Midweek Review

War crimes: Türk’s visit again underscores SL’s wholly inadequate response

Published

7 months ago

2025/07/2

Türk at Chemmani mass graves (pic courtesy Tamil Guardian)

Various international bodies with vested interests cooperate with the Western agenda. There cannot be a better example than the United Nations nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaration that Iran was not adhering to nuclear nonproliferation obligations the day before Israel launched massive air and missile attacks on that country. The UNHRC is no exception. However, that sordid operation involving the IAEA resulted in Iran obliterating the myth that Israeli defences couldn’t be penetrated. At the time the US forced Israel and Iran to cease attacks on each other, Iran has proved to the world that Israel could be overwhelmed. Sri Lanka seems to be not interested in countering false narrative thereby keeping the path open for the UN to continue its deceitful project here.

Sri Lanka military and an invading army conducted two separate mock media briefings at the Defence Services and Staff College (DSSC), Batalanda, recently. They dealt with a fictitious but developing situation, following a major confrontation in the general area of Dambulla.

The briefings were held at the end of an exercise, called ‘Shadow Dance,’ conducted at the DSSC, where a group of journalists, representing the print and electronic media, participated.

Having explained the circumstances leading to the latest fighting, the two warring armies fielded the questions posed. The invading army addressed/handled the media much better than the Sri Lankan military, represented by the 55 Division. The 63 Division represented the invading army that occupied the entire Northern Province, for a decade, and was threatening the rest of the country.

In a way, the 55 Division reflected the pathetic failure on the part of successive governments and the Army to counter unsubstantiated war crimes allegations levelled, since the successful conclusion of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 17 years ago.

The writer was among those invited to participate in the mock media briefing. The Sri Lankan military was aptly called the defenders of the nation while the occupying army was called videsh forces. The Sri Lankan military performance reminded us of the shoddy way successive governments faced the Geneva challenge. Even 17 years after President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government achieved the unthinkable – the LTTE’s battlefield defeat – the country is still under intense Geneva pressure.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk’s recently concluded visit (June 23-26) proved beyond any doubt the Geneva strategy is on track. The Austrian lawyer’s pronouncements demonstrated that Geneva is absolutely confident of its strategy and the war-winning country lacked a cohesive approach to counter Geneva lies and expose their so far unchallenged narrative.

The National People’s Power (NPP) government seems wholly inadequate to counter the Geneva strategy. The Austrian simply repeated what Geneva and those who had been disgracefully exploiting post-war developments here, for domestic political reasons, were saying over the years.

The reportage of the four-day visit and various comments made by interested parties highlighted Sri Lanka’s failure to address accountability issues. That is the ugly truth. Having eradicated terrorism that was exported to Sri Lanka from India in the ’80s, the country seems simply incapable of comprehending and countering the PRIMARY lie propagated by the UN that the Sri Lanka military killed 40,000 during the final phase of the offensive in 2009.

We should at the same time not forget the fact that most organisations like the UN, set up in the aftermath of World War 11, were created by the victors, i.e. former evil colonial rulers who had previously plundered their subjects to no end. So, naturally, most of the new world bodies, created by them, are stacked against the third world. They are literally often manned by their handpicked ‘yes’ men and women in key positions. It is no coincidence that most top positions even, in the UN office in Colombo, are held by Westerners.

Can we actually expect any fair play from bodies like the United Nations? At a time when UNHCR’s tail should be on fire with an active genocide taking place for at least two years in Palestine, its Chief Volker Türk, however, with an entourage, more or less flogged a dead horse in Sri Lanka for publicity and in an apparent attempt to revive the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation that had a conventional fighting capability that Sri Lanka defeated in the battlefield against all odds. In other words, the UN landed us with a proverbial Tartar last week. Some estimates put Palestinian civilians already killed in the Israeli genocide, in Gaza, at as much as 400,000 on Türk’s watch! Bravo! Folks don’t be surprised if this tartar (our apologies to real tartars, who continue to be maligned by colonial thinking) gets the Nobel Peace Prize ahead of convicted criminal Donald Trump.

