Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
With the wisdom of hindsight, as well as new research based on de-classified material and evidence from various archives, including the British Archives and the US Library of Congress, it is now clear that when the British crown colony of Ceylon morphed into a British Dominion with the spectacular Pageant of Ceylon in 1948, her people’s long struggle for genuine Independence, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right to self-determination had only just begun.
Indeed, Ceylon/ Sri Lanka’s struggle for Independence continues to this day, amid GLADIO-style stay behind’ clandestine operations by British, and later US and NATO special forces. GLADIO stay behind” operations against Communists and Socialists in Europe as the Cold War between the Allied powers and the Soviet Union/ Russia ramped up, have been extensively described in the brilliant work of Swiss Historian, Daniele Ganser, among others. Similar stay-behind operations were employed to deliver shocks” to the natives in Afro-Asian post/colonies like Sri Lanka, to divide, distract, and Make the Economy Scream’ and ensure Communism and Socialism were kept at bay while Euro-American economic and security interests were protected.
Gladio-style secret operations in the Global South and Non-Aligned World certainly included ‘Operation Colombo’, enacted in 1973 in Santiago de Chile during the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) instigated coup that saw the death of South America’s first Socialist head of State, President Salvador Allende in 1973. Operation Colombo likely also witnessed the murder of Chilean Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda about whom a Woke film called ‘Albaroda’ which took the form of character assassination was made in Sri Lanka –of which more later.
So too, there were cover-up Investigations and black propaganda operations as with Operation Colombo” documented in the Pinochet File, a book by Peter Kornbluh. More recently, USAID and EU funded ‘capacity building’ projects have enabled institutional capture of media, legal and investigative institutions to promote particular narratives as part of propaganda.
‘Operation Colombo’ was followed by ‘Operation Condor’ in Chile and Argentina. Meanwhile, a colonial model and pattern of dependent economic development and under-development was cultivated with the corporation of the local comprador elite in the Afro-Asian world and South America– still fighting for genuine Independence.
As the British Dominion of Ceylon (1948-1972) struggled to gain real independence from the retreating British Empire while the rising US empire sought to capitalize on Britain’s demise, there were Cold War assassinations of Socialist heads of state and governments: President SWRD Bandaranaike (1959), an attempted military coup (1962), and insurrections by purportedly leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), segments of which were surmised to be backed by imperial powers– ironically against the ruling Socialist Sirimavo Bandaranaike government (1971). This was much as in other post-colonies in Asia and Africa, detailed among others Vincent Bevin’s book, The Jakarta Method”.
The JVP uprising of 1971 was remarkably timed to stymie the passage of the first Republican Constitution, which would have ended Ceylon’s British Dominion status and rendered Sri Lanka a fully independent state in September 1972 under the ruling Socialist Sirimavo Bandaranaike government.
Of course, the long ‘ethnic conflict’ from 1983 to 2009 between Sinhala and Tamil-speaking peoples of Lanka, who had lived together for centuries and inter-married for generations, was as much part of a shadow proxy war in the broader South Asian subcontinent as regional Cold war unfolded, Weaponizing ethno-religious tensions among diverse communities: The Cold war in South Asian took the form of shadow wars between regional hegemon, India, then as now closely allied with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/ Russia), and the Allied powers (Britain, France and US), which feared the Domino effect of communism sweeping through the Global South, as much as, the Soviet Union.
Pakistan after the Partition of India at Independence in 1947 was turned into a US-CIA Garrison State with military bases. Thus, India fearful of another garrison state to the South weaponized ethno-linguistic tensions in Sri Lanka, against likely British and American military bases being set up in Sri Lanka once US-backed J.R Jayawardene came to power in 1977 with a neoliberal economic agenda.
From Gladio to Assassinations, Coups, Partitions and regime change Ops
From the assassinations of Aung San in Burma and Mahatma Gandhi in 1947 on the eve of Independence, to the SWRD Bandaranaike assassination in Ceylon in 1959, assassination served as a form of Exit Strategy of the British Raj and other European Imperial powers in the face of de-colonization struggles waged across the Global South. These assassinations would ensure de-stabilization and continued divide and rule in de-colonizing regions and countries at a distance.
