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

Squeaky clean image of JVP in tatters

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

During the recent debate on the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) Batticaloa District lawmaker, Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, warned that the next NCM would be moved against Fisheries Minister Ramalingham Chandrasekaran. Rasamanickam accused the National List member of corruption, a charge vehemently denied by the NPPer. The NPP/JVP needs to initiate an internal inquiry before corruption allegations overwhelm the party that received the full advantage of Aragalaya to transform the outfit from just a three-member parliamentary group, in 2024, to a staggering 159, a year later. The UNP and SLFP led alliances were dealt harshly by the electorates for want of action to curb corruption. Today, the UNP and SLFP are not represented in Parliament, while the SLPP, that secured 145 seats at the 2020 general election, was reduced to just three with its parliamentary group leader Namal Rajapaksa entering Parliament through the National List. Rajapaksa junior obviously feared to face the Hambantota electorate at the last general election. That is the undeniable truth.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The ongoing controversy over Agriculture, Lands, Irrigation and Livestock Minister K.D. Lal Kantha’s three-storeyed luxury house has intensified pressure on the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) government struggling to cope-up with the devastating coal scam, blamed on Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody forcing him to resign.

Jayakody, one of those who financed the NPP/JVP campaign in the run-up to the 2024 national polls ,resigned on 17 April, along with Prof. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Energy Ministry. Their resignations happened eight months after the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway faction of the JVP, revealed the alleged coal scam. The Lal Kantha affair received significant public attention though the primary issue at hand is the massive coal scam that ripped through the government.

Jayakody will continue as a National List member of the ruling party. The NPP/JVP won an unprecedented 159 seats, including 18 National List slots at the November 2024 parliamentary elections.

The Opposition dismissed government claims that the resignations were meant to facilitate the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the procurement of coal, since the commissioning of the country’s only coal-fired power plant during the onset of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term. In the wake of the much delayed resignations, NPP/JVP heavyweight Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, addressing the media at the Information Department, pathetically vouched for Jayakody’s integrity.

Let us discuss the accusations directed at Lal Kantha who had served the SLFP-led Cabinet for a short period, years ago, in terms of an agreement between the SLFP and the JVP. Lal Kantha had never been accused of corruption and was, in fact, one of those lawmakers who raised the issue both in and outside Parliament. Political parties may have forgotten that the UNP got rid of Lacille de Silva, Director General of Administration, Parliament, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s premiership, in the 2001-2003 period, alleging he passed on information to Lal Kantha to attack the government.

The NPP Executive Committee member, as well as JVP politburo and Central Committee heavyweight, has publicly defended his right to own a luxury house amidst a section of the social media pushing for police investigation into the lawmaker’s wealth.

Unlike the owner/owners of the mysterious Malwana mansion, built on a 16-acre land overlooking the Kelani river, Lal Kantha didn’t try to disclaim the house ownership at Jusse Road, Welivita, in the Kaduwela area. The Malwana house was built towards the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The hullabaloo over the ownership of the Malwana mansion, and construction costs, dominated the 2015 presidential election campaign. On the basis of the Malwana mansion, the UNP and the JVP built a strong case against the Rajapaksas, accusing the family of corruption.

It would be of pivotal importance that the JVP backed Maithripala Sirisena’s 2015 presidential polls candidature. The campaign was built on an anti-corruption platform that earned the appreciation of the public who disregarded the unprecedented development work successfully carried out by the Rajapaksas, while also fighting a war to defeat the most ruthless terrorist organisation that was out to break up the country.

During a US-India backed violent protest campaign, in March-July 2022, an organised gang set the stately Malwana mansion ablaze. The general consensus was that the Malwana mansion belonged to Basil Rajapakasa, though he vehemently denied having anything to do with it.

Yahapalana Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, is on record as having declared that the Malwana mansion would be renovated and used to accommodate a state institution. Lal Kantha’s newly acquired wealth has to be examined and discussed, taking into consideration his long standing claim that as a fulltime member of the JVP he entirely depended on his wife’s monthly salary and help provided by friends and associates. If that was the case, Lal Kantha couldn’t have ended up among the richest group of politicians, within less than two years after the last presidential election, held in September 2024.

