their weight behind New Delhi.

The 2022 violent regime change operation cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the US-led project that also involved the UNP, JVP and TNA to engineer retired General Sarath Fonseka’s victory at the 2010 presidential election and their backing for turncoat Maithripala Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election.

The section, titled ‘Echoes of Crisis from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh: South Asia’s Struggle in a Polycrisis’, is riveting and underscores the complexity of the situation and fragility of governments. Executive power and undisputable majorities in Parliament seems irrelevant as external powers intervene thereby making the electoral system redundant.

Having meticulously compared the overthrowing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Bangladesh’s Premier Sheikh Hasina, the author condemned them for their alleged failures and brutality. Abeyagoonasekera stated: “When the military sides with the protesters, as it did in Sri Lanka and now in Bangladesh, it reveals the rulers’ vulnerabilities.” The author unmercifully chided the former President for seeking refuge in the West while alleging direct CIA role in his ouster. But that may have spared his life. Had he sought a lifeline from the Chinese so late the situation could have taken a turn for worse.

The comment that had been attributed to Gotabaya Rajapaksa seemed to belittle Ranil Wickremesinghe who accepted the challenge of becoming the Premier in May 2022 and then chosen by the ruling SLPP to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term. Ranil was definitely seen as an opportunistic vulture who backed ‘Aragalaya’ without any qualms till he saw an opening for himself out of the chaos.

On Wickremesinghe’s path

Abeyagoonasekera discussed the joint US-Indian strategy pertaining to Sri Lanka. Whatever the National People’s Power (NPP) and its President say, the current dispensation is continuing Wickremesinghe’s policy as pointed out by the author. In fact, this government appears to be ready even to go beyond Wickremesinghe’s understanding with New Delhi. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence and the selling of the controlling interests of the Colombo Dockyard Limited (CDL) to India, mid last year, must have surprised even those who always pushed for enhanced relations at all levels.

The economic collapse that resulted in political upheaval has given New Delhi the perfect opportunity to consolidate its position here. Uncomplimentary comments on current Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha in ‘Winds of Change’ have to be discussed, paying attention to Sri Lanka’s growing dependence and alleged clandestine activities of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Abeyagoonasekera seemed to have no qualms in referring to RAW’s hand in 2019 Easter Sunday carnage.

Overall ‘Winds of Change’ encourages, inspires and confirms suspicions about US and Indian intelligence services and underscores the responsibility of those in power to be extra cautious. But, in the case of smaller and weaker economies, such as Sri Lanka still struggling to overcome the economic crisis, there seems to be no solution. Not only India and the US, the Chinese, too, pursue their agenda here unimpeded. Utilisation of political parties, represented in Parliament, selected individuals, and media, in the Chinese efforts, are obvious. Once parliamentarian Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe raised the Chinese interventions in Sri Lanka. He questioned the Parliament receiving about 240 personal laptops for all parliamentarians and top officials. The then UNPer told the writer his decision not to accept the laptop paid for by China. Perhaps, he is the only Sri Lankan politician to have written a strongly worded letter to Chinese leader Xi warning against high profile Chinese strategy.

Winds of Change
is available at
Vijitha Yapa and Sarasavi

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Beginning of another ‘White Supremacist’ World Order?

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Donald Trump’s complete lack of intelligence, empathy and common sense have become more apparent during the current term of his presidency. Ordinarily, a country’s wish to self-destruct as the United States seemingly does at present, and as the violence against US citizens and immigrants alike at the hands of federal authorities have shown in Minnesota, can be callously considered the business of that country. If the Trumpian imbecility was unfolding in Sri Lanka, anywhere else in South Asia or some other country of the purported Third World, the so-called World Order, led by the United States, would be preaching to us the values of democracy and human rights. But what happens when the actions of a powerful country, such as the United States, engulfs in the ensuing flames the rest of us? Trump and his madness then necessarily become our business, too, because combined with the military and economic power of the United States and its government’s proven lack of empathy for its own people, and the rest of the world, is quite literally a matter of global survival. Besides, one of the ‘positive’ outcomes of the Trumpian madness, as a friend observed recently, is that “he has single-handedly exposed and destroyed the fiction of ‘Western Civilisation’, including the pretenses of Europe.”

It is in this context that the speech delivered by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, on 20 January, 2026, deserves attention. It was an elegant speech, a slap in the face of Trump and his policies, the articulation of the need for global directional change, all in one. But, pertinently, it was also a speech that did not clearly accept responsibility for the current world (dis)order which Carney says needs to change. The reality of that need, however, was overly reemphasised by Trump himself during his meandering, arrogant and incohesive speech delivered a day later, spanning over one hour.

