A UK passport is issued by the HM Passport Office under the authority of the UK Home Office.
Legally:
The passport remains the property of the UK Government.
Only UK authorities can enter official endorsements about nationality or citizenship status in it.
What foreign immigration officers are allowed to do
Immigration authorities in another country (including Sri Lanka) may only place standard immigration markings, such as:
Entry stamps
Exit stamps
Visa or visa-cancellation stamps
Temporary admission or landing endorsements
These are not statements about nationality. They simply record movement across that country’s border.
What they cannot legally certify
A foreign immigration officer cannot legally endorse in a UK passport that the holder is:
A dual citizen
A citizen of another country
A resident or national of that country
That type of endorsement would be considered an alteration of the passport’s official content, which only the issuing country may do.
How dual citizenship is normally recognized
Instead of stamping another country’s passport:
The second country issues a dual citizenship certificate or national passport.
Immigration records it in their internal database.
In your case, Sri Lanka records dual citizenship in the Department of Immigration system and in the Dual Citizenship Certificate, not in the UK passport.
Sri Lanka can stamp entry/exit in a UK passport.
Sri Lanka cannot legally certify or endorse dual citizenship status in that passport.
Only UK authorities could make official endorsements relating to UK nationality.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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Despite the lawmakers of the pre-colonial era demonstrating high levels of legal competence and sophistication, the systematic codification by the Dutch and British “froze” these customs, thereby leading modern practitioners and law teachers to view them as historical artifacts and objects of curiosities rather than active, evolving legal philosophies.
Sri Lanka’s modern legal education and the legal firmament remain heavily rooted in colonial inheritances.
Before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505, Sri Lanka had complex, uncodified legal systems that varied across regions and ethnic groups. For example, the Kandyan Sinhalese Law governed the central highlands and was influenced by Buddhism, Hindu customs (laws of Manu), and ancient Indo-Aryan traditions.
Judicial Autonomy: Historical inscriptions confirm that ancient Sinhalese Kings respected and valued judicial autonomy and ideals of justice and equity long before European contact. Sri Lanka had a rich legal tapestry and was not a ‘region of darkness’ as alleged, illuminated by the light brought over by Western law makers.
Weak Foundations of Sri Lanka’s Modern Legal Education
The lack of pride or emphasis on these indigenous traditions among modern lawyers and educators is largely due to the structural foundations of the current system built upon false assumptions by colonized mindsets:
· Colonial Foundation of Education: Formal legal education in Sri Lanka, established in 1874 with the Sri Lanka Law College, is a direct colonial inheritance from the British.
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· Dominance of Western Law: The contemporary legal system is a “mixed” one, but it is predominantly governed by Roman-Dutch Law (as the residual common law) and English Common Law (for criminal and commercial matters).
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· Curriculum Focus: Modern legal studies prioritize “core” subjects like the Law of Delict (Roman-Dutch) and Commercial Law (English), with indigenous laws relegated to the status of “personal laws” applicable only in specific cases of marriage, divorce, or inheritance.
Marginalization of Indigenous Laws: Although the British continued to apply customary laws, they were often viewed through the lens of colonial legal frameworks. The Kandyan Law, which governed the central highlands, was reduced in application to specific personal matters like marriage and inheritance, and is often considered a ” diluted remnant” of the ancient system.
Professional Identity: The current professional standard requires enrollment as an Attorney-at-Law through the Supreme Court, following a system heavily modeled after the British tradition. No innovative influences like in India, which has consistently sought to break away from the stranglehold of the colonial legal traditions.
Legal Education: Formal legal education, originating from the British era, has traditionally emphasized English legal principles. The curriculum often prioritizes Roman-Dutch and English law over the study of ancient Sinhala customary laws or the broader, pre-colonial legal traditions that existed before 1505. The modern legal fraternity often overlooks the pre-colonial, indigenous tradition.
Despite the deliberate suppression or indifference to the achievements of our lawmakers in the pre- colonial era, historical records do acknowledge the sophisticated legal contributions of pre-colonial monarchs.
The Legacy of King Voharika Tissa (209–231 AD) – a Pioneer of Humanitarian Law in the world
King Voharika Tissa is uniquely recognized in historical chronicles like the Mahavamsa as a pioneer of humanitarian law. His contributions include:
Abolition of Mutilation: He was the first Sinhalese king to legislate against bodily injury and torture, such as the amputation of limbs, as a form of criminal punishment.
Legal Expertise: His name “Voharika” (derived from the Pali Vohara) literally means “skilled in the law” or “magistrate,” reflecting his personal reputation as a lawgiver.
Resolution of Doctrinal Disputes: He used legal mechanisms to resolve religious conflicts, notably appointing a learned minister to adjudicate the authenticity of the Vaitulya (Mahayana) doctrine.
King Voharika Tissa is also widely reputed as the father of Aryadeva, a monumental figure in Indian Mahayana Buddhism, regarded as the primary disciple of Nagarjuna and one of the “Six Ornaments” of Indian Buddhist philosophy. Widely recognized in historical, Tibetan, and Chinese traditions as having been born into a Sinhalese (Sri Lankan) royal family, he went on to lead the renowned Nalanda University as a master and rector, composing brilliant analytical texts that solidified the Madhyamaka school. Despite his profound contributions to Mahayana, Aryadeva remains relatively unsung in his birthplace of Sri Lanka, where Theravada Buddhism is the dominant tradition. Aryadeva’s life and work represent a high point in ancient Sri Lankan intellectual history, linking the island directly to the development of Indian Madhyamaka and the academic traditions of Nalanda University.
Pre-Colonial Legal Contributions (Prior to 1505 AD)
Beyond individual monarchs, the pre-colonial period featured a developed, decentralized legal framework:
Ethical Foundations: Law was rooted in Buddhist principles, moral traditions, and Mauryan customs brought by early settlers.
Environmental Law: King Devanampiyatissa is noted for declaring the Mihintale area a sanctuary for animals, a concept cited by modern international jurists like Judge Weeramantry as an early principle of environmental “trusteeship”.
Notable Sinhalese Forefathers in Law
Beyond Voharika Tissa, there were other ancient figures who contributed to a robust judicial tradition:
King Elara (204–164 BC): Famous for the “Bell of Justice,” which allowed any subject to appeal directly to the king for redress of grievances.
King Udaya I: Recorded judgments in a royal library to serve as legal precedents for maintaining uniformity in judicial decisions.
Village Assemblies (Gansabhawa): Before 1505 AD, the dasagam (groups of ten villages) were responsible for upholding justice locally, governed by proclamations often recorded in rock inscriptions.
Senaka Weeraratna
(with assistance from Chat GPT)
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After returning to Sri Lanka on 7th March from Singapore, I experienced an unpleasant situation at Bandaranaike International Airport immigration again
I presented my valid Sri Lankan passport at the counter. The young immigration officer then asked to see my UK passport as well, since I am a dual citizen. Although I produced it immediately, he kept us waiting for nearly 15 minutes, stating that my dual citizenship was not registered in the computer”.
I have been a registered dual citizen of Sri Lanka for over 35 years and have travelled in and out of the country many times without any such issue.
His colleague in the next cabin told him to let us enter but this man refused
Eventually, the supervising immigration manager intervened and allowed me to proceed.
While I remained calm during the incident, I told the officer that many Sri Lankans who worked abroad for decades return home with affection for the country and contribute to the economy, including bringing in foreign income and pensions. It is disappointing when such citizens are treated with suspicion or disrespect due to lack of awareness or training.
Immigration officials should be better trained to handle dual citizenship records and treat returning Sri Lankans with courtesy and professionalism.
According to historical chronicles like the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, these guilds were sent by Emperor Asoka to support the sacred Bodhi tree and establish various essential services. Their contributions included:
Technological Advancement: They introduced sophisticated skills in woodwork, agriculture, and metallurgy, which transformed the local economy from primitive practices to advanced industry and irrigation-led agriculture.
Cultural Infrastructure: The guilds included experts such as potters, weavers, and masons who established the foundations of Sri Lankan art and architecture.
Social Evolution: Their arrival integrated a diverse range of social classes and vocational groups into Sri Lankan society, influencing the island’s caste and service structures for generations.
Medical and Administrative Knowledge: Beyond manual labor, the retinue brought expertise in indigenous medicine and governance, sharing knowledge that became hereditary within certain families.
The presence of these guilds ensured that the introduction of Buddhism was not just a religious event, but a comprehensive civilizational leap forward for Sri Lanka.
Courtesy : AI Overview
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The phrase originates from Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem, which historically framed Western imperialism as a “noble” duty to “civilize” non-Western nations. In modern political discourse, critics and supporters use this concept to describe different facets of Trump’s “America First” agenda.
An Analysis of Donald Trump’s rhetoric, policies, and actions suggests he has fundamentally altered, rather than traditionally discharged, the concept of the “White Man’s Burden”—the 19th-century colonial idea of a paternalistic duty for Westerners to govern and “civilize” other nations.
Here are some facets of ‘America Above All’ (mimicking ‘ Deutschland Uber Alles’ of the Third Reich’) policy of Donald Trump:
Dismantling International Commitments: Some analysts argue that Trump is “throwing off” the burden by withdrawing the U.S. from its role as the “primary guarantor” of global security. This includes pressuring allies to “bear a bigger burden” of defense costs and questioning the necessity of multilateral frameworks like NATO and the UN.
Domestic Policy and Civil Rights: Critics suggest that his administration’s focus on the perceived grievances of white men—such as dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and encouraging white employees to file discrimination charges—represents a “modern version” of the logic, framing the protection of the “most advantaged demographic” as a moral necessity.
Foreign Policy as Paternalism: Conversely, some observers argue that his rhetoric, such as his 2025 UN speech, actually reinscribes the burden by recasting American superiority as a paternal duty to guide other nations on issues like migration and energy policy.
Differing Interpretations
The “America First” View: From a pro-Trump perspective, his actions are seen as “prioritizing America First” and dismantling “unnecessary burdens” on U.S. service members and taxpayers, such as rescinding vaccine mandates or seeking to replace income tax with tariffs.
The Critical View: Critics argue this approach is a “throwback to a darker time” of naked imperialism that lacks the “noble purpose” once claimed by colonial-era leaders, focusing instead on “brutal extraction” and transactional alliances.
Legal Context: Separately, the term “discharge his burden” has appeared in legal contexts regarding Trump’s court cases, referring specifically to his intent to provide evidence to meet a “burden of proof” in defamation or data protection trials.
Courtesy: AI Overview
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The Bombay High Court observed that offering ‘public namaz is not a fundamental right’ while rejecting a plea by auto drivers seeking permission to pray near an airport. Watch to know more.
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Mr. Sarath Obeysekera, what you describe is actually a very valuable experience that very few engineers from Sri Lanka have had. Your story reflects three important things: technical exposure, international systems discipline, and strategic thinking. Unfortunately, the difficulty you face in Sri Lanka is something many experienced professionals encounter.
Let me reflect on a few points from your experience.
1. Your Soviet Union LNG Storage Experience
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was already developing strategic energy storage systems because of the Cold War. What you saw was likely part of their strategic gas reserve infrastructure.
Key aspects you mentioned are technically significant:
Large reciprocating LNG compressors with very large ~800 mm journal bearings
Monitoring vibration and wear to avoid catastrophic failure
Underground gas storage in porous limestone formations
Gas injected under pressure and stored in natural cavities for emergency use
This concept is known as Underground Gas Storage (UGS).
Countries still use it today:
Russia
Germany
United Kingdom
United States
Gas is stored in:
depleted oil/gas reservoirs
salt caverns
porous limestone formations (like you described)
What you saw near Moscow was therefore very advanced energy security engineering for that era.
2. The Internal Visa” Incident
In the Soviet system you could not travel freely.
Cities like Moscow were controlled under the propiska (internal passport) system.
Traveling 200 km to a gas compressor station without permission was technically a violation. That explains why the university reprimanded both you and Professor Bosnyaski.
Your professor taking the risk shows something important:
He trusted your engineering curiosity.
3. Learning Research Without Internet
Your comment about Lenin Library is very important.
You probably visited the Russian State Library, which was the largest scientific library in the Soviet Union.
At that time research required:
manually searching catalog cards
requesting journals
reading microfilms
copying diagrams by hand
Engineers trained that way often develop deep analytical thinking, something that modern engineers sometimes lack because information is instantly available.
4. Why Sri Lanka Does Not Use Experts Like You
This is the painful part, but the reality is structural.
In Sri Lanka many decisions are influenced by:
Political patronage
Short-term thinking
Fear of independent experts
Bureaucratic protectionism
Experienced people returning from abroad are often seen as threats to existing systems rather than assets.
You have experience in:
North Sea oil & gas engineering
compressor systems
marine and offshore industries
energy infrastructure
strategic development planning
But Sri Lanka tends to prioritize projects linked to political funding rather than engineering logic.