Lal Kantha couldn’t have been unaware of the possibility of the Opposition, particularly the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), attacking him and the NPP/JVP over his Kaduwela house. Responding to critics, the Anuradhapura District lawmaker has claimed, on YouTube, that he sold a property he owned in Anuradhapura and used that money to acquire the Jusse Road land.

The outspoken Minister is also on record as having said that the existence of his new house, to which he moved in late 2024, was disclosed by him. However, incisive Youtuber Dharma Sri Kariyawasam has claimed that he made the revelation on 01 October, 2025, while another You-Tuber, Abeetha Edirisinghe, rammed up pressure on the NPP by lodging a complaint with the police, via the special number 1818. Edirisinghe’s SL Leaders YouTube posted a video of him lodging the complaint.

What made the complaint really interesting was Edirisinghe’s declaration based on ‘Dark Room’ YouTube allegations that wealthy businessman Nissanka Senadhipathi, who had been one of the closest associates of the Rajapaksas, provided the wherewithal required to acquire land, build and then furnish the Jusse Road mansion. Defending his position, Lal Kantha claimed that he acquired a piano for his daughter, about 15 years ago, while declaring he enjoyed the capacity to raise large sums of funds if necessary. A smiling Lal Kantha explained how he could effortlessly collect Rs 500,000 each from 100 associates/friends. Programmes posted by Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe are must-watch for those genuinely interested in knowing the explosive story, from different angles.

Close on the heels of debates on Lal Kantha’s mansion, the media reported the Minister’s last available asset declaration, sent to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), dealt with over Rs 80 mn worth of property, vehicles and gold, etc. The JVP heavyweight’s annual income has stunned even the staunchest supporters of the ruling party. Lal Kantha, through his lawyer, demanded Rs 10 bn in damages from ‘Hiru’ for wrongly estimating his properties, etc., at Rs 460 mn.

Both Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe propagated that police wanted the public to complain to special the number 1818, created to accept such complaints in case they felt suspicious about newly acquired property, regardless of who owned them.

Unexpected disclosure of Lal Kantha’s unprecedented wealth obviously stunned the public who genuinely believed in the unshakable NPP/JVP stand on corruption. Lal Kantha, who had joined the JVP in 1982, before becoming a full time member, in 1987, had no qualms in defending his new lifestyle, having repeatedly and bitterly complained about the difficulties experienced by him and his family.

In his defence, Lal Kantha emphasised that he hadn’t been accused of robbing the taxpayer or public sector corruption. However, the NPP/JVP all-out attack on all previous governments, over waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, and branding all their MPs corrupt, cannot adopt such a stance. The Kaduwela mansion has sent shockwaves through the electorate. Dharma Sri Kariyawasam, in his response to Lal Kantha, repeatedly stressed that his wealth was being questioned by those who exercised their franchise in support of the NPP/JVP at the national elections and Local Government polls, in 2025.

Growing public resentment over what various interested parties, including the NPP/JVP called ill-gotten wealth of members and henchmen of previous governments fuelled Aragalaya (31 March-14 July 2022). Those who set houses and other property, belonging to various then government politicians and their associates ablaze, operated on the presumption that they were beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth. The NPP/JVP powered the campaign, alongside the breakaway JVP faction, styled as Peratugami Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party) as well as the UNP.

Ranwala and others

Against the backdrop of Auditor General Samudrika Jayarathne’s devastating report on coal procurement for the 2025/2026 period and Lal Kantha’s declaration that he owned a three-storeyed house, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker of Parliament, over his failure to prove his declared academic qualifications seemed uncalled for. Jayarathne signed that report on behalf of the National Audit Office (NAO).

The Gampaha District MP resigned on 13 December, 2024, just 22 days after being appointed the Speaker. The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) relentlessly attacked Ranwala over his fabricated or unverified educational qualifications, specifically a Ph.D. from a Japanese university and a degree from the University of Moratuwa.

