On many an occasion on my never ending irrigation inspections in Kandy and Nuwara Eliya long ago I had to cling onto trees and, creepers to avoid being blown off by the power of the wind.
Speaking from my sheer experience in handling development tasks-
Building up Coop Crayon at Morawaka in 1971, done in three months, developing it to enable Minister Illangaratne to declare that all imports of crayons should be stopped, and
Again in Bangladesh, establishing the Youth Self Employment Programme in nineteen months- a programme that being implemented by members of the Bangladesh Civil Service, trained by me, has by now guided over three million youths to become self employed, I submit:
It will be easier to build a few hundred wind turbines and enable Sri Lanka to produce all its electricity.
I submit my Paper for kind reading by our new Ministers and our saviour Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Dear Excellency, It is a task that can be done within a few years.
Wind Power to our rescue
By Garvin Karunaratne
I bequeath to my readers the Conclusion of my book: Wind Power for Sri Lanka’s Power Requirements, published by Godages
It in unfortunate that our authorities in establishing wind turbines in Sri Lanka have so far ignored the mountainous areas where there is ample wind power.
In Sri Lanka we have failed to harness Wind Power which Mother Nature has bountifully provided to us.
Suffice it to state that Spain a country that was far behind in producing wind power has within two to three years spurted up the ladder to be the second country in the world. Travelling through the Pyrenees to Spain in my Motorhome, some ten yeas ago I was surprised to see wind turbines perched all over even on makeshift angle iron posts, the type of things that I can myself make in a day(I am no engineer). Spain even sells power to France today.
On my last visit to venerate the Avukana Buddha, I spotted a canopy perched on very long concrete shafts constructed by the State Engineering Corporation.
It is my humble request to our excellency the President of Sri Lanka to summon the engineers who built the concrete shafts to support the canopy, and request them to design and produce the posts that can carry the wind turbines. They can easily produce these. Then import the wind turbine mechanism and set them up in our hills. Later, we can ourselves make the turbines. We will provide employment for a few thousands. This will provide all the power we need. I have no doubt about that. This task can be accomplished within a year at most. Considering the billions we spend to import coal and oil, we can easily make a saving.
That is the message in my book: Wind Power for Sri Lanka’s Power Requirements.
I enclose the Conclusion of my book in support for kind perusal.
10.Conclusion
I am pleased to submit the Papers I have so far written on Wind Power as a source of Energy, in a booklet in the sheer hope that someday this will be read by one of our leaders who will be convinced that Wind Power is the form of energy that Sri Lanka is blessed with in abundance and will get going all out.
In nostalgia, I can remember what did actually happen in Bangladesh in 1982, when I worked there as the Commonwealth Fund General Advisor on Youth Development to the Ministry of Labour and Manpower in Bangladesh., The Minister for Youth Abul Kasim was arrested on the charge of harbouring a criminal in his residency. A day later, the Military took over the country in a coup de etat. Immediately afterwards, the Military Government in a high powered conference chaired by Hon Aminul Islam, the Minister for Labour and Manpower assessed the programmes of the Youth Ministry. That included imparting vocational training to 40,000 youths a year. The Minister was not totally impressed with the work done. Suddenly realizing me as the only outsider, I was confronted:
”What is the contribution you can make for Bangladesh?”
I replied: It would be ideal to have a self employment programme to enable the 40,000 youths that are being trained every year to be guided to become entrepreneurs. Most of them are in the ranks of the unemployed even after training, today. ”
My reply created an uproar. The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest official in the land objected on the grounds that such a self employment creation programme can never be achieved. He added that the ILO had in the preceding three years tried to establish a self employment programme in Tangail, Bangladesh and spent a massive amount of funds all in vain. I argued with the Secretary to the Treasury for over two hours, quoting definite instances where I had successfully established self employment projects for youths in Sri lanka. It was an intense battle between me and the Secretary with the Hon Minister intently listening. Finally the Minister stopped our battle. He immediately approved my establishing a self employment pogramme. The Secretary to the Treasury stumped with the words, that he will never be providing any funds for this wasteful task. I replied that I will find savings within approved training budgets which was approved by the Hon Minister.
I got cracking with the officials of the Youth Ministry and the Lecturers of the Vocational Training Institutes that provided the vocational training, providing them with a basic knowledge of national planning to identify areas within the economy where there was a propensity to create employment opportunities and training them in economic endeavour-structuring projects for self employment on a small scale-even with a cow or a dozen chicks and developing the enterprise. My task was to establish the self employment programme and to train the staff to continue after my two year consultancy ended. To a man the officers responded and today this Youth Self Employment Programme has by now guided over three millions to become self employed and it is an ongoing programme that trains and guides 160,000 youths a year to become self employed. Today, it is easily the premier programme of employment creation the world has known.
This experience of mine itself indicates that though wind power for the task of creating power is at an infancy today, we can easily develop it.
Wind Power can offer all the energy that Sri Lanka needs will someday find a Minister Aminul Islam” who will authorize it. I am certain that the administrators and engineers who will toil till it is a success can easily be found. Though in my Nineties I will assure that it is a success.
Firstly, the country will not depend on the supply of coal and oil for power plants and the country can save all the millions and billions being spent today to import oil and coal.
Secondly it will provide employment for thousands in erecting the turbine towers, in establishing the wind turbines and in the manufacture of the turbine mechanism itself at the later stages. In my travels in France, Spain and Portugal I have seen workers making the towers, blades, transporting them in long trucks, erecting the towers and maintaining them. That is no difficult task for our engineers and workers.
One of my readers happened to be an engineer, Mr Kanaga. who was involved with establishing the five wind turbines at Hambantota, the first to be built in Sri lanka. What is most interesting in his comment which I have totally enclosed in this book, is that the environmental lobby had decided that the turbines should only be erected on the coasts and not in the mountains where there is ample wind force.
It is sad that the environmentalists were silent when the entire Kotmale Valley was denuded of people and their activities all to create 200 MW of power. That could have been easily achieved with fifty wind turbines scattered within Kotmale itself and the inhabitants and the economy would have been spared extintion. The entirety of Kotmale is dead today.
To my mind it is a crime not to use the wind power available and to spend millions and billions to purchase oil and coal.
My thanks are also due to the Editor of the Sunday Observer.lk who in Let there be Light” (Sunday Observer:06/09/2009) commented that my suggestions are very valuable. Referring to my suggestion that the wind power in the Central Highlands should be harnessed says, This is a timely and valid proposal and the authorities should take appropriate action to locate wind turbines in areas which will enable them to reach their maximum potential.”
I am also thankful for Noor Nizam for his Wind Energy Electricity generation is a reality” (Sri Lanka Guardian:27/08/2009) In his words, Garvin should be commended for his boldness to take to task the lethargic and selfish bureaucrats on this issue of renewal energy development of electricity energy in Sri Lanka…. His message should be well taken by others too handling national planning and development strategies to assist the little island of 21 million to come out of the rut of poverty, misery, the destruction of the civil war and the dependence on foreign powers.” He adds in the affirmative, As Garvin Karunaratne wishes Wind Energy Electricity Generation will be a reality in Sri Lanka for the next generation”. It is my fervent hope that this will be realized.
Sri Lankan engineers have in ancient times done wonders. The gradient of the Jaya Ganga that carried the waters of the Kala Weva to the tanks in Talawa and Anuradhapura has been constructed at a gradient of six inches in a mile, a gradient that baffles the irrigation engineers of today.
I am dead certain that Sri Lanka can become self sufficient in all its power requirements not for its present stage but also for its future development through using wind power. The wind power in the Central and Sabaragamuwa Hills is vast. Methods and systems have to be found to harness this energy. However as long as we build wind turbines on the coastal areas and ignore the areas where there is real wind power and satisfy ourselves with studies of the difficulties and constraints, our attempt will be like that of a squirrel trying to empty the water in the ocean , carrying a bit of water on its tail, endless.
Garvin Karunaratne Ph.D. Michigan State University
Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternative Programmes of Success(Godages:2006), How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle/Godages:2017)
The recent visit of Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu to Sri Lanka and his discussions with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake mark an important step in strengthening bilateral relations between the two Indian Ocean neighbours. The signing of multiple agreements reflects goodwill, mutual respect, and a shared desire for cooperation.
However, at a time when Sri Lanka is navigating a fragile economic recovery, the critical question remains: Do these agreements translate into tangible economic gains—particularly in terms of foreign exchange earnings?
President Muizzu’s political rise was initially perceived as tilting the Maldives away from India and closer to China. Yet, recent developments suggest a more pragmatic recalibration. India’s restrained and mature response—especially in accommodating Maldivian sensitivities without retaliation—has helped restore balance in regional relations.
Sri Lanka, too, appears to be aligning itself with a pragmatic geopolitical approach that prioritises stability over confrontation. While this is a welcome development, diplomacy alone cannot resolve Sri Lanka’s pressing economic challenges.
What is notably absent from the recent engagements is a bold and focused initiative in the blue economy, an area where both Sri Lanka and the Maldives possess natural and strategic advantages.
The Maldives has successfully positioned itself as a global leader in high-end luxury tourism, attracting affluent travellers and generating substantial foreign exchange. Sri Lanka, in contrast, continues to underutilise its vast marine resources and coastal potential.
A collaborative approach between the two nations could unlock significant value.
One immediate opportunity lies in developing joint high-end tourism corridors. By integrating the Maldives’ luxury resort experience with Sri Lanka’s rich cultural, ecological, and wellness offerings, both countries could attract a broader and higher-spending tourist segment. A coordinated Two Nations – One Ocean Experience” branding initiative could redefine regional tourism.
Equally important is the development of a cruise and yacht economy. Establishing a Colombo–Galle–Malé circuit for luxury vessels would create new revenue streams while positioning Sri Lanka as a service and logistics hub for Maldivian tourism fleets.
Furthermore, the long-discussed development of Trincomalee as a maritime and energy hub must be fast-tracked. Its natural harbour offers immense potential for bunkering, ship repair, and regional logistics—benefiting not only Sri Lanka but also supporting the Maldivian economy.
At present, many of the signed agreements appear administrative and long-term in nature. While such frameworks are necessary, they do not address the urgency of Sri Lanka’s need for rapid foreign exchange inflows.
What is required now is a shift from ceremonial diplomacy to commercially driven partnerships.
Sri Lanka should take the initiative to establish a Sri Lanka–Maldives Blue Economy Task Force, with a clear mandate to deliver results within a defined timeframe. This task force could focus on joint investments in marine industries, collaborative tourism development, and shared training programs in hospitality and maritime services.
A flagship project—such as an Indian Ocean Luxury Corridor”—should be launched within the next 12 months, backed by both governments and private sector stakeholders.
The foundation of goodwill between Sri Lanka and the Maldives is strong. But goodwill must now be converted into growth, investment, and foreign exchange earnings.
Sri Lanka cannot afford partnerships that remain on paper.
The time has come to move decisively—from agreements to execution, and from diplomacy to dollars.
A massive theft occurred involving USD 2.5 million from the Treasury, allegedly reaching a third party, according to Samagi Jana Balawegaya Member of Parliament Harsha de Silva.
The Member of Parliament made these remarks while making a special statement in Parliament today (5).
The system is crippled because high-ranking officials, including the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, lack proper experience in financial management and because individuals from other services are appointed to such positions instead of skilled administrative officers.
The Member of Parliament questioned why the Department of External Resources, which can only intervene in bilateral debt negotiations, became involved in this transaction.
The process is in a muddle even though the servicing of government debt must take place through the Department of Debt Management.
He further stated:
”A massive theft occurred here. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost. Ultimately, the taxpayers of this country must pay for it; no one else. It is not brought from Pelawatta. But the main thing I have to say is that when the former Minister of Finance and the Deputy Minister described this, they spoke as if there is no problem and this is a normal occurrence. It is not so. I told my members that since we held a closed-door session, the facts presented are only a summary for the public and Parliament. But according to what was said there, we understand there are many complications in this massive process. There are a great many.
