Walk for Peace

This is a subject worthy of deep contemplation and reflection

This is what the world in particularly the western world needs today 

The monks know what they are doing. 

The Buddha’s path cannot be wrong.

This is exactly what the Buddha did in his life and time.

Walked Walked Walked.

He was the greatest walker of all time

When people saw the Buddha walk they dropped everything they had and started walking behind him. 

So the story goes. 

The Buddha was handsome and strong and  eye-catching.

A human magnet.

History is repeating itself 2, 600 years later. 

not in India but in USA

When the Buddha walked people who saw him walk were so impressed with his physical beauty and magnetic personality that they dropped everything they had and simply followed him

It is a beautiful and evocative image—the idea of a figure so radiant that their mere presence changes the trajectory of a person’s life instantly. You’ve captured the essence of many traditional Buddhist accounts regarding the Buddha’s “magnetic” presence.

While the stories vary, they often touch on several fascinating aspects of how people reacted to him.

The “Marks of a Great Man”

In Buddhist tradition, it wasn’t just “beauty” in the modern sense, but a specific set of physical characteristics known as the Lakkhana (the 32 Major Marks of a Great Man). These included: 

• A golden complexion.
• Deep blue eyes.
• A “halo” or aura of light (Prabhashvara) that supposedly extended for some distance around him. 

These features were said to be so serene and commanding that even those who intended to argue with him often found themselves silenced by a sense of peace.

Famous “Drop Everything” Moments

There are several key stories that align perfectly with what you’ve described:

• Upaka the Ascetic: Shortly after his enlightenment, the Buddha was walking to Sarnath. He met an ascetic named Upaka. Upaka was so struck by the Buddha’s radiant appearance and clear faculties that he stopped and asked, “Friend, your clear senses are very bright. Who is your teacher?”
• The Kasyapa Brothers: They were powerful fire-ascetics with 1,000 followers. After witnessing the Buddha’s composure and wisdom, they and all their disciples famously threw their ritual implements into the river and followed him.
• Angulimala: Even a feared brigand like Angulimala was stopped in his tracks. He tried to chase the Buddha to kill him, but despite the Buddha walking at a normal pace, Angulimala could not catch up. This “miracle of the walk” led him to drop his weapons and become a monk. 

A Nuanced Reality

While many were moved by his appearance, the Pali Canon also suggests that the Buddha’s personality and speech were the real “magnets.” 

1. The “Call to Reason”: He often discouraged people from following him based on blind faith or physical attraction. He famously told a monk named Vakkali, who was obsessed with the Buddha’s physical beauty: “He who sees the Dhamma (the truth), sees me.”
2. Calmness as Power: In a world of chaos and rigid social castes, his absolute stillness and lack of ego were likely what felt most “magnetic” to the people of ancient India. 

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May Buddhism bring Peace and usher in Non – Violence to the USA and rest of the World. 

May all living beings be well and happy. 

Song for Walk for Peace | True Story: Monks & Aloka Walk from Texas to Washington D.C.

A heartfelt, inspirational song dedicated to peace, kindness, and compassion — inspired by the real 120-day, 2,300-mile journey of Buddhist monks walking from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington D.C., accompanied by their loyal dog Aloka. Their mission:

Calming May All Beings Be Happy” Mantra | Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu with Peaceful Music

Courtesy – AI Overview

https://share.google/aimode/4GCZoPCxoK0rmMgjb

The Buddha’s “walk” refers both to his historical 45-year teaching ministry across northern India and a continuous living tradition of “Peace Walks” (Padayatra) that symbolize mindfulness and compassion

. Historically, the Buddha rejected a stationary life, traveling on foot between villages and kingdoms to share his insights, which laid the foundation for Buddhism as a missionary religion. 

The Historical Walk: Key Sacred Sites

The Buddha’s life and ministry are anchored by four primary pilgrimage sites, which he personally recommended for his followers. 

Lumbini

The birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama. According to tradition, he took seven steps immediately after birth, with lotus flowers blooming beneath his feet.

Bodh Gay

Bodh Gaya

(India): Where he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. Following this event, he spent seven weeks in meditation and “walking contemplation” around the site.

Sarnath

Sublocality1

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Where he delivered his first sermon, “Turning the Wheel of Dharma.” This site marked the official beginning of his teaching career.

Kushinagar

Town in India

(India): The site of his final steps and death (Parinirvana) at the age of 80. 

Societal and Cultural Impact

The Buddha’s journeys and teachings fundamentally transformed Asian social structures and sparked global philosophical shifts. 

• Social Equality: Buddhism challenged the rigid Indian caste system, advocating for the equality of all individuals, including women and marginalized groups (Shudras).
• Democratic Governance: The Buddha established the Sangha (monastic community) with a consensual, democratic structure, where major decisions required open discussion and common approval.
• Global Spread: Via the Silk Road and maritime trade routes, Buddhist missionaries and merchants spread the faith to China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia by the 1st–2nd centuries CE.
• The Buddhist Missionaries from Asian Countries have disseminated the faith in Western Countries after attending the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Anagarika Dharmapala who attended the Parliament of Religions became the World’s First Global Buddhist Missionary. He visited Britain and established the London Vihara (the first Buddhist Temple in England) in 1926. Another Sri Lankan inspired by the Missionary life of Anagarika Dharmapala followed suit by leading the First Buddhist Mission from Sri Lanka to Germany in 1957. He was Asoka Weeraratna, founder of the German Dharmaduta Society (1952). He established the First Buddhist Vihara (Berlin Vihara with Resident Monks from Theravada Buddhist Countries especially Sri Lanka) in Germany in 1957 which is housed in Das Buddhistische Haus in Berlin – Frohnau which was founded by Dr. Paul Dahlke, a German Doctor in 1924. It celebrated its 100th year anniversary in 2024 as the First Theravada Buddhist Temple in Europe.
• Education and Science: The Buddhist tradition established the world’s first residential universities, such as

Nalanda , which taught not only philosophy but also medicine, logic, and mathematics. 

Modern Continuation: The “Walk for Peace” 

The tradition of walking continues into 2026 as a form of “spiritual offering.” In February 2026, a group of Buddhist monks completed a 108-day, 2,300-mile “Walk for Peace” across the United States, concluding at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.. This modern walk aimed to promote mindfulness and nonviolence, illustrating that the Buddha’s “walk” remains a relevant symbol of inner peace rippling outward into society. 

……………………………………………………..

The 2025–2026

Walk for Peace is a 2,300-mile (3,700-km) pilgrimage led by Vietnamese and Thai Theravada Buddhist monks from Texas to Washington, D.C., aimed at promoting mindfulness, compassion, and nonviolence. The walk, which began on October 26, 2025, and concluded in mid-February 2026, has captured national attention for its message of peace in a divided world, despite challenges including severe injuries to participants. 

The Walk and Its Origins

• Purpose: The journey is not a political protest or demonstration, but a “spiritual offering” designed to encourage inner peace and mindfulness through daily actions, say leaders.
• The Route & Duration: Led by Ven. Bhikkhu Pannakara from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, the monks walked for 108 days through eight states, concluding at the Lincoln Memorial.
• Participants & Support: Approximately two dozen monks, accompanied by a rescue dog named Aloka, walked 20 to 30 miles per day.
• Hardships: The journey was physically demanding, with monks often walking barefoot or in socks to remain connected to the moment, even through snow and cold.
• Incident: In November 2025, a truck struck the group’s escort vehicle near Houston, Texas, resulting in the amputation of a monk’s leg. The group continued the walk after his recovery. 

Impact and Reception

• Massive Public Response: The walk drew thousands to the roadside and garnered millions of followers on social media (Facebook/Instagram), as of February 2026.
• Cultural Connection: The monks’ presence—characterized by silence, alms bowls, and calm, mindful action—prompted reflection and emotional responses from diverse groups of people.
• Interfaith Dialogue: The walk fostered unity, with many non-Buddhists joining for parts of the journey, offering aid, or participating in interfaith receptions.
• Significance of 108 Days: The 108-day duration is a sacred number in Buddhism, symbolizing spiritual completion and cosmic order.
• Message of Calm: The walk encouraged people to slow down, “put down their phones,” and cultivate inner peace to impact society. 

The journey concluded with a request to Congress to recognize Vesak (Buddha’s birthday) as a national holiday, reinforcing their message of compassion.

Courtesy – AI Overview

Nava Thakuria

As Bangladesh heads for 13th Parliamentary election and  the referendum on  July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), the interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests to prioritize greater interest of the Muslim majority nation regardless of the poll-outcomes. Addressing the nation of over 170 million people ahead of the much watched electoral exercises, Nobel peace laureate  Dr Yunus commented that victory as well as defeat is an integral part of democracy and hence after the election, they should dedicate themselves to build a new, just, democratic, and inclusive Bangladesh together. Chief adviser of the caretaker government also asked all voters to participate in the process enthusiastically in a festive spirit. Prof Yunus made a special appeal to the women and young voters, many of whom were deprived of the opportunity to exercise their franchise in earlier occasions, to come forward showing their commitment for a new beginning.

The campaigning that began on 22 January came to an end on 10 February by 7:30 pm. The electoral authorities have imposed a ban on all public rallies and processions for 96 hours before and after voting day. The polling on Thursday will begin at 7:30 am to continue till 4:30 pm. Nearly  400 foreign election observers including around 200  journalists representing 45 global media outlets  arrived in the south Asian nation. On 12^th parliamentary elections (held on 7 January 2024), there were only 158 global observers comprising a few foreign media persons. Meanwhile, a two-day government-announced general holiday began on 11 February, whereas Friday and Saturday (13,  14 February) are weekly holidays in Bangladesh.

Notably, ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party Awami League is barred from participation in the electoral process leaving a fair space to the arch rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the election. The country had the last general election in January 2024, but the overthrowing of Hasina’s government following a student-led  mass uprising just after six months necessitated the polls. The interim government in Dhaka had invited many countries including India, Nepal, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Romania, etc to send election observers. Global bodies like the European Union, Commonwealth Secretariat, SAARC Human Rights Foundation, Asian Network for Free Elections, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, SNAS Africa, Polish Institute of International Affairs, US-based International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, etc agreed to send their  election observers.

Meanwhile, the New York-based press watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged all major Bangladesh political parties to protect press freedom in the troublesome country. The CPJ in a statement called for urgent steps to safeguard press freedom and journalists’ safety on the eve of national election. Sending separate letters to the office bearers of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, student-led National Citizen Party  and Jatiya Party, the global body  urged them  ‘to make public commitments to protect journalists during the election period’ by rejecting violence, intimidation and also misuse of criminal or national-security laws. Mentionable is that ousted premier  Sheikh Hasina’s party Awami League is barred from participation in the electoral process.

The CPJ statement argued that the risks to journalists intensified in the pre-election period across Bangladesh with continuing  imprisonment of scribes on unverified charges and also longstanding impunity for violence against media professionals that contributed to a climate of fear and self-censorship. Addressing  BNP chairman Tarique Rahman, the CPJ letter reminded that a free press is essential to the credibility of any election. Journalists play a critical role in informing voters, scrutinizing those in power, and enabling meaningful public debate. The BNP can demonstrate national leadership and strengthen public trust in the electoral process by committing to this foundational democratic value. It also added that  Bangladesh remains one of Asia’s leading jailers of journalists, with five currently behind bars for murder and national-security offences that appear to be in retaliation for their reporting and perceived political affiliations. At the same time, impunity for journalist murders, where usually attacks, threats and violence against scribes are rarely investigated or prosecuted, creating a climate of fear and intimidation, remains high in Bangladesh.

CPJ’s Asia-Pacific program coordinator  Kunal Majumder, while speaking to this writer indicated that risks to Bangladeshi journalists escalated sharply in the pre-election period, where the mobs attacked the offices of The Daily Star and Prothom Alo in December 2025, many reporters, editors and commentators faced intensified digital harassment and  coordinated hate campaigns and threats linking to political polarization existed. This form of abuse was enabled by the previous Hasina government to intimidate journalists and remains prevalent, despite a change in administration and promises of media reforms,” said Majumder, adding that real reform means breaking from the past, not replicating its abuses. He insisted on erasing all kinds of barriers to official information, press briefings and public records that weaken fair and accurate election coverage.

Earlier, the Geneva-based media safety & rights body Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) condemned the murder of Bengali Hindu journalist Rana Pratap Bairagi (45) in Jessore locality on 5 January and demanded a thorough probe to book the culprits and punish them under the law. Moreover, at least 12 Bangladeshi journalists sustained injuries in an attack by extortionists in Narsingdi on 26 January. Denouncing the incident, PEC chairman  Blaise Lempen urged Dhaka to bring the group of extortionists to justice. Bangladesh Editors’ Council also called on the authorities to ensure the safety and security of journalists during the election period. The council in a statement argued that the working  journalists while gathering information during elections often face various threats and hence the interim government, election commission and other responsible law enforcement agencies should take effective measures to guarantee adequate security for the media professionals.

Meanwhile, the western media outlets pour views that the BNP led alliance is the front runner in the coming election and chairman Rahman is  projected as the new premier of Bangladesh. When Rahman returned to his home country  on 25 December ending a self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom for 17 years, he was greeted by millions of people. The son of former Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman and former premier Khaleda Zia responded to the public with a visionary line ‘I have a plan’ imitating the historic speech (I Have a Dream) of Martin Luther King Jr in  1963. Bangladesh’s first female head of the government Begum Zia died on 30 December at the age of  80, following which he received pouring condolences from sympathizers amid the  government declaring three days of state mourning.

The US-based news magazine The Diplomat recently carried an analytical piece predicting the electoral progress for Rahman to become Bangladesh’s next premier. Similarly, Time magazine and Bloomberg media agency, referring to several opinion polls, projected him as the front-runner ahead of the election. Earlier, the UK-based weekly The Economist also anticipated the 60-year-old scion of a famous political family to emerge as  head of the government in Dhaka. In various election rallies,  Rahman promised to prioritize  job creation, technical education, information technology,  sports, etc. The soft spoken politician also emphasized on creating a new Bangladesh with mutual trust, respect and benefits to everyone living in a peaceful state under the rule of law and freedom of speech.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir

As the US-Iran negotiations regarding the latter’s nuclear program and the threat of attacking Iran loom high, both the Trump administration and Iran ought to consider very carefully the potentially colossal regional repercussions if they do not reach an agreement. If Netanyahu convinces Trump during their meeting, at the time of this writing, that attacking Iran now, amid Tehran’s weakened proxies and internal turmoil, will bring regime change, they’ll both be gravely mistaken. Every peaceful avenue must be explored to prevent a war because there will be no winners, only long-term regional instability, punctuated by horrific cycles of violence the war would leave in its wake.

A US attack would carry a high risk of regional war. Iran has vowed to strike US bases and Israel. The Gulf states, which host US installations, would face missile strikes, destabilizing their security. Turkey and Saudi Arabia would face pressure to balance their commitments to the US alliance with regional stability, while global energy markets would be severely disrupted.

Iran’s Retaliatory Options

Iran’s retaliatory calculus is shaped by its current weakness—a degraded proxy network, internal unrest, and economic distress that significantly constrain its options. An all-out response risks triggering escalation that could threaten regime survival, so Tehran would likely calibrate its retaliation to signal resolve while avoiding a full-scale war it cannot win. Nevertheless, Iran has multiple retaliatory options in the event of a US attack, drawing on its missile arsenal, naval capabilities, and strategic geography.

1-Iran would launch ballistic missiles and drones at American military installations across the Persian Gulf, including Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which it already struck in June 2025 after the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.

2-Iran could fire up to 2,000 ballistic missiles at Israel in a single assault, roughly four times what it used during the 12-day war, targeting military and strategic infrastructure, exacting a heavy price.

3-Iran would attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz using naval mines, attack boats, and submarines, disrupting over 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas and 25 percent of maritime oil trade, causing a worldwide energy price shock.

4-Iranian-backed Iraqi militias such as Kataib Hezbollah would launch drone and rocket attacks on US troops and bases in Iraq and Jordan, replicating the January 2024 strike that killed three American soldiers at a Jordanian outpost.

5-Iran would hit US installations housed within Gulf nations like Bahrain (home to the US Fifth Fleet), Kuwait, and the UAE, though Iranian officials frame these as targeting not neighboring states but US bases stationed in them” to limit blowback from Arab states.

Why Externally Imposed Regime Change Would Be Disastrous It is important to remember that although the Iranians want regime change, they are fiercely nationalistic. Foreign-imposed change would instigate nationalist backlash and unite even regime opponents behind the government. The historical precedent of the 1953 CIA-backed coup’s failure remains seared into Iranian national consciousness, fueling decades of anti-American sentiment and ultimately leading to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Destroying the regime without viable successors risks a power vacuum, civil war, and chaos. Iraq’s de-Baathification showed that dismantling entrenched security structures can create ungovernable, failed states. Military strikes could scatter weapons, empower extremists, trigger refugee crises, and destabilize neighboring states — consequences US planners have repeatedly failed to anticipate.

Finally, foreign-installed governments are perceived as puppet regimes, provoking sustained internal opposition, insurgency, and instability — as documented in the failure of over 60 percent of the US’ 64 covert regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989.

Why Internal Regime Change Has Better Prospects Iranian scholars broadly agree that the military, as I stated in my previous article—either the Artesh or the IRGC—is best positioned to lead the transition, maintaining institutional continuity and control over weapons, finances, and governance. A change driven by Iranians avoids the foreign puppet” stigma, giving a successor government far greater public acceptance and political durability.

Military insiders understand the regime’s levers of power and can manage transition without the catastrophic institutional collapse that follows external decapitation. And, contrary to the claims that Iran lacks credible successors, prominent activists, Nobel laureates, and imprisoned dissidents provide viable political alternatives.

Iran Seeks a Sustainable Deal with the US Although Iran has signaled its willingness to dilute its 60 percent enriched uranium stockpile, Tehran insists enrichment is non-negotiable and refuses to discuss missiles.  However, an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is definitely within reach. Likewise, Iran may end its support for proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, as they’ve been degraded by Israel, and Iran now faces economic and logistical constraints to reconstitute them, especially after losing its foothold in Syria following the Assad regime’s collapse.

The limitation on the scope and range of its long-range missile program are still within reach, provided that 1) the agreement on Iran’s ballistic missiles must appear as though Iran has made no concession to save face, 2) the US commits not to attack Iran in the future and would also rein in Israel to follow suit, and 3) the US would normalize relations so long as Iran fully complies with the agreement and stops threatening Israel existentially.

To effectuate such an agreement, the US could offer comprehensive sanctions relief — lifting both primary and secondary sanctions to restore banking, oil exports, and trade ties. Additional inducements include assistance in building civilian nuclear power reactors, limited enrichment permitted under international monitoring, the gradual unfreezing of Iranian assets held abroad, security, and the gradual normalization of diplomatic relations.

Trump and Netanyahu must remember that Iran is a proud nation of enduring resilience steeped in thousands of years of history, with a vast cultural heritage, abundant natural resources, and a deeply ingrained sense of national dignity.  The Iranians’ collective memory of independence and defiance ensures that no pressure, US or Israeli, could force Iranian capitulation. Trump and Netanyahu must abandon their illusion of controlling Iran.