So too, was Partition of multicultural countries and regions, along with staged internal conflicts, refugee flows and weaponized Diasporas an Exit strategy for remote control by departing Euro-American Empires, which have left a long shadow — from Palestine to India, Cyprus to Ireland, and the list goes on. This is a neocolonial tragedy in Africa too. Thus Rwanda and Burundi where a genocide was staged with French colonial inputs, now processes immigrants to Britain, while funding the M-23 militants against its resources rich Democratic Republic of Congo at this time in another proxy war. Back in 1961 Congo’s popular nationalist leader, Patrice Lumumba who had united the country was assassinated in a CIA-Belgian coup.
Indeed, assassination, coups, regime change and partition were a form of Gladio-style stay being operation in the Global South. Stay Behind Operations were a well-documented Churchillian, Anglo Exit Strategy for continued occupation not just in Europe, but also from the Empire on which the sun had set.
These ‘stay behind’ operations were masked with Cover Up Investigations and Black Propaganda and enabled divide and rule through de-stabilization of the Afro-Asian post/colony. Thus too were retreating Euro-American imperialism’s economic and security interests in the post/colony protected.
Revelations by two researchers: A Lost Generation of Ox-Bridge Historians?
As Ceylon/ Sri Lanka struggled for real independence and national sovereignty amid Cold War shadow wars and Gladioesque operations, numerous attempted and more or less successful regime change operations occurred in the geostrategic island, the most recent being in 2022 and 2024.
Research by a Swiss historian Daniel Ganzer has detailed how secret operations, code-named GLADIO and shadow wars were conducted in Europe against socialist and communist national movements by the predecessor organization of the US CIA- the OSS or Office of Strategic Services.
Similarly, new research by the American historian and journalist Vincent Bevin, author of ‘The Jakarta Method’, and British political scientist Phil Miller (Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries who got away with War crimes), based on de-classified documents of the British Foreign Office and Library of Congress show similar patterns of staged, false flag operations, to destroy genuine socialist and communist de-colonization, national liberation and Independence movements in the Global South, by secret service agencies of the retreating European and rising US empires, past and present. This was as Britain and America sought to retain their economic and security interests in resource-rich African and Asian countries amid new and old Cold War proxy wars in the de-colonizing global South.
However, a lost generation of Woke Ox-bridge historians and related think tank and NGO research industry, funded and trapped in the Anglo-Dutch colonial archive of and for ethno-religious identity politics, conflict and the memory industry have failed to connect the dots. They remain oblivious of how the Cold War between NATO countries and the Communist Warsaw Pact countries took the form of a hot war in many parts of the de-colonizing Global South including Ceylon/Sri Lanka, where proxy wars were waged and staged with Psychological Operations and Cover up Investigations by Scotland Yard, CIA and later Israeli Mossad intelligence networks.
The Cold War clearly structured geostrategic Ceylon/ Sri Lanka’s struggle for real Independence amid a South Asian regional Cold War proxy war that shaped the so-called internal ‘Ethnic Conflict’ in the Geostrategic Indian Ocean island nation. Indeed, ethnic conflict’ served to mask and distract from Anglo-Dutch neocolonialism, even as islanded-ness was endlessly re-inscribed, also given a discursive turn to social history. This is evident in Woke histories of exotic slaves and romances with resistance across the Indian Ocean world of the British Raj.
Cold War is now repeating itself with the setting up of Zionist Chabad Prayer houses and conversions to the cause, while boatloads of Rohingaya refugees are mysteriously trafficked from Myanmar to disturb the peace, and distract. This is in the wake of the mysterious Gladio-esque, Special Forces, Islamic State (ISIS) claimed Easter Sunday operation on coastal fisheries communities, churches and tourist hotels on 2019 to Make the Economy Scream”. The weaponization of religious identity politics by external actors is apparent and ongoing as hybrid economic proxy war at this time in Ceylon/Sri Lanka as history repeats.
Back to the future, in 2022: On the eve of Sri Lanka’s 75th birthday, there was little talk that South Asia’s wealthiest country in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and all the metrics that matter, was subjected to a first-ever Sovereign Default to the colonial Club de Paris and the London Club of bankers and bondholders, with citizens dramatically impoverished due to a purported lack of exorbitantly privileged Eurodollars amid Economic Lawfare staged by the shadowy off shore Hamilton Reserve Bank (HRB) in New York as a New Cold War, including hybrid economic war, escalated in the Indian Ocean Region.
History would repeat itself on 4 February, as Sri Lanka once again marked Independence Day with a faux Leftist regime in power. Sadly, those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.
*Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake is a Cultural Anthropologist with expertise in international development and political-economic analysis. Collage of images from Internet of Sri Lanka flag and 1978 independence ceremony.
