Midweek Review

Up the garden path with the JVP. Again?

Published

4 years ago

2022/02/16

by G. B. Morrel

In 1970-71, when I was enrolled at Maharagama Teachers’ College, the JVP, better known then as Che Guevarists, were active there, most noticeably in the hand-written posters they plastered on the parapet wall at the entrance. But we English trainees, the “kaduwa” group, had little interest in revolutionary politics.

Then, in April ’71, the JVP launched the insurgency. The college was closed for the April holidays. Amateurish and poorly organised, the insurgency was crushed within a few weeks.

I received a telegram from the principal, asking me to report to him ASAP. When I did, a police jeep took me to the Maharagama police station for questioning. My crime? Playing cricket. Apparently, the team’s opening bowler was a JVP leader, and I had dropped-in at his “chummery” on the way to practice.

The police station had been attacked by teacher trainees on April 5, and three captured trainees were lying in the remand cell, beaten-up and whimpering in pain. Despite the repeated yells from the HQI next door to “give him (me!) the works”, the kindly sergeant who questioned me realised that this terrified “lansiya” had no terrorist motives, and I was allowed to go home that evening. But others weren’t that fortunate. When the teachers’ college reopened, the more active Che Guevarists were not to be seen. Taken up the garden path by the JVP, and duped into an illusion of taking over a country with old shotguns and crude hand bombs, they had vanished into prisons or unmarked graves.

I begin with this personal anecdote because, over the past 50 years, I have observed the JVP leading the people of this country astray, while committing atrocities that have brutalised our society. This is not a lengthy, analytical dissertation on the duplicity of the JVP, but a brief attempt to revive readers’ memories and warn of coming danger.

Intimidating higher education

My next encounter with the JVP was at Kelaniya Campus, where I taught as an instructor later in the 70’s. The students’ council was in the hands of the JVP by then, and, mainly through intimidation, they ran the campus. New students were ragged mercilessly, and staff members who opposed the ragging threatened. Once, passing the Vice Chancellor’s office, I saw that it was crowded with JVP goons, some even standing on his desk and shouting at the VC, who was seated, obviously terrified. A grandfatherly professor, he was no match for the thugs.

I also recall some young mathematics teachers who were admitted to campus for a diploma course. These teachers were dragged to the dark basement of the science faculty and brutalised (ragging is too polite a word for the violence that was enacted).

Due to strikes and violence, the campuses was shut down for months; I stayed home so often that neighbours assumed I was unemployed. Because of the postponements in the academic calendar, by as much as four years, some students preferred to go abroad for higher studies. Once bitten, many of them never returned to Sri Lanka, depriving the country of their talent and potential contribution.

Another short-sighted JVP move was against the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC), a fee-levying, non-profit institution that was set up by the College of General Practitioners. The JVP led a non-stop campaign against the college, culminating in a bomb attack in 1988. The college had graduated more than a thousand doctors by then. It was nationalised the following year.

Privately funded higher education was unknown in South Asia at that time, and had the college continued, it would have attracted international students from the region, bringing foreign exchange into the country, and leading to the creation of a high-quality medical hub, including world class medical schools and teaching hospitals. Instead, now, millions of dollars leave the country each year as fees by Sri Lankan students enrolled in foreign medical schools.

Years later, I came to know Dr. Sathis Jayasinghe, who was a founding member of the NCMC. Gentle and soft-spoken, a beloved family physician, he was called the “visionary who created 1,000 doctors” when he passed away last year. Had the college been allowed to continue, Dr. Jayasinghe would have created 10,000 doctors, saved Sri Lanka millions of dollars, earned foreign exchange, while providing world class medical care to everyone.

The insurrection

More Sri Lankans may have experienced the JVP’s second violent attempt at seizing power in 1987-89. Better organised than the 1971 insurgency, the JVP resorted to “subversion, assassinations, raids, and attacks on military and civilian targets”. Not only were the police and security forces attacked, but even their families were not spared.

In essence, the JVP was being opportunistic, assuming that the government would not cope with two conflicts, in the north and east with the LTTE and with the JVP elsewhere. But they were proved wrong, instead forced to drown in a bloody retaliation that the government unleashed. For a moment, assuming that the JVP was victorious, how could they have fought the LTTE? With the help of their erstwhile friends, the North Koreans?