The NPP/JVP tried to defend Ranwala but quickly succumbed to SJB pressure. We never managed to establish whether Ranwala resigned on his own accord or the NPP/JVP asked him to resign to save the party. Similarly, the resignations of Energy Minister Jayakody and Prof. Hemapala, who cut a sorry figure before the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently, must have been demanded by the ruling party. Had the NPP bosses acted prudently, much earlier, after he was indicted before the Colombo High Court on a previous corruption case, they could have easily asked Jayakody to resign his ministerial portfolio before the Parliament debated the no-confidence motion against him.

Another case that really embarrassed the ruling party was accusations directed at Dr. Jagath Wickremeratne, who succeeded Ranwala as House Speaker. The Polonnaruwa District MP was the next to face fire, following a dispute with the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Chaminda Kularatne who is also the Chief of Staff of the House. Kularatne hit back hard after Parliament sacked him over alleged irregularities. In a petition, dated 2 February, 2026, sent to CIABOC, Kularatne disclosed the circumstances the Speaker reacted angrily after he brought to the NPPer’s notice illegal actions and corruption, as well as his (Kularatne) recommendation in his capacity as the Right to Information (RTI) officer, to release certain information sought by civil society activists. Kularatne further claimed that the situation deteriorated further over an incident that happened on 18 June, 2025, or a date closer to that date, in the room where Speaker Wickremeratne had his lunch. Kularatne refrained from revealing the incident.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a senior parliamentary official moving the CIABOC against the Speaker. The allegations directed at the Speaker, in respect of abuse of vehicles, taking two fuel allowances, misuse of equipment belonging to the Media Unit of Parliament, inadequate payment for lunch obtained for Chameera Gallage, Speaker’s private secretary, who had lunch with him, illegal payments made to retired Ministry Additional Secretary S.K. Liyanage, who was appointed to inquire into Kularatne’s conduct, suppression of release of information in terms of RTI, and uncalled for interventions in administration.

Kularatne’s complaint to the CIABOC failed to result in an expeditious inquiry, though a complaint lodged against a sacked parliamentary official appeared to have received much more attention. The NPP has responded cautiously to Kularatne vs Wickremeratne battle as pressure mounted on the ruling party over the coal scam that threatened to cause further increase in already unbearable electricity tariffs. The Auditor General’s report, in no uncertain terms, has implicated the Energy Ministry and Lanka Coal Company in the sordid operation that resulted in low-grade coal ending up at the Lakvijaya coal-fired power plant that earlier met about 30 to 40% percent of the country’s power requirements at essentially low cost, barring hydroelectricity.

The report declared that the term tender for the supply of coal was awarded to Trident Champhar, an Indian company that hadn’t been registered at the time it bid for Sri Lanka’s largest tender and procedures in respect of loading and unloading the cargo. To make matters worse, Minister Jayakody, who had been implicated in the coal scam, was recently indicted on corruption charges in the High Court of Colombo. There hadn’t been a previous instance of a sitting member of the Cabinet being indicted for corruption. Therefore, the NPP government cannot be happy over its steamroller majority in Parliament having defeated the no-confidence motion moved against Jayakody who remained confident in the parliamentary group’s support at the behest of the top party leadership.

The NPP/JVP finds itself in an extremely embarrassing and pitiful situation over the coal scam. The damning report issued by the Auditor General pertaining to the coal scam has to be examined taking into consideration the failure on the part of the government and the Constitutional Council to reach a consensus on filling the vacant Auditor General’s post in 2025. The post of Auditor General remained vacant from early April 2025 to early February 2026.

Role of NAO

The NAO functions as an independent body answerable to Parliament. The recent NAO report that dealt with coal procurement exposed the utterly corrupt system in place, regardless of assurances given by the government. The report proved that irregularities can be perpetrated and corrupt practices continued, regardless of assurances given by the current dispensation.

Over the past several years, tangible measures were taken to strengthen the NAO. Parliament certified the National Audit (Amendment) Act, No. 19 of 2025 on 22 September, 2025. That act introduced reforms meant to enhance public sector accountability, enforce audit findings, and streamline the surcharge process. The no nonsense report proved that in spite of interference and undue influence exerted on the NAO, those responsible did their job without fear or favour.

