The 26-year terrorism of the Tigers failed to achieve its separatist goal. Washington viewed the Tigers as the vanguard of the 11% Sri Lankan Tamils despite its 1997-designation as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), and the rejection of the Tiger separatist agenda. Sympathetic toward Tamil rights, Washington policy projections – targeting Sri Lanka’s human rights record and alleged war crimes at UN forums – helped elevate the Tamil Diaspora as a global diplomatic movement with lasting impact. This book gives a unique analyses and interpretation of Washington’s foreign policy adventurism using the insights the author gained during his tenure at the U.S. State Department. This insider’s account and alarming revelations are new to readers who have gone through books and scholarly papers on the issue and unique addition to already available texts and existing global debate on the Sri Lankan state.

The Book’s Scheduled Release: October 2016

About the Author

The author a professional – who earned a Meritorious Honor Award for Superior Performance and Professionalism in 1988 from the U.S. State Department – was a Public Affairs Assistant (1970-80) and Political Specialist (1980-94) at U.S. diplomatic mission in Sri Lanka. During his political duties, he was privy to Washington’s play book of foreign policy dealings with Sri Lankan issues. He gained extensive knowledge how U.S. Foreign Service Officers made crucial decisions, influencing factors on decisions, their mindset formation, and had access to their sensitive thinking. This wide understanding became rich fodder to the extraordinary analyses and interpretation of this book, sans critically sensitive and classified dispositions.

The book is based on the understanding, knowledge and rich professional experience Daya Gamage gained during the years working for the U.S. federal government, especially the final 15 years in the Political Section of the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Sri Lanka. With that background, the author was in a unique position to unlock his understanding of American foreign policy trajectory toward Sri Lanka, hitherto unknown to outsiders, to take the conversation toward a different direction.

The book separates from other existing ones on the subject in providing an unparalleled angle penetrating into Washington’s covert and overt maneuvers and designs aiding and abetting a global supportive instrument of a terrorist organization which is motivated to destabilize Sri Lanka. The analyses and interpretations, based on the author’s deep knowledge and insights gained during his tenure at the U.S. Department of State, not found in other works. The link the author discovered between Washington’s settled mindset developed in the 1980s and 1990s on Sri Lanka’s national issues, and post-2009 renaissance of the global supportive instrument of a terrorist group is unique to the readers. The interpretations and analyses of discovered evidence of this cohabitation, and Washington’s adventurism are aptly reflected in the title of the book: Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America: U.S. Foreign Policy Adventurism and Sri Lanka’s Dilemma.

It further documents, with analytical interpretation, the American official- approach at various stages during secessionist Tamil Tiger terrorism and Sri Lanka’s military actions. The diplomatic and political intervention by the United States since the total domestic annihilation of the Tiger machinery is extensively documented in this book.

Tamil Diaspora stalwarts – 2010 – who changed the U.S. foreign policy trajectory toward Sri Lanka – meet with State Department’s assistant secretary for South Asia Robert Blake in Washington.

Our Reach

The analytical/research/investigative reports on U.S. diplomatic intervention in Sri Lanka prior to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers and thereafter, the 26-year Tamil Tiger secessionist campaign and its effect and consequences, ethnic minority Tamil grievances and concerns, the globalization of Sri Lanka’s domestic/national issues, the U.S./EU/UN intervention in Sri Lanka, race relations etc, are largely appealing to approximately 800,000-strong Tamil Diaspora members domiciled in North America, EU nations and in Scandinavian region.

The presentation of the book, similarly, could attract researchers, scholars and students of politics/international affairs in Asian/South Asian study centers/research units of universities in North American, Europe and Asia.