Two of the JVP killings still rankle me. One is the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga, who brought a sense of idealism from his heroic cinema roles into politics. The second was the killing of Premakeerthi de Alwis, who brought so much joy to music lovers like me with his lyrics describing the bitter sweetness of youthful love. Called “a lyric writing machine” by his first wife, Premakeerthi wrote hundreds of songs for numerous artistes, and would still be writing memorable lyrics if he had been allowed to live.

What was achieved by killing Vijaya and Premakeerthi?

Making heroes out of murderers

Every year, the JVP holds a commemoration for “fallen comrades”. At this and other occasions, their founding leader is portrayed with a beret at a rakish angle and a beard, symbolic of Che Guevara and Castro. But the Che that they idolise succeeded only in Cuba. His attempts to foment rebellion in Africa and South America went nowhere. Likewise, Castro’s flawed policy – allowing Soviet ballistic missiles on Cuban soil, only 90 miles from the USA – lead to strict sanctions by the US that have impoverished Cuba ever since. I do not condone the sanctions, but what did Castro expect to achieve by confronting the US?

Wijeweera, and other leaders of his era, have blood on their hands. While they are romanticised as heroes, no collective commemoration of JVP victims is held. Instead, their families mourn these victims in private grief.

At least two mainstream Sinhala newspapers have been carrying those beret clad photos of Wijeweera, and, on a regular basis, describing the 1971 insurgency, even those pathetic, starving retreats through jungles, in romanticised, nostalgic terms. Mythmaking at its best, and fodder for the gullible.

India as the ogre; Lessons not learned

Having been in politics for more than 50 years, and with two crushing defeats under their belts, one would expect the JVP to learn some lessons. But, going by recent statements by Sunil Handunetti, a JVP leader, it seems otherwise.

One topic of the JVP’s infamous five lectures was India’s expansionist agenda. In essence, the JVP was virulently anti-Indian. In a recent statement, Handunetti appears to echo the past, when he criticised the leasing of some oil tanks in Trincomalee to an Indian company, and a proposed bridge to connect India with Sri Lanka.

Those oil tanks were built before World War II, when Trincomalee, with its deep harbour, was developed as a logistics hub by the British. The 100 tanks, with a total capacity of 1.2 million tons, far exceeds Sri Lanka’s needs, and only 15 tanks are used by the Petroleum Corporation. Fifty tanks were leased recently to an Indian company, but the JVP sees this as a loss of sovereignty; instead of earning foreign exchange, allowing the tanks to rust and decay is their preference.

Anyone who has seen the desolation and the hard scrabble lives of Wanni residents would support any form of development in the region. The shutdown of the ferry service between the two countries dealt a blow to the little direct commerce that existed between the Mannar area and southern India. Talk of a bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka has been in the air for years. Such a link would be a boon to low impact tourism and commerce, and improve the wretched lives of many Wanni residents. Even if the bridge ever gets built, these Indians will not be coming as “kallothonis”. Instead, they will be arriving through formal immigration and customs regulations.

But, the JVP only sees swarms of Indians entering this country, threatening our so-called security and sovereignty. This type of thinking is known as “island mentality”, and harks back to the narrow-minded thinking of the “five lectures”. Of course, “threats from India” usually draw headlines and votes.

Ever since the race riots of 1958, and later fed by other acts of mass violence (the Black July of 1983 comes to mind), the JVP revolts, and the civil war, a large section of our society has no doubt turned brutish. The 2500-year civilization is no more than a myth, and Buddha’s teachings have been tarnished by politicised monks. Corruption, endemic to our society, has turned stratospheric since the “Helping Hambantota” scam. From the lowly peon at a government office to the highest offices of the land, not much gets done without a bribe.

Thus, the yearning for change in the country is understandable. For most people, a radical change of government – power going to a group that has not held power before – appears to be the obvious choice. Hence, the giddy enthusiasm for the JVP, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake being anointed the coming messiah. (Ironically, that’s how Gotabaya Rajapaksa was hailed before the last election.) But, with just 4% of the total vote at the last Presidential election, a snowball has a better chance in hell than a JVP victory at the next election. Nevertheless, there is another danger.