For example, why was a Department of External Resources involved in this? The Department of External Resources has no connection to this transaction. Here is the Act. This Act states very clearly that the Department of External Resources can only be involved in negotiating bilateral loans. Next, it says that in accordance with the Debt Act, the timely servicing of government debt must be done through the Department of Debt Management. So why this confusion? There is a major problem here, which is that these people do not know what they are doing. The story about ‘L-boards’ is proven today. Also, usually, individuals from the SLAS come to these positions after working in thirty or forty places before coming to a place like the Ministry of Finance. Everyone knows that what is done now is ‘Apocalypse’. What happens in ‘Apocalypse’? People from the Planning Service are put into these places.
I challenge anyone to say if I am wrong. I might be wrong. But as far as I know, both the DG of PDM and the DG of ERD are from the Planning Service. People in the Planning Service do not have the necessary experience. Also, for the first time in Sri Lankan history, the Treasury Secretary is a person who previously sat here as a Member of Parliament. He also lacks experience in this management.
I know that when this was appointed, when we were in government, I oversaw the SEC as the Deputy Minister. At that time, there were perhaps ten or fifteen directors at the SEC. This gentleman worked as one of them. After that, the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance is a person who must perform a very large role. If the Secretary and the DGs do not have this experience, there is no need to ask about what is happening.
The other thing is the delegation of authority. It was mentioned that a payment of nine hundred thousand was made once. Minister Anil said a payment of nine hundred thousand dollars was made. Who approved a payment of nine hundred thousand dollars? Can a director do that? Was there no delegation of authority? In any institution, the first task a Secretary should know is to delegate—this person for one hundred thousand, this person for five hundred thousand, and the DG for one million. It is said a payment of nine hundred thousand US dollars was made. How was it done?
Therefore, a theft occurred here. No one can escape from that. A theft occurred. Who the thief is must be found. Let the CID do that. You are there, and I am in our Finance Committee. Let us find the policy and administrative problems in this in the Finance Committee. Let us find them and recommend what should happen.
However, I say one last thing. For three turns, the Finance Minister, the Treasury Secretary, or the Deputy Secretaries did not come to our committee. I eventually wrote a letter to the President regarding this. I will table that as well. Even after that letter was written, they said just the other day that they cannot come. That cannot be done. I was too good; that is what caused the trouble. I was too good. I could have brought a privilege question if I wanted. I did not. Why? I gave them an opportunity. But do not take undue advantage of that opportunity. Finally, we are told from various places that we gave these people too much leniency.”
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.
One of the gravest injustices in America today persists not because it is hidden, but because it has been normalized—absorbed into daily life, tolerated in silence, and sustained by indifference where outrage should prevail
Child Poverty in America
How can the United States—still the richest nation on earth—tolerate one of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world? This is not inevitability but failure: we have the wealth to end it, yet lack the will. The same is true of widening inequality since the 1980s—it is a political choice, not an economic inevitability.
Child poverty is not a natural phenomenon, like an earthquake or a hurricane. It is a social condition for which we are collectively responsible, brought into existence and maintained for decades due to the economic policies we have pursued and supported. That our society tolerates this violent indifference to the life experience of millions of impoverished children remains a profound failure and abdication of our most fundamental responsibility to future generations. It does not have to be this way,” Academic Pediatrics, the journal of the American Pediatric Association, notes.
Startling Statistics
Eleven million children, out of the 74 million children residing in the United States, live in poverty. One in six children under the age of five (which is to say, three million children) are poor – that is the highest rate of any age group. In short, children constitute the poorest age group in the United States. The Children’s Defense Fund has shown that the burden of poverty falls disproportionately on children of color, as well as those under five years of age, those belonging to single mothers, and those living in the South, which is home to roughly 47 percent of the children in this country who live beneath the poverty threshold.
In 2023, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native children were about three times as likely as white children to fall below the poverty line. Child poverty fell to a record low of 5.2 percent in 2021 – an achievement which was largely attributable to the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which lifted over 700,000 Black children and 1.2 million Hispanic children out of poverty. However, lawmakers opted not to extend the expansion of the CTC, and essentially all the gains in poverty reduction vanished the following year, pushing millions of Americans into poverty in 2022. Since 2021, the child poverty rate has more than doubled, standing at 13.4 percent in 2024.
The Impact of Economic Policy
As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) pointedly notes: The results of the policy response to the pandemic proved that we purposely choose to tolerate a disproportionately high level of poverty for children of color in the United States.” Children are especially susceptible to the deleterious consequences of poverty – in terms of health, mental and physical development, and education – with ramifications that can easily extend into adulthood.
Moreover, children living in impoverished neighborhoods are faced with significant challenges, regardless of their family’s income; this includes schools that are insufficiently funded and inadequate access to healthcare. The fact is that child poverty and life in disadvantaged neighborhoods present an obstacle to medical care, which can carry these health harms into adulthood and across generations.”
The Health Implications for Poor Children Child poverty means lower health outcomes for children – it means greater illness, chronic disease, sickness, and mortality. Reducing child poverty means having healthier children in America, and a sound healthcare policy can, in turn, help to reduce child poverty. To see that requires acknowledging the role of the US health care system in fostering economic hardship in the first place.”
To begin with, health care policy can address child poverty by lowering the likelihood that medical bills will deplete a family’s financial resources. Unexpected medical bills remain the number one cause of bankruptcy among American families.
Moreover, if we want a healthcare system that reduces child poverty, we need to remove the perverse financial incentives that remain characteristic of a healthcare system that Drs. Joshua M. Sharfstein and Rachel L.J. Thornton observe:
“still earns its daily income through inefficient and high-priced fee-for-service billing. The resulting health expenditures, by far the highest in the world, leave little room for social investments to address poverty. At the same time, with revenue largely dependent on keeping the beds filled, healthcare institutions see few financial rewards from investing in primary care, community prevention, and the social determinants of health.”
The Economic Cost of Child Poverty
Reducing, or rather eliminating, childhood poverty is a moral obligation that we have as a society. Certainly, one can also easily make the economic case for using public resources to reduce the rate of child poverty: an article in the Journal of Children and Poverty pointedly observes that poverty burdens society and robs it of some of its productive potential.” Indeed, this study shows that the costs to America associated with the conditions associated with childhood poverty are $500 billion per year – the equivalent of nearly 4% of GDP. In other words, we could raise our overall consumption of goods and services and our quality of life by about one-half trillion dollars a year if the conditions associated with childhood poverty were eliminated.” In fact, this calculation more than likely understates the actual losses that are a direct consequence of poverty in America.
The Failure to Address Child Poverty
For decades, successive American administrations—Democratic and Republican alike—have failed to confront the moral obscenity of child poverty with anything resembling urgency or resolve. This is not a failure of resources, but of will. In a nation capable of allocating nearly a trillion dollars annually to defense and tens of billions more squandered to wars of choice, such as the war with Iran (which has so far cost an estimated $25 billion), the persistence of widespread child deprivation is indefensible. The contrast is as stark as it is damning: limitless funding when it comes to projecting power abroad, and chronic hesitation when it comes to safeguarding the most vulnerable at home.
This abdication reached new depths under the Trump administration, which not only neglected the structural roots of poverty but actively dismantled programs that served as a lifeline for tens of millions of Americans. Cuts to nutrition assistance, housing support, and healthcare access were pursued under the guise of fiscal prudence, even as military spending surged unchecked.
The result was predictable and cruel: families pushed further to the margins, children denied stability and opportunity, and a social safety net deliberately weakened. This is not merely a policy failure—it is a conscious choice about whose lives are valued and whose are expendable.
Yet, in the final analysis, we are heaping shame on ourselves with each day that passes and millions upon millions of children go to bed hungry, or to school with nothing to eat, or have to spend another night in a homeless shelter. We must feel mortified because we are failing to meet our most fundamental obligations as a society: to give future generations a chance to flourish, to realize their fullest potential, and to discover and exercise their talents to the fullest. All of which require access to healthcare, education, adequate housing, nourishment, and neighborhoods free from crime, destitution, and hopelessness.
What Must Be Done to Eliminate Child Poverty The demand to end childhood poverty is sound economic policy – but it is also a moral imperative of the highest order. Until we see it as such, we are eroding the moral fabric of this society, denying the dignity of millions of Americans, and in the process destroying whatever self-respect this country still retains.
Ending child poverty will not come from rhetoric but from sustained public pressure. Therefore, Americans must demand that their elected officials commit, year after year, the necessary resources to eradicate child poverty, not merely alleviate it. This requires binding budgetary priorities, measurable targets, and political accountability, until no child is left deprived by circumstances that a nation of such wealth has the power—and obligation to eliminate.
This is no longer a problem we can afford to acknowledge in passing or relegate to partisan debate—it demands immediate, collective action. Lawmakers must act with urgency, institutions must be held accountable, and citizens must refuse to accept complacency as a substitute for conscience.
The measure of a just society is not what it proclaims, but what it is willing to confront and change. The time to act is not tomorrow, not after the next election cycle, but now—before this enduring failure becomes an irreversible stain on the nation’s moral fabric.
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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.
Guwahati: Counting of votes begins in all 126 legislative assembly constituencies of Assam, where elections were held simultaneously in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Keralam, Puducherry union territory, along with bye-elections in some other States in the last few weeks. As the clock touches 8 in the morning (4 May 2026), the process kicks off in 40 designated centres across 35 districts of the north-eastern State.
Addressing the media recently, Assam chief electoral officer Anurag Goel disclosed that the ECI deputed 126 counting observers (IAS officers from the rest of India) for the State, along with 2,348 micro-observers (all central government employees) for the process. A total of 5,981 counting officials will be deputed for the counting day, where the final results are expected by evening hours. Terming it a historic election, where 85.91 percent of 2,50,54,463 Assam electorates participated in the single-phase polling on 9 April to elect their representatives out of 722 candidates from different political parties and independent contenders. Mentionable is that the last five assembly elections in Assam witnessed the voters’ turnout as 82.02 per cent in 2021, 84.64 % in 2016, 76.05 % in 2011, 75.72 % in 2006 and 75.16 % in 2001.
Meanwhile, the exit polls that appeared in the evening hours on 29 April forecast the return of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance in Assam with differences in the number of winning constituencies from 70 to over 100. The opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress, along with other contenders, was projected to win far less than the majority mark of 64 seats. When the BJP, expecting a third consecutive term in Dispur, was predicted to cross the halfway mark independently in majority poll surveys, the Congress alone was put nearly half of the magic number in those reviews. People’s Pulse research organisation, in its exit polls, indicated a decisive mandate in favour of the National Democratic Alliance, where the BJP is projected to win between 69 and 73 seats. According to their survey, BJP ally Asom Gana Parishad may win 8–11 seats and another collaborator, Bodoland People’s Front, is expected to get 8–9 seats. On the other hand, the Congress is projected to win 22 to 26 seats only, where other parties, namely All India United Democratic Front, United People’s Party Liberal, Communist Party of India-Marxist, along with independents, may win a negligible number of seats. Today’s Chanakya indicated a landslide victory for the BJP-led alliance, offering 93 to 111 seats, where the opposition bloc may get 14 to 32 seats, and others will be limited to two seats. Similarly, the JVC exit poll projected a win in 88-101 seats for the BJP-AGP-BPF alliance and 23-33 seats for the opposition alliance and around 5 for others. Metrize provided 85-95 seats for the ruling alliance, 25-32 seats for the opposition block, with 6-12 for others, and Kamakhya Analytics predicted 85-95 seats for the BJP block and 26-39 seats for the opposition alliance with 0-3 seats for others. On the other hand, Axis My India predicted 88-100 seats for the saffron alliance and 24-36 seats for the opposition group, where the BJP alone is shown as the winner in 70-80 seats and Congress independently in 22-30 seats. It gave others from zero to three seats. Poll Diary forecast 86-101 seats for the NDA, 15-26 seats for the Congress front and zero for others. People’s Insight exit poll offered 88-96 seats for the BJP, 30-34 seats for the Congress and 2-4 seats for others. At the same time, P-MARQ gave 82- 94 seats to BJP allies and 30-40 seats to the opposition, where Janmat predicted 87-98 seats for the saffron alliance and 29-30 seats for the Congress front.