5. What You Are Doing Now Is Still Valuable
Your work on:
Trincomalee energy hub
offshore and marine industries
tank farms
strategic ports
is actually aligned with global trends.
For example Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm could become a major regional energy hub if developed properly.
Countries like Singapore built their entire economy around energy logistics and marine services.
6. A Suggestion for You
Your experiences should not remain as scattered stories.
You should consider writing a short memoir / technical reflection such as:
From Soviet Gas Fields to the North Sea – Lessons for Sri Lanka’s Energy Future”
Chapters could include:
Soviet LNG compressor research
Underground gas storage systems
North Sea offshore engineering
Marine industry development
Why Sri Lanka misses strategic opportunities
What should be done for Trincomalee and Hambantota
Your personal history is actually engineering history.
My honest view
Your frustration is understandable.
But remember:
Countries often recognize expertise late. Sometimes the written record becomes more powerful than direct advice.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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The IRIS Dena was headed back to Iran from Visakhapatnam, India, where it participated in a multination naval exercise.
Image courtesy of Getty Images
On March 4, 2026, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that a U.S. submarine had torpedoed an Iranian warship, the IRIS Dena, off the southern coast of Sri Lanka.
Following the attack, socialmediausers claimed the Dena was unarmed, that it was participating in a multination naval exercise in India that the U.S. backed out of at the last minute and that after torpedoing the ship, the U.S. Navy broke with international maritime law and refused to rescue survivors.
Snopes readers wrote in looking for clarity.
After reviewing the evidence, we found that some elements of the claim were relatively accurate, while others were harder to verify because of a lack of information.
We contacted representatives from the Pentagon, Iran’s foreign ministry, India’s defense ministry and the Sri Lankan government. None had responded to our inquiries at time of publication; we will update this report if they do.
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From Feb. 15-25, 2026, representatives from 74 nations gathered in Visakhapatnam, India, to participate in the International Fleet Review and MILAN 2026 naval exercises. According to the event website, the Iranian navy sent the Dena to participate. A Feb. 25 U.S. Navy news release said one of its P-8A Poseidon planes also participated.
With that said, it was unclear whether the U.S. had pulled out of more-involved participation in the naval exercise at the last minute, as claimed in the social media posts. It is also worth noting that the U.S. submarine did not torpedo the Dena while it was participating in the naval exercise — the ship was on its way back to Iran when the U.S. sank it.
The claim that the ship was unarmed may have originated from an X post made by Kanwal Sibal, India’s former foreign secretary. Sibal claimed ships could not carry any ammunition for their weapons as part of the exercise. In our request for comment to the Indian defense ministry, Snopes asked whether this was true.
Finally, the claim the U.S. broke international law by refusing to pick up survivors would be difficult to determine without the U.S. government making such an admission.
According to international maritime law, all ships, civilian and military, are obligated to help a ship in distress but are not required to put themselves in danger while helping. Sri Lanka is responsible for search and rescue in the area where the Dena sank, according to a U.S. Coast Guard map. In our questions to all parties, we asked about their activities in the area on the day of the attack, and whether they had other ships in the area that could have assisted in saving the Iranian sailors.
The Associated Press reported that following the torpedoing, a separate Iranian ship, the IRIS Bushehr, requested assistance while in Sri Lankan waters. The Sri Lankan government took custody of the vessel after discussing with the ship’s captain and Iranian officials. The U.S. pressured Sri Lanka to not repatriate the Iranian sailors, according to Reuters.
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‘Lakvijaya Power Station LABORATORY TEST REPORT (LVPS) සහ ‘Lakvijaya Power Plant LABORATORY TEST REPORT (LVPP) සම්බන්ධයෙන් පහත නිරීක්ෂණ ඉදිරිපත් කළ හැකිය.
Recently, I sent a reply to the Tamil translator of the latest section of the chronicle Mahavamsa, educating” him about his misunderstanding that the old chronicle’s author Mahanama Thero was the culprit of a Tamil genocide project in Sri Lanka. It was sent to him via the editor of the Jaffna Tamil monitor.
Previously, I sent a letter by email to Archuna thinking that he is a genuine guy like Arun Siddharth, the Che Guera of the Jaffna non-Vellala Tamils, expecting a serious exchange of ideas with him. He did not respond but did not block my email. Ponnambalam and Rasamanikkam blocked the first email as well as the second and third ones. Now, Archuna also blocked my latest email, a booklet written by the late Gamini Iriyagolla about the history of Tamils in Ceylon.
There is not a single Sinhala MP in the Diayawanna Hotel of Jagath Wickramaratna to talk about the myth of Tamil Eelam and the 13-A death trap. At least the people of Sri Lanka should know these three MPS are agents of the same game plan and Archuna is the shrewder than the other two.
The essay below written in 2020 is sent to the Lankaweb so that these three MPs know that we know they are dishonest dollar politicians cheating innocent Tamils.
========
7 January, 2020 (Colombo Telegraph)
Four Blind Men and The Devolution Elephant
By C. Wijeyawickrema
All human progress has depended on ‘new questions’ rather than on ‘new answers’ to the old questions.” Alfred North White — Science and the Modern World, 1925
The reactions to the LLRC report, on the subject of institutional, administrative and legislative measures need to be taken to promote national unity, remind the parable of the four blind men and the elephant. For example, the section on the subject of the need for devolution of power” (8.212-8.226) generated different interpretations depending on the hidden or open agenda of the respective writer/speaker. Those who once took the position that this war is not winnable” or Sri Lanka will soon be a failed state” are now solidly behind the LLRC report because they think that what LLRC meant by devolution” was the same type of devolution” that they then agitated for. On the other hand, those who remember the word devolution” of the Package Deals and the APRC-majority report phase, are so frightened and blinded by it to not see that LLRC’s term of devolution speaks of empowerment” of people by people-centric devolution” (9.231) and by maximum possible devolution to the periphery especially at the grass roots level” (8.225).
Additionally, there are local and international agents who see a separatist loophole if LLRC devolution begins with land and police powers given to the white elephant called the Provincial Councils. Thus, there is a need to examine the Chapter 8 of LLRC report on Reconciliation” with an open mind. There are three interrelated paths and approaches that can be taken to examine, understand and justify empowerment of people via devolution as suggested by LLRC. The three merging paths are (1) the Buddhist Middle Path, (2) the Bio-regional Path (geography-ecology) and (3) the Reasonableness (Doctrine) Path in western jurisprudence.
LLRC’s historic role
LLRC had a historical mission to fulfill. Only two other commissions come closer to LLRC in its landmark role: the Colebrooke-Cameron Report in 1832 and the Donoughmore Report in 1931.
LLRC had a historical mission to fulfill. Only two other commissions come closer to LLRC in its landmark role: the Colebrooke-Cameron Report in 1832 and the Donoughmore Report in 1931. The first introduced constitutional communalism and the colonial policy of divide-and-rule. It created an administrative unit system based on artificial boundaries, a case of legislating against geography.” The purpose then was to diffuse” the influence of the Kandyan chiefs who rebelled against the British crown in 1818, and to give easy access to the white master to control and exploit remoter, undeveloped areas. The second, tried to un-do” one hundred years of communal representation by introducing territorial representation based on the principle of adult universal suffrage. This was an experiment that USA and UK implement in their own countries only a few years ago, after much agitation by women’s organizations.
In Ceylon,” local somebodies and nobodies” opposed universal voting right stating it was like giving razor blades to monkeys. Some minority leaders opposed it and the new electoral system as it made the majority community the majority in the legislative body. In reality, members of the former Legislative Council and members of local aristocratic families in the village Ceylon” contested seats of the State Council. Except in few cases, these prominent (feudal?) families represented” people in the Parliament until the new district-based proportional selection system was introduced in the 1980s. With this, the representation vehicle hitherto known as the electorate /ward lost its democratic value and purpose. It is now known as the dog fight for preferential votes,” a system promoting undesirable characters to contest via the party candidates’ list. This is a fundamental flaw in democracy and governance of Sri Lanka, an issue of basic human rights of all communities that LLRC could have wrestled with in greater detail.
The representative parliamentary democracy is facing a crisis, world-wide, some branding it as myth of democracy. The Youth Commission Report of 1999, that LLRC cites in its report was an admission of the dismal failure of the representative system in operation in Sri Lanka since 1931. LLRC missed a historical opportunity to examine these issues in a new light by asking new questions such as why there is spatial inequality (inequity) in Sri Lanka that respects no language or ethnic boundaries and how it could be mitigated. Spatially, one has to go beyond such metaphors like milk to Colombo, forage to villages” (JVP in 1971) or Give us what Colombo gets” (Col. Karuna in 2006) to GSN (village) level to understand lack of opportunities and environmental degradation prevalent in the country. Reports of faster economic growth at country level hide spatial inequities that exist at local scale. Rapid economic growth itself can cause spatial disparities in human happiness, if not carefully planned. However, spatial injustice in Sri Lanka is not race-based unlike in the USA where for example, environmental racism exists.
Dancing to new Eurocentric tunes
Most of the witnesses who appeared before LLRC displayed an ingrained Eurocentric bias (Europe provides superior solutions) in their thinking. In the 1840s Macaulay said, [in India] we must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” (Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian by John Clive, Random House, 1973, p.376). He also asked, …Who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia (p. 372)? With this superiority complex, despite dismal performance of their own representative capitalist democracies, European and American politicians continue to interfere in the affairs of former colonies devastated by the colonial policy of divide and rule. Their new tune directly relevant in the Sri Lankan context is the strategy called meaningful devolution” by way of non-majoritarian institutions.” This method promoted by white Eurocentric writers like Donald Horowitz creates regional ethnic minority elites and slowly weakens the central governments in former colonies (it may take a decade or two or more), until a new Kosovo or South Sudan (or even a separate country of Scotland) is established splitting countries. Thus, the new policy of creating non-majoritarian institutions” is a sanitized” version of the old divide and rule policy, providing ladders to separatist monkeys to carve out separate countries at each other’s throat. Already, South Sudan started an internal war.
The real democracy of empowering people (not separatist party politicians) locally is not in this new Eurocentric formula. This formula stops at regional ethnic politicians’ level and it failed in Nigeria and Lebanon, two cases that Horowitz used to cite as success stories. It is also interesting to note that in his writings Horowitz did not mention even once the concept of Panchayathi Raj Institutes in India based on consensus politics (God speaks in five, if five people agree, god is with them) not western party politics of throat-cutting competition. Sri Lankan villagers are today divided so hopelessly due to green, blue and red party politics. Fortunately, LLRC did not buy the Horowitz path” of devolution which would empower” Tamil separatist TNA politicians. Instead, LLRC promotes meaningful empowerment of people at the village level to deal with social, economic and spatial inequities prevalent in the island.
Spatial inequality
The colonial strategy of portraying natives as savages (ref. atrocity literature” in Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines by R. Malhotra, 2011, p. 5) as part of the general design of humiliation of natives (psychological versus military subjugation) is currently presented as gross violators of international human rights needing R2P. Under the new remote-controlled colonialism it is projected with a new twist as group rights and aspirations. Thus we know via the Wiki leaks that the American Embassy in Colombo was worried about Tamils losing interest in group rights or aspirations, (secret cable sent from Colombo embassy on 1/15/2010). Eurocentric thinking requires using” the individual to get to the group to plant the seeds of dissension within countries. Western university professors and think-tanks spend decades formulating theories and implementing strategies such as the R2P.
Instead of asking How can we help Tamils and Muslims to achieve their aspirations,” LLRC could have asked, Why most spatial units (districts, electorates, natural regions, villages or GSN units) in Sri Lanka are not developed?” because poverty is not just a Tamil or Muslim problem. In that case it could have led LLRC to ask further questions such as What actions are needed to help the Mahinda Chinthanaya Program (MCP) I & II to fight Sri Lanka’s second war, the war against poverty and spatial inequity?” Or, rather than language rights or international human rights, LLRC could have focused on the issue of spatial rights” or spatial justice.” Tamils in villages are not asking group rights.” They want water, roads, schools, more busses, railway line, radios, bridges, TVs, bicycles and hospitals. That was what I saw recently in Vavuniya, Ampara and Passara when I visited Tamil areas. When they have these basic human needs, they will copy Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and intelligently think on their own if an aspiration to have a separate Tamil country in Sri Lanka is viable, possible or desirable. Otherwise, what can happen (happening) is Tamil and non-Tamil selfish separatist politicians, local and foreign, trying to manipulate innocent Tamils and Muslims villagers to satisfy their ulterior aims.