Ultimately, the US and Iran must remember that, as Sun Tzu observed, the greatest victory is achieved without fighting.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

Courtesy Hiru News

The Trincomalee High Court has granted bail to ten suspects, including the Venerable Balangoda Kassapa Thera, three other monks, and six civilians. High Court Judge N.M.M. Abdulla ordered their release under a cash bail of ten thousand rupees and two personal bails of one million rupees each per individual.

Strict conditions have been imposed on the group, including a prohibition on interfering with evidence or ongoing investigations. The suspects must appear in court on all scheduled dates and have been ordered not to disrupt any religious or public activities.

Delivering the ruling, Judge Abdulla warned that the breach of any single bail condition would result in the immediate cancellation of their bail and a return to remand custody.

Courtey Hiru News

The Gampaha High Court Trial-at-Bar today (11) sentenced 12 individuals to death after finding them guilty of the murder of former Polonnaruwa District Member of Parliament Amarakeerthi Athukorala and his security officer during the May 2022 unrest.

The three-judge bench, comprising High Court Judges Sahan Mapa Bandara, Rashmi Singappuli, and Rasantha Godawela, delivered the verdict following a lengthy trial. In addition to the death sentences, the court sentenced four other defendants to six months in prison, which was suspended for five years. The remaining 23 suspects were acquitted and released from the case due to a lack of evidence.

The Attorney General had initially filed indictments against 41 individuals in connection with the incident that took place on May 09, 2022, in Nittambuwa. During the nationwide protests, the MP and his security officer, Police Constable Jayantha Gunawardena, were surrounded by a mob and subsequently beaten to death after a confrontation.

Shenali D Waduge

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1359766255903278

You claim genocide, occupation, and structural erasure. These are serious allegations that demand serious evidence — legal proof, forensic data, documented history, and verifiable records — not slogans, flags, or emotional scripting.

1) 4 FEBRUARY 1948 – BLACK DAY FOR TAMILS”

This slogan is a deliberate distortion of history, constructed around the Indian Tamil plantation labour repatriation issue, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called ‘Ceylon Tamils’ or Sinhala discrimination.

It is a political myth retroactively imposed on Independence Day to manufacture a grievance-based separatist narrative.

THERE WAS NO SUCH CATEGORY AS CEYLON TAMIL” BEFORE 1911

This is not opinion — it is documented historical fact.

The ethnic category Ceylon Tamil” did NOT exist prior to the British Census of 1911.

Portuguese, Dutch, and early British administrative records never used the term Ceylon Tamil”.

Anyone asserting otherwise must produce authenticated primary documentary evidence.

HOW TAMILS WERE CLASSIFIED BEFORE 1911

Portuguese Records (1505–1658)

• Malabars
• Malabar Moors
• Coastal Malabars
• Coromandel natives

Note: Malabar” was a broad geographic term, not an ethnic classification, and did not exclusively mean Tamils – it covered Muslims arriving from Coromandel areas of South India too.

Dutch Records (1658–1796)

• Malabaaren
• Malabaars
• Coromandel settlers
• Malabar Coolies

British Records (1796–1911)

• Malabars
• Coast Tamils
• Indian Tamils
• Cooly migrants
• Plantation labour

Nowhere in Portuguese, Dutch, or early British records is there a race or ethnic category called Ceylon Tamil”.

The term suddenly appears for the first time only in 1911 as a result of its inclusion by then Registrar General who was also a Tamil.

An ethnic identity created by colonial census classification cannot be retroactively transformed into a historical nation or homeland.

No census category has the power to manufacture sovereignty, indigeneity, or territorial entitlement.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN 1948?

The Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 did NOT target Ceylon Tamils.”

It addressed the legal status of British-imported Indian plantation labour.

These were:

• Recent migrant workers brought in by colonials in mass numbers
• Imported exclusively forcoffee, tea, and rubber plantations
  • Withno ancestral villages in any part of Sri Lanka
  • No land ownership deeds in any part of Sri Lanka
  • No historic settlement continuity in any part of Sri Lanka.

Not a single legal provision in the 1948 Act discriminated against the long-settled Tamil population of Sri Lanka.

This is confirmed by the Act’s text, parliamentary debates, and contemporaneous administrative records

https://hrlibrary.umn.edu/research/srilanka/statutes/Citizenship_Act.pdf

COLONIAL DEMOGRAPHIC ENGINEERING

By independence:

Over 1.1 million Indian Tamil plantation labourers were imported to Sri Lanka from South India.

This produced one of the largest artificial demographic transformations in South Asian colonial history.

The British abandoned Sri Lanka with an unresolved demographic and citizenship crisis — a colonial time bomb.

SHOULD SRI LANKA HAVE AUTOMATICALLY GRANTED CITIZENSHIP?

No country in the world automatically naturalizes colonial-imported labor populations.

GLOBAL PRECEDENT:

• Malaysia repatriated Indian labour
• Burma expelled Indian settlers
• Fiji repatriated Indian labour

Yet Sri Lanka ultimately absorbed, settled, and later granted citizenship — one of the most humane post-colonial resolutions globally.

THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SINHALESE

The Sinhalese did not bring Indian Tamils. The Colonials did.

This was entirely a British colonial labour import project.

To frame this as Sinhala discrimination is historically fraudulent.

TAMIL HOMELAND” CLAIM COLLAPSES COMPLETELY

If:

• Ceylon Tamil” identity was administratively invented in 1911
  • Tamil numbers were artificially inflated by colonial labour import
  • Demographics were engineered through plantation migration and colonial settler colonization schemes in the North & East

Then:

The claim of a timeless, sovereign Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka becomes historically and legally indefensible.

No international legal doctrine recognizes ethnicity-based territorial sovereignty without historic statehood, continuous governance, and documentary proof.

Tamil presence resulted from:

• Trade
  • Invasions & occupations
  • Colonial plantation labour importation
  • Settler colonization schemes

—not from any indigenous sovereignty.

POST-INDEPENDENCE: an Inconvenient Truth

Tamils dominated Sri Lanka’s:

• Civil Service
  • Judiciary
  • Medical profession
  • Education sector
  • Administrative elite

This is the exact opposite of ethnic oppression and completely demolishes the 4 Feb 1948 Black Day for Tamils” claim.

If 1948 was truly a Black Day” and genocide against Tamils:

Where are:

• The bodies?
  • The mass graves?
  • Refugee flows?
  • Emergency laws?
  • International protests?

They do not exist.

Because no such genocide occurred.

The slogan 4 February 1948 – Black Day for Tamils” is not history — it is political propaganda constructed decades later to justify separatist ideology.

Genocide” Claim – LEGALLY AND FACTUALLY COLLAPSES

Under international law (UN Genocide Convention, 1948), genocide requires:

• Provenintent to destroy a people
• Targeted killing of civiliansbecause of ethnicity
• Systematic annihilation

FACT:

• Sri Lanka foughta 30-year war against an armed separatist terrorist organization (LTTE).
• Armed combatants killed in battle are NOT civilian genocide
• No international court has legally proven genocide in Sri Lanka.

Even the UN itself:

• Couldnot produce verified body counts
• Relied onanonymous witnesses quoted from pro-LTTE sources
• Usedstatistical extrapolation, not forensic evidence

If genocide occurred — where are the mass graves of Tamil civilians killed by the State?

Not LTTE fighters.
Not LTTE suicide bombers.
Not armed cadres dressed in civilian clothing.

Where are the civilian bodies?

LTTE: THE GREATEST KILLER OF TAMIL CIVILIANS

You wave LTTE flags.

Do you know what that flag represents?

LTTE KILLED:

• Thousands of Tamil civilians
• Over30,000 Tamil children forcibly recruited
• Thousands of Tamils executed for:
  • Refusing recruitment
  • Voting
  • Speaking against Prabhakaran
  • Wanting peace

CHILD SOLDIERS:

• Thousands of Tamil children died wearing cyanide capsules.
• Where were your protests for them?

How many of your London youth condemned LTTE child recruitment since 1980s?

ZERO.

If child soldiers matter, why did they not matter when the LTTE used them?

THE MYTH OF TAMIL HOMELAND”

There has never existed a sovereign Tamil state in Sri Lanka.

If so name the Kings who ruled the North or even East Sri Lanka – not names of Invader Kings from South India.

Colonial British documents show:

• Mass plantation-era migration of Tamil labor
• State-sponsored Indian Tamil settlement
• Population engineering for plantation economy

ARCHAEOLOGY:

• Thousands of Buddhist ruins in North & East
• Brahmi inscriptions dating to3rd century BCE
• Ancient Sinhalese irrigation works throughout North-East

Produce one internationally recognized treaty, inscription, map, or royal charter proving a Tamil sovereign homeland.

You cannot.

LAND CLAIMS — NO DEEDS, NO OWNERSHIP

Under Roman-Dutch law (Sri Lanka’s current legal system):

Ownership exists only with legal deeds.

QUESTIONS:

• Where are your land deeds? Not affidavits but verifiable authentic deeds
• Where are your registered titles?
• Where are your colonial cadastral surveys proving Tamil exclusivity?

State land belongs to the entire nation, not one ethnicity.

Slogans cannot win land rights.

No ethnic group owns territory.

Sinhalization” – A POLITICAL BUZZWORD WITHOUT LEGAL BASIS

Sri Lanka is:

• One unitary sovereign nation
• Citizens havefreedom of movement
• Any citizen can live anywhere

Is a Tamil allowed to live, work own land/property in Colombo?

Yes.

Is a Muslim allowed to live, work and own land/property in Kandy?

Yes.

Then why cannot a Sinhalese Buddhist live, work & own land/property in Jaffna, Kilinochchi or Mullaitivu ?

Equal citizenship is NOT colonization.

Under Article 12 of the Sri Lankan Constitution, all citizens possess equal freedom of residence, movement, and property ownership across the entire island.
Therefore, the presence of Sinhalese citizens in the North & East cannot legally constitute colonization

THE TSUNAMI LIE (2004)

You claim JVP blocked tsunami aid.

• LTTEblocked aid distribution
• LTTErefused joint mechanism
• LTTEconfiscated relief supplies
• LTTEtaxed humanitarian aid

This is documented by international NGOs.

YOUR DIASPORA CREDIBILITY COLLAPSES

BASIC QUESTIONS YOU CANNOT ANSWER:

• Have you ever lived in Jaffna?
• Have you ever lived in Mullaitivu?
• Do you know 5 village names in Kilinochchi?
• Do you speak Sri Lankan Tamil dialect?
• Do you know your ancestral village boundaries?

Most of you:

• Wereborn abroad
• Havenever lived in Sri Lanka
• Never raised a voice against your Tamil brothers and sisters turned into child soldiers
• Learned history only fromLTTE propaganda networks

 

ASYLUM INDUSTRY & FABRICATED VICTIMHOOD

Thousands of false asylum claims were made using:

• Fake torture stories
• Staged photographs
• Fabricated deaths
• Documented asylum coaching networks that trained applicants to rehearse persecution narratives

Several dead Tamils” later found alive in Europe & India.

How many of your families obtained asylum using fabricated persecution stories?

THE REAL INTENT: REVIVING SEPARATISM

Your slogans prove it:

Tamil Eelam will never fall”

This is not human rights activism.

This is continuation of separatist ideology.

AS PER INTERNATIONAL LAW:

• Separatism via terrorism is illegal.
• Funding, glorifying, and promoting LTTE ideology violates:
  • UK Terrorism Act
  • EU terror financing laws
  • UN counterterrorism conventions

YOU NEVER PROTESTED LTTE CRIMES

Where were your protests when LTTE:

• Massacred over 600 police officers?
• Ethnically cleansed90,000 Muslims and Sinhalese from Jaffna in 24 hours?
• Killed Tamil dissenters?
• Used civilians ashuman shields and hostages?
• Kidnapped Tamil children from their homes & turned them into child soldiers

Selective outrage = political propaganda.

FINAL CHALLENGE TO UK-BASED PROTESTERS

If your cause is legitimate, then:

Produce:

1. Legal proof of Tamil sovereignty
2. The names of the 40,000 dead in Mullaivaikkal (not dead LTTE cadres)
3. Civilian mass grave evidence/at least skeletons
4. Land ownership deeds
5. Archaeological proof of exclusive and continuous Tamil habitation

Without these — your entire narrative collapses.

TRUTH:

• Sri Lanka didnot defeat Tamils.
• Sri Lanka defeatedthe world’s most brutal terrorist organization.
• Andsaved over 300,000 Tamil civilians from LTTE captivity – when most overseas Tamils were screaming to free LTTE.

MESSAGE TO DIASPORA YOUTH

We do not oppose any Tamil individual seeking education, safety, or opportunity overseas. What we oppose is the weaponization of victimhood narratives to demonize the Sinhalese people, distort Sri Lanka’s history, and justify a political project of territorial division.

It is contradictory to permanently live abroad, build lives and futures in Western societies, and simultaneously claim an exclusive homeland” in Sri Lanka — a land that most of you neither reside in, invest in, nor intend to return to.

If you are not seeking to live your so-called Eelam for whom exactly is this proposed separatist state being demanded?

Consider a simple reality:
Today, more Tamils choose to live among Sinhalese communities in the South than within the Northern and Eastern provinces. If systematic ethnic discrimination truly existed, this demographic pattern would not exist.

Why do Tamil families voluntarily settle in Sinhala-majority areas?
Because:

• They find safety
• They find economic opportunity
• They find social coexistence
• They find dignity and freedom

Equally important — long-standing caste-based discrimination in the North and East has pushed many Tamils to seek better social mobility outside their own traditional power structures. This is a reality rarely acknowledged in diaspora discourse.

Your inherited narrative speaks only of ethnic oppression, but remains silent on internal social hierarchies, caste exclusion, child recruitment, forced taxation, silencing of dissent, and internal Tamil suffering under the LTTE.

You were not raised on comprehensive history or its truth.
You were raised on selective memory, grievance economics, political mythology, and inherited anger.

True peace begins when truth is confronted honestly — not when history is reshaped to sustain permanent victimhood.

Justice is not achieved by rewriting a fake history

Reconciliation begins when facts replace propaganda.

Peace begins when history is accepted, not manipulated.

Shenali D Waduge

By Rohana R. Wasala

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

 Concluding lines of the poem ‘A brave and startling truth’ (1995) by Maya Angelou

Ven. Dr Melpitiye Wimalakitti Nayake Thera, Head Monk of the Wijesundararamaya, Asgiriya, Kandy, and the Chief Incumbent of the Gotama Viharaya Monastery, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, claims that the ongoing Texas to Washington Walk for Peace march led by the American monk of Vietnam origin Ven. Pannakara is ‘an initiative of ours’ (ape wedak). He made this claim during a recent podcast hosted by the well-known YouTuber and journalist Chamuditha Samarawickrema (CNB/February 5, 2026). The Huong Dao Monastery of Bhante Pannakara who is leading the peace walk is close to the Gotama Viharaya Monastery of Wimalakitti Thera, who tells us that he has had a strong connection with Vietnamese monks and has already collaborated with them in many Buddhist activities. 

Talking about Ven. Pannakara, Ven. Wimalakitti says that he is a pupil of senior Vietnamese bhikkhu Ven. Ratanaguna of the same Huong Dao Monastery in Fort Worth Texas. He is leading a team of 24 Buddhist monks from different countries in the (Southeast Asian) region including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Laos, etc., taking part in the Walk for Peace (from Fort Worth in Texas to the US capital Washington D.C.). It is going to be 2723 miles long according to Wimalakitti Thera. (But the distance to be covered, as repeatedly given in various social media sources, is 2300 miles (just over 3700 kilometers). The discrepancy between the two figures here could be due to the fact that the originally scheduled distance of 2723 might have been curtailed down to 2300 due to unforeseen snags encountered on the route caused by human and natural agencies and the resultant impromptu diversions of the monks’ trek.)  The Walk for Peace started on October 26, 2025 and is due to pass through 4 time zones and 10 states, braving extremes of harsh weather and trekking through patches of difficult terrain. (By the time you read this on February 11, the monks may have just arrived in Washington, where grand preparations are reported to be underway to receive them.)

 It was 40 degrees Celsius in Texas, when they started. In 7 days, the Peace Walkers reached Georgia in Atlanta. It was raining there. Then, they arrived in South Carolina, where it was cold, the temperature usually being under 20 degrees Celsius. By the time of the podcast with Chamuditha, the Walk for Peace was proceeding through the even colder North Carolina, the temperature barely rising above 1 or 2 degrees Celsius. Then, they reached Virginia with heavy snowfall, but the Walk went ahead nonstop. 

The original plan was to walk 8 hours and cover 20 miles in a day. Now they want to do 10 hours a day and cover a targeted 40 miles. They hoped to have at least 20 participants in the Walk at any time. The whole Walk is expected to take 120 days and end on February 13, 2026. 

America is a big democratic country, the monk says. The ordinary Americans are more interested in inner peace than in politics. There are 125 Sri Lankan Buddhist pansalas in America, 15 of which stand on the route of the continuing Walk for Peace procession. Sri Lankan monks resident in these monasteries, in partnership with monks from other countries, provide the Walkers with essential food, temporary lodgings, and hygiene facilities. They also work out security arrangements for the peace-walking monks in coordination with government and municipal authorities and Police. 

Ven. Wimalakitti provides this information as a member and a director of the organizing committee responsible for the Walk for Peace project. According to him, Ven. Pannakara takes part in an annual walk in India from Buddha Gaya to Kolkata (the capital city of India’s West Bengal state) as a dhutanga practice (one of the 13 strict ascetic practices recommended for bhikkhus in Theravada Buddhism that aim at perfecting austerity, mental purification, and renunciation). About 200 Buddhist monks join Bhikkhu Pannakara on this walk.

The street dog now celebrated as Aloka started following Ven. Pannakara at Buddha Gaya and  reached Kolkata with him. He followed the monk even to the airport. Bhikkhu Pannakara could not leave the dog behind in India and fly back to America. So he canceled his flight and stayed back in India for eight months, during which he trained the dog and completed the paperwork necessary to take him to America with him. Once in America, Aloka started growling sometimes at people at first, because he was not used to the new environment. So they put a pet cone around his neck to calm him while on the move. Now he participates in the Walk without the pet cone and walks beside Bhikkhu Pannakara at the head of the column of Walkers. The monk usually takes Aloka on a leash and occasionally, off-leash. Aloka had a paw injury during the walk and had to be hospitalized for a few days for surgery. He has rejoined the walk now. The dog has a car reserved for him to move with the walking party whenever he is unable to walk. 

Ven. Wimalakitti Thera says he took part in six discussions held at the Huong Dao pansala when the peace walk was being planned. They had to discuss security matters with the Police. Concerns were raised about possible assassination attempts on Bhikkhu Pannakara. The dedicated monk said that he was ready to lay down his life for the cause of the Walk. Wimalakitti Thera said Bhikkhu Pannakara is only 37 years old. (But in some online accounts, he is said to be 44 years old.)

At the beginning of the 4th week into the Walk, there was a serious traffic accident. The monks were walking along the shoulder of the road (near Dayton, Texas, east of Houston, on November 19, 2025) guided by a slow-moving escort vehicle (with hazard lights on). A truck hit the rear of the pilot car pushing it into the monks. The impact left two monks injured, one of them (Phra Ajarn Maha Dam Phommasan, aka Bhante Dam Phommasan) very seriously. The injured monks were airlifted to Houston for medical attention. Bhante Dam Phommasan had to undergo multiple surgeries, including the amputation of his leg. (The information given within parentheses in this piece of writing is added by me for clarity.)