The BJP unveiled its manifesto with several important promises to counter a decade-long (two-term) anti-incumbency wave. The party’s 31-point Sankalpa-Patra proposed continuous economic activities blending with welfare assurances. Moreover, the saffron party did not forget to exploit the inherent anxiety of mainstream Assamese people by ensuring safeguards against the illegal migrants (read Bangladesh-origin Muslims). It also highlighted the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act 1950, which was picked up by the Assam government to deal with the massive illegal Bangladeshi issue in recent days, even though this central act could not prevent the historic anti-foreigner agitation (1979 to 1985) and updation of the National Register of Citizens (2013–2019) in Assam. Assuring that all signed peace accords will be implemented on time, the nationalist party promised to bring the Uniform Civil Code into action and also formulate stringent laws to deal with sensational issues like love-jihad and land-jihad. It highlighted the continued effort to address child marriages and also polygamy practices as an initiative for social reforms. As usual, the party took pride in mentioning the creation of over 1.6 lakh government jobs in the last five years, where the selection process was transparent, and guaranteed its mission to offer two lakh jobs to the eligible candidates in the next five years.
On the other hand, Congress leaders alleged widespread corruption against many leaders in power, precisely Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, as well as their failure to accomplish many electoral promises. APCC president Gogoi, who is also the deputy leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, also promised many benefits to the people of Assam, along with Scheduled Tribe status for Chutias, Koch Rajbongshis, Adivasis (Tea Tribes), Mataks, Morans and Tai Ahoms. He also asserted that due actions will be taken against CM Sarma after investigating his alleged financial scams.
The oldest party of India, however, invited wrath from a large section of people for bringing the issue of Assam’s cultural icon Zubeen Garg into the electoral promises. The Congress promised to facilitate justice for Zubeen, who died under mysterious circumstances in Singapore on 19 September last year, within 100 days, if voted to power. Zubeen’s widow, Garima Saikia Garg and close relatives appealed to all political parties not to politicise his untimely death and subsequent trials (currently going on in local court) for electoral gains.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 26 April – 02 May 2026
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‘As President & Minister of Finance, were you aware that
on or around Sept 6, 2025, a cyberattack was launched against
the data system of the Ministry of Finance under your purview?’
– see ee Random Notes, The 22 Open Questions
of the Free Lawyers Organisation
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Has anybody noticed how the ever-present, sometimes hourly, and many-times-daily-smiling visage of the Central Bank governor, principal purveyor of the so-called independent Central Bank & its new US-Treasury-pushed Act, holding his palms & related fingers together in deep fiscal thought, or shaking them with some smiling foreign (usually white, or honorary white, Japanese or Indian), has gone AWOL off the front-pages?
Sri Lanka having been locked into continuing the colonial import-export, labor-intensive and low-waged plantation economic swindle, we have now been lured eyes-wide-blinded into the leg- and brain-trap of so-called digitalization. Now several, not-so-private & very-public multimillion$ electronic frauds have come to be divulged, with accusations & recriminations involving IT (Information Technology) flying as fast and as thick as drones over the USA’s colonized bases.
So, here are some interesting structural features to guardrail any discussion on an internet which originates in the USA military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA):
• ‘3 Global North companies – SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks, Nippon Electric Co produce ‘87% of theundersea cables through which the internet operates’
• ‘3 US companies – AWS, Azure, Google Cloud – own 68% of the world’scloud infrastructure.’
It is perhaps, no wonder then, that the 68-page-long draft report by the 2024 Committee to Formulate an Artificial Intelligence Strategy (CFSAI) for SL had omitted the words ‘sovereign’ or ‘sovereignty’! Shiran Illanperuma & Vijay Prashad (I&P)’s essay on AI & Digital Sovereignty (see ee 1 Nov 2025) pointing to this omission, thus highlighted, ‘apart from China, the Global South does not have the capital or the technology to develop a sovereign, or even semi-sovereign, digital infrastructure’. I&P therefore call for the ‘Global South’ to develop a united technological response to this clear gap, and crying necessity. They also detail certain steps that have to be taken together by Asian & African & non-Anglo-American organizations to counter this almost monopoly power.
I&P therefore query digitalization: ‘Who will ownthe data? Who will own the infrastructure? Who will regulate & govern? &, who has the technological capabilities to define the development of this technology? They also raised concerns ‘over the security of data as well as the neglect of local talent & capabilities,’ as well as asking ‘Should local firms be given priority when developing digital infrastructure? If they lack experience or expertise, how best can policy be shaped to address these deficiencies?’ And we asked this vital question, which I&P also ask: ‘Who will own the technology, how will it be used, & in whose interests?
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Corruption! Corruption! One team in, another team out,
same game, same waste of time, of days & nights,
we don’t make a bat, we don’t make a ball, we don’t
make the lord’s rules, we don’t make wicket,
we only sell ticket, don’t make tv, only commentary –
Corruption! Corruption, one team in, another team out…
So, here is an intriguing timeline to the fraud & murder involving the country’s highest offices. It is most vital to emphasize that the real economic & bank fraud, which remains mostly unmeasured & unreported and therefore not sensationalized, is the prevention of investment in modern (machine-making-machine) industrialization. The sabotage of the almost-100-year-old Bank of Ceylon and then the almost 65-year-old People’s Bank, as well as the IMF & World Bank’s hijacking of the Central Bank and then the so-called development banks, NDB, DFCC, etc, has turned them into pure commercial banks. These are the real frauds, which these latest retail frauds only can serve to divert us, from delving deeper.
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In October 2025, it was reported that Sri Lanka’s Government Cloud (LGC) services were ‘disrupted’. There was no follow-up public investigation (as usual, though we do understand the need for national security) even as we were never told how & why the ‘disruption’ really occurred. LGC services also include ‘The Police Clearance System of the Department of Police’. Ha! So, the police were robbed too!
The disruption took place midst the usual expensively lit & garish conferences, with much prize-giving & award-taking, and media headlines on how hip we are on the latest imported digital technologies and cybersecurity, and the crying need for more digitalization. The disruption also took place just before Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court dismissed 2 fundamental rights petitions filed by former Minister Wimal Weerawansa & others, to annul the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with India on a controversial digital identity card project, which was again brought up in the news this week (see ee Sovereignty, FSP’s Wasantha Mudalige questions e-NIC project over security & foreign ties).
That October 2025 disruption took place midst much blather and clatter about Elon Musk’s rather intrusive Starlink being granted a license to operate internet services by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of SL (TRCSL). Even President AK Dissanayake lifted his eyes (as usual) up to the heavens, and raised ‘national security concerns that local authorities have no access to Starlink’s data system’. Of course, an import-crazed celebrity-fixated mass media had already helped to fabricate Musk as a brilliant individual entrepreneur, even as his rise is linked to military intelligence shadows in the USA (not to mention England & still white-dominated South Africa). ee also pointed to how Starlink ‘operates without authorization in countries such as Cuba & Venezuela’.
At that time, ee asked why the US & EU governments seemed to be in ‘an awful hurry to digitally scan Sri Lanka. We also recall how, in this age of digitally-flattened Palestine & Iran, the US-funded economic thinktank Verité’s SL Economic Policy Group and board member Mick Moore was insisting at that time on mapping that ‘uniquely identify all properties using aerial imagery’. Moore’s pretext was the ‘weak’ collection of ‘Property Taxes in Sri Lanka’. We even asked why Moore, an ‘expert on tax evasion’, including by multinational corporations (MNCs), had not ‘mapped’ how England’s Unilever, or Ceylon Tobacco Co or ICI-CIC have kept evading their duties to Sri Lanka’s treasury for over 100 years. Moore is an anointed ‘Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to international development’ (which we always point out is a Unilever-concocted euphemism to replace ‘colonialism’).
The European Union (EU) was then also demanding the mapping of Sri Lanka because its new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) ‘prohibits the import & export of goods produced from deforested land’ (tea plantations, anyone?!), with the EU funding the SL Ministry of Plantations’ ‘to survey & map all smallholder rubber lands across Sri Lanka’. So, the disruption took place midst a lot of such digital trafficking.
The October 2025 cloud disruption here occurred midst the US administration issuing another travel warning to tourists visiting Sri Lanka, of an imminent threat of violence, terrorism, & landmines! Landmines, supposedly cleared just months earlier, with great fanfare & glorified naming of NGOs, were then suddenly uncovered in Jaffna (as ee noted, 18 Oct 2025). Many of the cloud services being provided in Sri Lanka are linked to US & their subordinate colonized pitbulls like England & Israel, etc.
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The Ministry of Finance (MoF)’s External Resources Department (ERD) sits pretty at the centre of ongoing ‘debt’ fraud. World Bank Hijacks Ministry of Finance was the title of ee 20 August 2022. This examined the role of the US-controlled World Bank, IMF & other International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in compromising the independence of the most important institutions in the country – in particular, the MoF’s External Resources Department. ERD is supposed to ‘conduct loan negotiations with development partners & lending agencies’ and also ‘manage government external debt’. ERD is also the lead agency in theongoing IMF ‘discussions’, along with the MoF’s Fiscal Policy Department. ee noted: the ERD ‘coordinates’ development partners, and is therefore eminently susceptible to the seductive wiles of ‘development agencies’. There’s a lot of revolving doors between ERD and such IFIs as the IMF & WB. Most of the ERD officers have gone to Washington DC to either work or study. This is a form of bribery that these IFIs excel in. MoF officers also expect the IMF will provide them ‘degrees’ for their upward mobility – a means of promotions in the MoF or CBSL, by pandering to the whites to get into US PhD programs.
The ERD also negotiates credit lines to enable the Sri Lanka Government to buy essentials, such as fuel, food, medicines. Critics have roundly blamed the ERD for not just the failure to direct investment into the modern production of such fuel, food & medicines, to enable their local substitution, but also for damaging trade relations with China, Russia & Iran – links that could have prevented the US choking off such crucial supply lines in 2022, as well as now.
The ERD’s official website describes their ‘Mission‘: ‘To source global knowledge, experience, expertise, and foreign resources as required for the socioeconomic development in Sri Lanka at appropriate terms, and also arrange domestic currency financing for working capital & the development requirements of the country.’
Yet the ERD’s ‘Functions’ undermine its mandate ‘to source global knowledge’ by having to ‘report ‘relevant debt data to World Bank on quarterly basis and annual basis’. Of the ERD’s main ‘Functions’, listed first on its website: ‘Conduct consultations with development partners and funding agencies to identify development assistance strategies & priorities.’ What has the ERD & the WB identified as priorities?
The earliest criticism of the Gotabaya Rajapakse government’s economic policies was a leaked May 2020 ‘Cabinet memorandum’ based on a report ‘prepared by the Finance Ministry’s External Resources Department (according to authoritative sources)’, Gotabaya Govt got early warnings about economic crisis, headlined the Sunday Times on 17 July 2022, after the President abdicated.
We also noted how the ERD was behind the selective release of data that blamed China for the country’s economic turbulence. A 12 June 2022, Sunday Times reported, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in China, Palitha Kohona as stating: ‘China could consider supplying diesel & fertiliser if a formal request was made through the External Resources Department of SL’. On 26 June 2022, the ERD was praised by the Sunday Times as being a repository of ‘committed senior public servants’, along with the CB’s Public Debt Office.
The ERD website’s ‘History of the External Resources Department‘ narrates a seamless continuity from English invasion to the present, untrammelled by the need to explain any such seemingly trivial matter as ‘independence‘:
‘The Treasury was established in 1806 AD as a sub-institution
under the Controller of Revenue. It was upgraded to a major
institution in 1834. The Treasury was brought under the
Ministry of Finance in 1948. During this era, the functions of
the Treasury were carried out by several divisions…
The External Resources Division was responsible
for organization & channeling of external resources.