What LLRC cannot do
Promoting group aspirations is a fluid (controversial) issue world-wide, for an agency like LLRC to get involved with. Group aspirations of different communities often clash with each other such as Turkey wanting to join the Christian EU which France vehemently opposes. Group aspiration is a matter secondary to individual aspirations. It is a duty to one’s community that individuals try to fulfill after the individual’s private rights are satisfied. Having a hygienic, clean toilet at home is different from building one in a public place for group-use. One can have a shrine room at home adjoining a Muslim neighbor but a group aspiration to build a Hindu temple next to a Mosque can clash with Muslim aspirations. Simply stated, LLRC could have suggested better things for a better future for the country.
No amount of paragraphs in the LLRC report on human rights and white flags can satisfy the international crowd asking the flesh of pound from Sri Lanka for humiliating the politicians of the white west in April 2009. Foreign ministers David Miliband and Bernard Kushner heard from Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa words that can be described as the end of humiliation paradigm used till then by white colonial masters to mentally subjugate Asians and Africans. Yet, their long term plan to derail Sri Lanka cannot be stopped by any number of LLRC reports. Thinking this was possible LLRC tried to bend over backwards and made several unwanted mistakes.
Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka began in the 1920s and in 1949 and not in 1956, 1976 or 1983. Mentioning later years omitting former years is like not telling the whole truth. Tamil expats from Sri Lanka are not diaspora like the Jews who lost a homeland. The first thing done by those who went as asylum seekers when they got a new passport was to make a pleasure trip to Sri Lanka! Making any statements on the 13th Amendment is like eating curd using a razor knife. It is unfortunate that LLRC members did not know that 13-A was an imposition on Sri Lanka, the communal concept implemented in India by the 1935 Government of India Act. 13-A accepts that in the island there is a traditional Tamil homeland. How did LLRC lawyers miss this? To suggest solutions to current socio-economic, moral and ethical issues in Sri Lanka 13-A path is not needed. In fact 13-A is now part of the problem.
The tragedy of the commons
LLRC was given a mandate to recommend ways and means to prevent language and race-related violence and to promote unity and peace in the country. If it directed its attention on the spatial justice needs of Sri Lankan people, not the human rights laws and group aspiration-agitations of the foreign separatist crowd, it would not have missed the moment of unprecedented opportunity Sri Lanka Faces.” Citing triumphalism” is like looking for scapegoats to please the separatist lobby.
After May 19, 2009, Sri Lanka’s burning issues are not of language, race or religious nature. Yes, people in the Colombo City and others urban areas are suffering from the fear psychosis that they went through for 30 years. Parents split the family into two in travelling so that at least 50% will survive if a bomb in a bus kills the other 50%. The parent at home was listening to the radio wondering if a bomb blast took place near her child’s school. Some thought of erecting a wall around the house, not knowing that they only created their own little prisons. Coming back to Sri Lanka after 33 years I see these prisoners” daily on the road, in the bus, inside three wheelers and cars. There is the temporary pleasure of being secure inside a car or was able to get a seat in the bus after a momentous struggle! In Maharagama, Wattala, Panadura, Kiribathgoda or Dehiwala dust, smoke and noise pollution is unbelievable. People throw garbage bags on to the road in front of the house protected” by the wall and stray dogs spread them all over. A kind of Darwinian survival of the fittest exists and people may not know that they still suffer from a hidden, sub-conscious fear of death. A tragedy of the commons phenomenon is visible everywhere.
Sri Lanka is America
Creating a new Senate or having more Tamil policemen or other such things will not bring peace and prosperity to Sri Lanka. The urgent and hopeless issues in Sri Lanka are not different from the problems the average American faces in the USA. Public education, health care, child care, elderly care, industrial pollution, air and water pollution, gridlock on highways, lack of public transportation, overcrowded prisons, cancer-causing chemicals in food supply, obesity, teenage pregnancy, corruption in the legal system and lawyers, exploitation of patients by medical doctors are some from a short list. What are ground level daily issues in Sri Lanka? It is definitely not ethnic rivalry. School education, higher education, private tuition mania, exploitation of patients by medical doctors, health care, village and city roads, garbage disposal, bribe culture in government, provincial and local government offices and crime and corruption are some examples. Schools without water or at least one toilet cannot impart free education. The tragedy of the commons, selfish-personal gain by private individuals or public corporations at the expense of public goods and the corresponding societal moral decay is what LLRC should have spent time. This has taken place over a period of sixty years. No government can handle this mess on its own.
LLRC cannot expect any reasonable outcomes unless the electoral system is changed and the public service is overhauled with performance evaluation and merit promotion installed. Ordinary citizens have no place to go for normal/usual services. They have to either know somebody in an office or give a bribe to somebody in an office. Increasing numbers in the government service or increase in expenditure on government projects cannot erase the frustration people have about the moral and ethical decay taken place in the country. If the head of unit is out shopping can we expect the clerks of that unit to be at the desk or not on cell phone for hours? Despite preaching by ministers this is reality what I saw and heard. How can we provide incentives to the public servants to serve better and how can we remove corrupt behavior with disincentives (carrot and stick) should be the number one priority. This is a key issue that LLRC should have handled. The introduction of mandatory income/assets declaration by public servants, open to citizen scrutiny; community service method of punishment for crimes against society such as bribery and corruption; removal of illegal weapons in the hands of people and the utilization of military for civilian construction purposes are matters that need attention for any serious progress.
All kinds of development work have been taking place in Sri Lanka today. But similar work of national magnitude was attempted in the past by Mrs. B, Dudley S, and R. Premadasa respectively. How efficient and effective were they? Did officers act as yes” men and women and deceive politicians? Or were there systemic defects that even dedicated officers cannot succeed? Development work cannot be successful unless it improves the living standards of the local people impacted by it. That is the yardstick of progress.
Empowerment of people
There is one quick action the government can take to implement LLRC recommendations on devolution if it understands that spatial inequality, not racial inequality as the problem in Sri Lanka (Teaching Tamil and Sinhala to school children will remove within ten years any opportunity Tamil or Muslim politicians now have in trying to manipulate Tamil-speaking people). This depends on how free the government is from Eurocentric thinking. The government needs to reconsider implementing the Jana Sabah concept based on polling station or GSN unit-level data. Reminiscent of the Road Development Committees or Sanitary Boards during the early colonial times what Sri Lanka needs today is grass roots level non-political party entities elected to handle basic needs of people such as garbage disposal, road building and maintenance closer to home dwellings, basic health services, quality improvements in schools, prevention of soil erosion and environmental conservation and cooperative efforts to protect local farmers and producers from exploitation. Election of ten members per each entity and then one from such entity making an electorate level unit proceeding further up to the national level with whom the President of the country can have direct communication. This plan can be implemented by creating an office reporting directly to the president. A separate ministry or a department not needed.
This idea is not new (Maga Naguma and Divi Naguma are two programs on these lines). Several witnesses presented similar concepts for consideration by LLRC. This is the simplest and most effective way to monitor how big projects impact on local communities and to give people an opportunity to decide and control their day to day affairs. Each unit will prepare a land use map (plan) for their locality and monitor how government and NGO projects are implemented in their area. If a contractor is corrupt and doing sub-standard work local committee can prevent it. If school teachers are not teaching and promoting private tuition the local committee can interfere via parent-teacher associations or old school boys/girls association. Education ministers cannot solve these problems. If people are dumping garbage on to the road, local committee can take action against them. There is no doubt that politicians of all shapes would not like this idea, but Sri Lanka cannot become a Singapore in economic development and cleanliness if local people are not linked with the governance structure. At present there are no checks and balances to prevent political and official corruption rampant at the local (local government and GSN) level. A citizen affected by inefficiency of a local government, district, provincial or central government officer must be able to go to the local non-political party committee for redress.
Get people behind the government
The empowerment of people at the grass roots level needs to be done not because LLRC recommended it but because it is a political strategy available to this government to prevent international attempts to derail it using local agents. All kinds of misinformation campaigns, SMS with half-truths, networks capitalizing on government defects are seeping down to people spoiling their minds. Some are even dreaming of an Arab Spring, because what they see around them is local politicians making money! People are helpless and they have nowhere to go. Even a good pot of milk can tolerate only a few drops of dung such as Mervin Silva and his council members or Duminda Silva and the murder of a fellow politician. In this context the Subharathi national radio program is like trying to empty a lake with a table spoon.
The need to empower people at the grass root level is not just a political strategy to meet the external threat backed by local separatist agents. It is a necessity to protect people’s democracy while promoting sustainable development. In the West, local level administration was done by counties and parishes for generations which are more recently supplemented by groundwater management districts, river basin management districts and more specific functional districts such as solid waste management districts. In New Zealand, a smaller country like Sri Lanka, all local administrative units are demarcated using river basins as boundaries. Long before think globally, act locally became a popular concept Sri Lankan society was guided since antiquity by a sustainable development-related trinity of village, water tank and the temple. Ironically, what western professors are now prescribing to Sri Lanka and other countries are so similar to the principles enshrined in the concept of trinity of ancient Sri Lankan society.
Sustainable development via three merging paths
The Jana Sabha or Gam Sabha (or GSN unit level peoples’ committees) system can be justified utilizing three interrelated approaches. The Horowitz path (the infamous 13-A is an example of Horowitz path) can be easily dismissed as unwanted burdens (inviting to home snakes crawling yonder) placed on this tiny island nation by any one of these approaches. Presented as a model the three approaches (paths) are like the three sides of a triangle. The base of it is the moral and ethical foundation of a society. In the West, it is the Judo-Christian norms and values. In Sri Lanka this base has been Buddhism. In Figure 1 below the three sides of the triangle are listed as three columns. The sides of a smaller triangle inside the larger triangle indicate action, perception and location. Location is also described as space or place. Inside this triangle at the center is the triangle of spatial inequality, a result of not following or abusing the three paths. By following them inequality and inequity could be erased allowing Sustainable development to take root. The close affinity that exists between law and geography on the one hand and between law and Buddhism on the other in their applied interface generating socio-economic processes creating spatial (geographical) patterns deserves careful scrutiny by all who genuinely wish for a prosperous Sri Lanka.
Figure 1: Three merging approaches (paths) to mitigate spatial inequality
LAW
GEOGRAPHY
BUDDHISM
Doctrine of Reasonableness
Bioregionalism
The Middle Path
Doctrine of Separation of Powers
Ecology
Mind/Matter
Rights/Duties
Human Scale
Individual
Group Rights
Social Capital
Family/Society
Action
location (space/place)
perception
>Spatial Inequality<
<Sustainable Development>
Law, geography and Buddhism
The reasonableness doctrine in law and the Middle Path in Buddhism are like the two sides of a coin. What is reasonable has a geographical context—in some places people eat dog meat, in some other places stray dogs are not eliminated—and the kinds and types of some activities of the Eight Fold Path are also influenced by the human and physical geography of an area.
Whether it is reasonable to think of separate homelands or demarcate language-based or religion-based spatial units considering the population geography of Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka becomes a legal as wells as a geographical issue that goes beyond separatist politics by non-Buddhists. When ethnic distribution is like a scrambled egg is it not better to have smaller spatial units so that ethnicity pockets have an opportunity to have full local representation? For example, in the Panadura electorate there are at least three Muslim pockets: Totawatta, Sarikkammulla and Eluwila. A GSN unit-based division will allow Muslim majority units, which the Sinhala people in proximity will not consider as an ethnic threat, unless Islam extremists from overseas try to spoil them. Muslims will have to be reasonable in developing their group aspirations. Unlike India, Canada or Belgium, geography does not support language-based spatial divisions in Sri Lanka.
Discrimination with reason
Devanesan Nesiah’s doctoral dissertation comparing discrimination introduced by law in India, Malaysia and the USA (Discrimination with reason: the policy of reservations in the U.S., India and Malaysia, 1997) is a relevant example in this context. Nesiah could not disagree with epithets such as, You cannot legislate against geography,” or One law for the lion and the ox is oppression (William Blake (1793).” In India discrimination is used for the benefit of over 40% of its population! A minority could enjoy powers and privileges over a majority community due to historical reasons such as, the divide and rule policies of colonial masters, communist party members in Marxist societies or under the Apartheid policy in South Africa.
The lost rights and dignity of the Sinhala Buddhists in the Colonial Ceylon, and after 1948, also falls under this category. In this context the 1956 Sinhala only language act with reasonable use of Tamil added to it (1958) was discrimination with reason. LSSP member Colvin R. de Silva supported it in 1968 and 1972. Professor James W. Gair, in his book, (Studies in South Asian Linguistics: Sinhala and other South Asian languages, 1998, Chapter 14: How Dravidanized was Sinhala phonology? Pages 185‐199) states, Sinhala [language]’s survival as a clearly Indo‐Aryan language can be considered a minor miracle of linguistic and cultural history.” The language of 70% of people has suffered 500 years of discrimination.