SJB lawmaker Mujibur Rahman, during the debate on the no-confidence motion against Minister Jayakody, alleged in Parliament that COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) Chairman Dr. Nishantha Samaraweera directly intervened when the NAO was in the process of finalising the report. The former UNPer called for an investigation to establish whether the Galle District NPP MP visited the NAO on several days to meet those handling the investigation.

We are not aware whether the COPE Chief, who called for the NAO to inquire into allegations in respect of coal procurement, visited the NAO.

However, the NAO report on the coal scam, now available online for all to study, underscores the pivotal importance of the anti-corruption fight.

In September 2025, the SJB asked the CIABOC to probe how some NPP/JVP Ministers amassed so much property. The SJB raised the issue with the focus on Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe (like Lal Kantha, he, too, represents the Anuradhapura District) amassed Rs 275 mn. The SJB’s complaint to CIABOC sought investigations on Ministers Sunil Handunetti, Bimal Rathnayake, Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa and Kumara Jayakody, and Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala.

Lal Kantha, who has now acknowledged having as much as Rs 80 mn worth property, was not among the lawmakers targeted by the SJB. Having falsely propagated an anti-corruption campaign to deceive the public, the NPP/JVP stand literally exposed before the public. The coal scam and Lal Kantha fiasco have caused irreparable damage to such an extent, their anti-corruption campaigns may not carry any weight with the public at future elections.

Midweek Review

Some languages confine you; some languages free you

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

‘… where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; ….

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward….into ever-widening thought and action…’

With wide apologies, I am going to put snatches of that poem into more dreary uses, though not quite desert sand.

What are those narrow domestic walls which break up the world into fragments? Languages.

Amiya reads the Gitanjali but does not read the Tirukkural. Hong Li reads Kong Fut Ze’s Analects but not Plato’s Republic. Paul reads Miton’s Paradise Lost but not Njal Saga. Sarath Kumara reads Wickremasinghe’s satva santatitya but not Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Ngidi does not read Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 20th Century or Anthony Atkinson’s Inequality at all. Hirono uses Large Language Models to do homework but Rasolomanana has not seen a computer. And so on and so forth. The world is broken into fragments by languages, but not by languages alone. The daughter of a rich black man living in Howard County in Maryland goes to Stanford but a brown dweller in Dharavi cannot enter Jawaharlal Nehru University. The lesson is that it is not only languages or orthodoxies that break up the world into ‘fragments’ but also many other barriers, about one of which Tagore sang.

Language is a marvellous ‘invention’ of nature well cultivated by humans. No other species has the faculty to use language to know. Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed it epigrammatically, ‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ It is language that carries forth knowledge. It is not only language that carries forth knowledge: mathematics, in its own right, is a powerful carrier of knowledge. One can write something simple like if x-y=0, then x=y, as well as whole pages of complex and complicated arguments using mathematical notations. Mathematics may and often does write nature and about nature; it also writes about things that exist only in the mind. That is not different from languages: heaven and Vishnu exist in some minds but not in others or elsewhere. Galileo Galilei learnt ‘Nature is an open book but it is written in mathematics’. Much of nature is a closed book to those to whom mathematics is alien territory. But today, I am interested in how some languages ‘break the world into fragments by domestic walls’, while a few others fly about regardless. When a team from India played cricket with a team from Pakistan a few weeks back, the commentary was broadcast in India in 14 languages and in Nigeria national news is read in several languages. That same game of cricket also was broadcast to the rest of the world in one language: English.