Instead of staging annual circuses by such UN bureaucrats to hoodwink the world, wasting millions of dollars, why not just try the Sri Lankan Army in a kangaroo court for the preposterous charge levelled against it in the UN Darusman report of killing 40,000 Tamil civilians in the last stage of the war, which figure had already been contradicted by statistics maintained by other responsible bodies, and individuals, including the UN’s local office.

Sri Lanka never properly challenged the primary UN accusation as no one, who wielded political power, since 2009, bothered to do so. Instead, all Presidents played politics with the issue, while Maithripala Sirisena (2015-2019) treacherously betrayed the armed forces by teaming up with Yahapalana Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe to co-sponsor an accountability resolution, in August 2015, against their own country. That resolution was titled “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka.”

Volker Türk’s visit reminded us that Sri Lanka remained entrapped in that resolution, in spite of the SLPP’s sham move in 2020. The SLPP right royally deceived the country by declaring that Sri Lanka quit the Geneva resolution. The bombastic declaration was made in Geneva by the then Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena during the February-March 2020 sessions. That hoax was perpetrated on the country.

Geneva warning

At the end of Volker Türk’s visit, the Austrian reiterated their long standing demand for an internationally-backed accountability mechanism, the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), an end to surveillance on human rights defenders, and the release of military-occupied land.

The Geneva official also called for the repeal of the recently enacted Online Safety Act. The Austrian’s call for an end to surveillance on human rights defenders is nothing but a joke. The accusation is nothing new and often repeated both here and abroad. Sri Lanka should have asked Geneva a long time ago to identify those civilians who had been under surveillance in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and in Colombo. Unfortunately, successive governments never made an honest bid to counter high profile operations directed at Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka should have asked the Austrian whether at least one of those who had been categorised as human rights defenders sought their intervention to halt forcible conscription of children or prevent the LTTE from using innocent Tamil civilians as human shields.

Volker Türk’s own organisation never bothered to ask the LTTE to stop child recruitment or do away with human shields.

The often repeated demand to repeal the PTA, that had been introduced in 1979 and made permanent in 1982, in response to terrorism perpetrated in Sri Lanka by India over the years, became a key point in the overall strategy against Sri Lanka. Perhaps, Sri Lanka should study the Austrian anti-terrorism law that raised concerns among the interested parties. But Austria, faced with terror threats, has adopted powerful anti-terrorist law and seemed to be confident in its security strategy. The Geneva Human Rights Chief cannot be unaware that comprehensive Austrian anti-terrorism law covers almost all possible threats. Surveillance is in line with the Austrian security strategy.

Türk also played politics with the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna though there is no confirmation of the identities of the victims or who the perpetrators were. There is absolutely no doubt that there had been some excesses on the part of the military and law enforcement authorities when fighting the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world. Whoever is responsible for those atrocities should be held accountable, regardless of their rank. The accountability on the part of political authorities, too, cannot be ignored and, therefore, Sri Lanka should accept moral responsibility for excesses, whatever the circumstances in which they were perpetrated.

But we cannot forget how some high profile accusations, directed at Sri Lanka, backfired on the Geneva Human Rights organisation. Türk’s predecessor Michelle Bachelet (2018-2022), without hesitation, accused Sri Lanka of killing and secretly burying Tamils. The former Chilean President declared the existence of Mannar mass graves after some Colombo-based Western diplomatic missions, particularly the British and the Germans, played their part in the propaganda project.