The Ralph Nader Effect

Nader is acclaimed for his activism in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform. Seat belts in vehicles, which have countless lives and major injuries, are attributed to his critique of American automobiles. But he has gained notoriety for a costly run for the Presidency of the United States.

The US Presidential election of 2000 came down to the wire, with the State of Florida deciding the ultimate winner. George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, won Florida by just 537 votes over the Democrat, Al Gore. Nader, running as the Green Party candidate, received 97,421 votes in Florida. Undoubtedly, Nader was a spoiler. The cost of Bush’s Presidency – to the Middle East, to Afghanistan – in the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the massive displacement and destruction caused, the trillions of dollars gone to waste, is beyond question. So is the degradation of the environment.

When the next Presidential election comes around, if the percentage of the vote gained by the JVP is 10% or more, the SLPP (Pohottuwa) may squeeze out a win, a repetition of the Nader effect. The JVP will be the spoiler.

The JVP has much to its credit. It is perhaps the least corrupt, the least racist political party. It does not kowtow to monks. It has built up a solid following among the youth, but support from a broader section of the population, one that has experienced the 1971 insurgency and the 1987-89 insurrection, is lacking. An apology for those costly mistakes, and a renunciation of ardent nationalism, may bring them to the mainstream. But, as matters stand, the JVP is unlikely to compromise.

People my age bear the burden of memory of having seen firsthand the duplicity of and the destruction caused by the JVP. They have not changed their ways. Instead, a new crop of young men and women are being led up the garden path.

Human beings have notoriously short memories, and “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

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Midweek Review

At the edge of a world war

Published

1 day ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

In September 1939, as Europe descended once more into catastrophe, E. H. Carr published The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Twenty years had separated the two great wars—twenty years to reflect, to reconstruct, to restrain. Yet reflection proved fragile. Carr wrote with unsentimental clarity: once the enemy is crushed, the “thereafter” rarely arrives. The illusion that power can come first and morality will follow is as dangerous as the belief that morality alone can command power. Between those illusions, nations lose themselves.

His warning hovers over the present war in Iran.

The “thereafter” has long haunted American interventions—after Afghanistan, after Iraq, after Libya. The enemy can be dismantled with precision; the aftermath resists precision. Iran is not a small theater. It is a civilization-state with a geography three times larger than Iraq. At its southern edge lies the Strait of Hormuz, narrow in width yet immense in consequence. Geography does not argue; it compels.

Long before Carr, in the quiet anxiety of the eighteenth century, James Madison, principal architect of the Constitution, warned that war was the “true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” War concentrates authority in the name of urgency. Madison insisted that the power to declare war must rest with Congress, not the president—so that deliberation might restrain impulse. Republics persuade themselves that emergency powers are temporary. History rarely agrees.

Then, at 2:30 a.m., the abstraction becomes decision.

Donald Trump declares war on Iran. The announcement crosses continents before markets open in Asia. Within twenty-four hours, Ali Khamenei, who ruled for thirty-seven years, is killed. The President calls him one of history’s most evil figures and presents his death as an opening for the Iranian people.

In exile, Reza Pahlavi hails the moment as liberation. In less than forty-eight hours, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps collapses under overwhelming air power. A regime that endured decades falls swiftly. Military efficiency appears absolute. Yet efficiency does not resolve legitimacy.

The joint strike with Israel is framed as necessary and pre-emptive. Retaliation follows across the Gulf. The architecture of energy trade becomes fragile. Shipping routes are recalculated. Markets respond before diplomacy finds its language.

It is measured in the price of petrol in Colombo. In the bus fare in Karachi. In the rising cost of cooking gas in Dhaka. It is heard in the anxious voice of a migrant worker in Doha calling home to Kandy, asking whether contracts will be renewed, whether flights will continue, whether wages will be delayed. It is calculated in foreign reserves already strained, in currencies that tremble at rumor, in budgets forced to choose between subsidy and solvency.

Zaara was the breadwinner of her house in Sri Lanka. Her husband had been unemployed for years. At last, he secured an opportunity to travel to Israel as a foreign worker—like many Sri Lankans who depend on employment in the Middle East. It was to be their turning point: a small house repaired, debts reduced, dignity restored.

Now she lowers her eyes when she speaks. For Zaara, geopolitics is not theory. It is fear measured in distance—between a construction site abroad and a village waiting at home.