On another occasion (in early January 2026, in Walton County, near Good Hope, Georgia) an unidentified protestor accompanied by a group of his supporters blocked the monks’ path (holding signs like ‘JESUS SAVES’, ‘Turn to Christ’; WARNING: ‘walking to hell’, ‘Hell awaits’, etc., but the people gathered there cheered on the monks, and asked the protestors to just move on). Ven. Wimalakitti (who was presumably on the scene) says that the police diverted them onto an alternative route. The unperturbed monks did not react to the disruptors and continued their walk in silence. The night routes were decided by the Police. The initial hostility petered out gradually, as thousands gathered on the roadsides to watch the monks walking and to listen to the sermons in the night.

(On Christmas Day 2025, the monks stopped at a church in Alabama, before entering into Georgia the next day.) Ven. Wimalakitti says that when Bhikkhu Pannakara made an address in the church that evening, it was filled to capacity, and his speech had to be broadcast on outdoor screens.

The Walk actually began as a dhutanga (please, see above) observance as Ven. Wimalakitti explains during the discursive podcast, which forms the basis of this essay. But, on the third day, the name was changed to ‘Walk for Peace’. Its purpose is non-religious and non-political. ‘Today is my day of peace’ is the theme. (Ven. Pannakara exhorts) When you get up in the morning, say to yourself ‘Today is going to be my day of peace’”.  When Wimalakitti Thera says Ordinary Americans are really interested in Meditation (bhavana). They are much less interested in the dhamma”, he is making an obvious oversimplification that seems to be limited exclusively to the current Walk for Peace context.

 WimalakittiThera claims that a single Pakistani individual from Texas ‘provides security for the Walk’. However much I tried, I couldn’t catch his name as the monk pronounced it. So I sought AI help. AI clarifies that ‘Based on the results of the 2025-2026 Walk for Peace from Texas to Washington D.C., the security and the logistics for the Buddhist monks are primarily handled by local law enforcement agencies (sheriffs and police departments) who secure the roads as the group walks’.(So, there is no mention of a Pakistani (American) providing security for the walk). The monk might be mistaken about the matter. But that piece of information is not so important. Though the monks have absolutely no political motives, the Sri Lankan monk thinks they expect (US President Donald) Trump to be there when they reach Washington, near the White House. A reception for the monks is scheduled to take place on that occasion with the participation of the Sri Lankan ambassador.

The highlight of the Chamuditha News Brief (CNB) podcast featuring Ven. Dr Melpitiye Wimalakitti uploaded on February 5, 2026 is his revelation of a well kept secret, which is that the Sri Lankan monks living in America played the major pioneering role in organizing the Walk for Peace across America project and that they wanted the Sri Lankan government to support it. The 17-member organizing committee under the leadership of Ven. Wimalakitti, including the Vietnamese American bhikkhu Ven. Pannakara (who is now leading the Walk for Peace march) visited Sri Lanka in this connection in May 2025, that is, nine months ago. Ven. Wimalakitti showed the group photographs that the visiting monks took with prime minister Harini Amarasuriya,  some ministers and other dignitaries. Still, ordinary Sri Lankans are unaware of this momentous event, it seems.

Unfortunately, there had not been any response to the monks’ request up to the day that Chamuditha did the podcast with Ven. Wimalakitti. The monk said that he broke off his participation in the Walk in order to visit Sri Lanka again for the express purpose of urging the Sri Lankan government’s participation in the Vesak celebration at Walk team leader Ven. Pannakara’s monastery in Texas in May. Ven. Wimalakitti said he gave the president and the prime minister (as I think he claimed) formal invitation cards requesting them to arrange for government delegates to attend the Vesak ceremony set to be held at the Huong Dao Monastery of Ven. Bhante Pannakara in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas on May 26 this year (2026). He also wants them to grace the transport of relics from Sri Lanka. The monk was due to leave for America the night following the day of the programme with Chamuditha; but he had still got no reply from those important invitees. However,the Sri Lankan Ambassador in Washington is taking a great interest in this event, according to Ven. Wimalakitti.

At the end of the podcast, Ven. Wimalakitti voiced two important messages: I want to say a word of diplomatic importance. This is a great opportunity for Sri Lanka, diplomatically speaking. This is a moment of awakening, not only for America but also for the whole world. All of you citizens of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka as a Theravada Buddhist state, can make your contribution to this global awakening. I urgently request that this great opportunity be not missed”. (The Walk for Peace, the peace pilgrimage across America, from Texas to Washington D.C., is performed by a group of Theravada Buddhist monks. It showcases the key Buddhist spiritual values of compassion, loving-kindness, non-violence, and peace that underlie Sri Lanka’s dominant religious culture. These values are a source of soft power for Sri Lanka in its diplomatic and cultural relations with the powerful United States of America.)

Secondly, as Buddhists of Sri Lanka, please don’t criticise our monks or the Buddhist religion, simply because others do so. Please, think about this (insulting the monks and the Dhamma) with great equanimity. Both Buddhist monks and laypersons must keep updated about current trends. Some of our monks often attract criticism because they fail to adjust to changing times.”

There is a stark contradiction between the harsh treatment of some protesting Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka by the government and the positive image that their counterparts in America are projecting to the whole world.  

Is it going to be loketa parakaase, gedarata maragaate” All fur coats and no knickers” ?

Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Sasanka De Silva Makumbura.

When the new regime announced the cancellation of pension payments for parliamentarians, the public reaction was electric. The majority went “Gaga,” seeing it as a righteous strike against a privileged class. It is a populistically brilliant move, cutting costs and punishing an unpopular elite. However, while the public cheers, few pause to calculate the long-term adverse ramifications.

By stripping financial security from public office, we risk creating a paradox where a move intended to punish elites actually entrenches them, dragging us back toward a feudal structure that modern democracies, and indeed, socialist movements, fought tirelessly to destroy.

The Return to Feudalism

The most dangerous consequence of abolishing parliamentary benefits is the “gentrification” of politics.

In the 19th century, the British Chartist movement demanded payment for Members of Parliament (MPs) not to enrich politicians, but to enable the working class to serve. Before salaries and pensions were introduced, only the independently wealthy, landowners, feudal lords, and industrial tycoons, could afford to sit in parliament.

If we remove the financial safety net of a pension, we inadvertently erect a “wealth barrier” to entry. A middle-class professional, a teacher, or a union leader cannot afford to derail their career for five years of public service if they face financial ruin afterward. The only people who can afford to take that risk are those who already possess generational wealth.

We effectively tell the public: “You may govern, but only if you can afford to pay for the privilege.”

The “Make Hay” Effect: Incentivizing Corruption

You cannot expect a person to oversee millions in public funds while worrying about their own future grocery bills. This touches upon the economic concept of Efficiency Wages. When public officials feel financially insecure or undercompensated relative to their power, the incentive to utilize their office for private gain skyrockets.

This is the “Make Hay While the Sun Shines” phenomenon. If an MP knows their time is limited and there is no pension waiting for them at the end, the rational economic actor will maximize their earnings now.

This leads to:

• Rent-seeking: Creating policies that favor specific businesses in exchange for future board seats.
• Kickbacks: demanding immediate payouts for approving projects.
• Short-termism: Prioritizing quick, flashy wins over long-term stability because they won’t be around (or paid) to see the long-term results.

Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, famously argued against the “hairshirt” concept of politics. He posited that to prevent corruption; you must pay market rates. If you pay peanuts, you not only get monkeys, you get monkeys who steal the bananas.

The Socialist Irony

The supreme irony is that this move often comes from regimes claiming to represent the common man. Yet, by dismantling the compensation structure, they destroy the very ladder that allows the common man to climb into leadership.

True progressive governance requires that political office be treated as a profession, not a hobby for the rich. A pension is not merely a reward; it is a deferred compensation that ensures an MP can leave office with dignity, without having had to sell their vote to the highest bidder during their term.

Conclusion

Cheering for the abolition of MP pensions is emotionally satisfying but structurally suicidal for a democracy. It creates a legislature that is either exclusively rich (and out of touch) or desperately corrupt (and for sale).

If we want honest representatives who look like the people they serve, we must be willing to pay for them. The cost of a few hundred pensions is a rounding error compared to the cost of systemic corruption and the loss of inclusive governance. We must be careful not to applaud the very chains that will bind us to a new feudalism.

Sasanka De Silva
Makumbura.

Sam Ben-Meir – February 10, 2024

Every February, on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Americans rehearse a familiar liturgy. Lincoln is praised as the Great Emancipator, the savior of the Union, the embodiment of moral clarity and constitutional restraint. He stands as the reassuring proof that democracy can survive its gravest crises without stepping outside its own principles.

There is truth in this image—but it is an incomplete truth, and in our own moment, a potentially dangerous one. For Lincoln’s greatness did not consist in a simple fidelity to law. It consisted in something far more unsettling: his recognition that when a social order has already collapsed under the weight of its contradictions, legality itself can become an obstacle to justice.

To understand Lincoln fully, we must recover him not as a marble saint of liberal constitutionalism, but as a political actor who grasped—often painfully—that slavery was not merely a moral wrong but a structural system of exploitation, and that dismantling it would require acting beyond the normal boundaries of law. This does not make Lincoln an authoritarian. It makes him something far rarer: a statesman who understood the difference between emergency power exercised to preserve domination and emergency power exercised to destroy it.

One of the most persistent myths in American political thought is that slavery was a pre-modern anomaly—a regrettable holdover from a less enlightened age, incompatible with capitalism and destined to wither away under its advance. On this view, emancipation appears as a moral correction rather than a structural rupture.

The historical reality is far harsher. American slavery was not external to capitalism; it was one of its most advanced laboratories. The plantation was not a feudal remnant but a highly rationalized system of labor extraction. Enslaved people were measured, monitored, disciplined, and coerced with extraordinary precision. Output quotas, time discipline, surveillance, and punishment were not incidental features of slavery; they were its operational logic.

Long before the factory perfected these techniques under the guise of free labor,” the plantation had already demonstrated how human beings could be transformed into units of productive capacity, driven beyond endurance in the name of profit. Violence was not a breakdown of order; it was a managerial tool. The whip and the clock went hand in hand. Violence and measurement functioned together as instruments of rationality, enforcing time discipline, optimizing output, and transforming human beings into units of productive capacity.

Seen in this light, slavery appears not as capitalism’s opposite but as its naked form—capital accumulation stripped of ideological disguise. The Southern ruling class was not merely defending a cultural way of life; it was defending a highly profitable system of labor control that would later reappear, in modified form, across industrial society.

Abraham Lincoln may never have articulated this analysis in the language of political economy, but he understood its implications with increasing clarity. His early moderation on slavery—his willingness to tolerate it where it already existed—was not the product of moral indifference but of political realism within a system that still appeared governable by compromise.

What changed was not Lincoln’s conscience so much as his assessment of the situation. By the late 1850s and early 1860s, it became unmistakable that slavery could not be contained. Its expansion was not an accident but a necessity for the ruling class that depended on it. The Union was already hollowed out from within by this contradiction. The law had not prevented crisis; it had helped manage it.

When legality protects an exploitative order, obedience becomes a form of collaboration.

Once secession occurred, Lincoln grasped something that many constitutionalists still resist today: the emergency was not procedural but existential. The political order he was sworn to preserve no longer existed in any meaningful sense. To pretend otherwise—to insist on perfect legal regularity while the system collapsed—would have guaranteed defeat.

This is the context in which Lincoln’s most controversial actions must be understood: the suspension of habeas corpus, the arrest of civilians, the suppression of hostile newspapers, the unprecedented expansion of executive power. These were not minor deviations. They were decisive breaks with normal legal practice. The temptation is to treat these measures as either heroic or unforgivable. Both responses miss the point. Lincoln himself understood them as tragic necessities—acts undertaken not because they were desirable, but because the alternative was the triumph of an order built on human bondage.

What matters ethically is not that Lincoln stepped outside the law, but why he did so and what his actions were oriented toward. Emergency power does not carry its justification within itself. Its moral content depends on the social relations it serves. Lincoln did not suspend legal norms to entrench personal power, evade accountability, or protect an existing hierarchy. He suspended them in order to confront a ruling class whose economic system had already rendered constitutional order meaningless. His use of emergency power aimed at dismantling domination, not preserving it.

This distinction is crucial—especially now.

We live in a moment when appeals to emergency are routinely invoked in the service of reaction. Leaders suspend norms not to expand freedom but to consolidate authority, protect capital, and shield themselves from consequence. The danger, then, is obvious: praising Lincoln’s willingness to override legal constraints risks legitimizing authoritarian opportunism. But only if we erase the difference between emancipatory rupture and reactionary manipulation.

Emergency power exercised to preserve hierarchy is authoritarianism. Emergency power exercised to dismantle it is something else entirely. The difference lies not in legality but in material direction. Lincoln did not treat law as a personal instrument; he treated it as historically conditioned—capable of becoming complicit in injustice when social reality had outpaced it.

The lesson of Lincoln is not that leaders may suspend law whenever they declare necessity. It is that law cannot be treated as sacred when it has been captured by an exploitative system. To fetishize legality in such moments is not principled; it is evasive.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Emancipation Proclamation itself. Lincoln framed emancipation explicitly as a war measure—not because he lacked moral conviction, but because he understood that freedom would be won not through abstract rights but through force, disruption, and reorganization.

However, any account of emancipation that centers exclusively on presidential decisions risks reproducing the very illusion this history should dispel. One of the most persistent distortions in American historiography is the tendency to treat enslaved people as passive recipients of freedom rather than as agents who forced emancipation onto the political agenda. Long before emancipation was declared, enslaved people were already dismantling slavery from within. They fled plantations in vast numbers, sabotaged production, withheld labor, transmitted intelligence to Union forces, and transformed enslaved space into contested terrain. These were not isolated acts of desperation but sustained, collective practices that exposed slavery’s dependence on constant coercion. In effect, enslaved people made slavery increasingly ungovernable.

It is no accident that emancipation emerged as a war measure.” The war itself had been radically reshaped by these acts of self-emancipation. Union commanders were confronted with collapsing plantation discipline, swelling camps of fugitives, and an economic system unraveling under pressure from below. The state did not initiate this transformation; it responded to it. Law followed struggle, not the reverse. By 1862, Union commanders were no longer debating abolition in theory. They were managing thousands of self-emancipated people crowding army camps, draining plantation labor systems, and forcing decisions the law had postponed.

Recognizing enslaved agency does not diminish Lincoln’s role; it clarifies it. His political brilliance lay not in unilateral moral resolve but in his capacity to respond to a rupture he did not control. The emergency he confronted was not abstract or self-declared. It was produced by millions who refused to remain property. Lincoln’s suspension of law was therefore not an arbitrary assertion of sovereignty, but a belated attempt to reckon with a transformation already underway—one that demanded a new social order or none at all.

In this sense, emancipation was not merely a moral victory. It was a reconstitution of American political economy. The destruction of slavery meant the destruction of a ruling class and the labor system it commanded. Anything less would have left the foundations of domination intact. What makes Lincoln unsettling—and enduringly relevant—is that he refused the comforts of liberal innocence. He did not imagine that history moves smoothly through persuasion and reform. He did not confuse moral clarity with political purity. He accepted that justice sometimes emerges only through rupture, coercion, and irreversibility.

This does not make him a model for authoritarian governance. It makes him a rebuke to those who believe that procedural fidelity alone can redeem unjust systems. Lincoln understood that when legality becomes a shield for exploitation, obedience to it becomes a form of complicity. Lincoln’s greatness lies not in his reverence for the Constitution, but in his willingness to confront the fact that the Constitution had been shaped by—and compromised by—a system of exploitation that could not be reformed away. He did not glorify emergency power; he bore its burden. That distinction matters now more than ever. The lesson of Lincoln is not comfort but responsibility: the responsibility to recognize when a social order has exhausted its moral legitimacy, and to act accordingly—not for personal gain, not for spectacle, but for the expansion of freedom.

History does not wait for legality to authorize justice. By the time law catches up, the work has already been done—by those who refused to remain governable under an unjust order. Lincoln’s greatness lay in his willingness to recognize this fact and act in its wake, rather than hiding behind procedural innocence. The question his legacy poses is therefore not whether emergency power can be abused—it can and often is—but whether we are willing to recognize when legality itself has become a form of protection for domination. To cling to law in such moments is not to defend democracy; it is to defend the conditions that make injustice durable. The violence of justice is not that it breaks the law, but that it exposes who has been relying on the law to avoid acting at all.

වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන

(ලිපිය දීර්ඝවීම වැළක්වීමට පැහැදිලි කිරීම් අඩුකර ඇත)

1. 13වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධනය මගින් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 154 (උ) අනු ව්‍යවස්ථාව ඇති කර එක් එක් පළාත් සභාවට  ප්‍රඥ්ප්ති සෑදිය හැකි බවත් එම සංශෝධනය මගින් හඳුන්වාදුන් 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව පුළුල් බලතල පළාත් සභාවලට ලබා දී ඇත.

2. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව එක් එක් පළාත් සභාවට ප්‍රඥ්ප්ති සෑදීමට පුළුල් බලතල හිමි වුවද පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක උත්තරීතරත්වය අනුව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවටද ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව විශේෂ ආකාරකින් නීති සෑදිය හැකිය.

3. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් නීති පැනවීමේදී ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 154(උ) අනුව්‍යවස්ථාව අනුගමනය කළ යුතු වන අතර ඒ බව කොළඹ වරාය නගරය ආර්ථික කොමිෂන් සභාව පනත් කෙටුම්පත, දිවිනැගුම පනත් කෙටුම්පත, ගොවිජන සේවා (සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පත, ජල සේවා කෙටුම්පත වැනි පනත් කෙටුම්පත් වල ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථානුකූලත්වය අදාලව ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණවලදී තීරණය කර ඇත.

4. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් නීති පැනවීමේදී විශේෂ ආකාරයක් අනුගමනය කළ යුත්තේ 13වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධනය මගින් විධායක, ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක සහ අධිකරණ බලය ( පාලන බලතල) විමධ්‍යගත කිරීමක් කර ඇති හෙයින් ය.

5. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාලව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් නීති පැනවීමේදී පාක්‍යසෝති, සුමන්තිරන්, ජයම්පතී කණ්ඩායම පවනට බඳු වේගයෙන් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට පැමිණ ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් කරුණු කියාපාමින් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවට අදාල විෂයන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් පළාත් සභා අයිතිවාසිකම් ආරක්ෂා කර ගන්නා අතීතයක් දක්නට තිබුණි.

6. එසේ වුවත් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවේ අංක 5 යටතේ වන පළාත්වල නිවාස සහ ඉදිකිරීම් යටතේ අංක 5:2 යටතේ ඇතුළත් කර ඇති ගෙවල් කුලී පනත පළාත තුළ ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට අදාල විධිවිධානය අධිකරණ විෂය භාර අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් 2026 ජනවාරි 20 දින පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ පළමුවර කියවූ  1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත මගින් ඉවත් වෙද්දී, පරිච්චින්න වෙද්දී, සංශෝධන වෙද්දී පළාත් සභාවල ආරක්ෂකයන් ලෙස රූපාන්තරණකරුවන් වී සිටින පාක්‍යසෝති, සුමන්තිරන්, ජයම්පතී කණ්ඩායම නිහඬ පිළිවෙතක් අනුගමනය කළේය.