The following is the relevant section, bearing No 23, from Bachelet’s report: “On May 29, 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in Mannar (Northern Province). Excavations conducted in support of the Office on Missing Persons, revealed a mass grave from which more than 300 skeletons were discovered. It was the second mass grave found in Mannar following the discovery of a site in 2014. Given that other mass graves might be expected to be found in the future, systematic access to grave sites by the Office as an observer is crucial for it to fully discharge its mandate, particularly with regard to the investigation and identification of remains, it is imperative that the proposed reforms on the law relating to inquests, and relevant protocols to operationalize the law be adopted. The capacity of the forensic sector must also be strengthened, including in areas of forensic anthropology, forensic archeology and genetics, and its coordination with the Office of Missing Persons must be ensured.”

The Bachelet report dealt with the situation here from October 2015 to January 2019.

Bachelet ended up with egg on her face when a US carbon dating report into six human skeleton samples taken from Sri Lanka’s largest mass grave revealed they belong to the 15th century. The radiocarbon dating report by Florida-based Beta Analytic Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, which found that the remains belong to between 1499 and 1719 AD, was submitted to the Mannar Magistrate court and made public. Geneva didn’t talk about Mannar mass graves again. Now Bachelet’s successor Türk seems obsessed with Chemmani.

Case for int’l backed accountability mechanism

Whatever those critical of repeated calls for an internationally-backed accountability mechanism to probe Sri Lanka, the writer is of the strong belief that such a setup is necessary. The origins of terrorism here cannot be investigated unless all stakeholders agree for an internationally-backed accountability mechanism. Would Geneva explain its stand on India’s accountability for launching its terrorism project here that had to be destroyed militarily at a great cost to the Sri Lanka armed forces and innocent civilians?

Accountability issues here cannot be investigated, leaving India out, as the environment for Nanthikadal was created by India … and India alone. Western powers simply looked the other way.

A monument built by Sri Lanka for the Indian Army personnel killed in Sri Lanka is a grim reminder of New Delhi’s intervention here purely based on domestic reasons. No less a person than the late Indian National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit, who had been New Delhi’s top envoy during the deployment of the Indian Army here, in his memoirs ‘Makers of India’s Foreign Policy: Raja Ram Mohun Roy to Yashwant Sinha’, launched, in 2004, admitted the destabilisation project undertaken under Indira Gandhi’s leadership. Dixit faulted the then Premier Indira Gandhi for their intervention in Sri Lanka.

Those who had been demanding justice and accountability on the part of Sri Lanka are silent on massacres carried out by the Indian Army. The Jaffna hospital massacre, in October 1987, and the Valvettithurai carnage, in August 1989 ,were two examples.

Against the backdrop of Dixit’s admission, the declaration made by the late veteran diplomat, Jayantha Dhanapala, at the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, is of pivotal importance.

One of Sri Lanka’s celebrated career diplomats even headed the revamped UN nuclear disarmament department as Under-Secretary General, Dhanapala discussed the issue of accountability when he addressed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), headed by one-time Attorney General, the late C. R. de Silva, on 25 August, 2010.

Dhanapala, in his submissions, said: “Now I think it is important for us to expand that concept to bring in the culpability of those members of the international community who have subscribed to the situation that has caused injury to the civilians of a nation. I talk about the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary; harboured; and supplied with arms and training by some countries with regard to their neighbours or with regard to other countries. We know that in our case this has happened, and I don’t want to name countries, but even countries which have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be abused in such a way that money can flow from their countries in order to buy arms and ammunition that cause deaths, maiming and destruction of property in Sri Lanka are to blame and there is, therefore, a responsibility to protect our civilians and the civilians of other nations from that kind of behaviour on the part of members of the international community. And I think this is something that will echo within many countries in the Non-Aligned Movement, where Sri Lanka has a much respected position and where I hope we will be able to raise this issue.”

Dhanapala also stressed on the accountability on the part of Western governments, which conveniently turned a blind eye to massive fundraising operations in their countries, in support of the LTTE operations. It is no secret that the LTTE would never have been able to emerge as a conventional fighting force without having the wherewithal abroad, mainly in the Western countries, to procure arms, ammunition and equipment. But, the government never acted on Dhanapala’s advice.