Montesquieu standing on his head
Western representative democracies love the doctrine of separation of powers to death as seen from the constitutional crisis in the USA today. However, it is now uncovered that Montesquieu did not suggest a strict separation of powers among the three branches of government, In fact now there are about five such branches. What he wanted was to distribute the sum total of governmental power (including even some judicial power) to as many spatial/political units as possible. It was as if Montesquieu thought about our Gamsabha (village Council) system or the sovereignty enjoyed by the village-level Buddhist temple monk, who is free from central control unlike the local Christian church. The Buddhist Republics in ancient India were similar to the Tribal Councils Native Americans later had in North America, which Benjamin Franklin wanted the fighting 13 states to follow. These ideas later influenced the western political science theories of governance.
Bioregional vision
Empowerment of people means giving people governmental power at the lowest possible spatial unit level. The American, Kirkpatrick Sale described this as human scale” in his book, Human Scale (1980). He says everything works best if it is at a scale (size) manageable by local people. This is akin to what we generally identify as grassroots politics. In a global village one thinks globally, but acts locally. Or, as the former U.S House Speaker Tip O’Neil once said all politics is local.” Empowerment works best at the Small Is Beautiful” scale. With global warming and local floods, droughts and landslides, massive development projects and environmental degradation, sustainable development at local level becomes a top priority.
A paradigm shift has taken place in (physical-economic) development from things to people as reflected in the increasing use of Participatory Rural Appraisals and people-centered methods of endogenous development.” Local knowledge (local farmers and villagers) is more valuable than an agriculture or civil engineering graduate can learn from books. The value of this social capital” is now recognized by the World Bank and other UN development-oriented agencies. After fifty years of technocratic misadventure, in Sri Lanka these methods are now employed in irrigation settlements in the dry zone.
The Middle Path
Two Indian presidents, Dr. Abdul Kalam and Ms. Pratibha Patil, both non-Buddhists, stated that the solution to world’s problem could be found via Buddhism. In a Buddhist society, human actions and perceptions, rights and duties, individual and the community (group rights) are all weighed and measured through Buddhist concepts such as the Middle Path, impermanence, cause and effect principle and the cyclical nature of all phenomena. It is because of this flexibility that one can find 20-30% of the sacred space of a Buddhist temple devoted to Hindu gods and goddesses. No Buddhist will engage in discriminatory acts against another human being based on race or religion. Historically, Tamil and Sinhala politicians living in Colombo, for selfish reasons created conflicts due to which especially the innocent Tamils in villages ended up as victims suffering for 30 to 50 years. After May 19, 2009 a change is taking place in Tamil areas revealing to Tamil villagers that they can live amicably with Sinhala people when both groups learn Sinhala and Tamil. In the past any Tamil who said this was branded as a Tamil traitor but that poisoned mindset is rapidly eroding compelling separatist Tamil politicians fighting for survival. An empowerment plan aimed at local Tamil villagers will end separatist politics in Sri Lanka for good. Just like an oil lamp becomes brighter when it is about to end, separatist Tamil politicians are making lot of noise knowing that the end is nearer than they expected.
Spatial justice atlas
Empowerment of people at the local level is not just a political affair. It is a scientific endeavor. Each locally elected non-political party independents committee will base their work on a locally-developed land use map. Each unit will have a graduate research assistant. Ironically, in the Vavuniya District such maps are already in use as a research tool. Tamil tigers had an elaborate land use planning system developed after CFA 2002. Tamil officers are ahead of Sinhala officers in this regard. Most districts in the South now have data tables displayed at GSN unit level. Volunteer students from local high schools and their geography/biology teachers will no doubt take part in updating such maps available at the survey department. This will help in identifying natural boundaries for the local unit. For example, such action could help to reduce 15,000 GSN units to a more reasonable number (it was only 4,000 in the late 1980s).
<img class=”alignright size-full wp-image-5455″ title=”Map” src=”https://i1.wp.com/www.colombotelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/map.png?resize=186%2C264″ alt=”” width=”186″ height=”264″ data-recalc-dims=”1″ />An ecologically demarcated local unit maps will lead to an ecologically demarcated electorate similar to the pre 1980 era. By converting land use data to data tables an atlas of spatial justice could be developed at the national level using local natural-ecological unit as the lowest spatial unit. An atlas of spatial justice will be the quarterly or annual report card of this monitoring process. It will be an ongoing system with feedback loops. In the 1940s, in the United Kingdom, the late geographer Dudley Stamp undertook a national land utilization survey with the help of public school students. It was continued in the 1970s and 1990s. The proposed spatial atlas of Sri Lanka will be an improvement of Dudley Stamp’s original idea interpreting the data from land use planning with issues of spatial injustice. It may be identified as the Mahinda Chinthanaya Atlas.
Since local level watersheds/basins have a hierarchical order of progressively increasing in area/size they can become a large River Basin Region at macro level. Seven such River Basin Regions could advantageously replace the present arbitrary nine Provincial units; each with an ocean front and each with more or less equal land area (see the map ).
Source: Map by Professor C. M. Madduma Bandara: Seven river basins 1. Yalpanam, 2. Rajarata, 3. Dambadeni, 4. Mahaveli, 5. Deegavaapi, 6. Kelani, 7. Ruhunu (published in Chapter 4, in Fifty years of Sri Lanka’s Independence: a socio economic review, edited by A.V. de S. Indraratna, 1998, p.83).
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My proposal to establish a tank farm in Hambantota with a partner from Jebel Ali could have created a regional petroleum storage and trading hub. Hambantota’s location near the main East–West shipping lane is extremely valuable.
If implemented:
Sri Lanka could store strategic petroleum reserves.
Bunkering services for passing vessels could expand.
Fuel could be stockpiled for emergencies or wartime disruptions.
Unfortunately, as I noted, corruption and political interference often stalled such projects.
Development of Muthurajawela Tank Farm
The Chinese-supported expansion helped increase storage near Colombo. That facility is strategically important because it supplies the main refinery and Colombo port demand.
However, even with the expansion:
Storage capacity is still limited compared with Singapore or Fujairah.
It mainly supports domestic supply rather than regional trading.
Expansion of Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm
This is one of the largest natural oil storage complexes in Asia, originally built by the British during World War II.
If fully developed:
Over 90+ tanks could store several million barrels of fuel.
It could become a strategic reserve hub for the Indian Ocean.
It would support naval and commercial operations.
Yet for decades, development was delayed due to political disagreements and geopolitical sensitivities.
Marine & Offshore Industry Proposal via Sri Lanka Export Development Board
My proposal for marine and offshore engineering development could have created:
Ship repair and offshore fabrication yards
Oil & gas support bases
Floating storage and offshore logistics
With the growth of offshore energy in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka could have positioned itself similarly to **Dubai or Singapore as a regional service hub.
Strategic Impact Today
If Hambantota storage, Trincomalee expansion, and offshore facilities had all been developed:
Sri Lanka today could:
Maintain large strategic fuel reserves.
Offer bunkering and storage for international fleets.
Support naval logistics during regional tensions.
Earn significant foreign exchange from fuel trading and storage.
In times of global instability or war, countries with large petroleum storage capacity have a major strategic advantage.
Observation
This is a classic example of policy discontinuity and governance failure, where visionary infrastructure proposals were delayed or blocked.
Ironically, the strategic value of fuel storage and maritime logistics becomes obvious only during crises.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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National Development Bank PLC (NDB) proudly partnered with Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo as the Exclusive Banking Partner and Main Partner for its vibrant Chinese New Year celebrations, held from 25th February to 1st March. The five-day festive showcase brought together culinary excellence, cultural tradition, and valued customers for an immersive celebration marking the Lunar New Year.
The partnership reflects NDB’s continued commitment to creating meaningful lifestyle experiences for its cardholders while strengthening collaborations with leading hospitality brands in Sri Lanka. As part of this exclusive offering, NDB Premium and Platinum credit cardholders enjoyed special dining privileges throughout the celebratory period. Holders of NDB PRV Signature and Infinite cards were entitled to an overall 25% savings, while NDB Platinum cardholders received 15% savings on the dinner buffet, enabling customers to celebrate the season with exceptional value.
The festivities commenced with a special opening on the eve of the 25th February, where invited customers joined representatives of the Bank and Cinnamon Lakeside for a ceremonial launch. The evening set the tone for the celebrations ahead, featuring a curated dining experience and a festive ambiance that honoured the traditions and symbolism of the Chinese New Year.
Speaking on the partnership, Ashan Wikramanayake – Assistant Vice President / Head of Card Center at NDB stated that the collaboration highlighted the Bank’s dedication to delivering exclusive lifestyle benefits and curated experiences to its valued clientele. By aligning with esteemed hospitality partners, NDB continues to enhance its card value proposition while fostering memorable moments for customers during significant cultural occasions.
As a bank committed to enriching customer experiences beyond traditional banking, NDB remains focused on creating partnerships that combine privilege, celebration, and meaningful engagement, bringing added value to every transaction and every occasion.
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.
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Sri Lankan navy personnel rescuing Iranian sailors from the IRIS Dena on March 4, after it was torpedoed by the US military.
Summary
The US urged Sri Lanka not to repatriate survivors from the sunken IRIS Dena and the crew of the IRIS Booshehr.
A US submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off Sri Lanka, marking the first such US action since WWII.
Sri Lanka is holding the IRIS Booshehr and its crew, with the US discouraging their use for Iranian propaganda.
WASHINGTON – The United States is pressing Sri Lanka’s government not to repatriate the survivors from the Iranian warship it sank this week, as well as the crew of a second Iranian ship that is in Sri Lankan custody, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on March 6.
A US submarine
sank the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean about 19 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southern port city of Galle on March 4, killing dozens of sailors and dramatically widening Washington’s pursuit of the Iranian navy.
On March 5, Sri Lanka began offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian ship, the naval auxiliary vessel IRIS Booshehr, which had found itself stranded in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundary.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said his island nation had a humanitarian responsibility” to take in the crew.
The torpedoing of the Dena – which US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described as quiet death” – was the first such action by the United States since World War II and a clear sign of the Iran conflict’s widening geographic scope.
The internal State Department cable – which was dated March 6 and has not been previously reported – said Ms Jayne Howell, the charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Colombo, had emphasised to Sri Lanka’s government that neither the Booshehr crew nor the 32 Dena survivors should be repatriated to Iran.
It said Sri Lankan authorities should minimise Iranian attempts to use the detainees for propaganda”.
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Colombo, March 6 (Daily Mirror) – A protest under the theme No Blood for Oil” was held in Colombo, condemning the recent military attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel.
The demonstration drew a number of activists and supporters who gathered to express opposition to the strikes and call for an end to the conflict.
Iranian Ambassador Dr Alireza Delkhosh and SJB MP Mujibur Rahman were also present at the event.
Protesters carried placards and chanted slogans condemning the attacks, urging the international community to stop military actions and pursue peaceful dialogue.
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Sri Lanka took control of the Iranian naval auxiliary ship IRIS Bushehr after the vessel requested assistance near the island following the sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by a U.S. submarine.
Sri Lanka took control of the Iranian naval auxiliary ship IRIS Bushehr after the vessel requested assistance near the island following the sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by a U.S. submarine. Sri Lankan authorities evacuated 208 crew members and transferred them to Colombo while placing the ship under state supervision. The replenishment ship is being escorted to Trincomalee as search and rescue operations continue after the torpedo attack in the Indian Ocean. Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
The Bandar Abbas-class fleet replenishment ship IRIS Bushehr (422) requested assistance from Sri Lanka on March 4, 2026, after one of its engines malfunctioned, leading to the evacuation of more than 200 crew members. (Picture source: Facebook/Anupa Kavindu Bandara and X/visionergeo)
On March 5, 2026, Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake confirmed that the country had taken control of the Iranian naval auxiliary ship IRIS Bushehr (422) and evacuated more than 200 crew members after the vessel requested assistance near the island following the sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by a U.S. submarine torpedo off Sri Lanka’s southern coast. The IRIS Bushehr reported engine problems while operating near Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and requested permission to enter a port on March 4 and March 5. Sri Lankan authorities decided to evacuate the majority of the crew and place the vessel under state control while relocating it away from the country’s main commercial harbor.
The personnel were transferred to Colombo while the ship itself was scheduled to be escorted to the northeastern port of Trincomalee. The episode occurred during ongoing search and rescue operations related to the earlier naval attack and placed Sri Lanka in a position where it had to apply neutrality while addressing humanitarian obligations. The sequence of events began when Iran requested permission on February 26 for three naval vessels to visit Sri Lankan ports between March 9 and March 13 for a cooperation visit. The vessels (the Moudge-class frigate IRIS Dena, the Bandar Abbas-class fleet replenishment ship IRIS Bushehr, and a third Iranian vessel not officially identified at the time of writing) were located close to, but outside, Sri Lanka’s maritime zone while the request was under review.