7. 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත මගින් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9වන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවේ අංක 5 යටතේ වන පළාත්වල නිවාස සහ ඉදිකිරීම් යටතේ අංක 5:2 යටතේ ඇතුළත් කර ඇති ගෙවල් කුලී පනත පළාත තුළ ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට අදාල විධිවිධානය ඉවත් කිරීමට, පරිච්චින්න කිරීමට, සංශෝධන කිරීමට කටයුතු සකස් වෙද්දී පාක්‍යසෝති, සුමන්තිරන්, ජයම්පතී කණ්ඩායම එකී පනත් කෙටුම්පතට එරෙහිව ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 121 ව්‍යවස්ථාව යටතේ ඉල්ලීමක් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය වෙත ඉදිරිපත් කළේ නැත.

8. ඒ කෙසේ වෙතත් 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත මගින් නීති පැනවීමේදී ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍යය, බුද්ධාගමට ප්‍රමුඛස්ථානය පිරිනැමීම සහ බුද්ධ ශාසනය සුරක්ෂිත කර පෝෂණය කිරීමේ රජයේ වගකීම, නීතිය පසිදලීම සහ නීතියේ රැකවරණය, බලවත් තැනැත්තන්ගෙන් අබල තැනැත්තන් අරක්ෂා කිරීම, එකලාව හෝ අන් අය සමග යම් නීත්‍යානුකූල රැකියාවක, වෘත්තියක, කර්මාන්තයක, වෙළද ව්‍යාපාරයක හෝ ව්‍යවසායක නියුක්ත වීමේ නිදහසට, ශ්‍රී ලංකාව තුළ අභිමත ස්ථානයක වාසය කිරීමේ නිදහසට, රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තිය මෙහෙය වීමේ මූලධර්ම සහ යුතුකම් වලට, ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ බලතල හා කාර්යයට, පළාත් සභා ප්‍රඥප්ති සෑදීම සහ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ නවවන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවේ විධිවිධාන වලට අදාල ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාමය ප්‍රතිපාදන වලට පටහැනි බවත්, ඒ් අනුව ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 3, 4.ඇ, 9, 12.4, 14.1උ, 14.1ඌ, 27, 28, 33ඊ, 154උ. ව්‍යවස්ථා උල්ලංඝණය කරන බවත් 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීමට එරෙහිව නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට 2026.02.03 දින පෙත්සමක් ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබුණි.

9. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ නවවන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවේ විධිවිධාන වලට අදාල ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාමය ප්‍රතිපාදන වලට පටහැනිව 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත ගෙනවිත් ඇති බව අනාවරණය වීමත් සමඟම පළාත් සභා ආරක්ෂකයන් ලෙස පෙනී සිටින පාක්‍යසෝති, සුමන්තිරන්, ජයම්පතී කණ්ඩායමේ දුර්වලතාවය සහ ගැඹුරු දාර්ශනික හැදෑරීම ප්‍රශ්නයට ලක් වී ඇති බව සාමාන්‍ය  ජනතාව අතරද සාකච්චාවට ලක් විය.

10. ඒ සමඟම 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත සහ තවත් පනත් කෙටුම්පතක් සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදහස් හා යෝජනා ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් 2026 පෙබරවාරි මස 03 වනදා සිට මාසයක කාලයක් ලබා දී තිබෙන බවට නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව මගින් ප්‍රකාශ නිකුත් විය.

11. ඉහත තත්ත්වය සහ සිදුවීම් තුළ ජනතාවට මතු වන ප්‍රශ්නය වන්නේ පළාත් සභා විෂයන් උදුරා ගනිමින් ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීමට යද්දී පළාත් සභා ඕනෑ කියන පාක්‍යසෝති, සුමන්තිරන්, ජයම්පතී කණ්ඩායම නිහඩ වීම යට ගැසීමට එම කෙටුම්පත අකුලා ගන්නා තැනට නීතිපති පත් වුණාද යන්නය.

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වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන

MTA News

Nava Thakuria

Bangladesh, a Muslim majority nation of over 170 million people, goes for general election on 12 February 2026 to elect its 13^th Jatiya Sansad in Dhaka. According to the Bangladesh Election Commission altogether 12,77,11,895 electorates are eligible for voting where  over 4.5 million are newly registered young voters (after attaining 18 years). The voting will take place at 42,766 polling stations across the country where  785,225 presiding and polling officers will be deployed. Over 900,000 security personnel are expected to monitor and ensure safety & security of the candidates and voters during the election. Altogether 2,034 candidates representing 51 political parties along with 275 independent contenders are in the fray for 299 Parliamentary seats (poll- procedure postponed in one constituency due death of a candidate belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh). Only  78 women including 17 independent candidates are fighting in the battle of ballots. However 50 additional  seats in the Parliament are reserved for women and they will be elected through indirect voting.

The campaigning that began on 22 January came to an end at 7:30 pm on 10 February. The electoral authorities have imposed a ban on all public rallies and processions for 96 hours before and after voting day. The polling on Thursday will begin at 7:30 am to continue till 4:30 pm. Nearly 500 foreign election observers including over  150  journalists representing 45 global media outlets have arrived in the south Asian nation. Notably, ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party Awami League is barred from participation in the electoral process leaving a fair space to the arch rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the election. The country had the last general election in January 2024, but the overthrowing of Hasina’s government following a student-led  mass uprising just after six months necessitated the polls.

Hasina, who was ruling the country since 2009 after winning consecutive polls, escaped a mass rebellion on 5 August 2024 to take a temporary shelter in neighboring India and continues her refuge somewhere in Delhi locality of the largest democracy on the globe.  The septuagenarian leader, widely seen as  pro-India in Bangladesh,  was recently convicted by a local court and sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity. The massive July-August 2024 unrest led to the killing of over 1,400 people including minors and paved the way for an interim government led by Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus. Lately, the Yunus administration pursued her urgent extradition only to deteriorate the diplomatic relations with the giant neighbour ahead of the election.

Meanwhile, the path to electoral battles remains bumpy since the beginning  for the Yunus administration.  The situation went volatile after the shooting of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, a young leader emerged during July 2024 unrest targeting the Hasina regime by masked assailants, and subsequent death of the radical leader in Singapore on 18 December while undergoing medical treatment. Rumours spread that Hadi’s  killers sneaked to India and it was enough to revitalize the anti-India (read anti-Hindu) sentiments in the country. Thousands of incidents reported where the fanatic Islamic elements attacked non-Muslims across Bangladesh compelling the Hindu majority India to react sharply. Public protests also erupted in front of Indian missions and later counter demonstrations took place outside the Bangladeshi missions. With the backdrop of diplomatic tensions between Dhaka and New Delhi, both the countries have restricted tourist visas after summoning each other’s high commissioners to lodge protests on multiple occasions.

India’s foreign ministry recently claimed that over  2,900 incidents of attacks on religious minorities were reported in Bangladesh under the Yunus-led interim government and the unremitting hostility against Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists at the hands of extremists was a matter of grave concern for New Delhi. Various independent sources recorded that nearly 200 people were killed in mob violence in the last year. Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian Unity Council also claimed that there was a sharp spike in incidents targeting minorities amid political instability following the ouster of  Hasina’s regime.

The international media reported with shocks on 18 December as  Deepu Chandra Das, 29, was lynched and his body was hanged to set on fire by a Muslim mob in Mymensingh locality over an alleged blasphemy (allegedly of insulting Islam) charge. It was immediately followed by the lynching of Amrit Mondal, 30, on 24 December in Rajbari area. Bajendra Biswas, 42, a garment factory worker was shot dead in Mymensingh by a colleague on 29 December. Similarly, businessman Khokon Chandra Das, 50, was hacked and set on fire by a mob in Shariatpur locality leading to his death in the hospital on 3 January. It was followed by the killing of  Samir Kumar Das, 28, an auto-rickshaw driver, who was stabbed to death in Chittagong locality on 11 January. Mysterious deaths of Akash Sarkar, a student of Jagannath University in Dhaka along with Mithun Sarkar, Proloy Chaki, Sarat Chakraborty Mani, etc also added to the number of minority victims.

New Delhi-based Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) documented a surge in targeted attacks against Bangladesh’s Hindu minority community attributing to Islamist forces under the guise of election-related unrest. RRAG director Suhas Chakma asserted that deliberate setting the temples on fire, vandalism on residential properties and also physical assaults on minorities continues in the neighboring country. Mentionable is that Bangladesh recorded over 520 communal attacks in a year (2025), where over 60 non-Muslims were killed and 28 cases of rape and other forms of violence against women took place. Attacks on religious sites and desecration of Hindu deities were reported in several cases. 

Speaking to this writer Chakma stated that continued denials of any religious angles  by the authorities simply emboldened the religious fundamentalists. The victims out of fear of reprisal often described the targeted burning down of the houses as ‘accidents or foul play’ despite attempts to burn them alive to death or being made destitute after burning all their assets and belongings, he added. Even the Bangla government press wing admitted at least  274 violent incidents took place following the killing of Hadi, convener of Inqilab Mancha, in Dhaka during the second half of December last year.

The situation turned fragile when Hasina made a public speech on 23 January lambasting Yunus as ‘presiding over an illegal and violent regime’ to plunge  Bangladesh into lawlessness.  Addressing the media at Foreign Correspondents’ Club in New Delhi through an audio message for the first time after her departure from Dhaka, Hasina attacked Yunus personally terming the octogenarian caretaker regime head ‘a murderous fascist, money launderer and traitor’. The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often preached as Father of the Nation (Bangladesh), also denied all charges framed against her stating that she was not personally involved in any crime against humanity.  Hasina’s views were sharply reacted by Dhaka accusing New Delhi of providing her undue space only to create more tensions between the two neighbours.

Speaking to this writer from Dhaka, a local trader argued that the elections in Bangladesh remained controversial for decades when the BNP used to avoid the last there national polling. He reminded that if the absence of  Awami League in the forthcoming elections becomes too important, what happened when BNP was not in the scene (national elections in 2024, 2018 and 2014) and voters’ turnout was too low.  He admitted that Hasina’s presence in Delhi continues to create trouble in bilateral relations between the two countries. The problem with India was that both the ruling and opposition parties preferred to look at Bangladesh through the eyes of Hasina only. The trader also posed a pertinent question, if at all Hasina deserves a refuge, but what is the reason that thousands of her party leaders are allowed to stay in India, precisely in New Delhi and Kolkata.

National Development Bank PLC

NDB Bank has renewed its membership with the Parenthood Global Association for the second consecutive year, reaffirming its strong commitment to fostering a workplace culture that supports, empowers, and understands the needs of working parents. This renewed partnership underscores NDB’s belief that an inclusive and equitable work environment must make space for the realities and responsibilities of modern parenthood.

The Parenthood Global Association is dedicated to helping organisations build family-friendly workplaces that nurture well-being, productivity, and work-life integration. NDB’s continued affiliation with this prestigious body reflects the Bank’s sustained efforts to enhance the support systems available to employees navigating both professional responsibilities and parental duties.

For NDB, supporting working parents goes beyond policy, it is an extension of the Bank’s human-centric philosophy and its commitment to creating an environment where every employee feels valued and understood. Through this partnership, the Bank continues to strengthen structures that enable parents to thrive, including flexibility initiatives, parental support mechanisms, wellness resources, and awareness-building across the organisation.

These efforts reinforce NDB’s broader Diversity & Inclusion agenda, which seeks to champion equality across all demographics while cultivating a workplace built on empathy, understanding, and opportunity. By renewing its membership with the Parenthood Global Association, NDB reiterates its dedication to ensuring that its employees—especially those juggling multiple roles—have access to the tools, support, and inclusive culture they need to succeed both at work and at home.

Commenting on the renewal, Lasantha Dasanayaka, Vice President – Human Resources at NDB stated, Our continued partnership with the Parenthood Global Association signifies our commitment to supporting employees through every stage of life. We believe that when parents are empowered with the right systems and resources, they are better equipped to excel—professionally and personally. This renewal strengthens our journey toward building a workplace that is inclusive, compassionate, and responsive to the evolving needs of our people.”

NDB remains dedicated to nurturing a progressive organisational culture where employees are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work. By prioritising inclusive initiatives such as this, the Bank continues to lead the way in advancing the well-being of its people while upholding the values of empathy, equity, and shared success.

NDB Bank is the fourth-largest listed commercial bank in Sri Lanka. NDB was named Sri Lanka’s Best Digital Bank for SMEs at Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2025 and was awarded awards Domestic Retail Bank of the Year – Sri Lanka and Islamic Banking Initiative of the Year – Sri Lanka at the Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards 2025. NDB is the parent company of the NDB Group, comprising capital market subsidiary companies, together forming a unique banking and capital market services group. The Bank is committed to empowering the nation and its people through meaningful financial and advisory services powered by digital banking solutions.

බ්ලැක් ඩොට් / blac dot

Courtesy Hiru News

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has expressed serious concern over what she called the decline of Sri Lanka’s professional public service, warning that selective application of justice and politically motivated governance are undermining the foundations of the State.

In a statement posted on her Facebook page, Kumaratunga said she was sharing excerpts from an article titled When Justice Becomes Selective,” noting that the issues discussed in it have a significant impact on the country’s system of governance.

She said she strongly agreed with the article’s arguments, describing it as thoughtful and balanced, especially in its focus on integrity within the public service.

Referring to former Presidential Secretary Saman Ekanayake, who is currently in remand custody over the approval of funds for a foreign visit by then President Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2023, Kumaratunga said she knows him personally and considers him an exceptionally honest and highly professional public official.

Kumaratunga stressed that no government can operate effectively without a capable, efficient and principled public service. While political leaders may not always have extensive administrative experience, she said, they must uphold strong integrity and depend on experienced career officials to run the country properly.

She cautioned that the current administration appears to be weakening the existing public service structure by replacing experienced officials with party loyalists who lack proper qualifications and experience, a move she warned could further damage democratic governance.

Kumaratunga also connected the 2022 Aragalaya protest movement to increased public awareness of governance failures, saying people took to the streets only after recognising the serious decline in standards.

She said Sri Lanka is still facing the effects of nearly 20 years of mismanagement and warned that the country risks further instability unless there is a shift in the way it is governed.

Echoing the views expressed in the Vox Civis article, Kumaratunga said it is ultimately up to the public to reverse this trend, urging citizens to critically examine decisions, consider their long-term impact, and make informed democratic choices to help rebuild the nation.

Courtesy Hiru News

The government-led intervention involving allegations over the placement of a Buddha statue at the Trincomalee Bodhirajarama Temple is a deliberate crime against the Sasana.

Most Venerable Dr. Ittapane Dhammalankara Thera, the Chief Prelate of the Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dharma Maha Sangha Sabha, conveyed this view in a letter addressed to the President.

The Chief Prelate points out that the opposition to the statue’s placement originated from a group including a member of the Tamil Diaspora and a member of the current government, rather than from any other ethnic or religious community.

He believes the issue arose because the police acted arbitrarily and followed certain political instructions.

The letter expresses deep regret regarding the imprisonment of ten individuals, including Buddhist monks, in connection with the incident.

Placing a very small Buddha statue on the foundation of the old sermon hall destroyed by the Tsunami does not cause any harm to the location.

Describing the reconstruction of a building on the original site as a “new construction” is an ignorant act.

The monks placed the statue on sacred land protected and offered to the Sasana by ancient kings; they faced assault for attempting to place a Buddha statue and not for committing any crime.

The details in the letter are based on media reports and information gathered by a delegation from the Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dharma Maha Sangha Sabha sent to the site.

While national and religious issues existed in Sri Lanka during certain eras in the past, such problems are non-existent today.

Therefore, the Chief Prelate requests the President to intervene and take steps to immediately release the ten individuals, including the monks.

Madubashana Prabath Ranahansa

DARK ROOM ඩාක් රූම්

Shenali D Waduge

Sri Lanka’s political history cannot be understood without confronting the forces that repeatedly reshape public anger, class conflict, and ideological rebellion. Among these forces, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) stands out as a movement that began as a radical Marxist uprising of the oppressed, yet today operates within a political alliance aligned with ultra-capitalist, liberal global frameworks under the banner of the National People’s Power (NPP). This dramatic transformation raises a fundamental question: Did the JVP evolve naturally, or was it strategically redirected by internal wanna-be elites and external geopolitical forces?

To answer this, we must examine the JVP’s origins, ideological shifts, geopolitical entanglements, the post-2015 political re-engineering of Sri Lanka, and the resulting transformation of both leadership and support base.

The JVP emerged at a time when Sri Lanka faced socio-economic changes, ideological infiltration, Cold War geopolitics and youth became a tool of manipulation.

Youth are prone to manipulation when they are vulnerable:

• Educated but unemployed youth. Universities became hotbeds of frustration.
• Rural poverty & inequality – national policies failed to deliver rural development, structural inequalities were not dealt by the traditional parties (UNP / SLFP)
• Collapse of faith in political elites
• Language marginalisation
• Educational bottlenecks
• Blocked social mobility

These factors converged, could easily sway sentiments of the educated but unemployed youth and fuel anger sufficient enough to rebel.

The Cold War years turned nations like Sri Lanka into an ideological battleground (1960s-1970s)

• USSR & China aggressively exported Marxist ideology
• India hosted multiple Marxist revolutionary movements
• Cuba exported insurgency models worldwide
• Vietnam War era radicalised global youth culture

These ideals were imported or plugged into the minds of Sri Lanka’s youth via

• Foreign scholarships
• Political training camps
• Literature networks
• University student exchanges
• Underground printing & propaganda supply

Thus, revolutionary doctrines became part and parcel of Sri Lankan student politics.

While this change was taking place in the minds of Sri Lanka’s youth, India viewed Sri Lanka through a security-dominance lens. This dominance was to prevent Sri Lanka

• Aligning with Western or Chinese military blocs
• Maintain regional dominance
• Ensure Colombo remains politically unstable enough to be manageable

When objectives are clear the next is to execute how to politically make Sri Lanka unstable.

Youth was key.

• Internal rebellion weakens central authority
• Keeps security forces inward-focused
• Prevents external military alliances

Internal destabilization indirectly served Indian strategic leverage — even without direct operational control.

India did not require formal sponsorship – simply soft facilitation and political shielding.

Tamil youth taken and trained in various camps across India created the Eelam separatist movement.

Was JVP handled in the same manner? If so by whom & for what reasons?

The transformation of the JVP came post-2015 – a period that saw

• Intelligence services weakened
• Military politically constrained
• Strategic paralysis induced
• Foreign security integration expanded

It was after security neutralization that political engineering of minds took shape and place.

Interlinked with this has been the diaspora-transnational” advocacies in the form of

1. Pro-LTTE groups living overseas
2. JVP runaways and JVP ideological sharing support-base living overseas.

There is an uncanny alliance in the manner both integrate against the State:

• Tamil diaspora lobbying
• Western NGO legal attacks
• UNHRC pressure
• Sanctions threat

This external pressure is a mechanism to maintain constant political vulnerability and keep every government on toes.

How many of Sri Lanka’s post-independence leaders have actually understood Sri Lanka’s geopolitical importance and its impact on internal and external affairs and the dynamics at play and protecting what external elements are out to grab?