The war in Iran has shattered calculations that once felt practical. Nations like Sri Lanka now require strategic foresight to navigate unfolding realities. Reactive responses—whether to natural disasters or external shocks like this conflict—can cripple economies far faster than gradual pressures. Disruptions to energy imports, migrant remittances, and foreign reserves show how distant wars ripple into daily lives.

War among great powers is debated in think tanks. Its consequences are lived in markets—and in quiet kitchens where uncertainty sits heavier than hunger.

The conflict does not unfold in isolation. It enters the strategic calculus of China and Russia, both attentive to precedent. Power projected beyond the Western hemisphere reshapes perceptions in the Eastern theater. Iran’s transformation intersects directly with broader alignments. In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a twenty-five-year strategic agreement. By 2025, China was purchasing the majority of Iran’s exported oil at discounted rates. Energy underwrote strategy. That continuity has been disrupted. Yet strategic relationships do not vanish; they adjust.

In Winds of Change, my new book, I reproduce Nicholas Spykman’s 1944 two-theater confrontation map—Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War. Spykman distinguished maritime power from amphibian projection. Control of the Rimland determined balance. Then, the United States fought across two vast theaters. Today, Europe remains unsettled through Ukraine, the Pacific simmers over Taiwan and the South China Sea, Latin America remains sensitive, and the Middle East has been abruptly transformed. The architecture of multi-theater tension reappears.

At this juncture, the reflections of Marwan Bishara acquire weight. America’s ultimate power, he argues, resides in deterrence, not in the habitual use of force. Power, especially when shared, stabilizes. Force, when used with disregard for international law, breeds instability and humiliation. Arrogance creates enemies and narrows judgment. It is no surprise that many Americans themselves believe the United States should not act alone.

America’s strength does not rest solely in its military reach. Its economy constitutes roughly one-third of global output and generates close to 40 percent of the world’s research and development. Structural power—economic, technological, institutional—has historically underwritten deterrence. When force becomes the primary instrument, influence risks becoming coercion.

The United States now confronts simultaneous pressures across continents. The Second World War demonstrated the capacity to sustain multi-theater engagement; the post-9/11 wars revealed the exhaustion that follows prolonged intervention. Iran, larger and geopolitically deeper, presents a scale that cannot be resolved by air power alone.

Carr’s “thereafter” waits patiently. Military victory may be swift; political reconstruction is slow. Bishara reminds us that deterrence sustains stability, while force risks unraveling it.

At the edge of a potential world war, the decisive question is not who strikes first, but who restrains longest.

History watches. And in places far from the battlefield, mothers wait for phone calls that may not come.

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is a Senior Research Fellow at the Millennium Project, Washington, D.C., and the author of Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, published by World Scientific

Midweek Review

Live Coals Burst Aflame

Published

1 day ago

2026/03/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Live coals of decades-long hate,

Are bursting into all-consuming flames,

In lands where ‘Black Gold’ is abundant,

And it’s a matter to be thought about,

If humans anywhere would be safe now,

Unless these enmities dying hard,

With roots in imperialist exploits,

And identity-based, tribal violence,

Are set aside and laid finally to rest,

By an enthronement of the principle,

Of the Equal Dignity of Humans.

By Lynn Ockersz

Midweek Review

Saga of the arrest of retired intelligence chief

Published

3 days ago

2026/03/2

Sahan Weerasooriya

Retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay’s recent arrest attracted internatiattention. His long-expected arrest took place ahead of the seventh anniversary of the bombings. Multiple blasts claimed the lives of nearly 280 people, including 45 foreigners. State-owned international news television network, based in Paris, France 24, declared that arrest was made on the basis of information provided by a whistleblower. The French channel was referring to Hanzeer Azad Moulana, who earlier sought political asylum in the West and one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan aka Pilleyan. May be the fiction he wove against Pilleyan and others may have been to strengthen his asylum claim there. Moulana is on record as having told the British Channel 4 that Sallay allowed the attack to proceed with the intention of influencing the 2019 presidential election. The French news agency quoted an investigating officer as having said: “He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks. He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.”