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• The continuing US & European wars on Iran & Russia, and the US blockade of of the Strait of Hormuz, have differently impacted countries & their economies. The white wars on China have never ended. Their invasions of Korea, Taiwan & occupation of Pacific countries are referred to as ‘frozen wars’.
Socialist China’s long-term and open accumulation of ‘substantial strategic oil reserves’, as well as their active innovation & development of alternative sources of energy, is intricately examined by Warwick Powell (see ee Focus). Readers should be warned, Powell can be rather exacting, and yet, the times require such deeper seeking…
China launched strategic initiatives several decades ago, and he places China’s need for West Asian oil in its proper perspective & mix. Powell recalls former Chinese President (2002-12) Hu Jintao’s famous decades-old observation about the ‘Malacca Dilemma’. China however has developed numerous alternatives, not just due to the ‘China psychosis’, an updated version of the ‘yellow peril’ that lives ‘rent-free’ in white supremacists’ brains. He details the various tactics used by China’s critics complaining of overinvestment & overproduction, noting if not for such needed funding and production China would now be at their mercy. However, the USA’s so-called‘grand strategy’ seeks to contain not just China, by blockading much of Asia’s access to the energy resources of West Asia & elsewhere (the Americas, etc). The USA has long been targeting numerous chokepoints around the world, and not just Sri Lanka, while also attempting to activate their colonial poodles & pitbulls, promoting divide&rule tactics. The US blockade is however ‘porous’, Powell argues, with tankers adopting assorted tactics to slip through…
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• A perfect storm is approaching Sri Lanka, with the country suffering a ‘4th West Asian Oil Crisis’, records Shiran Illanperuma, as he seeks to find answers to the current dilemmas in the ruminations of GVS de Silva’s classic, Heretical Thoughts (see ee Focus). Illanperuma provides updated examples of what GVS – renowned architect of the Paddy Lands Act & Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) discussed almost 60 years ago. The media is resorting to their usual infantile wailing & gnashing of teeth, enumerating all the imports (remittances, tourists, oil, fertilizer, food, pharma, cars) and exports (tea, rags, trinkets, etc) we will now lack, acting coy as if this was not to be expected, and praying that the USA will soon return to its normal benevolent self (if there was ever such a phenom).
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‘Many of SL’s problems, such as limited export diversification
& insufficient foreign direct investment, have been present time &
again, & are not caused by the current middle east crisis.’
– Ravinatha Aryasinha (see ee Economists, Middle East crisis,
a wakeup call for structural reforms)
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‘We conclude with the expectation of an early end
to the current hostilities between Iran & the US-Israeli
alliance, and there will be peace soon.’
– Nimal Sanderatne (see ee Economists,
Economic performance in 1st year of
JVP/NPP government & prospects this year)
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The media’s commentators monotonously keep shilling their first-aid solutions like ‘diversification’ and more ‘foreign investment’, yet never stating ‘investment for what’? and ‘what kind of diversification’? They dare not mention the words ‘modern industrial production’. Illanperuma discusses GVS’ take on ‘import substitution’ & his call for a less capital-intensive model of development, as well as for rural industrialization. Illanperuma is mistaken though, when he says Heresies was written at the time of the 1st oil shock in 1973. It was published (March 1973) just before the OPEC resolution (Oct 1973), though the threat of artificial scarcities of food etc, was becoming more apparent, again linked to the US (Israeli Yom Kippur) wars. More importantly, Illanperuma points to GVS’ heresy as based on his opposition to the mistaken thesis for ‘Sir’ WA Lewis, knighted & Nobel-prized, who promoted an urban-based development model.
Illanperuma, however, feels GVS was far too optimistic about our ability to learn from those bitter lessons of yesteryear. He concludes: ‘Deepening crisis need not lead to clarity; it could just as easily lead to further confusion’. Indeed there is no guarantee of enlightenment, only a more rigorous insight as to what a renaissance truly entails. He does not mention that GVS’ next collection published in 1988 was titled, The Alternatives, Socialism or Barbarism (curiously republished by an immiserated SSA with the vapid funder-friendly title Poverty & People’s Power). Though barbarism it has been so far, for indeed the post’77 dispensations with its resorts to destroying all the remnant advances made by a nascent though naif industrial policy, led to further internecine warfare within the country, and now… here we are… and here we go… hopefully not again to further annihilations…
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• This ee Focus therefore also concludes our reproduction of Ginige Vernon Stanley de Silva’s classic, Some Heretical Thoughts on Economic Development. GVS exposed the simple, commodity production economy, to which the countryside is restricted. He pointed out how every country has to face this limitation, with some doing away with it, some still grappling with it and others not even aware of it. He described how capitalism brutally destroyed small farming, and how socialism has tried to do it differently. We here need to challenge the perhaps mechanical application of the term ‘feudal’ to describe all of Sri Lanka’s past. Feudal in Marxist terms refers to a pre or proto capitalist phases which contains within it the seeds of a modern industrial (machine-making machine) capitalism.
GVS however offered an intermediary program based on our rural needs & resources. He stated that rural economy has to be ‘freed from the rapacious grip of the urban middleman, transporter & moneylender, and the rural-urban terms of trade reversed in its favour’. He observed, ‘the petty owner is a hopeless credit risk, according to the canons of commercial banking’.
He then surveyed the forms of organization that rural revitalization would require to overcome atomization, the rich international experience which requires adaptation to local realities, and producer cooperatives. Changing the world, changing the country, requires first changing the village. ‘The Community Organization must plan, organize & direct the entire economy.’ He described rural unemployment as the main challenge. Writing in the wake of the 1st JVP insurrection, he bestowed hope in the educated & unemployed youth, and called for urban resources & people to use their energies to first revitalize the countryside…
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A certain psychological mechanism was needed
to justify the jettisoning of the ancient idea
of the fundamental equality of human beings
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• This ee Focus reproduces some of the most fascinating of SBD de Silva’s insights into the workings of the wasteful import-export plantation system. These excerpts, from Chapter 9 of his 1982 classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment,point out that the outrages of this system – superexploitation and oppression of Sri Lankan workers ‘was not exclusively an economic phenomenon’ but was connected to ‘the political domination of the coloured races by European colonizers’:
‘The commercialization of slavery in 18th century racism
assumed a new form, which was later to become widespread
as the European nations extended their dominion abroad.’
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Most interestingly, SBD said it was a more vicious update of an ideology of ‘compulsion & propaganda’ which was used to create a factory labor force in Europe & the USA. He surveyed & differentiated the various types of ‘slavery’ that existed in Africa & Asia. He also charted the shifting of attitudes in Europe towards Africans & Asians, and how ‘the supporting ideology of cheapened labour’ came to be ‘linked with the organization of the world economy on colour lines’.
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• This ee Focus also examines the US government’s attempt to capture the Atlantic & Pacific hemisphere through the lens of its greatest industries. The US colonization of Canada, Mexico, occupied Japan, Korea & Germany become apparent through their roles in reducing worker power in the auto industry. The US capitalist class has shifted the centre of that ‘greater industrial archipelago of metal-bending communities’ in the Great Lakes from the USA’s Detroit and Canada’s Windsor in the 1980s, to the hinterlands of the Gulf of Mexico, where Mexican workers receive 10%of what Anglo North American workers get, offering the USA’s GM, Ford & Stellantis a way to respond to Asian competition. The USA dominated research & development, the making of engines, transmissions & stampings, and Mexico got lower-value manufacturing, with Canada becoming a middle-technology sector.
With the monopoly media blaming unions, these government forced unions to accept concessions, and focus on wages rather than working conditions (work rules, pace of work, control over staffing & production), which reduced their appeal to workers. The USA then began to automate, outsourcing, importing and shifting to anti-union jurisdictions in the US south, sacrificing skill & innovation. The Detroit 3 – GM, Ford, & Chrysler – dominated Ontario’s unionized assembly plants, before the 2008 global financial crisis. Now Japan’s Toyota and Honda now seemingly rule, with workers prevented from organizing unions, because these industries always depended on state subsidies. Canada is now attempting a transition to electric vehicles (EVs), which comes midst the USA’s desperate attempts to sabotage China’s clear primacy in renewable energy sectors & innovations.
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• This week saw large celebrations of May Day (see ee Random Notes about May Day’s origins) despite the attacks on the nationalist & workers’ movements by the ruling merchant & moneylender class. In Sri Lanka, ee has kept documenting the prevention of industrialization, the promotion of atomization, and hence the prevention of the consolidation of a workers’ movement into a working class.
The USA & Europe’s sabotage of access to fuel and hence energy & electrical power, offers the best proof that their aim is to not just to prevent the industrialization of our countries but also the advance of socialism & communism.
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• Watch how our great media mavens, and ineffectual intellectuals, constantly & passively refer to an ‘Iran War’, or ‘Middle East Conflict’, or Hormuz Blockade, or even ‘Trump’s War’ or ‘US-Israeli War’. It is as if their inability to name it properly: as another US War or US Military Blockade, are blinders brought on by proximity to the fleshpots of Kolluptiya Junction! Yet, it is also more than the current US Regime. It may be easier to blame a psychotic Trump, or conniving Jews, or crafty Muslims or swarthy Arabs, than calling out the Big Banks & Weapons Manufacturers. Or name the Rockefeller oligarchy’s Exxon Corporation. It is the same with economics. Modern production, or industrial capitalism, is not handicraft, manufacture or assembly or services. Some call a poor man with money in their pocket, a rich man. Yet many capitalists don’t even carry money on them; Money is not capital unless it is used to produce things, that produce other things, & on & on…
We have to get the words right, get the names right, and the addresses; also get the verbs & tenses right, yet it is not just a matter of language, it is a matter of knowing who our friends & enemies are, and most importantly knowing who we are, and yes, what exactly needs to be done…
Sri Lanka is a country that has been under constant invasion (& siege in different ways) for 100s if not a 1,000 years, yet midst the old destruction, we still built great irrigation systems and monuments. More recently, the USA, the English, the Dutch & Portuguese, unable to carry off the monuments & tanks as well, and store them in their museums, have tried to destroy even those, as well as destroy our minds. So we have most often sought to simply survive and also endure… but we should still get the words right and know & do what is still to be done.
35 years out of 78 years of independence went into dealing with insurrections and terror against the State of Sri Lanka. This is almost half of Sri Lanka’s independence. While many strife to explain Sri Lanka’s debt crisis through economics, corruption, IMF policies or bad governance – a major contributor often left undiscussed is the financial burden as a result of armed insurgencies and the cumulative impact post-conflict. The JVP and the LTTE and since 2019 Islamic terrorism are 3 key reasons why Sri Lanka continues to struggle to come out of debt.
All 3 movements have attempted to overthrow or divide Sri Lanka. We cannot ignore the radicalism context as a single event if we have learnt lessons from the previous 2 incidents.
The cost of defending the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, restoring stability, rebuilding infrastructure, compensating victims and maintaining an alert national security continues to contribute to Sri Lanka’s accumulating debt. Slackening security resulted in what arose in 2019 which means national security can never be undermined.
JVP & LTTE contribution to Sri Lanka’s debt
Sri Lanka forced into survival spending
While most developing nations borrow for:
infrastructure
industry
agriculture
education
technology
exports
Sri Lanka, however, was forced to spend on:
counter-insurgency
intelligence
military expansion
emergency law enforcement
reconstruction after attacks
welfare for displaced persons
protection of economic assets
maintaining territorial sovereignty
What Sri Lanka should have spent on – Sri Lanka ended up reprioritizing from development to survival.
Economic Damage of JVP Insurrections
1971 – 1st uprising – attempted armed overthrow of the state, resulted in:
destruction of police stations
attacks on state institutions
disruption of transport and administration
emergency military expenditures
foreign military assistance costs
economic paralysis during the uprising
Sri Lanka had to urgently:
import weapons
expand military capability
increase intelligence operations
finance detention and rehabilitation operations
This was an unplanned expenditure but one that had to be made.