Why Sri Lanka mattered then and now:

• Shipping lanes
• Naval access
• Intelligence positioning
• Cold War containment strategies

Every nation that had some form of geopolitical importance experienced proxy insurgencies to

• Pressure governments
• Influence alignments
• Force economic dependency
• Prevent nationalist consolidation

Every revolutionary movement use psychological engineering to win support:

Techniques used to convert personal frustration into ideological rage:

• Victimhood narrative building
• Elite demonization
• State oppression framing
• Heroic martyr creation
• Romanticising armed struggle

The JVP mastered this psychological conversion process.

Weaponization Youth Idealism

The JVP leadership channeled legitimate grievances into violent revolutionary ideology that permanently laid to rest thousands of youth both in the 1970s and 1980s, while the LTTE also stands guilty of.

What could these youth have become had they not fallen prey to romanticized revolutionary mind-control.

This is a classic youth weaponization strategy and a cut and paste from other movements.

Youth Emotion	Ideological Reframing
Unemployment	Systemic oppression
Poverty	Class warfare
Injustice	Armed liberation
Frustration	Revolutionary duty
Identity loss	Marxist nationalism

We have unanswered questions:

• Why the JVP rose
• Why it gained rapid growth
• Why it was intensely violent
• Why external silence surrounded its growth

The converted Youth became ideological foot soldiers of a geopolitical struggle which the youth themselves were oblivious of.

Sri Lankan youth died for geopolitical games they never understood.

JVP youth

LTTE youth all fell prey.

They believed they were fighting:

• Injustice
• Oppression
• Exploitation

They were merely:

• Instruments of destabilization
• Disposable revolutionary assets

Let us compare the JVP with other revolutionary movements

1. Nepal Maoists (CPN-M)

Feature	JVP (Sri Lanka)	Nepal Maoists
Youth Base	Rural educated unemployed	Rural educated unemployed
Ideology	Marxist–Leninist–Maoist	Marxist–Leninist–Maoist
Recruitment	Student cells + villages	Student cells + villages
Structure	Hybrid political–militant	Hybrid political–militant
Tactics	Sudden mass uprising	Prolonged people’s war
India Factor	Strategic tolerance	Strategic facilitation
Outcome	Military defeat → political reintegration	Military stalemate → political takeover

2. Naxalite Movement (India)

Component	JVP	Naxalites
Target	Rural youth	Tribal & rural youth
Method	Underground cells	Guerrilla zones
Narrative	State oppression	State exploitation
Ideology	Maoism	Maoism
Recruitment	Universities + villages	Universities + villages

3. Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) — Peru

Feature	JVP	Shining Path
Leadership	Educated ideologues	University professor
Base	Rural youth	Rural peasants
Ideology	Maoist	Maoist
Violence	High	Extreme
Indoctrination	Heavy	Total

4. FARC (Colombia)

FARC shows how hybrid insurgent-political movements sustain themselves for decades once embedded in social grievances.

The Insurgency Template

All these movements followed the same five-stage evolutionary template:

Stage 1 — Social Grievance Accumulation

Stage 2 — Ideological Injection

Stage 3 — Hybrid Party Formation

Stage 4 — Clandestine Militarization

Stage 5 — Revolutionary Escalation

Now that we have understood the pattern in youth-centred revolutionary movements let us proceed to understand the dynamics that merged JVP with neo-liberal NPP, an ideology that the JVP sustained its wrath against.

To understand this status quo we must return to 2015 regime change after which the 3 main political parties were split. SLFP split to create SLPP, UNP split to create SJB and JVP split to create NPP.

Other than Tilwin the General Secretary of the JVP, all top brass of the JVP are members of the NPP.

After 2015:

• 19A dismantled executive concentration
• Judicial activism expanded
• Independent commissions multiplied
• Governance NGO architecture embedded

This created: Permanent institutional leverage over elected authority – political capture without institutional control is temporary.

Who actually wanted to weaken the institutions & why is a clue to the minds behind these changes.

Historically, JVP ideology was rooted in:

• Anti-imperialism
• Anti-capitalism
• Anti-elite politics
• Anti-Western influence
• State-centered economic thinking
• Revolutionary populism

Yet today, the NPP platform exhibits:

• Neoliberal economic accommodation
• Western diplomatic alignment
• IMF-friendly macroeconomic positioning
• Global governance language
• NGO-compatible human rights framing
• Technocratic economic discourse

This represents a sharp ideological pivot, not gradual evolution and questions how many in the traditional JVP camp are agreeable with this pivot/shift.

More importantly, we must ask Can such a transformation emerge purely from internal strategic recalibration — or does it usually require external facilitation?”

Let us assume that the pivot came from an internal strategic evolution: yet for such to happen the leadership has to take stock of:

1. Electoral Realism

• Armed struggle failed.
• Revolutionary politics failed.
• Only electoral legitimacy could deliver power.

2. Middle-Class Capture

• Leadership increasingly drawn from:
  • Urban professionals
  • NGO circles
  • Academia
• International exposure groups
• Class orientation gradually shifted.

3. Generational Ideological Dilution

• New cadres lack revolutionary conditioning.
• Ideology replaced by technocratic pragmatism.

4. Survival Strategy

• To gain legitimacy:
  • Moderate language
  • Accept global economic frameworks
  • Rebrand as governance-capable
  • Fed-up with the failed format followed since inception!

However, this does not fully explain:

• Speed of transformation
• Diplomatic acceptance
• Media normalization
• International policy alignment
• Rapid external legitimacy

All of the above elements usually accompany external reinforcement.

The second scenario is the merger/shift as an outcome of external strategic facilitation.

This appears highly plausible.

Foreign sponsorship is not required, only externally influenced validation, narrative alignment and boosting them via social media channels. This is exactly what took place.

Such scenarios are externally operated using:

1. NGO & Civil Society Ecosystem
   • Training
   • Policy workshops
   • Governance programs
   • Leadership fellowships
   • Exposure visits

2. Diplomatic Grooming

• Selective diplomatic engagement
• Western embassy interactions
• Think-tank exposure
• Strategic dialogue forums

3. International Economic Institutions invitations
   • IMF / World Bank ideological normalization
   • Market reform framing
   • Technocratic capacity-building

4. Media Narrative Engineering

• Rebranding of revolutionary past – new hero/heart-throb
• Legitimization of new political identity
• Image normalization in international press

5. Elite Political Legitimization

• Academic endorsement
• Policy advisory incorporation
• Western-aligned intellectual support

Revolutions change rulers — not ruling classes. This understanding is important to understand how easy it is for so-called revolutionary leaders living unluxurious  lifestyles to be swayed into a life of ultra-luxuries and to compromise the support base to enjoy those luxuries in their final years of holding power, fully aware that their control is approaching full circle.

The leaders who used psychological engineering to capture youth, themselves have been psychologically programmed to embrace a life of luxuries compromising those youth & the ideals their party originally stood for.

This change became with the emergence of the NPP and the marriage of convenience with the JVP.

Post-2015 and post-NPP:

• Same elite families
• Same corporate networks
• Same NGO circuits
• Same international policy handlers

It is important to understand that class structure never changed with regime change. The same class circles rebranded.

That rebranding did not change

• Why frustration persists
• Why inequality deepens
• Why disillusionment accelerates

Let’s now ask – Did external actors support such a transformation & why”

From a geopolitical standpoint: When a radical nationalist-left movement becomes a liberal, IMF-aligned, globally compliant political force it becomes an extraordinary strategic victory.

This change has converted:

• A system challenger (JVP) into a system changer aligned with liberal policies.
• A nationalist disruptor (JVP) now silencing opposition and aligning as global order participant
• A revolutionary force (JVP) using clout to peddle western/indian economic compliance

For the minds that control – This:

• Ensures political stability as per foreign dictates
• Protects external economic interests not necessarily national
• Guarantees debt discipline as per external dictates without internal opposition
• Neutralizes nationalist resistance making government authority superior

JVP-NPP is not the only party that has been subverted into compliance.

1. Nepal Maoists → IMF-compliant government
2. ANC (South Africa) → Neoliberal economic custodian
3. Sandinistas (Nicaragua) → Electoral-liberal hybrid
4. FMLN (El Salvador) → Market accommodation
5. Former Eastern Bloc Communists → EU liberal integration

Ironically, every revolutionary movement eventually became neoliberal administrators — following external institutional integration.

So much for Lenin, Stalin and Marx.

These are mere cosmetic ornaments in party offices now.

If we are to understand the marriage of convenience between the JVP and NPP the hybrid set up appears the merging of internal brains + external strategic facilitation to bring about a rapid political transformation that is not in the interest of the Nation or rather to dismantle every pillar that keeps the nation together.

This shift came as a result of

• Internal leadership converted into power opportunity (when people saw no alternative)
• External systems offered pathway legitimacy (international PR props)
• Both converged into a mutually beneficial alignment (not for the JVP traditional support base or even the disgruntled supporters that left the traditional parties thinking NPP would provide political relief)

This alliance resulted in electoral victory with supporters falsely thinking they created a memorable change.

Memorable no doubt, when with guilt they witness every pillar being dismantled before their very eyes.

The JVP ideology of pre 2015 which could never win:

• Urban elites
• Business sector
• International acceptance
• Financial system trust
• Media legitimacy
• Diplomatic comfort

Yet, the post-2015 JVP-NPP liberal alliance supplied:

• Middle-class credibility
• Global legitimacy
• Economic governance framing
• Institutional acceptability

Without this there would have been no electoral victory.

Therefore, those that provided the props to bring that victory must realize that the artificial nature of the alliance is unlikely to be long lasting especially when the pillars that have enabled victory are now dithering towards collapse.

A controlled ideological migration — from revolutionary nationalism to managed liberal governance — enabled by both internal pivot and external strategic facilitation is never long-term.

The cracks are already appearing.

The collapse comes from the very downtrodden classes the party assured to represent but has now neglected and politically disempowered after coming to power.

Every political system contains two structurally opposed forces:

1) Those who benefit from the system

• Economic elites
• Political elites
• Bureaucratic classes
• Corporate and financial interests
• Institutional beneficiaries

They wish to preserve what they enjoy

2) Those who feel excluded or trapped by the system

• Unemployed youth
• Marginalized workers
• Rural populations
• Lower-middle classes
• Displaced or downwardly mobile groups

They demand change & redistribution.

Structural inequality is permanent which means political conflict is permanent.

What periodically changes are

• Elections
• Protests
• Trade union action
• Identity politics
• Culture wars
• Revolutions

Political systems survive by managing, not eliminating, this tension by

• Allowing limited protest
• Creating opposition parties
• Channeling anger into elections
• Offering symbolic reforms
• Periodically reshuffling elites

This keeps the dissatisfied hopeful enough not to revolt, and the elites secure enough not to repress totally.

In this set up Youth are easy to manipulate.

Every major political upheaval — French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Arab Spring, JVP, Nepal Maoists — followed this pattern.

Youth sit between classes:

• Not yet beneficiaries
• No accumulated security
• High expectations
• High frustration
• High energy

External powers exploit this structure

Because class tension already exists, external actors do not need to create it —  they only need to:

• Amplify it
• Channel it
• Reframe it
• Redirect it

Foreign influence always works through domestic grievance, never against it.

Movements like:

• JVP → NPP
• Maoists → Liberal democrats
• Islamists → Technocratic reformers

work because they:

• Speak to the anger of the excluded
• While reassuring the interests of the elite

Politics is not a moral battle.
It is a structural class management system.

The answer is found in who controls the direction of dissatisfaction?

Sri Lanka’s instability persists because:

• The excluded classes are expanding
• The elite system remains structurally unchanged
• External economic pressure intensifies class stress
• Political movements continuously repackage grievance without resolving structure

This provides permanent political turbulence.

Political systems don’t collapse when people are poor.

They collapse when people believe the system is rigged permanently against them.

That belief — whether fully true or partially constructed — is the real fuel of political change.

JVP began as a revolutionary movement seeking system overthrow

JVP-NPP became a hybrid political actor seeking a global pat on back for compliance.

Movements born to destroy systems often end up becoming the system’s most effective managers.

The journey of the JVP from armed Marxist rebellion to parliamentary neoliberal alliance is not merely a story of political evolution. It is a textbook example of how revolutionary energy is neutralized, redirected, and absorbed into global power systems.

What began as a movement to overthrow elite domination now functions within the very structures it once sought to dismantle. This transformation reflects not only leadership ambition but also a deeper geopolitical strategy that systematically reshapes political landscapes through fragmentation, ideological realignment, and regime engineering.

Political rebranding without structural reform simply recycles discontent, it does not resolve it.

Sri Lanka’s crisis is rooted in the capture of political systems, leadership pipelines, and national narratives by external interests, aided by internal elite complicity. Recognizing this, neutralizing this, is the first step toward reclaiming national agency.

The solution does not lie in outdated ideologies or imported neoliberal frameworks, but in forging a new national political synthesis grounded in:

• Ethical leadership
• Economic sovereignty
• Productive nationalism
• Social justice through opportunity
• Strategic global engagement without surrender

This demands a new political culture, built on pride in the past historically/heritage, civic education, national narrative restoration, and leadership renewal.

Sri Lanka’s future will not be secured by those who exploit class anger or preserve privilege, but by those capable of reawakening national consciousness, rebuilding institutional integrity, and restoring sovereign self-governance.

Shenali D Waduge

වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන

අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබෙන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත පිළිබඳව යළි සලකා බැලීමට තීරණය කර ඇතැයි එම කෙටුම්පතට එරෙහි පෙත්සම විභාගයේදී නීතිපතිවරයා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ2026 පෙබරවාරි 09 දින දැනුම් දුන්නේය.

ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත
අභියෝගයට ලක් කරමින් ගොනු කර තිබූ පෙත්සම අද (09) මහින්ද සමයවර්ධන, අර්ජුන ඔබේසේකර සහ සම්පත් අබේකෝන් විනිසුරුවරුතුමන්ලා ඉදිරියේ කැඳ වූ අවස්ථාවේදී නීතිපතිවරයා වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටි අතිරේක සොලිසිටර් ජෙනරාල් සුමති ධර්මවර්ධන මහතා මෙම දැනුම්දීම සිදු කළේය.

පදිංචිකරුවන් ආරක්ෂා කිරීමේ පනත් කෙටුම්පත සහ ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදහස් හා යෝජනා ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් පෙබරවාරි මස 03 වනදා සිට මාසයක කාලයක් ලබා දී තිබෙන බවත් අතිරේක සොලිසිටර් ජෙනරාල් සුමති ධර්මවර්ධන මහතා අධිකරණයට දැනුම් දුන්නේය.

පදිංචිකරුවන් ආරක්ෂා කිරීමේ පනත් කෙටුම්පතට එරෙහිව
SC/SD/06/26 , SC/SD/07/26, SC/SD/08/26 , SC/SD/09/26 , SC/SD/10/26
අංක දරන පෙත්සම් ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබූණ අතර, එම කෙටුම්පත යළි සළකා බැලීමට අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යාංශය තීරණය කර ඇති බවට නීතිපතිවරයා දනුම් දීමෙන් පසු
පෙත්සම්කරුවන් සිය පෙත්සම් ඉල්ලා අස්කර ගන්නා බව ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ ත්‍රී පුද්ගල විනිසුරු මණ්ඩලයට දැනුම් දුන්නේය.

ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත පිළිබඳවද යළි සලකා බැලීමට අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යාංශය තීරණය කර ඇතැයි නීතිපතිවරයා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට දැනුම් දුන්නද එම පනත් කෙටුම්පතට එරෙහිව ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථානුකූලත්වය පිළිබඳ SC/SD/11/26 අංක දරන පෙත්සම ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබූ නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන සිය පෙත්සම පවත්වාගෙන යන බවත් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට දැනුම් දුන්නේය.

අධිකරණ සහ ජාතික ඒකාබද්ධතා අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත පාර්ලිමේන්තු න්‍යාය පත්‍රයට ඇතුලත් කර පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කළ බවත් එමගින් 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහාද, එකී ඉවත් කිරීමෙන් පසු අන්තර්කාලීන විධිවිධාන ඇති කිරීමටද විධිවිධාන සළසා ඇති බවත් ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීමට එරෙහිව පෙත්සම ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට ඉදිරිපත් කරමින් නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන  දක්වා ඇත.
 
බලවත් තැනැත්තන්ගේ නෛතික අයිතිවාසිකම් අහිමි කිරීමට නීති පැනවීමේදී හෝ බලවත් තැනැත්තන්ගේ නෛතික අයිතිවාසිකම් වෙනුවෙන් පවතින නීති ඉවත් කිරීමේදී මෙන් නොව 1972 අංක 7 දරන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සදහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත මගින් නීති පැනවීමේදී ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍යය, බුද්ධාගමට ප්‍රමුඛස්ථානය පිරිනැමීම සහ බුද්ධ ශාසනය සුරක්ෂිත කර පෝෂණය කිරීමේ රජයේ වගකීම, නීතිය පසිදලීම සහ නීතියේ රැකවරණය, බලවත් තැනැත්තන්ගෙන් අබල තැනැත්තන් අරක්ෂා කිරීම, එකලාව හෝ අන් අය සමග යම් නීත්‍යානුකූල රැකියාවක, වෘත්තියක, කර්මාන්තයක, වෙළද ව්‍යාපාරයක හෝ ව්‍යවසායක නියුක්ත වීමේ නිදහසට, ශ්‍රී ලංකාව තුළ අභිමත ස්ථානයක වාසය කිරීමේ නිදහසට, රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තිය මෙහෙය වීමේ මූලධර්ම සහ යුතුකම් වලට, ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ බලතල හා කාර්යයට, පළාත් සභා ප්‍රඥප්ති සෑදීම සහ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ නවවන උපලේඛනයේ 1වන ලැයිස්තුවේ විධිවිධාන වලට අදාල ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාමය ප්‍රතිපාදන වලට පටහැනි බවත්, ඒ් අනුව ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 3, 4.ඇ, 9, 12.4, 14.1උ, 14.1ඌ, 27, 28, 33ඊ, 154උ. ව්‍යවස්ථා උල්ලංඝණය කරන බවත් ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීමට එරෙහි පෙත්සම මගින් එම නීතීඥවරයා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට පෙන්වා දී ඇත.

අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබෙන ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත පිළිබඳව යළි සලකා බැලීමට අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යාංශය තීරණය කර ඇතැයි නීතිපතිවරයා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට 2026 පෙබරවාරි 09 දින දැනුම්  දුන්නද
තමන්ගේ පෙත්සම පවත්වාගෙන ගොස් කතානායකවරයා වෙත ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය යොමු කරන ලෙස නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන මහතා ඉල්ලා සිටි අතර,
ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පත සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදහස් හා යෝජනා ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යවරයා විසින් පෙබරවාරි මස 03 වනදා සිට මාසයක කාලයක් ලබා දී තිබෙන තත්ත්වය තුළ ගෙවල් කුලී පනත ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා වූ පනත් කෙටුම්පතට අදාල ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථානුකූලත්වය සම්බන්ධ පෙත්සමේ විභාගය අවසන් කිරීමට ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය තීරණය කළේය.

https://neethiyalk.blogspot.com/2026/02/blog-post.html?m=1

වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන දුරකථන 0712063394
(2026.02.09)

Cricket

DRS is the lotus in the mud of Sri Lanka Cricket that has now become the laughing stock of the entire Cricket World after its disgraceful 3 Nil defeat to England in the recent T 20 Tournament. Yet neither the SLC nor the Govt. of Sri Lanka is interested in supporting the just claim of a Sri Lankan for international recognition of the Player – Referral concept (DRS) as a Sri Lankan invention.