Geneva conveniently follows Western strategies. Sri Lanka is a victim of that approach. Therefore, US withdrawal from the UNHRC, in June 2018, is questionable. The US withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, with then-US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, calling the council a “cesspool of political bias”. The US decision followed accusations that the Council was biased against Israel and failed to adequately address human rights abuses. Perhaps, the US has conveniently forgotten how Israel dealt with the Goldstone war crimes report on Gaza. Interestingly, that discarded report coincided with the UN report on Sri Lanka’s successful war against the Tamil separatist movement.

Western agenda on track

Retired security forces officers Rear Admiral D.P.K. Dassanayake and Maj. General G.V. Ravipriya, on behalf of those who had been accused of war crimes, sought an opportunity to meet the official from Geneva. They also sought the intervention of the Foreign Ministry to explore the possibility of meeting the Austrian. Their efforts were in vain.

Some found fault with Volker Türk’s visit to Chemmani mass graves where he controversially blamed the government for killing and burying them. The man from Geneva sprinkled flowers on the Chemmani graves. Sri Lanka should have invited him to pay floral tribute at the graves of many Tamils killed by the LTTE during the conflict. Perhaps, he could also have visited the burial site of the LTTE’s number two Gopalswamy Mahendraraja, alias Mahattaya, and his loyalists, executed by the LTTE on the suspicion of working for India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Actually those who had been shedding crocodile tears and demanding justice for war victims are only speaking on behalf of the LTTE dead, whoever was allegedly killed by the government. Therefore, the assassination of TULF greats Appapillai Amirthalingam and Vettivelu Yogeswaran (both in July 1989 in Colombo) or Sarojini Yogeswaran (May 1998 in Jaffna) or Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam. The list is too long to mention.

Volker Türk is not the first foreign dignitary to play ball with the anti-Sri Lanka grouping. He won’t be the last either. In November 2013, Canadian delegation to CHOGM, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deepak Obhrai, laid a wreath at Elephant Pass in memory of those who were killed during the armed conflict. Obhrai did so while returning from Jaffna where he met the then Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C.V. Wigneswaran at the premises of the Tamil Jaffna-based newspaper, Uthayan.

In August 2016 Wigneswaran confidently declared that the Army killed over 100 LTTEers in custody after the end of the conflict by injecting them with a poisonous drug. That blatant lie received massive media coverage and the pathetic Yahapalana rulers failed to vigorously take up the issue with the retired Supreme Court justice.

Wigneswaran went to the extent of claiming that the US Air Force would examine the rehabilitated LTTE cadres to establish the truth. He got away with that barefaced lie.

Sri Lanka’s continuous and mysterious failure to build its Geneva defence, on the following facts, is baffling: (1) US denial of battlefield executions/war crimes by 58 Division on the Vanni east front. This was in June 2011, in Colombo, at the first defence seminar following the eradication of the LTTE (2) Disclosure of confidential British diplomatic cables that disputed the UN claim of 40,000 civil deaths. This was in October 2017 at the House of Lords (3) UN Colombo estimated that there were 7,000-8,000 deaths (both combatants and civilians) during the period August 2008-May 13, 2009. That report, prepared with the direct involvement of the ICRC and hospitals in war one, too, contradicted the claim of over 40,000 killed. In January 2010, less than a year after the Army put a bullet through Prabhakaran’s head on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, the people living in the Northern and Eastern provinces declared that they really appreciated the eradication of the LTTE. Then Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, wartime commander of the Army, handsomely won all the Northern and Eastern electoral districts at the presidential election. Where were the so-called human rights defenders when the Tamil electorate endorsed Fonseka, whose ruthless execution of the war by taking the fight to the enemy, often using tactics the Tigers earlier thrived in, ensured the LTTE’s eradication? But that wouldn’t have been a reality without the significant contributions made by the Navy and the Air Force.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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Midweek Review

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

Published

5 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

5 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.