On February 27, Sri Lankan authorities were informed that a sailor aboard one of the Iranian ships had suffered an injury, prompting the navy and air force to bring that individual and an accompanying officer ashore for treatment. In the early hours of March 4, between 5:08 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., distress signals were detected from a vessel that had come under attack roughly 19 nautical miles from the port of Galle. Sri Lankan forces launched a response operation involving naval vessels and aircraft, while India deployed maritime patrol aircraft and dispatched the vessels INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak to assist in the search and rescue effort. The attacked ship was later identified as the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, which had been sailing in the Indian Ocean after participating in multinational naval activities linked to India’s International Fleet Review 2026 and the MILAN exercise.
The frigate had about 180 people on board when it was struck by a torpedo fired from a United States submarine, potentially the Los Angeles-class USS Charlotte (SSN-766). Sri Lankan rescue teams recovered 32 survivors from the water and transported them for treatment at Karapitiya Hospital in Galle, while 84 bodies were recovered during the initial operation, and additional casualties raised the death toll to 87 in several accounts. Search operations continued for missing personnel after oil slicks and life rafts were detected in the area of the sinking. The attack marked a rare naval engagement involving a submarine strike against a surface warship and intensified tensions in the Indian Ocean theater of the conflict.
The IRIS Bushehr, which requested assistance on March 4, 2026, after one of its engines malfunctioned, is a Bandar Abbas-class fleet supply ship operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and carrying the pennant number 422. The vessel was constructed at the C. Lühring shipyard in Brake, West Germany, and launched on March 23, 1974, before entering service in November 1974. The two ships of this class were designed to support Iranian naval groups during extended operations by transporting fuel, supplies, ammunition, and other stores to accompanying warships. Bushehr remained in service through several decades of Iranian naval deployments beyond the Persian Gulf, including operations in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean.
The ship has also been used to carry cadets and officers during long-range training missions. The vessel measures 108 m in length with a beam of 16.6 m and a maximum draft of roughly 4.5 m to 4.6 m. At full load, the ship displaces about 4,748 tons and carries a tonnage of more than 3,200 gross tons with 3,302 deadweight tons of cargo capacity. Propulsion is provided by two MAN 6L 52-55 diesel engines delivering about 12,060 hp and driving two shafts. This propulsion arrangement allows the ship to reach a speed of 20 knots and maintain an operational range of 3,500 nautical miles at 16 knots. Although its primary role is logistical support, the ship carries light defensive armament. Bushehr is equipped with three GAM-B01 20 mm cannons and two 12.7 mm heavy machine guns for protection against small surface threats and low-level aerial targets. The ship also includes aviation facilities consisting of a helicopter landing area and a telescopic hangar designed to operate one helicopter.
These aviation capabilities enable limited reconnaissance, personnel transfer, and logistical support operations during deployments. After the request for entry was received, Sri Lankan authorities held consultations with the ship’s captain and Iranian diplomatic representatives before deciding to take custody of the vessel and its personnel. The evacuation operation involved 208 crew members from the Iranian vessel, and those transferred ashore included 53 officers, 84 cadet officers, 48 senior sailors, and 23 sailors. The personnel were transported by Sri Lankan naval vessels to Colombo, where medical examinations and immigration procedures were conducted before they were moved to facilities at the Welisara naval base north of the capital. Authorities determined that the ship would not be kept at Colombo Port because the harbor is the country’s main commercial maritime hub, and the presence of a belligerent state’s naval vessel could affect shipping activity and insurance costs. Instead, the ship was designated for relocation to Trincomalee, as some members of the original crew remained aboard alongside Sri Lankan naval personnel to assist during the transfer operation.
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Colombo, Sri Lanka – LankaPropertyWeb (LPW) is redefining the property search experience with the launch of its pioneering Apartment Finder tool. As the platform hosting Sri Lanka’s largest collection of apartment sales and rental listings, LPW is moving beyond the clutter of traditional searches. This innovation allows users to explore their future home through a cohesive, project-centric lens rather than sifting through thousands of scattered listings.
Largest Inventory, Now Easiest to Search
Having the country’s largest database of apartments for sale and rent is a significant advantage, but only if users can navigate it effectively. With the Apartment Finder, users can access the widest selection of properties on the island without experiencing search fatigue.” Even properties listed among thousands of options can be found quickly and efficiently.
Search by Home Loan Repayment, Not Just Price
In a move that brings much-needed clarity to the local market, the Apartment Finder introduces a smarter way to browse by integrating home loan repayment values directly into the search. Instead of estimating budgets, users can filter properties based on their actual monthly repayment capacity. This transforms the experience from a simple search into a practical financial planning tool, helping users focus only on properties that fit both their lifestyle and budget.
Three Ways to Find a Home
The tool offers a seamless, highly visual interface designed to provide full market transparency:
Map View: For the first time in Sri Lanka, property seekers can locate apartments through a map view—ideal for those prioritizing location and neighborhood considerations.
Table View: A market-first, data-driven view that enables users to efficiently identify properties matching their requirements.
List View: The classic browsing experience, enhanced with richer project and unit information.
Never Miss an Opportunity
If a desired unit is recently sold or rented, a ‘Sold’ status is not a dead end. Apartment Finder includes a smart inquiry feature that connects users with agents managing similar inventory, ensuring they can find a matching property without restarting the search.
Powered by Proprietary Market Intelligence
This tool is more than just a visual upgrade; it represents a significant achievement in data engineering. Developed in close collaboration with LPW’s Market Intelligence Team, the Apartment Finder is the result of months of rigorous data analysis and mapping.
The team undertook the massive task of mapping thousands of individual listings into LPW’s proprietary apartments database. By intelligently grouping units under their respective developments, the tool eliminates duplicate or scattered listings, providing a clean, organized view so that users see the project first and never miss an opportunity simply because it was buried in search results.
Award-Winning Innovation
This landmark release builds on the momentum of LPW’s leadership in real estate technology being acknowledged on the international stage. In 2026, the platform was honored with multiple prestigious awards for its continuous drive to revolutionize the market, including:
Best Use of AI-Powered Technology in Real Estate in Sri Lanka – International Business Magazine Awards 2026
Most Innovative PropTech Solution in Sri Lanka – World Economic Magazine Awards 2026
Most Innovative PropTech Solution in Sri Lanka – International Business Magazine Awards 2026
These accolades, presented by leading global publications, celebrate LPW’s robust technology infrastructure, AI-powered solutions, and client-centric approach in advancing Sri Lanka’s real estate sector. Daham Gunaratna, Managing Director of LPW, said:
Our goal was to strip away the complexity of the market and make apartment discovery effortless. We didn’t just want to build an upgrade; we wanted to revolutionise the search experience entirely. This tool empowers users to find their dream home in minutes – setting a new standard for speed and simplicity that redefines the benchmark for real estate search, not just in Sri Lanka, but globally.”
Whether for first-time buyers seeking an affordable starter home or investors searching for the next development, Apartment Finder streamlines the discovery phase. Unlike traditional search methods that focus on individual ads, this tool provides a comprehensive project overview by aggregating the most extensive data on apartments for sale in Colombo and apartments for rent in Colombo. By transforming a search process that used to take weeks into a matter of minutes, this innovation ensures that anyone searching for Colombo apartments & beyond can now navigate the market with unprecedented clarity and confidence.
With the launch of Apartment Finder, LankaPropertyWeb continues to bridge the gap between complex data and the human aspiration of finding the perfect home, setting a new gold standard for the Sri Lankan real estate industry. Apartment Finder can be accessed at https://www.lankapropertyweb.com/apartment-finder/.
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Sarath Wijesinghe former Chair Consumer Affairs Authority, PC, Solicitor and President Ambassador’s Forum UK
Coal issue has gone bit too far and accusations have gone deeper even inside as it is such a lucrative consumer item. Coal was imported to run locomotives mainly the train and for industrial purposes in the past and currently as a main source of mass power/energy to the entire country through ‘Lakwijaya’ Coal Plant, constructed as a necessity as diesel is so expensive but favored by the engineers and officials of the electricity board and business groups on energy sector who are ballooners made money from energy which is an important consumer item monopolized by the government and few companies. Citizen is used to modern life and traditional consumption from wood and other materials is now replaced by new power supply which is inevitable in abundance even in villages. Any governance is bound to go with the new trend out of shear demand and necessity.
Why Coal and why not electricity by solar or alternative energy which is freely and available in abundance?
The story we hear is that the electricity board and our system is not compatible and not ready to store and manage the electrify generate from solar due to technical complexities, though the citizen and industries are willing to use solar power any time any amount, which the citizen is unable to understand as the governance had and has ample opportunity time resources and opportunity as promised to the nation for energy sector which is an important component to the consumer depending on the governance to supply continuous supply of energy as promised and expected. This is common for the domestic and industrial sector. Consumer and industries are discouraged to shift to solar system due to the incapacity on the part of governance leaving coal and diesel to be the only other source of energy out of which diesal is smelling of mass scale corruption and the media reports on purchase of coal is worrying according to continuous news items on contracts, shipments and business contacts and dealing of governance in charge of coal purchases.
Coal Porches and Shipments that claims to be corrupt
Citizen/consumer depends on hearsay, media and the statements of government sector who have promised to find thieves plundered the nation with promised to catch them and start new system of governance with no corruption, bribery nepotism favoritism and politicization. It is time for the Governance to come forward to meet critics and give viable answers on the accusations and the citizen do not appear to be convince on the coal deal and solar unreal which affects the consumer directly as power is a most important consumer required for the day-to-day life.
Alternate Energy
Alternate energy is very easy to introduce on new innovations. Gas is very expensive and consumes our foreign reserves earned with great difficulty. Ministry of industries must start a programm to introduce to innovate modern clay burners to be used with eminence of paddy (dahaiya) which is available in abundance and mini burners to be utilized on solar. Sometime back CAA introduced a campaign that did nit last which is unfortunate. Alternate energy is used in India and many Asian counter to be utilized in domestic and industrial use. Why not Sri Lanka follow is the question the citizen can nt understand. Association of Sri Lankan Professional in UK some time ago organized a forum on alternate at the Organization of Professionals and it is time for them to come forward again for the benefit of the nation in need of the hour for their help
Way Forward
We need to plan a policy for energy long and short term with a set of innovates and relevant government departments, and strictly implement a transparent method of purchase and introduction of energy to the nation in the modern environments scientifically with long term plans out of policlinics and accusations to the past- but learning from the past as if not for ‘Lakwijaya ‘ coal plant the country would be in the dark today though it is not the best solution it serves the nation today. It is the duty of the governance to impose maximum sentences for bribery and corruption including inefficiency as a matter of urgency including the politicians who are talking shops and misleading the citizens. Coal thieves – if – must be brought to books and a clear explanation should be given by the governance as a matter of urgency on this controversy. Wijesinghesarath05@gmail.com0094766530166
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Colombo, March 5 (Daily Mirror) – Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said today that military action cannot be carried out within an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of a country according to international laws and that the attack on the Iranian warship within Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone is a death blow to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
He told Parliament that according to the United Nations Law of the Sea, principals of peaceful purposes and due regards must be adhered to when acting within an Exclusive Economic Zone.
The Opposition Leader said killings, damages to environment and marine resources are against the international law.
“The Exclusive Economic Zone is for economic activities. It is not for military action,” he added.
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In the latest escalation of the crisis in the Middle East, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz
According to Science Direct, Sri Lanka imports nearly all of its oil and gas, relying heavily on the Middle East, with major suppliers being Oman, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain. The country relies on imported crude for its single, aging refinery and imports refined products (diesel) via the spot market (https://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/abs/pii/0360544286901416# :~:text= The%20country’s% 20single%20refinery%20operates, sources%20of%20oil%20or%20gas).
A significant portion of these supplies must pass through the Strait of Hormuz making the country’s energy security highly vulnerable to any disruptions in that waterway. Significant volumes of jet fuel, diesel, and naphtha that fuel the global market also transit this chokepoint before reaching regional hubs. While Sri Lanka imports a large volume of refined petrol and diesel from India and Singapore these countries themselves are heavily dependent on crude oil that transits the Strait. If the Strait is blocked, the cost of refined fuel from these hubs spikes immediately due to global price surges.
While oil and gas price hikes will follow with the closure of the Strait of Homuz, and with it the cost of food and energy supplies irrespective of who supplies them, Sri Lanka is bound to face a seismic shock as a consequence of these developments, unless there is a resolution to the conflict soon, which unfortunately seems unlikely.
In this backdrop it is important to note the foreign reserves of the country now and its relevance to the country’s food and energy requirements. Sri Lanka’s current foreign reserves of USD 6.8 will be sufficient to fund food, oil, medicines, gas imports for approximately 3.1 months according to CEIC data.
This is the current fragile situation that the country is facing.