Sri Lanka suffered a

3-0 whitewash at the hands of England in their recently concluded T20I series in February 2026. The final match on February 3, 2026, saw Sri Lanka capitulate from a position of strength, collapsing from 62-2 to 116 all out while chasing a modest target of 129. 

Regarding the Decision Review System (DRS), it remains an uncredited contribution in the official records of the International Cricket Council (ICC), despite the concept of the “Player-Referral” system being first published by Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna in March 1997. 

England tour of Sri Lanka (T20I Series, 2026)

Match	Date	Venue	Result	Key Performers
1st T20I	Jan 30, 2026	Pallekele	England won by 11 runs (DLS)	Sam Curran (Hat-trick), Adil Rashid (3/19)
2nd T20I	Feb 1, 2026	Pallekele	England won by 6 wickets (DLS)	Tom Banton (54*), Harry Brook (36 off 12)
3rd T20I	Feb 3, 2026	Pallekele	England won by 12 runs	Jacob Bethell (4/11), Dushmantha Chameera (5/24)

The Struggle for DRS Recognition

The “Player-Referral” concept, which allows teams to challenge on-field decisions, is widely attributed to Senaka Weeraratna’s 1997 letter to The Australian. 

• Official Inaction: Despite the system being tested during an India-Sri Lanka Test in 2008, the ICC has never formally credited Weeraratna, unlike the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method which bears its inventors’ names.
• Government Support: While individual advocates and some legal teams have pressed for recognition, critics frequently point out a lack of sustained diplomatic or institutional pressure from Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and the Sri Lankan Government to secure the intellectual property rights or international credit for the invention.
• Current Status: As of early 2026, the system continues to be used globally without an official inventor’s name attached. Advocates continue to lobby for the name to be changed to “Weeraratna Decision Review System” (WDRS) to honor its Sri Lankan roots. 

https://share.google/aimode/VJkRhCswCeFBMwLK6

Talk about BAD too EMBARRASSING… SRI LANKA CRICKET the absolute joke of a team of a once great team that were world champions twice

Completely out played and whitewashed without excelling in a single game. Sri Lanka Cricket keeps getting worse each passing year. The ‘A’ Team lost to Oman earlier in the day too.. LOL.

2nd T20I couldn’t defend 11+ runs an over for less than 10 overs. Not a single batter scored a 50. In today’s game they couldn’t chase down 129 which was helped by a responsible 50 by Sam Curran. None of our batters set out to play responsibly and sensibly when called for. For a country that dominates spin from school level we’ve managed to produce a team that is terrible against spin losing 9 wickets to spinners today. Even against a country that produces more seam friendly bowlers England spinners completely outplayed our spinners this entire series. England spinners picked up 17 wickets whereas Sri Lankan spinners only picked up 3 in all the T20Is which is very worrying considering it was a home series and we are about to start off the T20 World cup games where we face most games on home pitches. We may just lose a game against the minnow side (Zimbabwe have already beaten us a few times and won 2 of the last 5 even beating us once in Sri Lanka 2 years ago with many of the same players still in the team). We are that bad.

Even in the ODIs the spinners were out played picking up 13 when England spinners picked up 18 and they dominated in all but one game.

r/srilanka • 5d ago

QueasyCity2788

DRS ( Player Referral system ) is a Sri Lankan invention

This Sri Lankan invention is now being used not only in Cricket but also in Rugger, Soccer ( Goal Line Technology), Tennis, and Badminton. The lack of recognition for this global scale invention by a Sri Lankan, even within Sri Lanka ( by the Government of Sri Lanka, SLC, Sri Lankan cricket commentators, Media and even by professional organizations ) by a Sri Lankan boils down to one major reason ‘ Eershiyava’  ‘ (Jealousy) which the reputed political analyst Shenali Waduge has explored in depth in a devastating  “no-holds-barred” article. 

Is “Eershiyawa” (Jealousy) blocking Senaka Weeraratna and Sri Lanka from gaining credit for the invention of DRS?

‘ Eershiyava’  ‘ (Jealousy) is the bane of Sri Lanka. It is a pathological condition that has afflicted almost the entire nation and the people. No progress is possible unless and until this evil mindset is vanquished. Education at all levels of schooling should be directed towards this end. Look at India.   The Indian Inventor of the Email V.A. Shiva Aiyyadurai, an Indian Hindu was honored recently by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite the entire racist Western press ignoring it. 

Why is it hard to honor non-white inventors? Acknowledging Hindu Indian V A Shiva Ayyadurai – the Inventor of email

Why is it hard to honor non-white inventors? Acknowledging Hindu Indian V A Shiva Ayyadurai – the Inventor of email

Regarding the invention of the Decision Review System (DRS), evidence supports the claim that the core “Player-Referral” concept is a Sri Lankan invention by lawyer Senaka Weeraratna. 

• The Invention: Senaka Weeraratna first proposed the “Player Referral” system in a letter to The Australian newspaper on March 25, 1997, suggesting that a “dissatisfied captain of a team to appeal against a ground umpire’s decision, to the third umpire”.
• The Claim for Recognition: For over two decades, Weeraratna has campaigned for international recognition of his invention, which was later adopted by the ICC in 2008 and formalized as the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS/DRS).
• Support for the Claim: While the ICC has not officially credited Weeraratna, his claim has been supported by various, including former SLC Vice President Asanga Seneviratne and various publications noting the lack of recognition for the Sri Lankan contribution.
• SLC’s Role: While some officials have supported the claim, there has been a longstanding feeling among cricket lovers that the SLC and the government have not adequately championed this as a national, home-grown achievement. 

see

Lorenz Pereira’s article in the Sunday Island ( March 02, 2025)

Noorjehan Safia Niaz Courtesy SuPWR

India

Opinion

March 8, 2024

Discussions in India around the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) come at a critical time for Muslim women to demand legislative reforms. While the country debates around UCC, it is essential that Muslim women get legislative protection on issues of polygamy, child marriage, halala/muta/misyar, equal inheritance rights, equity in custody/guardianship rights and the right to legally adopt.

For the Muslim community, the first set of reforms began in 1937 in the form of the Shariat Application Act, followed by another quick codified law in 1939 (Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act). For the next 50 years, no reforms happened and for the worse, the 1986 Muslim Women’s Act (MWA), removed Muslim women from the ambit of the criminal law of maintenance and brought in a law that absolved Muslim men of their responsibility to pay post-divorce maintenance. In 2019, the fight for a law against triple divorce was drawn-out, with many religious groups opposing any disruption in the practice that had rendered scores of Muslim women homeless and destitute.

Muslim women have suffered the most from discriminatory practices imposed on them in the name of Islam.

It is high time that Muslim women get a gender just law protecting their rights within the family in the form of a comprehensively codified Muslim family law (MFL).

Codify the MFL based on the BMMA draft

Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has been demanding a codified Muslim family law since 2007. To ensure legal protection to Muslim women on issues of polygamy, child marriage, inheritance rights, adoption and custody of children, BMMA spent eight years preparing a draft of Muslim Family Law which it regularly sends to the government to remind them of their responsibilities towards Muslim women’s demand for justice within the family. This process has enabled BMMA to bring the issue of law reform out of the closet into an open debate and exposed the blatant sexism and misogyny of Muslim clerics.

Including the Muslim community in existing laws

In the last three to four years, BMMA has also been demanding piecemeal reforms by ensuring inclusion of the Muslim community in existing polygamy and child marriage laws.

All non-religious laws relating to family issues are, without exception, applicable to all citizens. But within and outside the Muslim community, and within the judiciary, there is an understanding (or rather a misunderstanding) that these laws are not applicable to the Muslim community. As a result, Muslim women are deprived of their right to legal protection through the laws of the land. While all women, including the minority Christian and Parsi women, enjoy the provisions of IPC 494 against polygamy, Muslim women have been kept out of its ambit.

Various High Court judgments on child marriage, too, give an ambiguous picture. BMMA has been demanding that Muslim community must come under the ambit of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 and 494 IPC. If not a fully codified family law, at least allow existing laws against polygamy and child marriage to be made applicable to the Muslim community.

The Uniform Civil Code must provide legal protection for all

While BMMA understands the ruling government’s push for UCC to achieve gender justice, portraying the Muslim community as the main hurdle to it serves no one. Many other groups – such as the Sikhs, the Tribal community and political parties – have also shown apprehension. It also means that the government must have more deeper consultations with all religious and ethnic groups, going beyond the submissions to the Law Commission. UCC must not be a polarising issue, especially when its intent, as stated by the government, is national integration. Government must also not make UCC another stick to beat the Muslim community with since UCC is not a Muslim issue but concerns all citizens.

Communities, including the Muslim community, will not be open to any Code if it appears to polarize society or is seen to be targeting a specific community.

Whatever the UCC looks like in the end, if at all, it must reflect the needs of all communities. The process of arriving at a Code must be inclusive and collaborative.

Muslim women will not benefit from any uniform law if it does not provide them with legal protection against discriminating practises, such as halala, muta, or misyar. There are many empowering practices of the Muslim community (like the mehr, express consent of bride, out of court arbitration structures, etc.) which must be retained for the benefit of women.

After assimilating the suggestions from the Law Commission, if a UCC is truly what all communities want, then the draft must be shared with all and with open possibilities of further changes and amendments. If the government is truly concerned about gender justice, then the UCC must be inclusive of all voices of women across caste, community, and ethnicity. And it must not be a rushed affair for political benefit.

Muslim women have waited too long, but not anymore.

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C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

[hi-story of Transformation of Sinhala Buddhists from victims of whites, black-whites and Marxists to genocidal murderers of Tamils : how Sri Lankan governments succumbed to the Tamil Eelam trap -1923-2026]

(1) The Sinhala nation still remains trapped in the Mahavamsa mindset. They are unable to free themselves from the mythical consciousness that sees this island as the exclusive domain of the Sinhala Buddhist people.

                V. Prabhakaran- Maaveerar Day, 2005

(2) …. during the past two centuries, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism has gradually evolved through the sanctification of the Mahavamsa. Just as King Dutugemunu killed Tamils in the name of Buddhism 2,150 years ago, Tamils were again massacred in the name of the same Sinhala Buddhism two millennia later…”

….Will Tamil-speaking people continue to be deprived of the right to know their own country’s history? Or will that injustice finally end?….”

                N. Saravanan -January 2026

(3) In order to observe Sil [eight precepts in Buddhism] they come to Jaffna [Tissa Raja Maha Vihara] by passing the Sri Maha Bodhi on their way. This conduct has no [seela] moral virtue,  but revenge… Also on each Poya day [Full Moon Day] they [a handful of Tamils?]  gather around the Temple shouting communal [racist] slogans….”

…පෝයට සිල් ගන්න ජයශ්‍රී මහා බෝධීන් වහන්සේ පසුකර යාපනයට එනවා. එතන තිබෙන්නේ සීලය නොවෙයි, වෛරය. ඒ වගේම සෑම පෝයකටම ගිහින් ඒ පන්සල ළග වට වෙනවා. ඉඩම් වෙනුවෙන් නොවෙයි, ජාතිවාදය වෙනුවෙන්…”

                President AKD in Jaffna celebrating Thai Pongal- Jan 15, 2026

(4) [The purpose of the Ceylon Tamil  Society  is to create] a pan-Tamilian state – to keep alive and propagate throughout Ceylon, Southern India and the Tamil colonies, the union and solidarity of Tamilakkam, the Tamil Land.”

                Arunachalam Ponnambalam -1918/23

‚ 

Google Analytics Report on Visitors to tamilnation.org for the month of August 2009

Where Tamils live (Source map: Tamilnation.org website 1/25/2010

If the Tamils’ cry for separatism is given up, the two communities could solve their problems and continue to live in amity and dignity.”

M.C. Sansoni, CJ-(Sessional Paper No. 7 of 1980). 

Albatross around the Eelam neck

Tamil politicians beginning with Ponnambalam Arunachalam (1921/23) have had an albatross around their necks on how to justify that there was a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka, despite the fact that the Island was identified as Sinhale by foreigners (Greek, Roman, Arabic, Chinese; Serendib, Seylan, Ceylon) since time immemorial. Thambapanni (Taprobane) was another name.

Divide and rule

From 1832 onwards, under the colonial divide and rule strategy for his legislative advisory council, the colonial governor nominated , one each for the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority. Later Sinhala majority was subdivided as low country and Kandyan, thus diluting the majority status of Sinhala people. However, with signs of communal nomination going to be replaced by territorial representation, a need arose to search for a method via history to overcome the disadvantage in population numbers.

This effort  has a history of its own, and Sarvanan’s grievance against the Mahavamsa author Mahanama Thero is an attempt to drop the albatross of a Tamil homeland theory by shifting attention to the root cause behind an imaginary Tamil genocide perpetrated by Sinhala Buddhists. In this job, he has forgotten that the Sinhala Buddhists suffered more under the Sinhala government than the Tamils. In fact it is amazing how a small group of Tamil separatists with the support of some Sinhala black-whites, were able to project and label Sinhala Buddhists who were the victims of discrimination and colonial genocide as murderers of innocent Tamils! Even though the history and geography of Sri Lanka prove otherwise, Saravanan has discovered in 2025 evidence from the 5^th century A.D. Mahavamsa one or two sentences that poisoned the Sinhala mind. He forget that the existence of an Elara tomb  closer to where he was killed by King Dutugemunu negates his theory of a Sinhala mindset to  massacre Tamils then or now.

Can we eat history?

There was a demand for a separate Dravida Nadu state in India from 1938, similar to the demand for a separate Pakistan state under the two-nation theory espoused by Ali Jinna and surreptitiously promoted  by the colonial master. In 1916 the justice Party was formed against the Brahmins (Aryans) and the Hindi language. In  1925 E. V. Ramasamy (Periyar) joined the Justice Party transforming it as Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944. In 1941 he had a meeting to align with Ali Jinna’s project with his Dravida Nadu plan consisting of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andra Pradesh and Karnatic regions. Jinna backed off  when he realized he could fight it alone. C. N. Annadurai formed the DMK party in 1949, and the demand for a Dravidasthan was dropped with the Sino-Indian war in 1962. The 16th Indian Constitutional Amendment in 1963 made secessionist designs illegal, and the DMK elements moved to Ceylon to continue their illicit operations in the Kandyan plantation areas.  They were branded as Kallathonis (illegal migrants).

Since the 1840s Christian missionaries interfered in creating a Dalith-Aryan Fault line between south and North India (a Balkanizing plan to break India). This was both similar and different from what is happening these days in the Northeastern part of India bordering China/Burma etc. Within Tamil Nadu itself two Dalith groups wanted their own separate states thus dividing it into three regions.

There were failed attempts to promote a Tamil state idea in Malaysia and more recently in the Fiji Islands. For example,  SJV Chelvanayagam born in Malaya was brought to Ceylon via the South Indian Christian Church because of the growth of the Boomiputhra movement there. In Singapore a shanty bog then, Tamils did gain a strong foothold (The purge of Indians from African states (1972) was a phenomenon took place with dictators like Idi Amin).

History and Geography

The  historical data above  indicates the double or treble jeopardy  SJV Chelvanayagam faced after he and few others rebelled against G. G. Ponnambalam for his joining the  D. S. Senanayake’s UNP cabinet (1948). They  formed the Tamil State Party (FP) in 1949. At that time GGP’s ACTC did not support the federal idea (now in 2026 DBS Jeyaraj, who began his life as an FP youth tries to use what a juvenile  SWRD said in 1926 to give oxygen to an Eelam promoting the federal ladder).   GGP was branded as a Tamil traitor, but later under Dudley Senanayaka, FP joined the UNP coalition  government in 1965 and quit in 1968. The tipping point was the refusal of Prime Minister Dudley to declare the Koneshwaram temple precincts in Trincomalee a “sacred area,” a demand made by the FP. But the ACTC continued to support Dudley.

Tamil Moses  (Tamil Che Guevara?)

With no hope for a separate state for Tamils in Tamil Nadu, SJVC thought that the ideal place to try for a Tamil state on a world map, his Kosovo dream, was Ceylon which was politically weak, a monkeys given razor blades kind of failing democracy (Dudley’s 1947 Dedigama electorate mayhem  and John Kotalawala’s role in that was the first ominous warning  in this regard). Added to  this was the existence of  a strong Marxist present supporting both the fifty-fifty demand of GGP and the federal demand by SJVC.

At the funeral of SJVC in 1977, a Christian Sinhala priest Lakshman Wickramasinghe described SJVC as the Sri Lankan Tamil Moses. The truth was that his Gandhian style struggle ended garlanding a murderer’s statute, thus handing over the failed liberation fight to a Tamil terrorist, Prabhakaran. P did not listen to Anton Balasingham, a moderate American-friendly, theoretician, and killed Rajiv Gandhi + R. Premadasa, Lakshman Kadirgamar and bombed Mrs. Chandrika. He massacred Buddhist monks, attacked Sri Maha Bodhi tree and bombed the Dalada Maligawa. If P was reasonable and wise, he could have easily achieved the mission SJVC passed on to him. If SJVC was a real copy of Gandhi, he would not keep a blind eye about the suffering of the so-called low caste  Tamils in Jaffna . As a Christian he did not oppose discrimination inside Jaffna churches against the non-Vellala castes.

An Eelam by pen (and vote block bribes)

Prabhakaran began his killing spree with the murder of Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiayappah in July 1975 for working with the Sinhala government,  Prabhakaran was killed in  May 2009  and the war ended, and C. V. Vigneswaran was elected Chief Minister of NP in October 2013.

Tamil politicians preferred continuation of the colonial rule and SJVC said he was prepared to handover the Trinco harbour to India. Indira Gandhi supported Eelam boys because of her vendetta against J. R. Jayawardena. So many misfortunes happened and the IPKF became another albatross on the Indian necks. With Tamil Nadu as a secure base separatist Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka played double games to save their skin.

Where is the evidence?

During the  30+ year terrorist war for a Tamil Eelam, the need to justify a  distinct Tamil nation with a traditional homeland in the Northern and Eastern districts of Sri Lanka was limited to items such as The Cleghorn Minute, written in June 1799 by Sir Hugh Cleghorn, the first British Colonial Secretary of Ceylon and the Sinhalese ethnologist Paul Peiris’ description of the five Saivite shrines on the four cardinal points of the compass, located on the shoreline of Ceylon predating the birth of Buddha. Cleghorn mentioned about Malabar Inhabitants and the Sinhalese, and only in 1911 Ponnambalam Arunachalam was able to change Malabar Inhabitants as Ceylon Tamils  when he was handing Census data.

The problem was that history and geography (history is past geography of a land) of Sinhale did not support evidence for a Tamil homeland in the land. There are no archeological evidence  except indications here and there of Tamil  presence. Tapassu-Bhallika could be Tamil traders or Arabic/Persians. King Elara’s  and King Dutugemunu’s armies had both Tamil and Sinhala soldiers. The custom of Chola-Pandi-Kerala royal families exchanging brides as a strategy of maintaining the balance of power with the Sinhala kings, and later with need to obtain soldiers for hire no doubt there were lots of Malabar Inhabitants just like the last Sinhale kings were Tamils from Malabar with many wives. Ancient Shiva Devala found in Polonnaruwa Sri Lanka were built on top of older Buddhist temples!

