UN Priorities amid US Military Occupation of Indian Ocean: Revamping the IOZP and ENMOD Treaty
Posted on July 12th, 2026
PART 2 Continued from Last Sunday https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2026/07/04/the-worlds-first-woman-head-of-state-and-priorities-for-the-next-unsg-an-indian-ocean-zone-of-peace-and-enmod/
The only woman in the room: Ceylon’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike with Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito with NAM heads of state in the SIV Building, where sessions of the founding conference of the Non-Aligned Movement took place in 1961. © Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade
The United Nations (UN) was set up in 1945 to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, when de-colonization, national liberation and independence struggles were sweeping across Asia, Africa and South America against Euro-American imperialism.
The UNs core mandates were to promote global peace, security, aid de-colonization and disarmament in the aftermath of World War 2. Over the decades however, the UN has evolved as a behemoth with proliferating development and humanitarian agencies, increasingly funded, controlled and captured by corporate interests wedded to Disaster Capitalism and the Deepstate. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, preferred to talk up ‘the global polycrisis’; narratives of climate disaster and health emergency.
Weather is increasingly a new frontier in hybrid economic warfare and a ‘force multiplier’ as Washington moves to Make America Great Again (MAGA) and NATO militarizes the planet as OECD countries military budgets balloon. [i]
The UN’s CoP Climate summits and Anthropocene narrative however, have ignored the fact that war and militarization, particularly biowar, geoengineering and the weaponization of the weather for hybrid economic warfare pose the greatest threat to the natural environment and life of the planet.
Rather than address any environmental crisis as part of the larger problem of militarization and wars, particularly bio-warfare, waged by Euro-American Imperialist powers in a multipolar world in a comprehensive manner in line with the UN’s peace-keeping mandate, fossil fuels have become the target for the UNEP and Green lobby. Meanwhile, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) have fragmented and eroded lateral thinking and distracted from the fact that war and the military business industrial and Research Complex is the greatest environmental threat.
A Green Behemoth? Climate Geoengineering and the ENMOD Treaty
The ‘global polycrisis’ narrative of ‘climate disaster’ and ‘health emergency’ mask geoengineering and weather warfare while sidestepping their real causes, including awkward subjects like Gain-of-Function research, Covid-19 origins in biowarfare labs, directed energy weapons and geoengineering for weather warfare in the fake Anthropocene.
The increasingly sophisticated development and use of Directed Energy Weapons and other geoengineering technologies like Cloud Seeding for monsoon weather warfare in Southeast Asia as in ‘Operation Popeye’ during the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s have been elided at CoP Climate Summits. Rather the focus is on the Paris Accords, French President Macron’s Green New Deal for green and blue debt neo-colonization of Global South countries.
Much like the Declaration of the ‘Indian Ocean Zone of Peace’ the Environmental Modification Technologies or ENMOD treaty of 1976 has been forgotten, ironically, in the context of Scaled Up weather manipulation, heat domes, El Nino, forest fires, flash floods, and geo-engineered earthquakes and Tsunamis as part of Hybrid Economic warfare, weather in Aceh Province at the northern entry point to the Strait of Malacca or recently in Venezuela.
From Bikini Islands to Venezuela: Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Climate Hypocrisy
The ENMOD treaty which came into effect after revelations of the US military’s use of cloud seeding technologies for monsoon weather warfare in Southeast Asia as in Operation Popeye during the Vietnam War, did not reference earlier geoengineering experiments by the US Department of Defense advanced research agency to generate earthquakes and tsunamis in the early 1950s in the Bikini Islands Atoll with nuclear and hydrogen bombs. [ii]
To date, 75 years later the Bikini Islands remain nuclear contaminated and uninhabitable after the experiments that generated earthquakes and tsunamis. In the context of recent double tap earthquakes in Venezuela during the 60 day Iran-US war pause in the Straits of Hormuz, and the Aceh North Sumatra double tap earthquakes and un-natural transoceanic Indian Ocean Tsunamis of Christmas/ Boxing day 2004 the ENMOD Treaty clearly needs re-visiting and revamping.
Increasingly sophisticated geoengineering technologies and proliferating wars and the military business industrial Research complex, including Artificial Intelligence, cyber, and biowarfare are the biggest threats to the environment. So too, is war is the greatest threat to global peace and security, which are core mandates of the UN.