****

Suresh Sallay of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) received the wrath of Yahapalana Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in 2016, over the reportage of what the media called the Chavakachcheri explosives detection made on March 30, 2016. Premier Wickremesinghe found fault with Sallay for the coverage, particularly in The Island. Police arrested ex-LTTE child combatant Edward Julian, alias Ramesh, after the detection of one suicide jacket, four claymore mines, three parcels containing about 12 kilos of explosives, to battery packs and several rounds of 9mm ammunition, from his house, situated at Vallakulam Pillaiyar Kovil Street. Chavakachcheri police made the detection, thanks to information provided by the second wife of Ramesh. Investigations revealed that the deadly cache had been brought by Ramesh from Mannar (Detection of LTTE suicide jacket, mines jolts government: Fleeing Tiger apprehended at checkpoint, The Island, March 31, 2016).

The then Jaffna Security Forces Commander, Maj. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake, told the writer that a thorough inquiry was required to ascertain the apprehended LTTE cadre’s intention. The Chavakachcheri detection received the DMI’s attention. The country’s premier intelligence organisation meticulously dealt with the issue against the backdrop of an alleged aborted bid to revive the LTTE in April 2014. Of those who had been involved in the fresh terror project, three were killed in the Nedunkerny jungles. There hadn’t been any other incidents since the Nedunkerny skirmish, until the Chavakachcheri detection.

Piqued by the media coverage of the Chavakachcheri detection, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration tried to silence the genuine Opposition. As the SLFP had, contrary to the expectations of those who voted for the party at the August 2015 parliamentary elections, formed a treacherous coalition with the UNP, the Joint Opposition (JO) spearheaded the parliamentary opposition.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) questioned former External Affairs Minister and top JO spokesman, Prof. G.L. Peiris, over a statement made by him regarding the Chavakachcheri detection. The former law professor questioned the legality of the CID’s move against the backdrop of police declining to furnish him a certified copy of the then acting IGP S.M. Wickremesinghe’s directive that he be summoned to record a statement as regards the Chavakachcheri lethal detection.

One-time LTTE propagandist Velayutham Dayanidhi, a.k.a. Daya Master, raised with President Maithripala Sirisena the spate of arrests made by law enforcement authorities, in the wake of the Chavakachcheri detection. Daya Master took advantage of a meeting called by Sirisena, on 28 April, 2016, at the President’s House, with the proprietors of media organisations and journalists, to raise the issue. The writer having been among the journalists present on that occasion, inquired from the ex-LETTer whom he represented there. Daya Master had been there on behalf of DAN TV, Tamil language satellite TV, based in Jaffna. Among those who had been detained was Subramaniam Sivakaran, at that time Youth Wing leader of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), the main constituent of the now defunct Tamil National Alliance. In addition to Sivakaran, the police apprehended several hardcore ex-LTTE cadres (LTTE revival bid confirmed: TNA youth leader arrested, The Island April 20, 2016).

Ranil hits out at media

Subsequent inquiries revealed the role played by Sivakaran in some of those wanted in connection with the Chavakachcheri detection taking refuge in India. When the writer sought an explanation from the then TNA lawmaker, M.A. Sumanthiran, regarding Sivakaran’s arrest, the lawyer disowned the Youth Wing leader. Sumanthiran emphasised that the party suspended Sivakumaran and Northern Provincial Council member Ananthi Sasitharan for publicly condemning the TNA’s decision to endorse Maithripala Sirisena’s candidature at the 2015 presidential election (Chava explosives: Key suspects flee to India, The Island, May 2, 2016).

Premier Wickremesinghe went ballistic on May 30, 2016. Addressing the 20th anniversary event of the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, at the Sports Ministry auditorium, the UNP leader castigated the DMI. Alleging that the DMI had been pursuing an agenda meant to undermine the Yahapalana administration, Wickremesinghe, in order to make his bogus claim look genuine, repeatedly named the writer as part of that plot. Only Wickremesinghe knows the identity of the idiot who influenced him to make such unsubstantiated allegations. The top UNPer went on to allege that The Island, and its sister paper Divaina, were working overtime to bring back Dutugemunu, a reference to war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. A few days later, sleuths from the Colombo Crime Detection Bureau (CCD) visited The Island editorial to question the writer where lengthy statements were recorded. The police were acting on the instructions of the then Premier, who earlier publicly threatened to send police to question the writer.