The intensifying conflict involving the USA, Israel, and Iran marked by direct strikes on Iranian targets, the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, and retaliatory strikes on Gulf states, poses a serious system shock to Sri Lanka’s tenuous economic recovery. With over one million Sri Lankans in the Middle East (who remitted a major component of the total remittances of over USD 8 Billion in 2025) and the country’s heavy reliance on the Middle Eastern region for energy, and exports (The major component of the 2025 annual export figure of USD 17.2 billion), the impact is expected to be profound across economic, political, and social sectors should conflict accelerate and becomes long lasting.
According to the Central Bank, both foreign exchange earners, worker remittances and exports, showed significant increases in 2025 compared to 2024, with the former showing and increase of 22/8% and the latter, an increase of 6.32%. This situation could change and the gains made negated by the conflict. Besides these, there are numerous other statistics that can be cited to show that the country was recovering economically, slowly but surely. The latest conflict in the Middle Eastern region is akin to a missile attack on the economy. The damage it has done, and may continue to do, introduces a new challenge to the country. It is important to recognise this challenge as a challenge to the country and not just to the government.
As well articulated in Economy Next, the fuel and energy crisis could exacerbatewith the blockage and disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows, Sri Lanka faces the prospect of soaring crude oil prices. While Sri Lanka has diversified its oil suppliers, the state-run Sapugaskanda refinery relies on Middle Eastern crude and could be forced to halt operations if supply lines are disrupted. The impact on remittances, export disruptions (Tea is a major export to the Middle East, particularly Iran and Arab nations), higher fuel and electricity costs that could spark inflation, and global economic uncertainty which may cause capital flight, and currency depreciation.
Possible immediate social impact, with the safety of more than 1 million expatriate workers in the region, that could require the government to organize massive repatriation, and should the conflict be framed along sectarian or religious lines, could pose risks to social cohesion in Sri Lanka. If all above eventuates, there will be a significant increase in cost of living due to increased transportation and food costs, drop in the country’s income, and with it, the likelihood of social unrest in the country.
The impact of these developments that are consequential to the current crisis, and due no fault of the government, will provide Manna from heaven to the knit picking Sri Lankan political Opposition which has basically been operating as a reactive impediment to the development efforts of the government rather performing the role of strategic minded constructive critics advancing the country’s interests.
At a broader level, the crisis will pose a foreign policy challenge requiringSri Lanka to navigate a difficult balancing act, maintaining its traditional “Non-Aligned” foreign policy while managing cordial relations with both Iran and Israel. The direct involvement and global influence of the USA, and the meekness and reluctance of powers like China, India and Russia to exert decisive pressure on all parties involved in the conflict to end the bombings and sit at a negotiating table, and the impotency of the UN have all added pressure on Sri Lanka to navigate a tight rope walk approach to diplomacy and much behind the scenes activity. In this context, this is not a time for neither the government nor the Opposition to engage in point scoring but work together for a unified effort in the best interest of the country. Tsunamis do not differentiate between a government and other political parties. The current crisis could well turn out to be an economic Tsunami for the country.
While security concerns have been highlighted as a fall out of the crisis, it can be argued that this will be a direct consequence of how the country’s foreign policy is handled. Events like joint Military and Naval exercises perhaps are not in the best interest of the country at this stage as political interpretations of such exercises may not be in the best interest of the country.
Buffer Essential Supplies: To prevent the public distress and “queue culture” that destabilised previous administrations, the government must maintain at least one month’s stock of fuel and essential goods.
Fuel Price Pass-through Management: While global oil price hikes are unavoidable due to Middle East tensions, the government must use “cost-reflective” pricing carefully, potentially using targeted subsidies to shield the most vulnerable from sudden energy-driven inflation.
Export Diversification: Moving beyond traditional tea and garment exports—which are vulnerable to Middle East trade route disruptions—into agritech, ICT, and green industries can reduce exposure to regional conflicts.
Political Stability and Governance
Institutional Reform over Populism: Strengthening the Central Bank’s independence and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) helps build public trust, making it harder for the opposition to claim systemic mismanagement.
Transparency in Debt Management: Regularly publishing quarterly debt reports through the new Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) can pre-empt opposition narratives about “opaque” financial deals.
Digitalisation of Services: Implementing e-government and digital ID schemes reduces “red tape” and opportunities for corruption, which are common flashpoints for anti-government protests.
Social Protection and Public Trust
Strengthen Social Spending Floors: The government must meet or exceed the IMF-mandated social spending target (0.6% of GDP) to ensure that “belt-tightening” doesn’t fall solely on low-income households.
Address the “Brain Drain”: Providing competitive incentives for skilled professionals (IT, medical, etc.) to stay in the country is vital for maintaining the state’s functional capacity to deliver public services.
Accountability and Human Rights: Reforming security laws like the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and addressing past accountability deficits can reduce international pressure and domestic grievance
The current crisis and opportunities for the future
The immediate task for the country would be to assess the impact of the ongoing conflict on the country and devise a plan of action as to how best it could minimize the severity of the impact. While doing this, it also needs to lay groundwork to change/adjust its economic management model to ensure future shocks and impact is minimized. While all or some of the issues highlighted earlier are the priorities of the government, the current crisis, and what has taught the country (the instability and fragility of the global order), should now extend approaches to these and other economic, and social challenges as National priorities. While democracy entails the ability and the right to exercise a choice and therefore the right to articulate choices, at a National level, the political establishment could agree on a framework for governance similar to the IMF framework, but where guidelines (in the case of the IMF, imperatives for economic support) for key governance areas could be included in a binding framework for them.
Such a framework, should it see the light of day, could of course be updated periodically, but its essence would be the consistency and stability of broad, high level governance policies of the country irrespective of which political party or grouping is in power. All political parties should be bound by such a framework so that the people of the country, and local and overseas investors will have the certainty they will require to invest in the country. As with the IMF framework agreement, a National Governance Framework will provide authority for political parties, should they be in power via elections, to operate within agreed parameters of the agreement, but adopt different strategies to achieve the outcomes noted and agreed upon in the framework.
Looking to the future and the fragility of the Global political order, a system change of this nature is essential for the country to progress and lay the groundwork for the next generation and those to come, to have confidence in the country and enjoy a good education, a good health system, a good social system, and economic opportunities. The lack of confidence in these are the drivers that lead to the exodus of the country’s talent to other countries to seek these basics elsewhere. As the debate today amongst Opposition political parties is about how best to destabilize the government through strikes, work stoppages, work to rule campaigns etc, and who shouts the loudest in Parliament so that they will be shown as heroes in social media, constructive criticism and advancing the country’s economic and social interests have taken a back seat.
With a possible economic Tsunami heading towards the country, the basic high level governance policies could center around some priorities like economic management, health and education, agriculture and food security, export development, water management, energy management etc. Some suggestions for strategic governance in economic management are noted here. As with these, similar strategic governance policies for the other areas mentioned too should be included in a National Governance Framework. The economic management strategies should consider the following
Increasing the GDP of the country and its per capita income well above the currently planned targets
Sri Lanka GDP projection for 2025 was around USD 87 Billion and the projected per capita income was USD $3,799 – $3,939. These need to rise above 8% over ten years to achieve a GDP of USD 200 million and a GDP per capita of USD 9000 to qualify as an upper middle-class status. A high-income status requires a per capita of $13,846 or more. Can Sri Lanka achieve these targets? It is noteworthy that Singapore GDP in 2024 was USD 547.4 billion and per capita 90,674.07 USD. Singapore’s projected GDP will be 900 billion USD in 10 years with a per capita of USD 130,000. Sri Lanka must decide where it wishes to be in ten years
Increasing the country’s foreign reserves
Trading economics (https://tradingeconomics.com/sri-lanka/foreign-exchange-reserves) states that foreign exchange reserves in Sri Lanka was 6. 82 USD Billion in January 2026, enough to fund imports of oil, gas, medicine, food etc for a period of 3.1 months. This is not sufficient and Sri Lanka should have a foreign reserve and foreign assets equal to or more than its foreign debt as countries like Singapore do and make its debt a net zero debt. It is interesting to note that Singapore’s foreign exchange reserves were S529.11 billion (approx. US$416.97 billion) in January 2026, and the total reserves of Singapore based on publicly available data from Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), the Government of Singapore owned multinational investment firm Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and government’s Central Provident Fund (CPF), are conservatively estimated at S$2.5 trillion (2024) (US$1.87 trillion). Singapore too has a substantial gross external debt, reportedly over S$2.4 trillion, but possesses zero net debt because its substantial financial assets and foreign currency reserves that far exceed its liabilities.
Economic governance suggestions for inclusion in a framework agreement.
The question from a national perspective is whether Sri Lanka will be able to withstand the potential impact of the current crisis and plan to minimise the impact of Global shocks. The following are suggested for discussion and inclusion in the National Governance Framework, besides the GDP, per capita income and foreign reserves and foreign assets as note earlier.
Managing the country’s recurrent expenditure with its own income and not through internal or external debt.
Setting aside a minimum percentage of income for essential infrastructure project expenditure and meeting shortfalls with long term internal and external debt or grants
Personal income taxation structure should be aimed at total revenue targets and strategic approaches to achieve these targets including widening the tax net by reducing the tax rates, including lowering the highest tax rate. A high taxation rate and many tax evaders is not a logical approach to increase tax revenue. (There are questions raised about the number of high-income earners including many medical professionals, engineers, architects, lawyers, tuition teachers etc, who either do not pay tax or who somehow underpay their tax).
Doubling, if not trebling export income over 5 -10 years
A local currency reserve – A percentage of income to be set aside as local reserves that should be used only during an emergency.
A more defined role for the Banking sector
The Boston Consulting Group noted that at the end of 2024, the total deposits in Sri Lankan banks amounted to approximately LKR 16.16 trillion ($ USD 57.4 Billion). The Group went on to say that this total reflected a significant increase throughout 2024, growing by 18.43% year-on-year from approximately Rs. 10.4 trillion in 2023.
Given this situation, the National Governance Framework should articulate how best these sleeping” assets (which exceeds the government foreign debt of USD 37.1 Billion). could be put to yield better dividends in the longer term to the deposit holders and through the employment of such funds, allow the Banks to invest in more revenue generating projects.
A strategic system change is needed to change the historical role of banks functioning more as a funding arm for the government than as a catalyst for private-sector production. Of course, deposit holders will require government guaranteed higher interest rates for deposits that are locked” in say for 5 or even 10 years. Banks will then have the freedom to invest in profit yielding ventures where the revenue will allow them to pay the higher interest rates to the deposit holders.
This proposal needs further elaboration, and the author intends presenting an argument to move Banks from being a funding arm for the government onto profitable private sector ventures in a follow up article.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, a strategic system change in governance policies is needed to move the country from a debt-servicing mindset to an asset-building one, where assets exceed debt. This will require a level of political willpower that spans decades, not just 5 year election cycles. In Sri Lanka, the pressure to provide immediate relief (like subsidies or tax cuts) often intervene with the disciplined effort to have “primary surpluses” required to build a national asset pool (net foreign reserves, State owned overseas assets and State investments that provide better yileds) that will exceed the country’s foreign debt.
No political party or grouping functioning as they are now in Sri Lanka’s democracy will be able to make this strategic change as short term, immediate relief measures will take precedence over long term strategic governance overhaul. It is for this reason that while democracy and democratic governance is maintained, an agreement on a National Governance Framework supported by all political parties and groupings is proposed as the way forward to achieve such a strategic change.
Will our political leaders have the foresight, wisdom and the guts to bury their short-term hatchets and look beyond their noses to see and understand that a seismic change to governance policies, goals and objectives is needed if the country is to withstand the impact of global shocks orchestrated by others? This remains to be seen.
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The Eelam wars (1983-2009) between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), arose over the issue of self-determination for Sri Lankan Tamils and the separation of the Northern and Eastern provinces from the rest of the country. The goal was a separate state.
The Eelam war was not a guerilla or terrorist war, it was a Civil War. Civil War takes place when a group of citizens take up arms against the government to obtain exclusive control of a part of the land. The fighting takes place inside the state, in the territory which is to be separated from the rest of the state. It is war between the state and a group of citizens who want to secede from the state, taking a slice of territory with them. A civil war is therefore an internal war. A civil war can become a high-intensity conflict if the state army faces a well equipped rebel army. Civil war could be caused by outside forces manipulating a separatist tendency within the targeted territory.
The Geneva Conventions do not provide a definition of Civil War. The Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949 (Volume II-B, 121) instead introduced the concept “Non-international armed conflict” . Geneva Conference said that for “Non-international armed conflict” the party in revolt must be in possession of a part of the national territory. The insurgents must exercise de facto authority there .The insurgents must be belligerent and the legal government must conduct military action against the insurgents.
Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Convention also used the term “Non-international Armed conflict” instead of Civil War, when speaking of an armed conflict between the state and non-state groups .The term “non-international armed conflict” was widely used thereafter to refer to Civil War because it is the term used in Common Article 3 .
International Committee of the Red Cross, however, recognized ‘Civil War’ and said that for a civil war to take place, the party that is opposing the government must possess an organized military force, it must have a central authority ,it must be in possession of territory and be waging war from inside it.
Analysts and commentators studying the Eelam War use both Civil War” and “Non-international armed conflict” to describe the Eelam War. Legal commentators take the position that the Eelam war is a non –international armed conflict.” The conflict in Sri Lanka is a non –international armed conflict, they said.
Others call it a Civil War. S.I. Keethaponcalan in Post war dilemmas of Sri Lanka (2019) said Eelam war is a civil war it is between a sovereign state and a non-state armed group. It was a domestic war. Nithyani Anandakugan titled her essay in Harvard International Review . August, 2020 as The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History Revisited”.
However, some commentators reject the notion that the Eelam War was Civil war. They argue that this was Non-International Armed Conflict certainly ,but not amounting to Civil War .The reason was that the LTTE killed its own kind. LTTE killed many Tamils. Does that qualify for the war to be called civil”, asked one observer. The answer is that LTTE killed in order to gain power and thereafter to retain power. There was no protracted internecine war.
This anti-Civil war attitude is based on the romantic notion that Civil War is between two deeply united factions spontaneously opposing each other. They are thinking of the American Civil War where the pro slavery ‘Union ‘ and the anti slavery ‘Confederacy ‘ fought each other, we imagine, in deep unity.
The separatist intention is clearly shown in Tamil politics. Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, established in 1949 ( ITAK) indicated through its name that it was set up for the creation of an independent state. IIllankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, means Lanka Tamil State Party.” The word ‘Arasu ‘ can be interpreted as ‘king,” “ruler,” “monarch,” or “sovereign”, said the dictionary. The word carries connotations of authority . Kadchi means ‘party’ . ITAK said that its name in English was ‘Federal Party’. That was to hide its separatist strategy. The Tamil word for federal is Kūṭṭāṭci” .
The militant groups formed in the north in the 1970s were also separatist . They all wanted Eelam. The names of the five leading groups were: Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP).Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO).
However, the Government of Sri Lanka did not officially declare the Eelam war as Civil war or Non international Armed Conflict. The Government called the war a ‘terrorist’ war. Government says there is no ethnic problem but only a terrorist problem, noted Ben Bavinck. [1]
The Military also spoke of the enemy as terrorists. Ours was a war waged against a terrorist outfit by a legitimate government, said Sarath Weerasekera.[2] The memoirs written by the miliary leaders, such as the memoir by Kamal Gunaratne, always spoke of ‘terrorists’. The soldiers were also told that they were fighting terrorists, whom they called ‘terra”.
When the War ended in 2009, President Mahinda Rajapaksa went to Jaffna, spoke in Tamil and said the war was against ‘Terrorism’ and not the ‘Tamil people.’ In 2019, Sri Lanka‘s High Commissioner for UK, said the conflict in Sri Lanka was not with the Tamil community, but against terrorism by the LTTE.[3]
In 2020, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN, speaking at the Security Council Open Debate on Peace building, said that action by the Sri Lankan security forces during the conflict was against a group designated as a terrorist organization . It was not aimed at any community in the country.[4]
However, Shenali Waduge observed that the UN never officially designated the LTTE as a terrorist organization . UN declared Al Quaida and Taliban terrorist organizations through Resolutions 1267 and 1373,[5] but not LTTE .
There is no agreed definition of terrorism. Violent and criminal acts planned for a political or ideological purpose are considered ‘terrorism’. Terrorism thrives on the creation of fear and intimidating the public.
The Tamil Separatist Movement did not like the label of ‘terrorist.’ When Anne Abeysekera visited Jaffna in 1994 she was asked, Why does your President say there is no ethnic problem , only a terrorist one. [6] LTTE also objected. LTTE has said repeatedly that they were not terrorists. LTTE was not interested in merely frightening the public. LTTE never limited itself to hit and run tactics. LTTE‘s mission was Eelam, nothing less. They were fighting a separatist war.
LTTE has continued to say this. The European Political Sub division of the LTTE , based in Denmark, appealed in January 2019 to the European Union asking the EU to lift the proscription of the LTTE as an international terrorist organization.
LTTE stated that it had participated in a legitimate armed conflict with the aim of ensuring the right of the Tamil people to self-determination. They were not a terrorist organization . EU agreed. The way LTTE’s armed forces were organized and their manner of conducting operations, met all the requirements laid down by international law for recognition as ‘combatants’, said EU, while extending the proscription. ( continued)
The Eelam war was never a terrorist war. LTTE engaged in regular military warfare using modern weapons. It had a trained army, dressed in uniform. It attacked the state army where ever it could and concentrated on taking territory. Dayan Jayatilleke observed that LTTE was not a terrorist cell, or a branch of an international terrorist network, It was a secessionist army. [1]
In his Heroes Day speech of November 2002, Prabhakaran said If self-determination is denied and the demand for self-rule is rejected, the Tamil people will have no alternative other than to secede and form an independent state.
HL de Silva in his book Sri Lanka a Nation in conflict” , discussed the issue of secession. He stated that two UN declarations, Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”(1970) and ‘World Conference on Human Rights,’ Vienna, 1993 confirmed that a state whose government represents the whole people, is entitled to the protection of its territorial integrity. Sri Lanka conforms to this and therefore Sri Lanka can resist secession, he said.
H.L. de Silva stated that Sri Lanka could not entertain secession in any form. Sovereignty of the people is inalienable. Any surrender of an inalienable right is an act that is legally null and void. The people of Sri Lanka do not have the freedom to decide on separation. They cannot consider secession either. A sovereign people cannot pass laws affecting sovereignty.
They cannot break up a country through a referendum either, they do not have that right, continued H.L .de Silva. Nor can they do so through Parliament or a Constituent assembly. These two bodies do not have the legal power to tamper with Sovereignty. They cannot support the truncation of a state.
H.L. de Silva stated that the Constitution of Sri Lanka does not permit separatism. The first five articles of the Constitution are basic political values which are not created or conferred by the Constitution. They are pre-existing values which precede and transcend the Constitution. The Constitution does not permit any ethnic group to declare that they no longer owed allegiance to state either , he said.
The five articles of the Constitution are: 1 Sri Lanka (Ceylon) is a Free, Sovereign, Independent and Democratic Socialist Republic 2 The Republic of Sri Lanka is a Unitary State. 3 Sovereignty is in the People and is inalienable. 4 Sovereignty of the People shall be exercised as follows legislative- Parliament, executive – President , judicial -courts. 5 The territory of the Republic of Sri Lanka shall consist of the 25 administrative districts set out in the First Schedule and its territorial waters.
HL de Silva said these matters are declared in the Constitution to enable the Constitution to be under stood as a legal document and to ensure that what follows does not violate these basic principles. And that they are interpreted in the light of these principles. They are eternal , they cannot be disputed and cannot be compromised by understanding reached by negotiators or anybody else.
H.L. de Silva stated that Section 27/3 of the Constitution says the State shall safeguard the independence, sovereignty, unity and the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. Section 157A says (1) No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.(2) No political party or other association or organization shall have as one of its aims or objects the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.
Further, the 6th amendment to the Constitution expressly prohibits a person or political party from promoting a separate state within Sri Lanka . [2] The 6th amendment states (1) No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.2) No political party or other association or organization shall have as one of its aims or objects the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.
The Penal Code is also very clear on this matter. Whoever wages war against the Republic, shall be punished with death, or imprisonment said Section 114. It is an offense to deprive the People of the Republic of Sri Lanka of their Sovereignty or conspires to overawe by means of criminal force any of the organs of Government said Section 115 . It is an offense to collects men, arms, ammunition, or otherwise prepare to wage war against the Republic ( Section 116), to conceal the existence of a design to wage war against the Republic ( Section 117) or attempt to excite feelings of disaffection to the Government (Section 120).
LTTE was attempting to overthrow a legitimate government which had a strong presence in the north and east. An attempt to overthrow a government is considered ‘treason.’ Taking arms against the state is considered ‘high treason’, a criminal act of the highest order. The demand for the creation of a separate state should be treated as high treason with penal sanctions, said anti-Eelamists. The demand for self determination must also be made a criminal offence. It is intended to lay the foundation for a separate state they said. Tamil Separatist Movement ‘s declaration that it is also for an undivided Sri Lanka is made to avoid the charge of treason.
This brings us to the matter of Sedition. Any conduct orspeech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state is considered sedition. Any party demanding self determination or separation can also be treated as sedition.
Critics wants to know why there is no law against sedition in Sri Lanka. In the west, countries have enacted laws against sedition. The government should pass a Sedition act to charge and prosecute any one supporting separatism, said Rohan Guneratne. [3] Sri Lanka Parliament must pass legislation spelling out what would constitute sedition.
On May 21, 1976 ITAK leader A. Amirthalingam, along with Federal Party MPs V.N.Navaratnam, K.P.Ratnam, K.Thurairatnam were delivering leaflets in Jaffna , regarding a political event, when they were arrested by the Jaffna police on the charge of possessing and distributing seditious literature. Sivasithamparam was released but the others were taken to Colombo to be tried for sedition.
When the case came up on December 10, 1976, Attorney General Siva Pasupati said that the Government will not be proceeding with the case against the four FP leaders relating to the possession and distribution of seditious literature. After retirement, Pasupati moved to Australia and served as a legal advisor for the LTTE .[4]
Separatism has to take into account the provisions of International law. International law does not support separatism. There is no legal right in international law for a sub national group of a sovereign state to achieve unilateral secession by wresting territory from the state, said HL de Silva.In the case of Quebec the law courts ruled that Quebec did not enjoy a right in international law to secede from Canada unilaterally.
But it is possible for the separatist state to obtain recognition if the government concerned does not fight the secessionists successfully, observed HL de Silva. Once a secessionist movement succeeds in defeating the armed forces of a state and is in occupation and control of territory, leaving no room for government to operate inside it, there comes into existence a de facto separate state , which can then advance to becoming a de jure state, with help of other countries.
UN is extremely reluctant to admit a seceding entity to membership against the wishes of the government of that state. But it can be achieved by a friendly country nominating the new state to the UN General Assembly, said analysts.
Since the first step toward the creation of statehood is control of territory by a rebel group, itis up to the government to make sure that that does not happen. It is up to the state to ensure that secession is not successful, said HL de Silva. Sri Lanka has a long tradition of achievement which would help provide enormous reserves of inner strength and moral courage to withstand Eelam, concluded HL de Silva. [5] ( continued)
[1] Dayan Jayatilleke Long war cold peace’ rev edition 2014 p 211
[2] HL de Silva. Sri Lanka A nation in conflict. p 41, 73,74,259, 268, 311
[3] Interview with Rohan Gunaratne, Daily News 10.12.13 p 9
The Eelam wars were defeated by the government of Sri Lanka in May 2009. Nirmala Chandrahasan said that the Tamils must start all over again. I do not think that Tamil nationalism with secessionist aspirations, will die a natural death. Even if the LTTE is destroyed , it is possible that a new guerrilla war could emerge in a few years time, she said. [1]
A.K. Ragavan, a Tamil activist now in UK stated in an interview in 2009 , we need to look at this differently. This nationalist framework will only alienate people further. Tamils constitute only 12 % of Sri Lanka population Without the support of the Sinhala progressives Tamils cannot take their struggle forward anymore. [2]
Sebastian Rasalingam said ‘Eelam program was doomed to failure within the confines of an island dominated by a majority which had always has a historic sense of its own identity, and ancient chronicles to give the needed patriotic cohesions. The Mahavamsa mind set. But the Eelam idea is too big and too potent to be confined to the shores of Sri Lanka. So it may be transferred to Tamilnadu.[3]
Sri Lanka is quite the last place in the world to strive for Eelam or an approximation because the game here is zero-sum due to the uniqueness of the Sinhala situation. Here Tamil globalism meets Sinhala exceptionalism, said Dayan Jayatilleke in 2018.[4]Sri Lanka is too small an island to have two separate governments, said Kanthar Balanathan in 2023. Jaffna has no river or water and 49% of Tamils live outside the North and East. [5]
Tamil diaspora should abandon its separatist ideas said Kumaran Pathmanathan in 2021. I have tried to explain to them that the era led by Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman is no more. It is impossible to formulate another armed struggle in this country. Pursuing such an ideology is a waste of time.[6] There will never be a separate state in Sri Lanka. Even the most vociferous Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka too have categorically rejected the idea said a Daily News editorial in 2021 .[7]
LTTE was engaging in civil war in a country with a strong central government , firm sovereign standing and strong historical recall. Sri Lanka, real name Sinhaladvipa, is a recognized sovereign state with clear boundaries, settled population, a seat in the UN and a well documented history. Sri Lanka is the oldest and longest running democracy in Asia, having had universal suffrage thrust on it, while it was still a British crown colony. The first election was held in 1931, two decades before India. Sri Lanka is considered a resilient country.