This was one of the most devastating periods of post-independence as Sri Lanka was being attacked in the North by LTTE and simultaneously in the South by JVP.
This required large-scale state expenditure financed increasingly through borrowing.
Economic damage by LTTE terrorism
The brutal 30 year conflict was one of the costliest in South Asia.
The Sri Lankan state had to finance:
Army expansion
Navy expansion
Air Force modernization
intelligence systems
border security
maritime surveillance
counter-terror operations
cyber and communications systems
Sri Lanka’s budget had to be fundamentally changed to meet the threat.
Massive Increase in Defence Expenditure
Year after year, billions were allocated to:
weapons procurement
aircraft
naval craft
ammunition
troop salaries
pensions
logistics
battlefield medicine
military camps
reconstruction of damaged infrastructure
Defense spending became one of the largest components of government expenditure.
Funds that could have gone into:
industrialization
export diversification
technology
irrigation
modern agriculture
research
higher education
instead went toward preserving the state itself.
Destruction of National Infrastructure
The LTTE targeted:
buses
trains
airports
ports
banks
oil installations
power infrastructure
religious sites
economic centers
Examples include attacks on:
the Central Bank
Katunayake International Airport and planes
buses and railways
economic hubs in Colombo
Each major attack caused:
reconstruction costs
insurance losses
foreign exchange losses
reduced investment confidence
reduced tourism revenue
The state had to borrow to rebuild.
Loss of Tourism Revenue
Both JVP & LTTE contributed to the downfall of Sri Lanka’s key foreign exchange earner – tourism.
Repeated bombings and instability:
reduced tourist arrivals – some tourists were even killed
increased travel warnings
weakened investor confidence
harmed aviation and hospitality sectors
Loss of foreign exchange forced the country to rely more heavily on:
external borrowing
balance-of-payment support
foreign debt
Humanitarian and Welfare Costs
The war created:
widows
orphans
internally displaced persons
disabled soldiers
damaged communities
The state had to finance:
refugee camps
rehabilitation
resettlement
pensions
compensation
reconstruction of villages
demining operations
These are long-term recurring costs.
Economic Opportunity Cost
One of the biggest hidden costs was lost development opportunity.
Ironically, given the scale of resource outsourcing without factoring risk-analysis how much of investor” take-aways have benefitted Sri Lanka needs to be separately analyzed. In many ways the conflict managed to protect some key national assets for 30 years!
Investments have to be considered not only on the initial dollar placed for the deal – while investors are enjoying free imports – tax holidays etc – weighed against this Sri Lanka needs to consider exactly what we gain and what the investors are gaining more and if it is actually worthwhile?
Countries that invested continuously in:
manufacturing
technology
logistics
exports
advanced rapidly during the same decades.
Sri Lanka spent much of that period fighting two internal armed movements.
This delayed:
industrial transformation
infrastructure modernization
export competitiveness
foreign direct investment
The debt problem therefore was not only money spent — but growth that never happened.
Economic Impact of Post-2019 Terrorism Threats (Including Easter Sunday Attacks)
The Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, introduced a renewed security and economic burden on Sri Lanka. It ended peace without terror achieved in May 2009.
This phase contributed to:
increased national security expenditure and restructuring of intelligence systems
temporary but significant decline in tourism and international confidence
heightened aviation, port, and public security costs
disruption to foreign exchange earnings in the immediate aftermath of the attacks
The State was required to reallocate financial resources toward strengthening surveillance, intelligence coordination, and national security infrastructure to prevent recurrence of similar attacks.
This period reflects a post-conflict security shock cycle, where even in the absence of full-scale war, terrorism-related risks continue to impose recurring fiscal obligations on the State and, ultimately, on taxpayers.
FOREIGN BORROWING & WAR FINANCING
To sustain prolonged conflict, governments increasingly relied on:
domestic borrowing
foreign loans
defense credit arrangements
sovereign debt instruments
War expenditure became structurally embedded in the economy.
As debt servicing grew:
interest payments increased
fiscal deficits widened
dependence on external financing deepened
A substantial portion of national expenditure over several decades was diverted toward defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic continuity of the state against violent insurgencies and separatist terrorism. The economic cost of preserving the nation was immense.
Every bomb attack, assassination, military operation, destroyed railway, damaged airport, displaced family, and emergency security expansion carried an economic cost. Sri Lanka’s debt story is therefore also inseparable from the cost of defending the state against armed attempts to overthrow or divide it.
The real question is:
If Sri Lanka had enjoyed uninterrupted peace from the 1970s onward, how much larger could the economy have become, and how much lower could the debt burden have been?
DIRECT DEFENCE EXPENDITURE
Sri Lanka’s military spending rose sharply during the insurgency and war years. Military expenditure reached nearly 6% of GDP in peak war periods.
If Sri Lanka had remained peaceful, defence spending may have stayed closer to:
1%–1.5% of GDP
Instead, during conflict periods it often ranged:
3%–6% of GDP
That means Sri Lanka spent roughly an extra:
2% to 4% of GDP annually for decades2% to 4% of GDP annually for decades on conflict-related security.
Sri Lanka’s economy over those decades cumulatively produced hundreds of billions in GDP.
A conservative estimate suggests:
direct excess defence/security expenditure alone may have exceeded:
Brain drain accelerated during periods of instability.
SRI LANKA: THE LOST PEACE DIVIDEND
If Sri Lanka had not faced:
the 1971 JVP insurrection,
the 1987–89 JVP insurrection,
and the 30-year LTTE war,
ESTIMATED SECURITY & WAR EXPENDITURE SAVINGS
A conservative estimate of excess conflict-related spending:
Category
Estimated Long-Term Cost
LTTE war expenditure
USD 35–45 billion
Reconstruction & infrastructure damage
USD 5–10 billion
JVP insurgency security/recovery costs
USD 2–5 billion
Emergency policing/intelligence expansion
USD 2–4 billion
Tourism & investment loss compensation impact
USD 5–10 billion
Approximate Total
USD 50–70 billion
WHAT IF THIS MONEY HAD BEEN SAVED OR INVESTED?
Instead of war spending, suppose Sri Lanka redirected:
USD 60 billion into productive development over decades.
If invested gradually into the economy, exports, infrastructure, and sovereign reserves, the multiplier effect becomes enormous.
COMPOUND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT EFFECT
Even a modest annual national return of 5%–6% on productive investment creates major long-term growth.
Using a simplified compounded national investment model:
FV=60(1.05)30FV=60(1.05)30
(1.05)30≈4.32(1.05)30≈4.32
Meaning:
60×4.3260×4.32
= approximately:
USD 259 billion equivalent economic impact
over time.
At 6%:
FV=60(1.06)30FV=60(1.06)30
(1.06)30≈5.74(1.06)30≈5.7460×5.7460×5.74
= approximately:
USD 344 billion equivalent impact
over three decades.
WHAT THIS COULD HAVE MEANT FOR SRI LANKA
Had those resources gone into development instead of conflict management, Sri Lanka could potentially have achieved:
Infrastructure
nationwide modern rail systems
advanced public transport
multiple industrial zones
modern ports/logistics hubs
stronger power infrastructure
Economy
stronger foreign reserves
larger export industries
lower dependence on foreign debt
stronger rupee stability
higher per capita income
Social Development
better universities
advanced hospitals
rural modernization
technological innovation
higher wages and employment
THE HIDDEN COST: LOST CONFIDENCE
Beyond direct spending, conflict also:
scared investors,
reduced tourism,
accelerated brain drain,
increased insurance costs,
discouraged manufacturing expansion,
weakened long-term planning.
These indirect losses compounded over decades.
THE PEACE DIVIDEND SRI LANKA NEVER FULLY RECEIVED
Many countries that escaped prolonged internal conflict experienced a peace dividend”:
rapid investment,
export growth,
industrial expansion,
tourism booms,
rising reserves.
Sri Lanka’s growth trajectory was repeatedly interrupted by:
insurgency,
terrorism,
emergency spending,
and reconstruction cycles.
A substantial portion of Sri Lanka’s debt and economic stagnation must be viewed through the lens of conflict economics. Tens of billions of dollars that could have been invested into national development were instead diverted toward defeating armed insurrections, preserving territorial integrity, rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, and maintaining national security.
Sri Lanka’s lost wealth was not only the money spent on war. It was the factories never built, the industries never created, the tourists who never arrived, the investments that never came, and the generations of development delayed by nearly four decades of internal conflict.
ESTIMATED TAXPAYER-BORNE COST OF INTERNAL CONFLICT (SRI LANKA)
USD 50 – 80+ billion from 1971 to 2019 (direct + indirect estimates, excluding psychological and social trauma costs)
These figures represent economic impact estimates based on conflict-cost modelling, not legally adjudicated liabilities or audited fiscal allocations.
THE TRUE COST BORNE BY THE TAXPAYER
The estimated economic costs associated with the JVP insurrections, the LTTE conflict, and post-2019 terrorism-related security impacts collectively amount to tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect burden.
However, it is essential to understand that these costs were not absorbed by abstract institutions — they were ultimately borne by the Sri Lankan taxpayer, through:
increased taxation
domestic and foreign borrowing
inflationary pressure
reduced public investment in development sectors
long-term debt servicing obligations
THE PEOPLE WHO PAID THE PRICE
Sri Lanka’s internal conflicts were not cost-free historical events. They were long-term national expenditures financed entirely by the taxpayer, through decades of taxation, borrowing, inflation, and diverted development spending.
The JVP insurrections, the LTTE separatist war, and the post-2019 jihadi terrorism security burden collectively imposed an estimated economic cost exceeding USD 50–80+ billion, excluding the immeasurable human and psychological trauma experienced by the population.
This is not simply a number.
It represents:
hospitals that were never built on time
schools that were underfunded
infrastructure that was delayed
industries that never fully developed
and generations that inherited debt instead of prosperity
Every phase of conflict required the State to prioritise survival over development — and every rupee spent on survival was ultimately drawn from the public purse.
THE CORE TRUTH
Whether through insurgency, separatist terrorism, or post-2019 security the financial burden of internal instability has always been transferred to one entity:
The ordinary taxpayer of Sri Lanka.
Not political actors. Not armed groups. Not ideology.
The taxpayer.
THE UNASKED QUESTION
If such enormous national wealth had not been consumed by decades of internal conflict:
Would Sri Lanka’s economy today be nearly twice its current size?
What would this mean for Sri Lanka’s Education, Health, Social Welfare?
Would development have accelerated instead of being repeatedly reset?
These are not historical curiosities — they are central economic questions that define Sri Lanka’s present and future.
Understanding this history is not about revisiting the past.
It is about recognising a structural economic reality:
Internal conflict is not only a security issue — it is a long-term national debt generator carried by the people.
Until this is acknowledged in full, Sri Lanka’s debt narrative will remain incomplete, and its future policy choices will remain vulnerable to repeating the same cycle of cost, disruption, and delayed development.
JVP-LTTE-Jihadists have a moral responsibility & accountability to the tax payers.
The conclusion of the international Walk for Peace led by Most Venerable Bhikkhu Thich Paññākāra from Vietnam, that took place in Sri Lanka on April 21-18 generated interest and discussion across the country about the importance of peacebuilding and coexistence in the country. The public response to the walk, including support extended by people from different religious and ethnic communities, showed that there is much space within society for initiatives that encourage dialogue, restraint and mutual respect.
The National Peace Council believes this positive response should be used constructively, while recognising that reconciliation in Sri Lanka remains a long term challenge. More than seven decades of political conflict, ethnic polarisation, violence and mistrust cannot be overcome through symbolic events alone. Lasting reconciliation requires sustained political engagement, institutional reform and consistent efforts to build trust among communities. The underlying political issues linked to power sharing, equality, representation and accountability cannot be postponed indefinitely if reconciliation is to move forward in a meaningful way.