In response to police queries about Sallay passing information to the media regarding the Chavakachcheri detection and subsequent related articles, the writer pointed out that the reportage was based on response of the then ASP Ruwan Gunasekera, AAL and Sumanthiran, as had been reported.

Wickremesinghe alleged, at the Muslim media event, that a section of the media manipulated coverage of certain incidents, ahead of the May Day celebrations.

In early May 2016 Wickremesinghe disclosed that he received assurances from the police, and the DMI, that as the LTTE had been wiped out the group couldn’t stage a comeback. The declaration was made at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRIS) on 3 May 2016. Wickremesinghe said that he sought clarifications from the police and the DMI in the wake of the reportage of the Chavakachcheri detection and related developments (PM: LTTE threat no longer exists, The Island, May 5, 2016).

The LTTE couldn’t stage a comeback as a result of measures taken by the then government. It would be a grave mistake, on our part, to believe that the eradication of the LTTE’s conventional military capacity automatically influenced them to give up arms. The successful rehabilitation project, that had been undertaken by the Rajapaksa government and continued by successive governments, ensured that those who once took up arms weren’t interested in returning to the same deadly path.

In spite of the TNA and others shedding crocodile tears for the defeated Tigers, while making a desperate effort to mobilise public opinion against the government, the public never wanted the violence to return. Some interested parties propagated the lie that regardless of the crushing defeat suffered in the hands of the military, the LTTE could resume guerilla-type operations, paving the way for a new conflict. But by the end of 2014, and in the run-up to the presidential election in January following year, the situation seemed under control, especially with Western countries not wanting to upset things here with a pliant administration in the immediate horizon. Soon after the presidential election, the government targeted the armed forces. Remember Sumanthiran’s declaration that the ITAK Youth Wing leader Sivakaran had been opposed to the TNA backing Sirisena at the presidential poll.

The US-led accountability resolution had been co-sponsored by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo to appease the TNA and Tamil Diaspora. The Oct. 01, 2016, resolution delivered a knockout blow to the war-winning armed forces. The UNP pursued an agenda severely inimical to national interests. It would be pertinent to mention that those who now represent the main Opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), were part of the treacherous UNP.

Suresh moved to Malaysia

The Yahapalana leadership resented Sallay’s work. They wanted him out of the country at a time a new threat was emerging. The government attacked the then Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, who warned of the emerging threat from foreign-manipulated local Islamic fanatics on 11 Nov. 2016, in Parliament. Rajapakshe didn’t mince his words when he underscored the threat posed by some Sri Lanka Muslim families taking refuge in Syria where ISIS was running the show. The then government, of which he was part o,f ridiculed their own Justice Minister. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe feared action against extremism may cause erosion of Muslim support. By then Sallay, who had been investigating the deadly plot, was out of the country. The Yahapalana government believed that the best way to deal with Sallay was to grant him a diplomatic posting. Sally ended up in Malaysia, a country where the DMI played a significant role in the repatriation of Kumaran Pathmanathan, alias KP, after his arrest there.

Having served the military for over three cadres, Sallay retired in 2024 in the rank of Major General. Against the backdrop of his recent arrest, in connection with the ongoing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, The Island felt the need to examine the circumstances Sallay ended up in Malaysia at the time. Now, remanded in terms of the Prevention of terrorism Act (PTA), he is being accused of directing the Easter Sunday operation from Malaysia.

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader and former Minister Udaya Gammanpila has alleged that Sallay was apprehended in a bid to divert attention away from the deepening coal scam. Having campaigned on an anti-corruption platformm in the run up to the previous presidential election, in September 2024, the Parliament election, in November of the same year, and local government polls last year, the incumbent dispensation is struggling to cope up with massive corruption issues, particularly the coal scam, which has not only implicated the Energy Minister but the entire Cabinet of Ministers as well.

The crux of the matter is whether Sallay actually met would-be suicide bombers, in February 2018, in an estate, in the Puttalam district, as alleged by the UK’s Channel 4 television, like the BBC is, quite famous for doing hatchet jobs for the West. This is the primary issue at hand. Did Sallay clandestinely leave Malaysia to meet suicide bombers in the presence of Hanzeer Azad Moulana, one-time close associate of State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, aka Pilleyan, former LTTE member?