Yet, the CoP environment summits side stepped issues of militarization and war which is the root cause of environmental harm and pollution of Mother Nature rather than address them in a comprehensive manner.
Secretary General Guterres has been remarkably silent about NATO’s and OECD’s exploding military budgets, even as the colonial Club de Paris Bond holder market Green and Blue, debt-for-nature-swaps and Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), bonds and scams in the Global South, outsourcing the climate crisis, particularly to islands were geoengineering research experiments have long been conducted as with the Bikini Islands Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
As the Global North militarizes to confront the rise of the BRICS and Asian 21st century, UN agencies have pushed the Global South to bear the costs of increasingly geo-engineered ‘environmental crises’ caused by militarism and war by promoting Green and blue bonds based on Net Zero Carbon science fiction. The name of the game is climate hypocrisy in a deeply unequal world.
Climate catastrophes and images are increasingly exaggerated, magnified and scaled up in the global corporate media echo chamber with images of victims and scenes of earthquake, tsunami, floods, heat domes, forest fires to promote the Anthropocene narrative.
Disaster Capitalism is lucrative for the legacy press. In the final analysis, one does not need to be a supporter to President Donald J. Trump to agree that the climate crisis sold by the UN and OECD is the ‘biggest hoax’ ever!
Anxieties of Empire: Undoing Indo-Pac Com
The UN’s polycrisis has enabled and embolden the current attempt by Washington to militarize, occupy and neocolonize the Indian Ocean, and levy tolls on ships plying the maritime silk route. This, ironically, despite President Trump’s and his MAGA base’s preference for American isolationism and anti-immigrant policies.
Does the US attempt to toll ships in the Indian Ocean reflect deep seated insecurities of a declining Empire in an increasingly multipolar world also given the history and geography of the Supercontinent of Asia?
The Americas are separate from the Supercontinent of Asia by the vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The US is geographically distant from ‘Mackinder’s heartland’ —the interconnected landmass of Asia, Africa and the European Peninsular traversed by ancient and modern land and maritime Silk Routes and the growth hub of the world. As a multipolar world emerges enabling the next Asian Century, is the US anxious about its global relevance given distance from the earth’s heartlands and population centers?
Are Washington’s imperial anxieties the reason that US intelligence think tanks sought to re-invent the world’s oceanic geography and history by coining the Indo-Pacific” neologism, partitioning the Indian Ocean World? And is the tide turning? The US Indo-Pacific Command recently dropped the Indo” and reverted to Pac Com.
Simultaneously, a carefully curated erasure of Global South realty, struggles for genuine Independence, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Afro-Asian Solidarity and the UN Declaration of the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace, and the fate of its leaders and their countries has unfolded with ‘the end of history’ proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama and US triumphalism after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The erasure of NAM from annals of Global South history along with the declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’ by the world’s first woman head of state has enabled and emboldened the US military occupation of the Indian Ocean World’s ancient and modern trade routes to stymie the emerging economies of South and Southeast Asia and the Asian 21st century in order to shore up the Petrodollar and Make America Great Again” (MAGA)
From Greenland to Chagos Islands: With a little help from Andy Burnham
When the Indian Ocean was declared a Zone of Peace in 1971 the United Kingdom and US had forcibly displaced the native population of the Chagos Islands to build the huge Diego Garcia military base. Chagos Islands, called the British Indian Ocean territory (BIOT) by some, had been colonized at a time when Britannia Ruled the waves. That was an era of British imperialism when the vast Indian Ocean was referred to as a ‘British Lake’ or Pond.
Today there’s news that President Trump seeks to buy the occupied Chagos Islands from Mauritius, much like he sought to purchase Greenland from Denmark. The huge environment polluting US-UK Diego Garcia military base is located due southwest of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
US Purchase of Chagos Islands would no doubt need help from the latest British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who supported Tony Blair’s Iraq war adventure in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction before doing a volte face.
It was from the Diego Garcia military base that US missiles recently targeted Iran across the Indian Ocean, and US airplanes flew bombing missions over Afghanistan during America’s global war on terror. It was only in March 2019 that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the UK and US occupation of the Chagos Islands was illegal under international law.