In this context, the holding of Provincial Council elections has become increasingly important. The demand made by opposition parties and civil society groups for these elections reflects the wider concern that democratic institutions linked to devolution and local representation need to be revitalised. The continued delay in holding these elections limits opportunities for inclusive governance, particularly in areas most affected by conflict. NPC believes that the government should take steps to engage all political parties, civil society organisations and communities on the way forward regarding devolution, power sharing and democratic participation.
The Walk for Peace should therefore be viewed not as an end in itself, or as a stand-alone event, but as one contribution within a much larger national process. Future peacebuilding initiatives needs to involve broader participation by civil society organisations, inter religious groups, youth organisations, educators and local communities, including stronger engagement with the North and East where the impact of war continues to shape public attitudes and political realities. Continued efforts towards dialogue, democratic participation and political inclusion are needed if the country is to move towards a more stable and peaceful future.
Governing Council
The National Peace Council is an independent and non partisan organization that works towards a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. It has a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka in which the freedom, human rights and democratic rights of all the communities are respected. The policy of the National Peace Council is determined by its Governing Council of 20 members who are drawn from diverse walks of life and belong to all the main ethnic and religious communities in the country.
Ven Dr Omalpe Sobhitha Thero President Justice for Animals and Nature
21 April 2026 Ven Pannakara Thero Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
Dear Bhanthe, Re: A request to include the spread of compassion & peace for all living beings including animals in your mission
We are truly delighted and in much appreciation of your noble mission to spread Buddhism, peace and harmony in the world.
We are doubly pleased to note your boundless display of compassion towards animals by making Aloka, a former stray animal, as a member of your team. Humans constitute the dominant species of this world. Yet, despite its overwhelming power over all other species humans are responsible for much of the injustice and abuse caused to non-human beings, which are an integral and important part of the planet.
Therefore we kindly request you to take note of the contents of the attached document containing quotes on love and compassion towards animals and convey the message to the world when and wherever possible.
Wish you and your team all success in your noble endeavors.
With Metta, Ven Dr Omalpe Sobhitha Thero President
Justice for Animals and Nature
…………………..
Attachment
40 proposals to promote Animal Welfare
PEACE FOR ALL LIVING BEINGS 1) Buddha taught Metta & Karuna towards all living beings including animals, not only for humans. 2) ‘As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields’ – Leo Tolstoy His quote highlights the belief that the cruelty of slaughtering animals fosters a general culture of violence that leads to war among humans. This philosophy suggests that reducing violence against animals is essential for achieving human peace.
3) ‘The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated’ – Mahatma Gandhi.
His quote suggests that compassion towards innocent defenseless creatures reflects a society’s higher ethical standards, highlighting that the definition of a true civilization goes beyond a focus only on human welfare but must necessarily include compassion for animals.
4) Teach Kindness to Animals as a subject in schools. Kindness to Animals is a measure of a good person. Condemn Cruelty to Animals beginning at the kindergarten level
5) Expansion of animal agriculture & eating animals raises Global Warming, the biggest harm to the planet earth and earthlings.
6) 80% of the world’s grains are used to feed farm animals. It takes about 5000 gallons of water to produce 1kg of beef, whereas it takes only about 1% of that amount – around 50 gallons to produce 1kg of vegetables. Meat consumption by rich countries is a major cause of growing hunger in the world, as it reduces the availability of grain to feed the poorest populations. We should recognize that about one billion people in the world are suffering from malnutrition & hunger. If we stop animal farming, we will have more than enough food to eradicate hunger and malnutrition on earth. We should also be aware that more than ten times the world’s human population of animals are slaughtered annually for food, causing a huge environmental imbalance.
7) Eating animals causes killings. Meat is Murder. Theft of another life for your benefit. Milk is stolen food produced for another baby.
8) ‘If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian’ – Sir Paul McCartney.
The core message is that if the processes of killing animals for food were transparent, people would be confronted with the pain, fear, agony, and trauma experienced by these animals, leading many to adopt a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Going vegan is the non-violent & just way to lead one’s life while displaying Metta, Karuna, Ahimsa towards all sentient beings.
9) Millions of animals are slaughtered annually as a religious ritual around the world. Animal farms become empty during the festive seasons and streets become rivers of blood e.g. Dacca in Bangladesh. If you truly worship a god you need to do so without resorting to violence and causing bloodshed of innocent animals (ahimsa). If not, your blood letting conduct would reflect badly on you as well as the deity that you worship. 10) Ban Game Hunting. Ban Sports Hunting. Destroying another sentient being’s life is not an entertainment of a civilized human.
11) Ban Animal races that make huge abuse to animals (ie. horses, pigeons, dogs, camels, bulls, elephants) 12) Ban animal fights (ie. bull fights, cooks, dogs, rodeo, cobra & mongoose). 13) Animal circuses are entertainment for humans but suffering for animals. 14) Zoo is a Jailhouse that punishes innocent animals who have committed no crime to serve a life sentence. 15) When keeping pets & birds in small cages and fish in small tanks in your home, you make them suffer daily under your arms, that is bad karma. They too love freedom.
16) No justification for the use of animals for transportation when motor transport is readily available. 17) Stop animal slavery while having all machinery. 18) Stop Animals being used for experiments that cause huge suffering for animals in laboratories. With access to the latest technology without difficulty you don’t need to abuse animals for your research. 19) Love for dogs & cats is a true, sincere bond. They have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years. They can’t survive other than to receive food from humans. Therefore humans have a moral duty to look after them. 20) Adopt a stray or a helpless dog and cat as your pet. Don’t buy breeding animals. 21) If you notice that the stray cats and dogs population is high surrounding your area, pl go for humane methods of population control like sterilize/ neuter by a veterinary surgeon. It will cost you a little money or you can seek help from government veterinarians or AW organizations. It’s a great help for the control of animal populations and harmonious living together of all beings. Do not ever think of killing or abandoning them in a strange or different area. That is bad karma which will someday come back to you. 22) Give your leftover food to a hungry animal rather than throwing it in the garbage bin.. 23) Show your empathy by keeping some water in your garden or outside the gate for thirsty animals which will earn good merit. 24) Always give a helping hand to a voiceless animal when in need. Be their voice. Be their virtual guardian. 25) Teach your children compassion towards animals and sense of respect for both animals and the environment. 26) If any insect, rats, cockroach, ants, flies, geco, spider and the like come to your home don’t kill them or poison them and collect bad karma. Use non – life destroying methods to keep them away. Instead of using toxic poisons which can harm humans, pets, and the environment you can use natural, non-lethal methods to deter insects, rodents, and other critters. 27) When you see venomous insects or snakes in your premises please catch them without harming them or call an experienced wildlife catcher and relocate them in a suitable environment. They too play an important role in our ecosystem. 28) Let wild animals live in the wild (both in land & sea) and respect their habitats. i.e. Elephants are the jungle keepers. 29) Stop destroying animals’ habitats in the land & sea. 30) Jungles are the Lungs of the earth. 31) If you violate animal rights, you have no moral right to talk about human rights. 32) High consumption of goods and release of non-biodegradable material to the natural environment damages the planet earth permanently and makes life unliveable. 33) Planet earth alias Mother earth has a limit on its capacity and tolerance. Damage caused by human activity to her is reciprocated by her punishing humans in many ways such as flood, tsunami, earthquakes, cyclones, typhoons, fire, droughts, viruses, diseases, lightning and the like. 34) If you protect nature, nature will protect you. 35) Fireworks & fire crackers are unnecessary for human entertainment in the modern world. They harm both animals and the natural environment. 36) A lot of animals are killed by motorists. Respect every life while you drive. Same as humans, they love their lives. Remember most of the roadways are constructed destroying their animal habitats. Be sensitive to animal life when constructing roads, highways, bridges etc. China is a good example which shows concern for animal life when constructing bridges.
37) Every country should enact laws imposing a ‘Duty of Care’ on all citizens to protect sentient beings and promote peaceful co-existence between humans and animals. The Indian legal system mandates compassion and responsible care for animals – Fundamental Duty: Article 51-A(g) of the Indian Constitution makes it the duty of every citizen ‘to protect and improve the natural environment … and to have compassion for living creatures’ Moral Progression: The way a nation treats its animals is viewed as a reflection of its societal compassion and moral progress. 38) ‘The strong have a moral duty to protect the weak’ – A Universally recognized Ethical & Philosophical theme that must include animals as a significant component of the weak. 39) If you don’t care for animal welfare, then at least do not harm them. 40) All the animal species are earthlings and natives of the Planet Earth same as human species. They also have the right to live on the earth peacefully with their loved ones.
The Buddhists of Sri Lanka supported the Buddhists of Vietnam to the hilt in an unprecedented manner never seen before. Huge demonstrations were held all over the country in sympathy with our coreligionists in South Vietnam. The movement was led by L.H. Mettananda, President of the Bauddha Jathika Balavegaya (BJB). The demonstrations reached their peak at a Meeting held at Ananda College, Colombo, organised by the BJB in October 1963. Thousands of people attended this meeting. It took the demonstration three hours to pass a point. Such was the size of the Demonstration.
Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister, taking the cue from public anger at what was happening in a sister Buddhist country, ordered Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative Hon. R.S.S. Gunawardena to raise the issue at the UN. He did it with great determination and passion. The UN appointed a Fact Finding Select Committee headed by Mr. R.S.S. Gunawardena which visited South Vietnam. Within a few days of their arrival in Saigon in October 1963 the dreadful Catholic regime of Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown on November 02, 1963.
The Sinhalese monk Ven. Narada Thero of the Vajiraramaya Temple in Colombo visited South Vietnam several times in the 1950s and 1960s and he was a great solace to the South Vietnamese Buddhists at a time of their greatest need. The Buddhists of Vietnam will never forget the hand of friendship and solidarity extended to them by the Buddhist Sinhalese of Sri Lanka in their hour of crisis.
Sri Lanka’s intervention to support South Vietnamese Buddhists was a significant moment of international Buddhist solidarity, led by a nation (Sri Lanka) that has always viewed itself as a guardian of the Dhamma.
Sri Lanka today stands at a decisive moment in its economic journey. While recent engagements with India have strengthened infrastructure and energy cooperation, the next phase of growth must come from industrialisation and export-led development. In this context, the recent agreements with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the anticipated visit of the Vietnamese leadership present two distinct—but complementary—opportunities.
During the 2025 visit of Narendra Modi, Sri Lanka entered into several important agreements with India.
These included the development of the Trincomalee energy hub, renewable energy projects such as Sampur solar, and the proposed interconnection of electricity grids between the two countries.
In addition, cooperation in digital identity systems and capacity-building programmes for Sri Lankan professionals were also agreed upon.
These initiatives are significant. They strengthen Sri Lanka’s energy security, improve infrastructure, and deepen regional integration. However, they are largely focused on support systems—energy, connectivity, and training—rather than directly creating large-scale manufacturing or export industries.
This is where Vietnam offers a powerful lesson.
Over the past three decades, Vietnam has transformed itself into one of Asia’s most dynamic industrial economies. From a largely agrarian base, it has become a global manufacturing hub, exporting electronics, garments, machinery, and processed food to the world. This success was not accidental. It was built on disciplined policies—export processing zones, foreign direct investment facilitation, skilled workforce development, and deep integration into global supply chains.
Sri Lanka must now ask: how can we replicate elements of this success?
The upcoming engagement with the Vietnamese President should focus on concrete industrial partnerships rather than general cooperation.
One key proposal is the establishment of joint Sri Lanka–Vietnam industrial zones in strategic locations such as Trincomalee, Hambantota, and Bingiriya or any other ordered location
These zones can attract Vietnamese manufacturers seeking to expand beyond their increasingly saturated domestic base.
Vietnam itself is now facing rising labour costs and capacity constraints. This creates an opportunity for Sri Lanka to position itself as a Vietnam Plus One” destination—offering competitive labour, strategic location, and port access.
Another important area is manufacturing relocation. Sri Lanka can invite Vietnamese firms to set up operations in sectors such as footwear, light engineering, motor car assembly ,electronics assembly, and agro-processing. This would generate employment, enhance exports, and bring in much-needed foreign exchange.