My interest is in what Carney did not specifically say in his speech: who would constitute the new world order, who would be its leaders and why should we believe it would be any different from the present one?

Speaking in French, Carney observed that he was talking about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He was, of course, responding to the vulgar script for global domination put in place by the Trumpian United States, given Trump’s declared interest in seeing Canada as part of the United States, his avarice for Greenland, not to mention his already concluded grab for Venezuelan oil. But within this scenario, bound by ‘no limits’ and ‘no constraints’ he was also talking of Russia and China albeit in a coded language.

He reiterated, “that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states. The power of the less power starts with honesty.”

Who could disagree with Carney? His words are a refreshing whiff of fresh air in the intellectual wasteland that is the Trumpian Oval Office and the current world order it prevails over. But where has been the ‘honesty’ of the less powerful in the specific situation where he equates Canada itself within this spectrum? He tells us that “the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

That is stating the obvious. We have known this for decades by experience. Long before Canada’s relative silence with regard to Trump’s and US’ facilitation of the assault on Palestine and the massacre of its people, and the US President’s economic grab in Venezuela and the kidnapping of that country’s President and his wife, Canada’s own chorus in the world order that Carney now critiques has been embellished by silence or – even worse – by chords written by the global dominance orchestra of the United States.

He says the fading of the rules-based order has occurred because of the “strong tendency for countries to go along, to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.” Canada fits this description better than most other nations I can think of. But would Canada, along with other nations among the silent majority within the ‘intermediate powers’ take the responsibility for the mess in the world precisely that silence has directly led to creating? Who will pay for the pain many nations have endured in the prevailing world order? Will Canada lead the way in the new world order in doing this?

Carney further articulates that “for decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.”

But this is not true, is it? Countries like Canada prospered not merely because of the stability of rules of the world order, but because they opted for silence when they should not have. The rupture and the chaos in the world order Carney now critiques and is insanely led by Trump today is not merely the latter’s creation. It has been co-authored for decades by countries such as Canada, France, the United Kingdom to mention just a few who also regularly chant the twin-mantras of human rights and democracy. Trump is merely the latest and the most vocal proponent of the nastiness of that World Order.

It is not that Carney is unaware of this unpleasant reality. He accepts that “the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

While Canada seems to be coming to terms with this reality only now, countries like Sri Lanka and others in similarly disempowered positions in this world order have experienced this for decades, because, as I have outlined earlier, Canada et al have been complicit sustainers of the now demonised and demonic world order.

It is not that I disagree with the basic description Carney has painted of the status of the world. But from personal experience and from the perspective of a citizen from a powerless country, I simply do not trust those who preach ‘the gospel of the good’ not as a matter of principle, but only when the going gets tough for them.

At this rather late stage, Carney says, Canada is “amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.” Unfortunately, we, the people of countries who had to dance to the tunes of the world order led by the First World, have heard it for years, with no one listening to us when our discomforts were articulated. Now, Carney wants ‘middle powers’ or ‘intermediate powers’ within which he also locates Canada, “to live the truth?” For him, the truth means “naming reality” as it exists; “acting consistently” towards all in the world; “applying the same standards to allies and rivals” and “building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored.” This appears to be the operational mantra for the new world order he is envisioning in which he sees Canada as a legitimate leader merely due to its late wakeup call.

He goes on to give a list of things Canada has done locally and globally and concludes by saying, “we have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.” He goes on to say Canada also has “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.” He notes this is “Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.” Quite simply, this a leadership pitch for a new world order with Canada at its helm.

Without being overly cynical, this sounds very familiar, not too dissimilar to what USAID and Voice of America preached to the world; not too dissimilar to what the propaganda arms of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party used to preach in our own languages when we were growing up. It is difficult to buy this argument and accept Canadian and middle country leadership for the new world order when they have been consistently part of the problem of the old one and its excuses for institutionalised double standards practiced by international organisations such as the likes of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other hegemonic entities that have catered to the whims of that world order.

As far as Canada is concerned, it is evident that it has suddenly woken up only due to an existential threat at home projected from across its southern border and Trump’s threats against the Danish territory of Greenland. When Gaza was battered, and Venezuela was raped, there was no audible clarion call. Therefore, there is no real desire for democracy or human rights in its true form, but a convenient and strategic interest in creating a new ‘white supremacist’ world order in the same persona as before, but this time led by a new white warrior instead. The rest of us would be mere followers, nodding our heads as expected as was the case before.

As the 20th century American standup comedian Lenny Bruce once said, “never trust a preacher with more than two suits.” Mr. Carney, Canada along with the so-called middle powers and the lapsed colonialists have way more than two suits, and we have seen them all.