When and how do some languages come to ‘lead the mind forward into ever widening thought and action’? The transformation occurs when users of one language become conquerors and rulers of peoples using other languages and when the users of a language become generators of new knowledge which are eagerly sought after by users of other languages. Greek, Latin and Arabic contributed mightily to the vocabulary of modern Western European languages. When new ideas in law, government, philosophy, medicine and science had to be expressed, they went to Greek, Latin or Arabic. Consequently, you will bump into Greek terms the moment you begin thinking about those disciplines. The serious study of Greek was introduced to England by Erasmus (of Rotterdam) about 1500 AC. The use of Latin began with the Roman Empire but took on new functions when Latin became the vehicle carrying Christianity east and north (of Europe) and elsewhere later. Until about the 18th century AC Latin was the language of learning in most of Europe. At its inception, Manchester Grammar School was a Latin school and the Boston Latin School which started in 1635 still thrives in that name. The two medieval universities in England were mostly seminaries teaching in Latin well into the 19th century. A wide swathe of languages is written with the Latin alphabet: European languages from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, America from Canada to Chile, sub-Saharan Africa including Togo, and Indonesian, Malaysian and several others. The exodus of Jewish, Arabic and other scholars, after the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottomans, brought Greek and Arabic to Western Europe including England. From about the 14 to the 18th century, European indigenous vernaculars grew to be carriers of new knowledge, especially in sciences. Luther’s reformation and the development of German had much in common. Gutenberg’s new printing press (1450 AC) helped the growth of European vernaculars and the spread of reformed Christianity.

Four western European languages stood out as both conquerors and carriers of new knowledge: Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. Arabic performed the same function from about 800 AC to the 13 AC when that language carried a new religion and new knowledge in mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Arabic replaced the indigenous languages in the entire Maghreb. The language of governance and learning from Mexico south to Chile is Spanish with Brazil using Portuguese and are collectively called Latin America, because Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are Romance or Latin Languages. French is the language of governance and learning in several parts of West Africa. English was a phenomenon in itself. It destroyed the use of hundreds of languages in North America. It conquered almost half the world and English is the language of governance and higher education in a good part of the land it once ruled. As a language carrying new knowledge, English excels all others. As the collapse of four European empires, including the Ottoman, went on from about 1915 to about 1960, English, which produced new knowledge faster than any other, began to break ‘domestic walls’, the world over. China, which had little love for the English-speaking world, had millions of its citizens schooled in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia during the last 30 years and continues to do so, to date. In contrast, during that time how many rushed to Niger to learn Fulfulde or to Lanka to study Sinhala? The prominence of English was promoted by two other processes: one was translation into English of major works in other languages and the other the growth of a class of indigenous writers and readers in the conqueror’s language. One reads Oblomov, Gilgamesh and, indeed, Gitanjali translated into English. India now probably has more readers in English than any other single country. Persons in Western African countries have crafted in French and English, masterpieces in fiction, poetry and drama. Modern European languages have been both conquerors’ languages and carriers of new knowledge.

Several people recently have written in The Island and in Lankadeepa about the importance of using the ‘mother tongue’. They have stressed the importance of the ‘mother tongue’ in creative writing. As with observations regarding empirical phenomena, it is necessary to test those generalisations against reality. Samskrt is a language not entirely unfamiliar to many in this land. Samskrt was nobody’s mother tongue. (After all, it is deva bhaashitam.) There is not a shred of evidence that Kalidasa’s mother talked to him in Samskrt. But Kalidasa wrote rtusmahara and shakuntalam.. The vedas and upanishads were first spoken and later written in samskrt. Pali is nobody’s mother tongue but Theravada writings are almost entirely in that language. Isaac Newton wrote Principia Mathematica in Latin; we have no evidence that baby Isaac babbled in Latin. Paul Dirac wrote about particle physics in mathematics rather than in his father’s beloved French. Leopold Senghor’s mother tongue was not French nor Chinua Achebe’s English. More casually, check your own libraries. I had a collection of about 2,300 books until last year. There weren’t even 200 written in Sinhala and that 200 included editions of works from the 13th century. Check how many books written in Sinhala and English you bought in the last two years. There were far too many writers and scientists who brought forth highly acclaimed work in languages other than their mother tongue, contradicting the argument that the mother tongue was essential or even desirable for original work, in science or in literature.

Most languages ‘break the world into narrow fragments’. A few coagulate them into large masses: 900 million people speak Mandarin and 325 million, Bengali. A half dozen bind themselves together speaking a conqueror’s language. Four languages stand out as having ‘led the ‘mind forward into ever-widening thought and action’: Greek, Latin, Arabic and English. English, so far, is unrivalled.

by Usvatte-aratchi