Port-led industrialisation is another promising avenue. By linking our ports—particularly Trincomalee and Hambantota—with Vietnamese logistics and industrial expertise, Sri Lanka can develop marine industries, ship repair facilities, and fisheries processing hubs. Given our geographic position, this is a natural advantage we have yet to fully utilise.
Equally important is skills development. Sri Lanka should propose the establishment of joint technical training institutes with Vietnam, focusing on modern industrial skills such as CNC machining, automation, and electronics. Moving beyond low-skilled labour is essential if we are to compete globally.
Agriculture too can benefit.
Vietnam has successfully built export-oriented fisheries and agricultural industries. Collaboration in aquaculture, food processing, and value-added exports could transform coastal economies in areas like Negombo and Trincomalee.
Strategically, Sri Lanka must recognise the difference between its partnerships. India provides strength in infrastructure, energy, and regional stability. Vietnam offers a model—and potential partnership—for industrial growth and export expansion. Both are essential, but they serve different purposes.
Sri Lanka has long depended on loans, aid, and infrastructure projects. While necessary, these alone do not create sustainable economic growth. What the country needs now is a shift towards production, manufacturing, and exports.
India is helping us build the foundation. Vietnam can help us build the industries.
If we act with clarity and purpose, Sri Lanka can transform itself into a competitive industrial hub in the Indian Ocean—leveraging its location, talent, and partnerships. The opportunity is real. The time to act is now.
The Burning Monk, Thich Quang Duc, became one of the most haunting images of the Vietnam War era. On June 11, 1963, he sat down in a Saigon intersection, and didn’t move. But behind the famous photograph is a deeper Buddhist story about persecution, nonviolent protest, meditative stillness, and the monk whose final act shook the Diem regime and forced the world to look at Vietnam differently. It was the visible shape of a lifetime of Pure Land Buddhist practice, pressed all the way to the edge. This is the untold story behind the most powerful photograph of the 20th century, and what Buddhism actually teaches about the mind that met that morning. 🔍 DISCOVER:
The real story behind Thich Quang Duc, the Burning Monk
How Buddhist persecution in South Vietnam led to the 1963 Buddhist crisis
How one photograph traveled from Saigon to Washington and changed global opinion… and why JFK stopped mid-sentence when he saw it
The heart relic that didn’t burn… and what Vietnamese Buddhist tradition says it means
How Rage Against the Machine, Jan Palach, and dependent origination connect one Saigon intersection to six decades of history
What Buddhism teaches about compassion, courage, and meeting suffering without hatred
CONTENT ADVISORY: This video discusses the death of Thích Quảng Đức (June 11, 1963) as a historical and Buddhist educational subject. While no graphic footage is shown, the topic involves death, political persecution, and religious violence. Viewer discretion is advised. This video is produced with deep respect for Thích Quảng Đức, the Vietnamese Buddhist community, and the historical record.
CONTENT ADVISORY: This video discusses the death of Thích Quảng Đức (June 11, 1963) as a historical and Buddhist educational subject. While no graphic footage is shown, the topic involves death, political persecution, and religious violence. Viewer discretion is advised. This video is produced with deep respect for Thích Quảng Đức, the Vietnamese Buddhist community, and the historical record. 📱
On the Relic: — Vietnamese Buddhist Federation records on the heart relic preservation and enshrinement (2025) Historical records on Xa Loi Pagoda, the Hue Vesak crisis, and Buddhist protests in South Vietnam Reporting and archival material on the Diem regime, Madame Nhu, and U.S. reactions to the Buddhist crisis
Malcolm Browne’s Associated Press photographs and reporting from Saigon, 1963 This video references and discusses Malcolm Browne’s 1963 Associated Press photographs, archival news footage, and other historical materials related to the events of June 11, 1963 in Saigon, South Vietnam.
All copyrighted materials are used solely for educational commentary and historical documentation under Fair Use (17 U.S.C. § 107).
Buddha’s Wisdom makes no claim of ownership over any third-party material featured or discussed.
(In view of the State Visit of the President of Maldives – 04–05 May 2026)
1. Introduction
The forthcoming State Visit of the President of the Maldives presents a timely opportunity to enhance bilateral economic cooperation between Sri Lanka and Maldives, particularly in sectors where both countries possess complementary strengths.
Sri Lanka is strategically positioned to integrate into Maldives’ high-value tourism economy by offering diversified experiences, marine services, and logistical support.
2. Key Proposal: Sri Lanka–Maldives Marine Tourism Corridor
2.1 Concept
Establish a premium yacht-based tourism corridor linking:
Malé
Galle
Colombo
2.2 Rationale
Maldives attracts high-end tourists primarily for beach and resort experiences.
Sri Lanka offers complementary attractions including heritage, wildlife, wellness, and cultural tourism.
Currently, there is no structured mechanism to connect these two destinations via marine tourism.
2.3 Proposed Initiative
Develop a Twin Destination Luxury Tourism Package”:
Tourists visiting Maldives can extend their stay with a 3–5 day curated visit to Sri Lanka via yacht or short-haul travel.
Packages to include:
Cultural visits to Sigiriya
Heritage experiences in Kandy
Wildlife safaris at Yala National Park
Coastal leisure at Galle Fort
3. Development of Galle as a Regional Marine Hub
3.1 Proposal
Encourage Maldivian investment in:
Expansion of marina facilities at Galle Harbour
Establishment of yacht repair and maintenance facilities
Development of provisioning and bunkering services
3.2 Strategic Importance
Sri Lanka can serve as a marine logistics and service hub
Maldives can continue focusing on high-end resort tourism
Creates a mutually beneficial ecosystem rather than competition
4. Facilitation Measures Required
To operationalize the above initiatives, the following policy support is recommended:
Simplified immigration and customs clearance for private yachts
Introduction of a fast-track or joint visa mechanism for tourists traveling between the two countries
Duty concessions for marine fuel and yacht supplies
Streamlined port entry procedures
5. Enhancing Sri Lankan Exports to Maldives
5.1 Opportunities
The Maldives is heavily import-dependent, presenting opportunities for Sri Lankan exports in:
Processed food and agricultural products
Construction materials and prefabricated structures
Boat building and marine engineering services
Wellness and Ayurvedic products
5.2 Challenges
High logistics and freight costs
Lack of dedicated supply chain systems
5.3 Recommendation
Establish a dedicated Colombo–Malé shipping and logistics service
Develop cold-chain logistics for perishable exports
Today 2nd May 2026 , I watched a programme on television where a young Tamil girl won Rs. 7.5 million in a contest. Beyond the excitement of the moment and the magnitude of the prize, what struck me most was the deeper message this carries for our country—especially for our younger generation.
This was not merely a story of luck. It was a story of preparation, confidence, and courage. A young girl, possibly from a modest background, stood on a national TV and proved that knowledge and determination can overcome barriers of language, geography, and circumstance.
There is a powerful lesson here.7
(Firstly, talent in Sri Lanka is not limited by ethnicity, region, or social status. Whether one comes from the North, South, East, or West, the potential to succeed is equal. What differs is the willingness to prepare, to learn, and to step forward when opportunity arises.
Secondly, knowledge has become one of the greatest equalizers in today’s world. Competitions of this nature reward awareness, critical thinking, and the ability to respond under pressure. Our youth must understand that education is not just about passing exams—it is about building the capacity to face life confidently.J
Thirdly, confidence is often the missing link. Many talented young Sri Lankans hesitate to present themselves, held back by fear or self-doubt. The courage to come forward, to sit under bright lights, and to perform is itself a victory.
Another important aspect is the message of unity. Seeing a Tamil contestant succeed on a national platform reminds us that Sri Lanka’s strength lies in its diversity. Progress as a nation will come not from division, but from recognising and celebrating talent across all communities.
Finally, this moment reminds us that opportunity often comes unannounced. Those who succeed are not always the most privileged, but the most prepared. Preparation—through reading, learning, observing, and thinking—is what transforms an ordinary moment into an extraordinary outcome.
To our young people, I say this: do not wait for the perfect chance. Build yourselves continuously. Equip your minds. Strengthen your character. When opportunity comes—and it will—be ready to seize it.
Let this young winner’s achievement not just be admired, but be emulated. Sri Lanka needs a generation that is confident, knowledgeable, and unafraid to rise.
Professor Nishan C Wijesinha of the German School of Medicine.
My opinion of the Easter attack- by Professor Nishan C Wijesinha of the German School of Medicine.
General Chandrika Srilal Weerasooriya (often referred to as Srilal Weerasooriya) was a senior Sri Lankan Army officer who served as the 15th Commander of the Sri Lankan Army from December 16, 1998, to August 24, 2000.
He was a prominent figure of the Assembly of God church where Eran Wickramaratne’s father was a founding partner.
Meanwhile Harim Peiris served as the official Presidential Spokesperson for former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
Harim Peiris himself too was another prominent figure of the same church where they were strong opposition of the Catholic Archdiocese.
Eran himself being an ordained pastor of this movement held these two personalities as his spiritual buddies.
When the Mahinda Rajapaksa’ and Chandrika thrift made way for Pallewatte Gamaralalage Maithripala Yapa Sirisena to be sworn in as the 6th Executive President of Sri Lanka on January 9, 2015; following his victory in the 2015 presidential election.
The final rupturing to a focused total downfall of the Rajapaksa’s was screen played using this anti-Catholic assembly.
This finally, paved the way for a staggering Hezbollah influence which led to the Easter Sunday terrorist suicide mission in 2019.
Many innocent lives of Catholic devotees were lost; while the Hackle and Jackle sits as the newly appointed president of the Interim Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in SRI LANKA.
Development of Galle as a World-Class Marina and Marine Tourism Hub”
Sri Lanka will develop Galle Harbour into a boutique, high-value marina targeting the global yachting community, integrated with national trade facilitation reforms, digital clearance systems, and investment incentives. This initiative will position Sri Lanka within the Indian Ocean luxury cruising circuit and attract high-spending visitors, while catalysing growth in marine services, hospitality, and related sectors.
The Kingdom of Kandy (1594–1815) maintained a unique legal system rooted in Sinhalese customary law and oral tradition, which survived the colonial eras of the Portuguese and Dutch. Unlike the written codes of Europe, Kandyan law was dynamic, centered on the King as the supreme “fountain of justice” and guided by long-standing social customs.
1. Traditional Judicial Hierarchy
Before the British annexation, justice was administered through a tiered structure that prioritized reconciliation for minor offenses and royal authority for grave crimes.
Gamsabha (Village Tribunals): The most localized level, where village elders resolved minor disputes (theft, boundary issues, petty quarrels). These courts focused on compromise and social harmony rather than punishment.
Rata Sabha: Operating at the district level, these assemblies handled matters involving agriculture, social conduct, and caste status.
Provincial Authority: Officials like Disavas (provincial governors) and Adigars (chief ministers) held significant civil and criminal jurisdiction within their territories, often consulting minor officers on legal technicalities.
Maha Naduwa (Great Court): A high tribunal composed of senior chiefs and officials that heard major cases referred by the king.
The King: The final court of appeal. The monarch held exclusive power over treason, homicide, and disputes between high officials.
Sri Lankan economist and politician Harsha de Silva on Saturday lauded India’s growth over the years, saying that it feels good when India is doing well. He added that India shouldn’t think of Sri Lanka as a foreign country or foreign land because Lanka is part of the Indian story.
He emphasized that India must adopt a common approach to partnership rather than maintaining a mere business relationship, a true partnership.
Expressing optimism over India-Sri Lanka ties, Silva said both countries are moving in the right direction, with strong political will and a shared willingness among people to collaborate, making it a positive story for both nations and something critical to leverage.
Silva, who is an MP from Colombo, Sri Lanka, speaking at the Zee Media WION Global Innovation and Leadership Summit, said, You shouldn’t think of Sri Lanka as a foreign country or foreign land because Lanka is part of the Indian story. We must think about this not as an agreement with some political officer that you sign and try to improve upon, but rather as a common approach to partner as opposed to having a mere business relationship, a partnership.”