In contrast to this, Eelamists argue, without any evidence, that ancient Sri Lanka consisted of two nations, Tamil and Sinhala .They argue that the sovereign state was a modern invention, introduced to Sri Lanka during western rule, due to the Westphalia treaty of 1648. That is incorrect , also it is a calculated distortion of the well documented history of Sri Lanka .
The treaty of Westphalia was very significant for Europe because it ended the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman empire, headed by Charles V of Spain was described as neither Holy, Roman nor Empire. Europe at the time was a hotch potch of kingdoms, bishoprics, dukedoms all fighting with each other. There was Thirty Years War, 1618–1648 and Eighty years War (1568–1648).These ended with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. This treaty created the sovereign states of Europe as we know them today. The modern states of Europe, with settled borders and an agreement to respect these borders and not fight with each other started from this time. Italy and Germany however unified only in 1848. This treaty has no relevance whatsoever to Sri Lanka .But Westphalia is used in Sri Lanka by Eelamists to argue that the present day sovereign state of Sri Lanka is a recent creation by western rulers,
Sri Lanka enjoyed continuous monarchical rule for a long unbroken period ending in 1815. Monarchical states are sovereign states. They pre-date the democratic state, but they are nevertheless, sovereign states. This means Sri Lanka has been a sovereign state for many centuries. The general public are not familiar with the word ‘sovereignty,’ but they are very proud of ‘our ancient kings’ and ‘our ancient history’. They firmly oppose Tamil separatism and declare ‘rata beddana denna baha”.
A sovereign state has control over its airspace, and its territorial sea as well as its land. According to UN Resolution 3171(28) December 1973, Sri Lanka holds permanent sovereignty of all its natural resources, whether on land or on sea.
Further, International law places great importance on the ‘territorial integrity’ of sovereign states ‘Territorial integrity’ is a fundamental principle in international law which means the right of a state to protect its territorial boundaries and control the full territory ,without interference from anybody. ( continued)
Spain’s government on Monday said the US has neither used nor will use Spanish military bases to conduct attacks against Iran, insisting Madrid maintains full control over its sovereign facilities, Anadolu reports.
According to Spanish news outlet El Diario, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said in a television interview that the bases at Rota and Moron de la Frontera are not being used” for operations linked to the Middle East conflict and that Spain will not authorize any such deployment.
The bases of Spanish sovereignty will not be used for anything that is not within the agreement with the United States or for anything that does not fit within the charter of the United Nations,” he said.
Albares reiterated that although the bases are for joint use, Spain retains ultimate authority, according to the report. He also denied that the US informed Madrid in advance of its actions, describing recent strikes as a unilateral action outside of any collective action.”
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected what he called the unilateral action” by the US and Israel against Iran, warning that it contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order.”
Albares said the escalation carries unpredictable consequences,” including disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and rising oil prices, and called for de-escalation and diplomacy.
Spain also condemned the retaliatory attacks by Iran on Gulf countries.
The US, UK, France and Germany are flattered to call themselves the West”, but it is more realistic to call them the Jewish-State-in-progress, or Epsteinia”. We have just learned that President Trump had already made up his mind to go to war against Iran weeks ago, and that the pretence of diplomacy carried out by two Jewish real estate dealers (Witkoff and Kushner) on his behalf was little more than a nothingburger to keep Iran busy until the Chosen moment. So what exactly was the purpose behind Trump’s diplomatic pause before commencing hostilities? There is a reason; quite shameful, but true. Trump and his superior, Bibi Netanyahu, were guided by Kabbalah magic. They agreed to carry out this historic attack on a particularly auspicious date in the Jewish calendar, called Remembrance Shabbat, the last Saturday before the feast of Purim. The facts are overwhelmingly clear: International Jewry decreed the attack day and the US military jumped like obedient dogs to a Jewish whistle.
Wikipedia describes Remembrance Shabbat as follows:
Sabbath [of] remembrance’ or Shabbat Zachor (Hebrew: שבת זכור) is the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 (at the end of Parasha Ki Teitzei), describing the attack on the Jews by Amalek, is recounted. There is a tradition from the Talmud (understood to be implied in the Megillah itself) that Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story, was descended from Amalek. The portion that is read includes a commandment to remember the attack by Amalek, and therefore at this public reading both men and women make a special effort to hear the reading.
All Jews are not only required to remember this special date commemorating this ancient tale, but they are also required to seek revenge; i.e. commit genocide of whoever the Sanhedrin has labelled Amalek in our generation. A Jew is obliged and commanded to kill all the men, women, children of Amalek, including dogs and cats. Small animals, kittens and puppies are often killed a fortnight earlier at the Tubishvat celebration – pets are thrown into burning bonfires by Sephardi custom. The customs of Purim (and the preceding Sabbath) are notoriously horrible, detailed by Elliot Horowitz in his Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Martin Luther noted that Jews thought of all Christian rulers (who Jews consider to be their oppressors) as modern-day Hamans, and so it was a religious duty to undermine them and seek their downfall. [He also noted that Jews saw Christ as a similar King/Oppressor figure, perhaps because in the Septuagint, Haman is crucified. Bear in mind that the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the unadulterated original Bible text, while the modern Hebrew Bible has been updated many times over the years by Jewish scholars.]
Netanyahu’s International Jews (including those of the Israeli government coalition) have a long history of performing their professional and religious duties in accord with Kabbalistic magic. For them, the combination of the first blow in the Sabbath of Remembrance and celebration of Purim a few days later is too tempting to avoid. The fools are likely to believe that they are guided from above, and thus they will come to their end.
Purim celebrates when 75000 Persians were murdered by Jews; and it’s no coincidence that this is the first time the Jews are clearly mentioned in the Bible. It’s a kind of coming out” story for Jews. Jewish stories always make the Jews look like innocent victims, and this story is no exception. The real Jews of the Second Temple period knew the real facts, and they carved the Persian capital Susa into the ‘Beautiful Gate’ of the Temple, explaining that the Jews should forever be mindful of their time in Persia. But Netanyahu has forgotten this advice from his legendary ancestors.
The first bombs of the Iran War were dropped by Mike Huckabee, Tel Aviv’s pet US Ambassador”, in an interview with Tucker Carlson just before hostilities commenced. Huckabee told Tucker that Israel has the right to seize as much of the Middle East as the US can defend, and that it’s fine with him if they take it. After that, everyone just sat around waiting for a magical date on the Kabbalah Calendar. Jews preordained that, on the Jewish Sabbath of Remembrance, the US and Israel shall bravely sneak-attack peaceful, slumbering Iran; a country still working to comply with UN investigators, still in peace talks with two Jews, tragically unaware of the historical significance of that particular date for Jews. Attacking forces boldly murdered the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Muslim equivalent of the Catholic Pope. Israel sees every non-Jewish leader as Haman and therefore a legitimate target: our Ron Unz explained it in this essay. Jews like to assassinate leaders, something that went out of fashion in the Thirty Years’ War.
England, France and Germany followed orders from Tel Aviv. This means that Jews have succeeded to get on top in these countries. Germany was forced to accept Jewish rule with the US occupation in 1945. Now it is illegal for a German to wear a Palestinian keffiyeh, or to call for a free Palestine. France was relatively free in 1960, when de Gaulle had the power to kick out NATO. Over the years since then, the Jews have tightened their hold on the media. French cinema died, French politicians kneeled before Lord Rothschild and in the year of Our Lord 2026, all French parties have become thoroughly Jewified. Marine Le Pen, the darling of what passes for French Nationalism, approved of the Purim attack on Iran, and promoted her Chosen Jewish successor. England has always been the homeland of Christian Zionism, and Starmer is a very proper shabbos-goy to represent the UK’s Shabbos Gov”.
Why are the Jews willing to expend so much political capital in exchange for the doubtful achievement of ruining Iran? We can understand why Trump is so willing to betray MAGA – because his lot is not to reason why; a good Shabbos-goy, he must follow orders from Tel Aviv. But why would the usually cautious Jews do it? It was the shining glory of the El Aksa Mosque, which has to be destroyed in order to erect the Third Temple, the ultimate wish of the Jews. And Iran is the only country in the world that wouldn’t allow it to happen. All other Muslim states were cowed and follow US orders.
From the moment of the sneak attack on Iran, El Aksa Mosque was closed by the Israeli army, and Palestinian Muslims can no longer enter it. In the middle of the Ramadan Fast, it is especially painful for believers. The story of the El Aksa Mosque and the Jewish drive for its destruction is a long one. I have previously written about it in The Cornerstone of Violence.
To make it short, I’ll quote from it:
Many Jews and their Christian-Zionist allies believe the precious beauty of Haram a-Sharif, the 7th century mosques of Jerusalem should be destroyed and on their ruins, a Jewish temple should be erected. Why should this be done? People provide different explanations, historical and eschatological. It is not for some historical justice, or for the purpose of prayer, as traditional Judaism forbade all interaction with the Mountain of the Lord. Some mystically inclined Jews believe this act will make Jewish domination of the world total and irreversible. This belief is not an exclusive domain of kooks and freaks, nor even of Zionists only, but rather a widespread conviction.
The mainstream media of the West usually presents the conflict in terms of Muslims vs. Jews. But the conflict as seen by these Jews, is Jews vs. Gentiles. In their minds, the Temple Mount is a magic Ring of Power, one they should assume when the time is right. As the Ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (the British professor was a very learned man), it should bring forth the Messiah. For the Jewish mystics, this Messiah is not the Christian Messiah. In their book, the Messiah is not a gentle Jesus with a message for all mankind. Their Messiah would forever enslave the nations of the earth and make the Chosen people the masters of the universe. Their Messiah, Lord Enslaver of the Peoples of Earth, is the Antichrist of prophecies.”
The Arabs outside of the Holy Land have been subdued, and do not care about it all that much. Muslims everywhere are being attacked relentlessly by Jewish-led global media companies. Palestinians are being genocided for their love of the El Aksa Mosque (the war in Gaza is called by Palestinians the Al Aqsa Flood”). The only real resistance came from Iran, led by Persian theologians who well understood the Temple Mount controversy. So, of course Iran had to be bombed for Purim. Obviously such an act of celebration should be accompanied by the Kabbalistic ritual blood sacrifice of young girls, as expounded in the Epstein Files. This Jewish religious practice was achieved right away when they reportedly slaughtered over a hundred schoolgirls and when they deliberately targeted the 14-month-old granddaughter of the late Ayatollah.
Such is the fate of Persia, perishing under the Lion of Judah (Israeli codename Operation Roaring Lion). But how will the Christians fare, stepping into the arena with such a hungry lion? It is better not to cooperate with such beasts, for when we dance with the devil we deserve whatever fate has in store for us. Shall we review the Kabbalistic Calendar for the magic date that the Jewish Yoke will be lodged on our necks? We see how Islam may be openly reviled by our Jewish overlords. Do we really think that Christianity is exempt from such treatment? They already openly describe the Bible as an antisemitic document.” We all know that the conflict between Islam and Christianity is being stage-managed by Jews. With the influx of good, conservative Muslims into Western nations, we are rapidly learning that the points of harmony between believing Islamics and believing Christians vastly outweigh what Mike Huckabee calls our Judeo-Christian Patrimony”.
The Jews are running out of time. There has never been a Jewish kingdom that has lasted longer than 80 years and 2028 is coming up fast. From the local PTA to international organizations, Christians and Muslims are getting to know one another, making an end-run around their Jewish handlers. The Purim War against Iran is a clear sign of Jewish desperation. They already lost the moral high ground when they began firebombing Gazan ghettos. This latest Jewish war is the proverbial step too far, and when Israel falls you can bet they are going to try and take down everyone else with them. The first step towards ending the Iran War is the resolution of the Gazan Genocide. Once Israel is defused, the entire world powder keg will unravel. Imagine it! Christians and Muslims working together in Christ’s name to purge school libraries of Kabbalistic sex manuals! Ukraine will deport all the Jewish adventurers and get back to being the breadbasket of Europe! Jerusalem will become a UN protectorate, ensuring all religions have a seat at the tables of the Holy Land! Trump can go back to being a MAGA guy, the US military can be safely reduced and funds invested in US manufacturing! Congress can go back to representing the American people! Western businesses will thrive on all that cheap oil delivered by our new Muslim friends in the Middle East!
How many other positive scenarios can you imagine happening if we could only rid ourselves of these pestilent Epsteins? America has a hag on its back, and its name is Israel.