Any sale of the Chagos Island would also require the Modi Government in New Delhi to turn a blind eye to US led hyper-militarization of the Indian Ocean. The land-locked Modi regime in north India appears to have turned its back on the Indian Ocean facing South Indian Dravidian States– Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, and Karnataka –whose Seamen constitute the majority of Indian sailors who have perished due to the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign Minister Jaishankar has ignored the IOZP declaration which was supported by Congress Prime Minister Indira Gandhi 55 years ago. Dr. Jaishankar has preferred rather to sign up to the US-led new ‘security architecture’ in the Indian Ocean and related environment polluting war games such as the Malabar exercises which saw whales and dolphins dying en mass in Sri Lanka in 2022. The new US led military security architecture of the Indian Ocean clearly targeting China and Iran, includes the QUAD (India, Japan, Australia and US) in the eastern part, I2U2 (Israel, India, UAE and USA) in the western Indian Ocean.
India remains excluded from the white racist nuclear submarine club, AUKUS comprised of Australia, UK and US, targeting China and the Indian Ocean World.
From Chagos Islands to Sri Lanka
Spearheading the UNGA declaration of the Indian Ocean as a ‘Zone of Peace’ in 1971, Ceylon’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike was acutely aware of the geostrategic location of her county for control of Indian Ocean trade and energy supply chains.
Sri Lanka was called an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ and valuable real estate in the Indian Ocean. Although the wealthiest county in South Asia by all metrics except the exorbitantly privileged US dollar, Sri Lanka is now ensnared in a Eurobond debt trap. It was forced to stage a sovereign default enabling the Washington Consensus (IMF and WB) to upend Economic Sovereignty and Energy Policy Autonomy through control of the Central Bank as the US Cold War in the Indian Ocean heated up in 2022. Because of its geostrategic location the county has long been an aid dependent OECD ‘donor darling’.
Geostrategic Sri Lanka is clearly once again in the cross-hairs of big power rivalry also given Chinese investments in the teardrop island, particularly the Hambantota Port which the US Central Intelligence Agency has deemed a String of Pearls” harbor.
Thus in the first week of March to kick of the illegal war on Iran and the Indian Ocean world, the US torpedoed an Iranian frigate killing 85 sailors in the seas of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Navy was able to save some of the survivors of the sunken IRIS Dena and provided humanitarian rescue to mitigate the US war crime in Sri Lanka’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone.
Yet there were few protest when US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Paul Kapur, declared the Sri Lanka navy a partner of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy last week on board a gifted frigate.
Kapur, a member of the weaponized Indo-American Diaspora, delivered Satellite communications technology and 10 helicopters, Trojan horse gifts, no doubt to help the US war machine to surveil, monitor and torpedo as necessary Indian Ocean shipping lanes from Sri Lanka in the next bout of war on Iran and China once the 60 day pause is done.[iii] All this begs the question, would the SL Navy be de facto partners to future US war crimes in the Indian Ocean henceforth?
Meanwhile, the Fake Left National People’s Power regime in Colombo has kept a deadly, deathly silence about US war crimes in the Indian Ocean – betraying Socialist Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranike’s bold vision for Peace at the center of the Indian Ocean World.
It is nevertheless to be hoped that Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya may try to live up to the legacy of her predecessor who declared the ‘Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace for all time’ with great prescience. The UN and Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka should host an International Conference to mark 55 years of IOZP this December 16, given its relevance to Global Peace and Security amid renewed attempts by some NATO countries to occupy and colonize the Indian Ocean World.
Natural Disasters are not all Natural: Staging disaster, commodifying Mother Nature
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunamis on Christmas/boxing day following Double Tap Earthquakes in Aceh, North Sumatra, Indonesia, hit the northern entry point that extends to the Malacca Strait Choke point of the Indian Ocean Maritime Silk Route.
The twin earthquakes (much as in Venezuela) on the west coast of Aceh in 2004, triggered massive tsunamis that crossed the vast Indian Ocean killing over 200,000 people in South and Southeast Asia. The two big waves devastated coastal fishery and tourism economies before hitting the East Coast of Africa, Tanzania. Several Chinese built ‘string of pearls’ ports such as Hambantota in Sri Lanka were hit massively as the US Central Intelligence Agency focused on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Such massive, unprecedented, trans-oceanic disasters tend to be Unnatural Disasters. Geoengineering experiment or feats perhaps?
Amid Anthropocene and climate crisis talk, as Indian Scientist Vandana Shiva has noted, Mother Nature is also being increasingly commodified and financialized for Net Zero carbon trading and green and blue debt bondage, with Debt for Nature Swaps, and Environment, Social and Gender (ESG) bonds.