Money Order Economy

Malaria mosquito was another enemy preventing permanent settlements in the Wanni. Attempts by the British to create Tamil settlements in the Wanni had also failed. On top of that the limestone geology of Jaffna prevented any surface running water supply. American missionaries invaded Tamils in Jaffna and Batticaloa after 1815 providing Christian English schools which was available to Sinhalese only after 1880. This advantage resulted in Tamils occupying high percentage of administrative and professional jobs in the country.  Hard working Tamils went south to Sinhala areas for government clerical and other jobs and as traders with shops in towns larger and smaller. Their income earning from the South went to Jaffna households by way of regular monthly postal money orders. Before 1978, Jaffna vegetable growers benefitted by sending produce to Colombo taking the advantage of import restrictions during 1960s and 70s.

Vigneswaran, a failed  experiment

It is said that Tamils in Sri Lanka enjoy more rights than those living in Tamil Nadu! However, after the end of the terrorist war  Tamils got an opportunity select their own leaders in 2013. The new Chief Minister  Vigneswaran, promoted by government advisors like Christian Marxist Dayan Jayatilleka as a moderate Tamil, became a bull in a China shop demolishing all the bridges for reconciliation. Travelling from Colombo he passed resolutions about Tamil genocide, did not want to see Buddha statutes, instigated anti-temple protests and did not use funds allocated for the Province. He wanted land and police powers. Failed to help the so-called low caste Tamils to come out of abject poverty. Discrimination by the Vellala Hindus continued. Thus, the 1987/8 Provincial Council system did not work for the benefit of the so-called low caste Tamils,  who are the majority even within the Jaffna municipal limits! Vigneswaran tried to get the myth of Tamil homeland albatross from his neck, talking about  another story of Tamil Buddhists in the past, hanging on to Sunil Ariyaratna’s book, Tamil Buddhists, five Shiva lingams in the Island, all the time looking for oxygen from the West and Eelam Tamil diaspora. He even tried to meet the Mahanayakas’ for support! After all, his two sons married Sinhala women ignoring genocide threat! So was Sumanthiran’s son. For Vignes,  King Devanam Priyathissa was a Tamil king by the Tamil name,  Devanam Piyatheesan!

Saravanan, a smart Aleck in Vigneswaran’s shoes

Mr. N. Saravanan, a human rights activist living in Norway, who translated the 1978-2010 portion (vol. 6) of the Sinhala chronicle  Mahavamsa  in to Tamil (in 2025?) is like a Vigneswaran ghost. He thinks he could use the Buddhist Card to cut pork on pig’s flesh.  All the other older separatist Tamils had abandoned old strategies used to justify a Tamil homeland. Now in 2025/26 they have a Sinhala Marxist government taken hostage by the Eelam Tamil diaspora and the Modi of India. With or without India the long term American plan of using Sri Lanka as a military outpost is secured politely by an American ambassador Julie Chung with IMF backing.  It is only a short step now to Full implementation of the 13^th Amendment opening the door for an Eelam country with a UN flag. President AKD not only giving moral weapon to separatist Tamils to prevent Buddhists visiting historic temples in Jaffna and Trinco while removing even the military headquarters from Jaffna. He says he will not allow extremism and racism but silent about separatism!

Tamil Che Guevara

Boy M.P. Rasamanikkam from Batticaloa had the nerve to declare in Canada that during his life time Tamils will have their own country in Sri Lankan land.  This is a clear violation of his constitutional oath and JVP/NPP government is the oxygen  for his mouth. Saravanan’s use of the occasion of a Tamil translation to reveal his discovery that it was Mahanama Thero who was behind all the sufferings and massacres of Tamils for the past two thousand years is a cunning attempt to become another cardboard Tamil hero like Rasamanikkam among the dollar generating NGO-Eelam lobby in Canada, EU etc. These two  and Gajendra Ponnambalam- M. A. Sumanthiran cannot face the Tamil Che Guevara in Jaffna, Arun Siddharth. Arun is educating the non-Vellala Tamils to fight for their rights despite all kind of obstacles including from the RAW agents in Jaffna.

උතුරේ දෙමළ මන්ත්‍රීවරු බෞද්ධ විහාරස්ථාන නාමපුවරු ඉවත් කිරිම ගැන උසාවියේදී අරුන් හෙලිකරයි/ Arun Talk

Professor Chandre Dharmawardana’s reply

Professor CD living in Canada, provided  a  detailed answer to Saravanan’s accusation that  Mahanama Thero, the author of the Sinhala Mahavamsa  wrote in the 5^th Century A.D., was behind two interrelated phenomena: (1) sanctification of the Mahavamsa and (2) massacre of Tamils.

(LankaWeb – Historical context of politicisation of Mahavamsa, and Tamil translation of the last volume  (Jan. 7, 2026).

Citing examples from other Indian historical documents such as the Mahabharata/Ramayana, Prof. CD clarifies that  Mahavamsa was not a Buddhist religious book. It was not about Tamils, but who did what in protecting Buddhism and the Sinhala Dviipa (island) from South Indian invaders (Just Wars). The answer mentioned in Mahavamsa  that Saravanan thinks engrained in Sinhala Buddhists psyche for thousands of years  did not deal with killing Tamils as Tamils. It was about the Tamil king Elara’s (Ellalan) [205-161 BCE] army, which had two Buddhists, one full and the other a half Buddhist. I believe both Kautilya and Machiavelli espoused the same concept. Thus, Mahavamsa author thought the killing of non-Buddhists to save a Buddhist kingdom was not a sin.  This was similar to the duty that Lord Krishna expected Arjuna to perform (to kill his close relatives) recorded in the Hindu sacred book, Bhagavat Geetha. The invasion of Iraq to kill Sadam Hussein was projected as a just war by the American president. But, Saravanan forgets how many hundreds ( thousands?) of innocent Tamils and rival Tamils Prabhakaran killed during his terrorist war excluding the IPKF soldiers and Sinhala සොල්දාදුවන් and innocent Sinhala/Muslim people.

War of Wombs (produce more children)

Why migrants from (South India, Dravidasthan) did not or could not create a Tamil civilization in the island of  Sinhale (later Ceylon) after 1505 is a question of geography. There are no Tamil ruins of historical significance.  The Western Ghats mountains prevent the benefit of the Southwest Monsoons, most of South India was without adequate supply of water. Those who came to live in Jaffna found no surface rivers. For the British, South Indian Dalits became a source of semi-slavery supply of cheap labour that they transported to all their colonies (see Map above). Living in abject poverty their world was very different to the world  Yasar Arfath or Mohamad Gaddafi promoted to have more people to fight the Israelis, which is now taking place in Sri Lanka as human factories supported by Arab-Sharia dollars (two or three males and more than a dozen females in one duplex).

The history of Sri Lanka has been a story of how the Buddhist Temple (concept of guardian angels) saved its Sinhala Buddhist civilization from foreign invaders (Indian and Western), for thousands of years, and from local anti-Buddhist elements of all sorts, gradually rooted on the Ceylon colony as Black Whites,” since the 1840s (Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms 1833; Macaulay’s 1835 Indian Education Minute). The Great Panadura Debate (1873 ) was a landmark in this struggle for the survival of  Sinhala Buddhism”  compared to what had happened to natives in British and other Christian colonial investments. For example, after 450 years of white domination,  Christian population in Sri Lanka is about 10-15 percent. There was no such rivalry with Hindu Tamils. At least 10 percent of the sacred space in a Buddhist temple is dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses.

Transformation of Tamil terrorists from Culprits to  Victims!

I tried to understand this systematic and organized assault on the Sinhala Buddhist civilization by arranging historical data  under five interrelated topics: (1) Anti-Mahavamsa Movement in Sri Lanka (led by Sinhala Marxists and Tamil Christians);  (2) Dravidasthan movement in South India and Tamil Separatism in Ceylon;  and (3) History of the concept of guardian angels in Ceylon/ Sri Lanka; (4) How Sinhala politicians helped Tamils and Muslims at the expense of Sinhala Buddhists; and (5) Examples of JVP anger/hate against the Buddhist Temple.  

What I found  in this history/geography exercise was an evolving process of victims projected as murderers, by a growing NGO dollar lobby with backing from some western politicians, unable to separate truth from myth, because they have become prisoners of  Eelam block vote battalions  in their respective electorates, notably in Canada, USA, UK and the EU. The harassment, discrimination and genocide Sinhala Buddhists had to face from the colonial master from 1798 onwards, and step-motherly treatment they received from local black whites since 1948, which continues now in 2026 as a deadly sin under an adulterated and bankrupt Marxist ideology. One can see this by reading between the lines of what president AKD  said in Jaffna. It reminds the mythical Kuveni’s curse. In other words, AKD and Saravanan are like two sides of the same coin!

You cannot legislate against geography.’

Wilfrid Laurier,  Canadian Prime Minister (1895)

The geography (history is past geography) of Sri Lanka has been the greatest obstacle faced by SJV Chelvanayagam and the Tamil separatist ever since. Geography professor G. H. Peiris documented how the federal idea cannot work in this Island. Simply stated, more Tamils live in the south than in the northern and eastern  provinces. A kind of federal border demarcation submitted by Mrs. Chandrika’s Package Deal of 2000 broke Sri Lanka into ethnic pieces of unimaginable headaches. What to do with the Planation Tamils, Colombo Tamils,  Ampara Tamils and Muslims and Sinhalese chased out by Prabhakaran? Tamils live amicably in  all cities and villages in the seven southern provinces. This is population geography.

The physical geography of the country would result in a federal system of fractions in war for water rights. Already Vigneswaran gave a warning about an HR complaint to Geneva relating to Mahaveli water transfer.  The 103 rivers are running to the sea radially from a central mountain massif; there is a wet compact west side and a broader  eastern side with lesser amount of rain during the N-E Monsoons.

Feeding a cancer

Knowing all this JVP>NPP President AKD is promoting ethnic unrest with words and actions. He knows Tamils promoting 13A+ which is one step below the federal idea (promoted by DBS Jeyaraj in 2026  as one hundred years of SWRD’ s juvenile plan in 1926) will be the platform for an Eelam sooner than later. Really speaking AKD has no choice now other than agreeing to Tamil Diaspora’s demands.

Mahavamsa written in the 6^th century A.D. is recognized as a rare historical document about a Sinhala Buddhist kingdom, and it was neither a Ramayana nor a Mahabharata. It was not a school textbook. It was not discussed in Buddhist Sunday schools or  monks did not preach chapters from the Mahavamsa (or Deepawamsa) in sermons. I do not think it had anything to do with the university-level history courses. I do not know how many Buddhist households have a copy of Mahavamsa  as a cherished object. If a Sinhalaya develops a conflict with a Tamil he does not get any oxygen from the Mahavamsa!

The big question then is, how  a human rights advocate living in Norway, who translated the volume 6 (1977-2010) of the Mahavamsa Project in to Tamil, who finds defects in that volume and the entire editorial process per se, blames  Mahanama Thero, author of the old Mahavamsa, alleging that he was the culprit who poisoned the minds of the Sinhala race that killing Tamils is not a sin! This great discovery” is similar to what Machael Roberts of the Thuppahi’s Blogg once said  the origin of Sinhala extremism that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhala race [only] could be traced back to what the Anagarika Dharmapala mentioned in a letter written in 1912, i.e. We Sinhalese.”

Sinhala Buddhist leaders, even Sinhala politicians, never said what this son of a West Indies (Jamaican?) parent visualized. Like Vigneswaran he had the best one could get from the Sri Lankan state. Prime ministers  DSS, SWRD and JRJ  had their origins in South India and have had close Christian affiliations by birth and/or marriage.

Hammering Mahavamsa with falsehood was a favourite past time for both Tamil separatists and their Sinhala sympathizers, but it lost gas as a propaganda  weapon with the growing success of the Eelam diaspora to get Sinhala politicians bribed and caved in to most of their demands. Why is it then under such favourable circumstances someone like Saravanan taking about the Mahavamsa author Mahanama Thero? Is he smarter than the boy M.P. Rasamanikkam who boasts about winning an Eelam during his life time while Ponnambalam and Sumanthiran living in Colombo add fuel to LTTE remnants shouting near the Tissa Vihara?  The reason has to be that Saravanan is part of a larger conspiracy to snatch maximum from a weak government bringing unbelievable hypothesis to the table to demoralize  Sinhala Buddhists.

There were  no Tamil massacres and there is no evidence to consider that Tamils were treated as enemies by Sinhala Buddhists. Thus, in trying to use the incident of his translating a section of Mahavamsa in to Tamil Saravanan disclosed to the sane world that he is a Tamil Separatist hiding his head in the sand. He ought to come out of his sand castle and meet Arun Siddharth, Che Guevara of Jaffna Tamils.

For example, Arun points our (1) Thesawalamai law was against non-Vellala Tamils (2) Prevention of Social Disabilities Act 1958, which made imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their caste to be an offence was opposed by the Vellala Caste.

Just like Jeyaraj Tambiah, a Christian, went to Thailand to Study Buddhism forgetting the plight of the Jaffna non-Vellala Tamils, Saravanan (Christian?) is digging the Mahavamsa of the 6^th Century A.D.!

The Buddhists wish—and quite rightly—that in this country where they form 70 percent of the population, Buddhism should be recognized as the predominant religion of the people. In the rest of the world, Ceylon is regarded as essentially a Buddhist country, and they want this claim established here as well…They will not be content to remain in the position of inferiority to which they have been reduced by 450 years of foreign occupation… They have no desire to make Buddhism the State religion—in spite of the cry raised by self-seeking politicians— but they want the State to help them rehabilitate themselves and undo some, at least, of the injustices perpetrated against them during the days of their subjection.”

(quoted from a speech by Professor Gunapala Malalasekera, President of ACBC reproduced in Times of Ceylon, January 15, 1956, and referenced on page 196 of the book, Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation,”  by W. H. Wriggins, Princeton Univ. Press,1960)

[cc: editor@Jaffnamonitor.com]

e-Con e-News 01-07 February 2025

‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

*

Is Rockefeller’s Exxon Getting Singapore 

to Sell Stolen Venezuelan Oil to Sri Lanka? 

e-Con e-News 01-07 February 2025

*

At a recent collective bargaining negotiation, workers

asked for a copy of the collective agreement in Sinhala.

The company agreed to translate it but declared in case

of discrepancy, the English document would prevail!

Happy Independence Day!

The English do & does prevail!

Or do they?

*

The ‘explosive’ disclosure that the US government ousted yet another President of Sri Lanka, Lt Colonel Gotabaya Rajapakse, in 2022, was headlined in the Island of 04 February, 2026, on the 78^th anniversary of the English ‘grant’ of an independence, strangled at birth in 1948.

     Rajapakse’s ouster, revealed in the book Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera (quoted below), comes weeks after another book by the Senior Media Advisor to the unelected President, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe replaced Rajapakse II, who was forced to flee to Singapore. That book Aragalaye Balaya by Sunanda Madduma Bandara, sought to solely pin the blame for President Rajapakse’s ouster on India, even as it did not deny the role played by the USA.

‘In Singapore, a senior journalist recounted

how Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation was

scripted, under duress, at a hotel, facilitated

by a foreign motorcade.’

Who this ‘foreign motorcade’ is, we are not told. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s own memoirs The Conspiracy to Oust Me from the Presidency ‘refrained from naming the primary conspirator, though he clearly alluded to an international conspiracy’. Why he ‘refrained’ to name such names, is also not clear, and why now? Abeyagoonasekera’s Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia delveseven deeper, however, and seeks to trace the April 2019 terrorist bombings to India, alluding to a joint US-India operation to destabilize the country (see ee Random Notes). Author Abeyagoonasekera quotes Indian Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra ordering Sri Lanka to hand over the MRCC [Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre] on 8 April, 2019, 2 weeks before the terror: ‘You cannot give it to another nation.’ India’s order was ‘meant to prevent Sri Lanka from even considering a competing proposal from China’.

*

In April 1971, the leaders & members of the

JVP were charged with overthrowing the Queen

of England. And now a government led by JVP

has to celebrate the Englishman’s charade of an

independence day minus an independent economy…

*

The dawn of the 2^nd quarter of the 21^st century has already seen the kidnapping of the President of Venezuela, & his spouse, the move to steal its abundant oil, while rendering its own government unable to administer its economy. These weeks have also seen the USA dramatically besiege Cuba further & prevent its access to energy. This week saw US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brazenly brag claim the USA ‘deliberately triggered a dollar shortage in Iran, fueling a currency collapse that led to soaring inflation & mass anti-government protests’. He told the US Senate Economics Committee, the USA pushed ‘one of Iran’s largest banks into bankruptcy, forced the central bank to print money, & ultimately drove Iranians onto the streets’, with the ensuing unrest, accompanied threats from Donald Trump to bomb Iran again (see ee Random Notes).

     These actions recall the strangling of Sri Lanka’s own access to finance, fuel, fertilizer, pharma & food in 2022, leading to the ouster of its popularly elected leader, resulting in a so-called ‘regime change’ where very little has been fundamentally changed, at least economically, with our signature welfare credentials being dismantled, so-called free education & free healthcare undermined, its electricity system being eviscerated, and access to its own  abundant energy & mineral resources being stolen before our very eyes – all the while, while claiming Sri Lanka is bankrupt. 

     The leader of the opposition, if opposition is what their natterings amount to, is trying hard to challenge the ruling NPP from the Left lane on a busy road. He was given a headline this week: ‘Colonialism has become active in a different form today: Sajith’ – intriguing indeed, but it turns out to be a dud firework: ‘It is active in different sectors of the society such as the economy & culture. This colonialism has to be defeated,’ he said. For those who have eyes to see & a brain to smell a dead rat, over 500 undying (yet resisting) years later, colonialism is still very much alive in all its forms, political, military & economic. Like a viperous snake (with apologies to the naga), it ain’t dead til it’s cut into pieces and sold as soup to those who prize it as a delicacy!

*

‘The country has had to endure multiple trials over the years,

from the insurgencies in the south to terrorism in the north,

failed experiments with outdated socialist economic policies,

tsunamis & other natural disasters, man-made disasters of

corruption & mismanagement, an economic collapse

culminating in protest politics, & an unprecedented loss of

confidence in democratic institutions & the legitimacy of

elected leaders. & then came Cyclone Ditwah.’

– Sunday Times Editorial (see ee Economists,

Independence Day reflections)

*

No mention of an utterly mercenary media. Anyway… Among the overflowing abundance of kudos & lamentations on this 78^th anniversary of ‘independence’, we have had to listen to endless sermons about how wonderful a country the English bestowed upon us in 1948 – one recurrent theme is how the darker natives ruined this precious gift: A wonderful white-clothed civil service, an import-export dependent plantation economy run by & for merchants & moneylenders. The truth, as SBD de Silva always reminded us, is this: the English bequeathed to us the most impoverished peasantry in Asia. Amen! We therefore are compelled to remind readers to read the recent contributions in the Lankawebby Shenali Waduge on the actual history of endurance, invasion & resistance in the country (see ee Quotes).