The British channel raised this issue with Sallay, in 2023, at the time he served as Director, State Intelligence (SIS). Sallay is on record as having told Channel 4 Television that he was not in Sri Lanka the whole of 2018 as he was in Malaysia serving in the Sri Lankan Embassy there as Minister Counsellor.

Therefore, the accusation that he met several members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), including Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, in Karadipuval, Puttalam, in Feb. 2018, was baseless, he has said.

The intelligence officer has asked the British television station to verify his claim with the Malaysian authorities.

Responding to another query, Sallay had told Channel 4 that on April 21, 2019, the day of the Easter Sunday blasts, he was in India, where he was accommodated at the National Defence College (NDC). That could be verified with the Indian authorities, Sallay has said, strongly denying Channel 4’s claim that he contacted one of Pilleyan’s cadres, over, the phone and directed him to pick a person outside Hotel Taj Samudra.

According to Sallay, during his entire assignment in Malaysia, from Dec. 2016 to Dec. 2018, he had been to Colombo only once, for one week, in Dec. 2017, to assist in an official inquiry.

Having returned to Colombo, Sallay had left for NDC, in late Dec. 2018, and returned only after the conclusion of the course, in November 2019.

Sallay has said so in response to questions posed by Ben de Pear, founder, Basement Films, tasked with producing a film for Channel 4 on the Easter Sunday bombings.

The producer has offered Sallay an opportunity to address the issues in terms of Broadcasting Code while inquiring into fresh evidence regarding the officer’s alleged involvement in the Easter Sunday conspiracy.

The producer sought Sallay’s response, in August 2023, in the wake of political upheaval following the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, elected at the November 2019 presidential election.

At the time, the Yahapalana government granted a diplomatic appointment to Sallay, he had been head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). After the 2019 presidential election, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named him the Head of SIS.

The Basement Films has posed several questions to Sallay on the basis of accusations made by Hanzeer Azad Moulana.

In response to the film producer’s query regarding Sallay’s alleged secret meeting with six NTJ cadres who blasted themselves a year later, Sallay has questioned the very basis of the so called new evidence as he was not even in the country during the period the clandestine meeting is alleged to have taken place.

Contradictory stands

Following Sajith Premadasa’s anticipated defeat at the 2019 presidential election, Harin Fernando accused the Catholic Church of facilitating Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory. Fernando, who is also on record as having disclosed that his father knew of the impending Easter Sunday attacks, pointed finger at the Archbishop of Colombo, Rt. Rev Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, for ensuring Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, as well as JVP frontliner Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa, accused India of masterminding the Easter Sunday bombings. Then there were claims of Sara Jasmin, wife of Katuwapitiya suicide bomber Mohammed Hastun, being an Indian agent who was secretly removed after the Army assaulted extremists’ hideout at Sainthamaruthu in the East. What really had happened to Sara Jasmin who, some believe, is key to the Easter Sunday puzzle.

Then there was huge controversy over the arrest of Attorney-at-Law Hejaaz Hizbullah over his alleged links with the Easter Sunday bombers. Hizbullah, who had been arrested in April 2020, served as lawyer to the extremely wealthy spice trader Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim’s family that had been deeply involved in the Easter Sunday plot. Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim had been on the JVP’s National List at the 2015 parliamentary elections. The lawyer received bail after two years. Two of the spice trader’s sons launched suicide attacks, whereas his daughter-in-law triggered a suicide blast when police raided their Dematagoda mansion, several hours after the Easter Sunday blasts.

Investigations also revealed that the suicide vests had been assembled at a factory owned by the family and the project was funded by them. It would be pertinent to mention that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government never really bothered to conduct a comprehensive investigation to identify the Easter Sunday terror project. Perhaps, their biggest failure had been to act on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) recommendations. Instead, President Rajapaksa appointed a six-member committee, headed by his elder brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, to examine the recommendations, probably in a foolish attempt to improve estranged relations with the influential Muslim community. That move caused irreparable damage and influenced the Church to initiate a campaign against the government. The Catholic Church played quite a significant role in the India- and US-backed 2022 Aragalaya that forced President Rajapaksa to flee the country.

Interested parties exploited the deterioration of the national economy, leading to unprecedented declaration of the bankruptcy of the country in April 2022, to mobilie public anger that was used to achieve political change.