Increasingly ‘nature’ which is fundamentally a cultural construct is portrayed as the ‘enemy’ of humanity amid the Faux Anthropocene. Staged disasters which enable disaster capitalism have increasingly rendered Mother Nature into a fearful phenomenon which is simultaneously in need of protection from humans. That humans are part of nature and the elements of which all matter including human beings are made of (earth, wind, water and fire), seems increasingly lost in the age of the AI God-fetish.
As the US-Iran Mideast war was paused in the first week of July also for America’s 250th celebrations, the global legacy press echo chamber went into overdrive about Heat Domes in Europe, and El Nino Drought in Asia, although the southeast monsoon was advancing nicely in South Asia.
The extreme weather reportage and predictions of a Super El Nino in October in Sri Lanka trumped news about the double tap earthquakes in Venezuela. A super El Nino drought and famine narrative across Monsoon Asia was predicted for later in 2026 citing UNEP and related agencies. Mother Nature was portrayed as being on the war path, now that America’s latest war of choice was on pause?
The current UNSG Antonio Guterres’ ‘global polycrisis’ and climate catastrophe narrative elides the fact that war, militarization and the military business Research Industrial complex which develop DUEL USE Geoengineering and Environment Modification technologies are the biggest threat to life on the planet.
Drawing down the war machine to establish Human Security should be the UN’s highest priority including de-militarizing the Indian Ocean World trade system. Has the current Secretary General abandoned the UN’s primary mandate of peace, security and de-colonization? A firm voice for peace, decolonization and Economic Justice for the Global South is needed from the august body and is solely missed the world over at this time.
Finally, it is to be hoped that the next UNSC in line with UN Mandates to promoted Global Peace and Security would make revamping the UNGA Indian Ocean ‘Zone of Peace” Resolution and the Environmental Technologies Modification (ENMOD) Treaty his or her highest priority.
Scaled up Disasters and the Question of State Sovereignty.
UNSG Guterres had focused on Environmental and Climate Disaster Capitalism while ignoring the root cause of the great majority of threats of the so-called Polycrisis- biowarfare to and geoengineered climate crisis. UN agencies like the WHO which promoted vaccine mandates and Covid-19 lockdowns usurped the Sovereignty of States enshrined in the UN Charter — under the guise of Health Emergency, as with the Climate Emergency – moving toward Global Governance.
WHO’s fear messaging like the Anthropocene Climate disaster narrative have served to undermine Principles of State Sovereignty, National Policy Autonomy based on country-specific date, and self-determination in violation of the UN Charter’s Article 2.7 Nothing in the present charter shall authorize the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of States.”
During Covid-19 countries were compelled to ignore their own national data and follow Lockdown and vaccine mandates pushed by UN agencies as with the current Climate Hoax.
Given increased evidence of Geoengineering, technologies for warfare climate modification and weather warfare, at this time, amid ‘heat domes’ in Europe and predictions of a massive El Nino in Monsoon Asia which are regional growth hubs to cause drought and famine later this year, revisiting the Environmental Modification Technologies Treaty (ENMOD Treaty) of 1977 would be vital for the next UNSG. This along with revamping the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace declaration to ensure that the US Armada cease and desist from military occupation and blockade of the Indian Ocean world would be a vital task for the next UNSG.[iv]
Finally, Sri Lanka’s President, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka would soon visit France – July 16. The geostrategic island at the center of the Indian Ocean is much like the Strait of Hormuz on the Western reach and Malacca Straits on the eastern reach of the maritime Silk Route—a Choke Point of Submarine Data Cable routes. Sri Lanka is increasingly important in a world of AI and Data Centers as war ramps up in the Indian Ocean World. It is to be hoped that he would request that French and EU trawlers desist from looting Indian Ocean fishery, so that Sri Lankan Fishers may not need to turn to piracy like the Indian Ocean Somali fishermen, whose livelihoods were destroyed by French Trawlers.
Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in international development and political-economic analysis.
[i] Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the weather in 2025 https://dn720709.ca.archive.org/0/items/WeatherAsAForceMultiplier/WeatherAsAForceMultiplier.pdf
[ii] https://www.history.com/articles/nuclear-bomb-tests-bikini-atoll-facts
[iii] https://island.lk/us-declares-sln-its-indo-pacific-partner/
[iv] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375631887_Natural_Disasters_are_Not_All_Natural