     Waduge’s memorializing offers a healthy antidote to the utter slavishness of the English media in Sri Lanka. Their servility is most evident in its avid reproductions of commercial & bureaucratic ‘press releases’ parading as news. They really are better called ‘Nothing News’. Every single blurb issued from the nether orifices of the IMF, the World Bank, the imperialist embassies and their fronts & unthinking thinktanks: Chambers of Commerce, Advocata, Verité, etc, say nothing new. They recall the whip wielders & drummers of our traditional festivals, which at least speak to our enduring culture, which survives if not prevails despite the media. A typical news cycle proceeds thus: ‘The IMF Chief to visit… The IMF to arrive… The IMF is here… The IMF warns… The IMF was there. The IMF is leaving. The IMF has left. (& they’re back!)  This is repeated with others who have dollar or euro or yen bribes to provide: The UN is concerned. The UN is warning. The UN will provide… etc.  

*

‘It is true our government is in power

but we still don’t have state power.

We will bring about a revolution soon

& seize state power as well.’

– KD Lal Kantha, Cabinet Minister

*

‘If the years of [Guyana’s] suspended constitution, 1953-57,

were a period of colonial dictatorship, the years 1957-64

were the period of the People’s Progressive Party in office

but not in power. The first 4 of these years were tantamount

to a coalition of the PPP & the Colonial Office; towards the

end of this first term I was dubbed Chief Minister. Then in

1961 after we were re-elected, my title changed to Premier

under ‘internal self-government’. But real power to govern,

to carry out our program fully, was withheld from us throughout.

The government was deemed PPP, but in fact real power remained

in the hands of the [English] Governor; constitutionally, we were

merely his advisers. With him in the Executive Council were 3

other Englishmen who held the most important portfolios.’

– Cheddi Jagan, The West on Trial

– My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom, 1966

*

Those who have power have no brains

Those who have brains have no power

– Sinhala folklore

*

• This brings us to the 50-year-old city-state of Singapore – hailed as a model Sri Lanka has studiously refused to or has been too dumbass native to follow. Singapore has been playing a certain role in the region, as an outpost of multinational corporations (MNCs), helping the USA & Europe wage war on Southeast Asia, a rock with no drinking water of its own, feasting on the countries around it as a hinterland for natural resources – a veritable desert Zion of the east, miraculously turned green with borrowed humus, operating ‘the biggest port in the world’, etc. Sri Lanka obtains it fuel from Singapore, from ships that largely bypass us carrying oil there to be refined, and then sold back to us via ships that sail from there. So much for that much-promoted holy grail of a minimalist ‘carbon footprint!’

     Has Singapore been selling oil to Sri Lanka stolen from Venezuela? is the title of this week’s edition. It’s more than that: On 28 October 2025, the US embassy’s online lipstick, EconomyNext reported that Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers had awarded ‘Singapore’s Trafigura Pte Ltd’ a contract to supply 1.4million diesel barrels in 5 shipments during 7 months starting from November 15, the government said. The supply for the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation will be on a long-term contract basis.’ This news item rather convolutedly added, ‘The Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal tabled by Power Minister Eng Kumara Jayakody to award the relevant contract for Vitol Asia (Singapore) Ltd, as recommended by the High-level Standing Procurement Committee appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers’.

     On 06 January 2026, 3 days after the kidnapping of Venezuela’s President, EconomyNext headlined, ‘Sri Lanka awards Murban crude deal to Singapore-based Vitol Asia.’ EN then added: SL Cabinet of Ministers has decided to award a Murban crude deal for 4 shipment [sic!] to Singapore-based Vitol Asia, the government said’:

     ‘Out of the 5 bids received from the registered suppliers of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation for procurement of 2,800,000 + 5% barrels of Murban crude oil for a period of 4 months from 15.04.2026 to 14.08.2026, Vitol Asia Pte Ltd of Singapore has been chosen. The decision was taken based on the recommendation of the higher-level standing procurement committee with regard to the bids, the government said in its Cabinet decisions document’. 

     Murban is a high quality, light & sweet crude oil produced by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), often used for producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Merey is as a heavy crude product of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. And only China is said to be able to really handle Merey. So even if they are not slipping Venezuelan black gold into the mix, why do Vitol & Trafigura matter?

     Rockefeller-owned ExxonMobil’s Singapore complex is now the largest manufacturing site in the world for base stocks – a key component for producing lubricants, which are used in automotives & for industrial applications. A base stock is a single lubricant component produced by a single manufacturer (see ee Random Notes). Rockefeller, like Unilever, is leaving the messier parts (labour relations, ecological concerns) of their ‘industries’ to SME fronts (see ee Random Notes).   

     Wikipedia claims, ‘Vitol, a Swiss-based Dutch multinational energy & commodity trading company founded in Rotterdam in 1966, has over 40 offices worldwide, especially in Geneva, Houston, London, and Singapore. Trafigura Group Pte Ltd is a Singaporean-based multinational commodities company, with major regional hubs in Geneva, Houston, Montevideo, & Mumbai, founded in 1993. The company trades in base metals & energy. It is the world’s largest private metal trader & 2^nd-largest oil trader having built or purchased stakes in pipelines, mines, smelters, ports & storage terminals. Trafigura was formed… in 1993 but quickly split off from a group of companies managed by Marc Rich.’ Marc Rich, the commodities trader & hedge fund manager charged in 1983 for violating the US embargo on Iranian oil while dealing on Israel’s behalf, was pardoned by US President Bill Clinton.

      After the kidnapping of Venezuela’s leaders N Maduro & C Flores, US President Don Trump decreed that only 2 companies, Vitol & Trafigura, would be allowed to load Venezuelan oil. Those companies would pay for the oil to the USA, into a special account held in Qatar under Trump’s name! Al Jazeera in Qatar has apparently not heard a word about this. Any tankers carrying oil not owned by Vitol & Trafigura from Venezuela have been illegally seized at sea by the US Navy, sometimes assisted by the English government. The USA has been claiming that Venezuela agrees to this – which is not true. The Venezuelan government simply has has no military power to stop the US Navy from seizing oil tankers. The US government is claiming that the Venezuelan government gave the USA, information on non-Vitol & non-Trafigura tankers. It is more possible that Vitol & Trafigura give information on ‘rogue’ tankers to the USA, notes former English diplomat, Craig Murray: Trafigura is: ‘the archetypal extremely corrupt Western corporation. Their record for deliberate pollution & corruption in Africa is appalling, including in Angola & Ivory Coast. They have frequently been involved in CIA schemes for regime change. How Vitol & Trafigura came to be the beneficiaries of a duopoly, and what backhanders that may have involved, is another question.’ The USA, under pressure, has since announced that more companies will be included. However, the US theft ‘is almost identical to the system imposed on Iraq after its destruction by the USA & its allies’, with ‘payments for Iraqi oil made to the USA and a percentage of them returned to the Iraqi government’. However, ‘Iraqi revenues were paid to the US Treasury, whereas the Venezuelan funds are going to a Qatar account under Trump’s personal control, removed from the reach of Congress’. Murray writes: ‘It gives him a massive slush fund to pursue policy outside the US legal framework. It is like Iran-Contra on a massive scale.’ Murray emphasizes: ‘None of this sales arrangement has been agreed by Rodríguez and none of it is contained in the new Venezuelan hydrocarbon legislation on concessions & royalties.’

     On 27 January, Anglo-US News Agency Reuters reported: ‘Trading houses Trafigura & Vitol began marketing Venezuelan oil this month after an agreement between Caracas & Washington for the USA to control 50 million barrels after its January 3 capture of President Nicolas Maduro, with proceeds going to a USA-supervised fund. Trump said the USA has also seized oil on board Venezuelan tankers for processing in US refineries. Vitol & Trafigura have sold Venezuelan crude to refiners including US-based Valero & Phillips 66 and Spain’s Repsol & have also approached Indian & Chinese refiners, including PetroChina, for possible sales… However, one of the trading executives said PetroChina traders were told not to touch the oil until further notice from headquarters.’ (see ee Random Notes)

     In a brilliant takedown of the Reuters’ news story, which should be a model for media analysts to hone their scalpels, Prince Kaponedissects how ‘Reuters sells custodial plunder as a pricing issue, turning blockade into ‘market caution’.’ He instead states clearly: ‘China’s Foreign Ministry has publicly stated that the US seizure of Venezuela’s president & use of force against Caracas ‘clearly violate international law, basic norms in international relations, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter’ and called for Maduro’s release & dialogue; the ministry has also condemned ‘hegemonic acts’ by the US that ‘seriously violate international law & Venezuela’s sovereignty and threaten peace & security in Latin America & the Caribbean.’ Chinese officials have stressed that cooperation between China & Venezuela is cooperation between sovereign states protected by international law & the domestic laws of both countries, and that the use of force & unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela’s oil industry have undermined economic & social order. None of that appears in the Reuters frame, where the only ‘problem’ is whether a barrel clears at the right discount.

     ‘What we are witnessing around Venezuelan oil is that enforcement made material. Control here does not mean ownership in a formal sense. It means custody over circulation – authority over where oil flows, how it is sold, and through which financial channels its value is realized. That is why revenue supervision matters as much as tanker routes. When the flow of income from a country’s primary resource passes through externally administered channels, sovereignty is hollowed out without a single flag being lowered. The state continues to exist, but its lifeblood moves under someone else’s supervision. This is not collapse. It is administration. Earlier imperial playbooks sought regime change – the dramatic replacement of governments. That approach proved unstable. What replaces it is regime subordination: local authorities remain in place, but within a narrowing corridor defined by external power. Leaders are not treated as sovereign decision-makers; they are treated as managers of a pressured system, tasked with maintaining domestic order while strategic decisions about resources, trade & alignment are made elsewhere. Sovereignty becomes conditional – revocable when it obstructs hemispheric control… And the working class – here & abroad – gets trained to watch theft like it’s a weather report.’  

     Kapone’s forensics seek to ‘restore the missing record: seizures, supervision, & the re-routing of Venezuelan oil revenue through imperial hands. We reframe the contradiction as doctrine – Fortress America tightening hemispheric command as multipolar escape routes multiply. We close with a call to organize: break the information blockade, target the chokepoints, & build material solidarity with the besieged.’ (see ee Random Notes)

     Nury Vittachi’s reports provide good examples of shattering the US-led media circus of fake news & lies on China & Hong Kong, whose violent US$-funded demonstrations would echo a few years later in Sri Lanka’s 2022 beginning of IMF-backed collapse… (see ee Random Notes)

*

• Comparing the Centrals Banks of Asian of non-settler colonial countries such as India, as well as settler-colonial countries like Canada, Sunil Abhayawardhana attempts to explore the ‘Central Bank’s Role in Development’ (see ee Focus). Abhayawardhana suggests the role of such banks are ‘determined by if the economy is developed, developing, or underdeveloped’. He also describes the active role played by the central banks of (differently colonized?) Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, etc, in directing investment in industrialization, which has been prevented in Sri Lanka. Under the guidance of the IMF & World Bank & other instrument of imperialism, Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has been freed of its centrality, and made ‘independent’ of accountability to an elected parliament. The ‘independence’ of such banks has been more recently highlighted by the US government’s decision to prosecute its Federal Reserve chairman for fraud, making it out that such ‘pressures’ to conform are new. Yet it turns out that one former US President (LB Johnson) even physically assaulted one FR chair! But such publicized ‘conflicts’ could very well be theatre

     The word ‘Development’ was minted by the multinational Unilever in the 1950s to replace the word, ‘Colonial’! The pervasive use of the word (almost every government ministry & NGO uses it) shows the power of those who coin such tropes, and give it currency! For the last half a century at least, Sri Lanka has been described as ‘developing’, much like patronizingly referring to a mentally damaged child as ‘s/he is coming along, coming along…’ Finance casino players like to refer to ‘emerging’ markets. But the truth is such countries remain in that state of stasis, and a more apt and historically correct designation is ‘underdeveloping.’

*

• Kusum Wijetilleke, (an) economic advisor to the SJB leader Sajith Premadasa (where on earth are the footnote clique, Harsha & Eran?), tracks the ‘stunning’ and misleading pronouncements of the present CBSL governor, N Weerasinghe (see ee Focus). The Governor has to ‘always project stability and continuity to the markets’, writes Wijetilleke. Hence, the CBSL governor declared that the recent cyclonic devastation would have no impact of economic projections.  He also incorrectly ‘rebuked’ as mere ‘academics’ the 121 signatories of a December 2025 letter by ‘Debt Justice’ calling on the government to suspend debt payment and reconsider the debt restructuring. Wijetilleke kindly shows how these dissenting academics have been very much part of the system. 

     It turns out that this restructuring is merely postponing payment (some say the cliff – abyss? – will yawn in 2028, KW says 2043!)… Using the metaphor of the recent floods, we may say, that the inundation which could otherwise be directed into the open seas, has been merely ‘dammed’ to devastate the country in a few years (perhaps beyond the re-election cycle)… leaving the economy exposed to a second restructuring’… Wijetilleke calls for ‘realistic adjustments’ to be made possible, for countries exposed to ‘climate shocks’, but in an imperialist-dominated world, are there not other vulnerabilities, such as subjection to the dramatic caprices of US & EU policy shifts, sanctions, regular invasions, kidnapping of leaders, forever wars, etc. Should not the IMF and the World Bank take a regular walk down the wild side of Pennsylvania Avenue, and make algorithmic allowances for such blatant imperialist policy parading as mercurial whimsy?’ 

     Even as one may sense a naivete among the Debt Justice crew, with their appeal to the morality of the debt slaver, Wijesinghe ends with a staunch defense:

     ‘The economists are not advocating abandonment of markets or fiscal anarchy. They are arguing that Sri Lanka exited restructuring with a debt profile likely to fail again, their position is technically coherent, aligned with balance-sheet realism, and focused on durability rather than optics.’ Optics indeed!

*

• Midst all this pussyfooting, ee Focus therefore defers once more to the super realism of SBD de Silva about Sri Lanka’s economy – continuing to reproduce his classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, and the 2^nd part of his book, ‘The Plantation System & Underdevelopment’, beginning Chapter 7: ‘Plantations & their Metropolitan Orientation’. Here he locates its origins in the mid-17^th century (when we were fighting off the Portuguese invaders, & the next set of the gangsters, Dutch invaders, were winking their eyes at us). The inability to prevent whites from obtaining and cultivating their own land, saw them resort to ‘unfree labor’ with a ‘a highly authoritarian structure of labour relations’, to shape ghe plantation system. de Silva meticulously dissected the variables comparing the evolution of peasant-based cultivation alongside large plantations, and the numerous fake justifications for their spread. Smallholders could just as easily achieve high yields per acre, and extra-economic pretexts had to be used to drive out peasants. The cost of transporting enslaved Africans was 5 times as high as white servants! However, the plantation system enabled a whole layer of middlemen & merchants to profit, even if at great cost. SBD de Silva exposed the claims to science, specialization, size, economics of scale, division of labor to justify the slave system. There was no greater productivity nor any generation of ‘external economies’, which modern industrialization is famous for: ‘where one thing leads to another…’ Ultimately what differentiates the type of colonies was whether industrialization (processing, etc) was allowed to take place or not! And even more fundamental than the limited degree of local processing & the metropolitan markets for which the crops are produced, is the dominance of merchant capital in their production & marketing. This gave rise to the fundamental divergence in the world – countries:

*

‘Whereas capitalism was the mode of production in the centre,

merchant capital being its agent, in the plantation situation

merchant capital remained dominant.’

*

• This issue of ee is dedicated to Sugath Kulatunga, who passed away last week. He was a regular thoughtful contributor to this little weekly effort, and we recall his support (even if he did not agree with everything we said, nor us with him). To the very end of his life he kept serving up issues, via social media, email, etc, issues that mattered to the country and the world, sharing & adding his wealth of practical experience and knowledge. RIP = Return if Possible…

*

Garvin Karunaratne, former GA Matara

It was a Saturday morning. Seated in the verandah of the Warakapola Rest House I was waiting for the arrival of the Hon Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Dudley Senanayake. It was my task every Saturday and Sunday to meet him and be with him the entire day, for two long years. I was the Additional Disapathy in Kegalla. It happened in 1968

Earlier that week I had assumed duties as the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla and met the Government Agent Stanley Maralanda. Mr Maralanda the Government Agent was very specific.

I am happy to hand over the duty of meeting the Prime Minister every Saturday and Sunday and being with him the entire day. I am not very fluent in Sinhala and faltered in speaking at meetings and there are at least five to eight meetings every day, where speeches have to be made. You need not worry because the Prime Minister is a true gentleman.

The GA’s words reverberated in me again and again. I had never met the Prime Minister of our country. Earlier I had met many Ministers- where I had represented the department, where I had for days studied the subject in and out to be able to answer any query. I would memorize the contents of files to be able to answer. Now I was not meeting a Minister. Instead it was the Prime Minister of the country. There was no subject, no file to study and be ready.

My head was reeling fast that Saturday, when the wheels of the Humber Hawk rolled in.

I rushed out and greeted him as he stepped out of his car.

Good Morning sir, I am the new Additional Government Agent.”

Maralanda told me that you will be here.”

He strode into the verandah and sat down. The waiter brought in tea

Let me have a look at the meetings I have to attend to.

I watched his eyes rolling over the paper I submitted

After a quick cup of tea, We were on our way to the meetings. Some were organized by his own political party members- the United National Party ; others were organized by us- the officials- the Divisional Secretary or the various departments. I had been through the list and had met my officials the Rural Development Officer and the Divisional Secretary

who had organized them. I

had also met his party officials.

The Prime Minister strode down the steps and sat in the rear seat. I turned to walk to my jeep to follow him, He wanted me to sit beside him.

Come in and sit beside me.” he ordered and I obeyed

His Humber Hawk was being driven through small roads in his electorate.

He was gazing at the paddy fields on either side.

Stop there”, He was gazing at a small section of the paddy – the growing crop that looked stunted. Something had gone wrong.

Make a note of that field. Find the farmer. Get hold of the Agricultural Overseer of the area and find what went wrong.”

Yes sir.” I made a note in my field book to look into it and to report to

the Hon Prime Minister later.

He went to attend a meeting arranged by his supporters. We were led to a small room, with a table of kiribath, kevun etc. I found a plate and served a piece of kiribath and served him. I myself got a plate and did eat a piece.

Later we all fed into a meeting. I was seated beside him. My men- a few trusted officers were around at all vantage points. The speeches started.

The Prime Minister kept listening to what was said.

One speaker used the word mu”, in referring to someone about whom he spoke. The Prime Minister asked me:

What is the meaning of that word mu”, he just said.”

It is a derogatory word,”

He kept listening. The speaker used the word”aru”

What is the meaning of the word aru”

It is a derogatory word”

Stop him speaking at once.”

I sensed that the Prime Minister was very angry.

I got up from my chair, moved to the front of the stage and snatched the microphone from the speaker, pushed him aside and was about to sit down beside him, when:.

Apologize to the people for the derogatory words used at this meeting.”

I apologized to the people for the use of foul language at this meeting and sat down.

Later when his turn came he spoke, It a powerful speech, followed by mine.

There were at least five meting everyday.

During my work in Kegalla in 1968 and 1969, his Assistant Secretary sent e many messages informing me of the decisions conveyed to him by the Prime Minister for me to do . I went through each decision very carefully and did everything that was reasonable.

All the messages which I thought unreasonable, were carefully thought of and not acted on. I would pile up all such messages which I did not carry out, o to Temple Trees once a fortnight and meet him face to face when I would explain why I did not carry out that order. He kept listening to my reasoning and never disagreed.

Why was he rejected by the people at the 1970 General Election? I yet do not know.

I was away in Manchester studying for a Diploma for which I had been sent.

Garvin Karunaratne, former GA Matara

7-2-26