Silva added, I think we are moving in the right direction. There is political will and people are happy to collaborate. It’s a good story, a positive story for us that is certainly something critical to leverage upon.”
Pointing at India and Sri Lanka’s ties, the Sri Lankan politician said that Sri Lanka’s connection to India goes a long way back.
It feels good when India is doing well. At the rate India is growing and producing things, Sri Lanka’s connection to India goes a long way. We talked about Buddhism: it was Tapassu and Bhallika who were the first lay disciples of the Buddha who came here five centuries before Christ, and from that point the merchant banking trade began. There has been so much connection between these two countries. Long before the banks were created, commercial banks and the British banks, it was the Chettiars who did business in Ceylon, Pettah and so on,” he said.
Emphasizing the need to look beyond missiles and air superiority, Silva stated that maritime security, freedom of navigation, and Sri Lanka’s central position in the Indian Ocean offer extensive opportunities for deeper cooperation in the defense sector, encompassing manufacturing, surveillance, and services, thereby establishing the country as a key regional security partner.
In the case of defence missiles and air superiority, all that is granted. But what about maritime security and the ocean? The recent incident about IRIS Dena shows we cannot just think about air superiority. We have to start thinking about the ocean, freedom of navigation, and the fact that Sri Lanka is the centre of the Indian Ocean, whether you like it or not. We must be punching way above our weight class in order to ensure that we become a real partner in the region and the world as a security provider and as a partner in that exercise,” he said.
The Sri Lankan politician added, If you look at the recent purchase of Colombo Dockyard by Mazagon, a large Indian naval shipbuilding company that moved the majority ownership from Japan to India, what do they do? They build warships and submarines. And so therefore, while on that, there is a whole range of defence-related manufacturing, surveillance and services that Sri Lanka has to be an important partner in. So if you think about it that way, there is so much scope there as well.”
In a significant affirmation of deepening India-Sri Lanka economic ties, Krishan Balendra, Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and John Keells Group, described Colombo as a port for India” during his address at the ZEE Media WION Global Innovation & Leadership Summit held in Colombo on Saturday.
The remark underscores Colombo’s strategic importance as a key maritime hub for Indian trade and transshipment, aligning with growing bilateral cooperation in ports, shipping, and investment.
Balendra, a prominent Sri Lankan business leader, highlighted opportunities for Indian capital in Sri Lanka amid the island nation’s economic recovery and India’s expanding regional footprints.
On being asked about India-Sri Lanka ties and business opportunities for Indian businesses, the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce said, The other segment where we have seen substantial investments is the ports and logistics segment… Colombo port is the biggest port in South Asia, and it’s really a port for India. About 85 percent of volume is transshipment, of which a large bulk containers in and out of India.”
He further added, I think there will be significantly more growth because India will be needing a lot of port capacity and Colombo is well placed to be a transshipment hub for India and the rest of South Asia.”
The summit, hosted by Zee Media in Colombo, brought together business leaders, policymakers, and experts from both countries to discuss innovation, trade, and investment under the theme of leadership in a changing global order.
Strategic Maritime Convergence
Ceylon Chamber Chief’s comments come against the backdrop of major Indian investments in Sri Lankan ports and shipbuilding.
Notably, India’s Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) recently acquired a controlling 51% stake in Colombo Dockyard PLC (CDPLC), Sri Lanka’s largest shipyard, for USD 26.8 million, marking MDL’s first international acquisition and a key step under India’s Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047.
The deal includes reconstituting CDPLC’s board with MDL nominees, positioning India to enhance shipbuilding, repair, and strategic maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. Colombo Dockyard’s location within the Port of Colombo, a vital node on major shipping lanes, adds significant strategic depth.
Mutual Benefits and Regional Stability
From India’s perspective, these developments represent a win for its neighbourhood-first policies, reducing reliance on extra-regional players and boosting connectivity.
Sri Lanka benefits from Indian investment, technology, and expertise as it navigates economic challenges. Enhanced port infrastructure supports faster cargo movement for Indian exporters and strengthens supply chain resilience in the Indian Ocean Region.
It can be viewed as a counterbalance in the broader Indo-Pacific dynamics, with Colombo emerging as a collaborative hub rather than a point of competition. Balendra’s statement reflects Sri Lankan business sentiment that closer integration with India drives growth and opportunity.
On 21 April 2019, suicide bombers linked to the National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) attacked 3 churches and 3 hotels, killing 269 people. After seven years, multiple investigations, commission reports, committee findings, and even a Supreme Court determination, a new investigative theory has now emerged focusing mainly on one individual — Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay. Investigators now carry the burden of proving that Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay was the mastermind behind a religious suicide terror network linked to ISIS-style jihadist extremism. This cannot be done referring to him as the mastermind” and simply through assumptions, political narratives, or retrospective theories. Investigators must explain the wider ISIS-linked ideological and extremist network within which Zaharan Hashim and his group operated and where Suresh Sallay fitted into it.
At the same time, shifting attention toward one individual does not erase the responsibility of those who:
received advance warnings,
knew the identities of extremists,
had authority to act,
and possessed the power to arrest suspects and prevent the attacks before civilians were killed.
Investigating on one theory against Suresh Sallay cannot erase accountability for the other failures already identified.
Both issues must be investigated together — the extremist network that carried out the attacks and the institutional failures that allowed the attacks to happen despite repeated warnings
If Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay is to be linked to the first allegation — being the mastermind behind the attacks — investigators must cross an extremely high evidentiary threshold.
If he is also to be linked to the second allegation — responsibility for the failure to prevent the attacks — then even more serious questions arise because numerous agencies and officials inside Sri Lanka had already received warnings before 21 April 2019.
The arrest of Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay appears to stem primarily from a complaint made to the CID by Fr. Rohan Fernando based on allegations made by Asad Maulana in the 2023 Channel 4 documentary.
However, even before the Channel 4 allegations, Fr. Cyril Gamini publicly claimed in October 2021 that then Brigadier Suresh Sallay knew Zaharan before 2019.
This itself creates a contradiction.
Why?
Because Asad Maulana later claimed that he was the person who introduced Suresh Sallay to Zaharan.
Both claims cannot simultaneously be true when the Cardinal congratulated C4’s Asad Maulana’s revelations.
In addition, the timeline itself is under scrutiny because Maj. Gen. Sallay was not even in Sri Lanka during the period in question.
Therefore, the new narrative begins not with clear and consistent evidence, but with serious controversies, contradictions, and disputed timelines. Contradictions of this magnitude cannot be resolved merely by producing volumes of statements or suddenly emerging witnesses years after the attacks.
After the attacks, many investigations and reports were carried out, including:
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry
The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC)
The Malalgoda Committee Report
The Janaki Alwis Report
The Imam Committee findings
Supreme Court judgments on the Easter Sunday attacks
Foreign intelligence agency reports
All these investigations repeatedly pointed to the same main problem:
intelligence failures,
failure to act on warnings,
poor coordination between agencies,
negligence,
and breakdown of the security system.
All of these reports agreed on one leader – Zaharan Hashim.
None of the reports identified a controlling figure above Zaharan Hashim or suggested that the operational command structure of the attacks was directed by an external mastermind.
THE BIG PROBLEM WITH THE MASTERMIND” THEORY IN A RELIGIOUS SUICIDE
The Easter Sunday bombings were not ordinary crimes.
These were suicide attacks linked to ISIS-style religious extremism.
The attackers:
pledged loyalty to ISIS,
used ISIS flags and videos,
followed extremist religious teachings,
and were part of a radical ideological network.
This is important because people do not usually become suicide bombers simply because someone tells them to”.
In almost every known case of religious suicide terrorism globally, the motivation arises from ideological indoctrination, religious absolutism, and group radicalization — not from or for political objectives of another.
Religious suicide terrorism depends on individuals accepting death as part of an ideological or religious mission towards martyrdom. It is not considered a sin.
It is rooted in belief, not merely obedience and strengthened through-
extremist indoctrination,
radical preaching,
ideological training,
and deep belief systems.
A close-knit secret group working in isolation
Any attempt to connect Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay to such a network would require investigators to explain how he allegedly exercised influence or authority across the above layers over individuals driven by extremist religious ideology.
Even before 2019, Sri Lanka already had signs of ISIS-linked radicalization – part of a wider transnational extremist movement & not an isolated local phenomenon.
The pattern was seen across several countries in the region where local extremist cells adopted international jihadist ideology.
ISIS had officially declared its focus on Asia since 2014.
Authorities already knew:
Zaharan Hashim was preaching extremism & was aligned to ISIS.
NTJ activities evolved from extremist thinking to extremist violence.
Sri Lankans had travelled to Syria linked to ISIS to commit religious suicide
and extremist networks were already being monitored.
So, if investigators now say Suresh Sallay was the mastermind”, they must explain:
how he became connected to this extremist ideological network,
how he allegedly controlled radicalized suicide bombers
and why none of the earlier investigations clearly identified him as the central figure behind the attacks while none of its arrested members mentioned that their real leader was not Zaharan but Suresh Sallay.
An allegation of masterminding ISIS-style suicide terrorism requires direct, consistent, evidence — not assumptions, retrospective interpretation, media pressure, or political narratives.
THE WARNINGS CANNOT BE IGNORED
One of the most important facts established by all previous investigations is this:
Authorities received repeated warnings before the attacks happened.
The warnings were so specific that authorities could at minimum have heightened security, restricted access to vulnerable locations, or taken preventive operational measures.
They didn’t – why didn’t they take action?
The reports confirmed that:
names of suspects were known,
targets were identified,
foreign intelligence warnings were received,
Zaharan was already under radar
arrest warrants existed,
and security agencies had advance information.
Evidence before the Parliamentary Select Committee indicated that extremist material linked to Zaharan had been forwarded to the Attorney General’s Department years before the attacks (2016), yet meaningful legal action did not appear to follow with urgency. The Attorney General’s Department reportedly responded only in March 2019 after earlier material and follow-up correspondence (2018) had already been forwarded years before.
This means the attacks were not completely unexpected.
The key issue raised by almost every investigation was:
Why did those who received the warnings fail to stop the attacks?
That is why previous reports focused heavily on:
operational failures,
intelligence not being used properly,
poor coordination,
and negligence by agencies and officials inside Sri Lanka.
So even if a new mastermind” theory is introduced today, investigators still have to answer:
Why were the attacks not prevented when so many warnings already existed?
This raises further concern because some of the investigators and institutions presently involved were themselves connected to the operational and investigative failures scrutinized before and after the attacks.
THE MAIN CONTRADICTION
The present investigation seems to create two conflicting stories.
On one side, investigators appear to say:
Suresh Sallay was the mastermind.”
But at the same time, all earlier investigations showed that:
many agencies already knew about the extremist threat –if so, why did Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay’s name not emerge prominently in intelligence reporting or operational investigations during the relevant period?
warnings had already been shared,
and officials inside Sri Lanka had the ability to take action before the attacks.
So the public has a right to ask:
If so many people already knew about the danger, how can the entire blame now be pushed mainly onto one person who was outside the country and outside the operational command chain at that time?
The public is therefore being asked to accept two parallel claims at the same time:
that multiple agencies inside Sri Lanka failed to act despite receiving detailed warnings, and
that the true operational mastermind was someone outside the command structure.
Investigators must explain how both propositions can legally and factually coexist.
The present theory appears to create several unresolved contradictions.
Gen. Suresh Sallay is mastermind – but had no role in the indoctrination & preaching, arms acquiring, preparation of suicide kits/bombs, renting safehouses – but only showed one target & not the other 5.
Noteworthy is that giving evidence to the PSC – the then Snr DIG CID Ravi Seneviratne said that the attackers were given designated safe location to retreat to and a contact person to approach in case their planned targets failed & that the specific person would meet them. The Snr DIG CID had passed the name of the individual to the Commission on a piece of paper.
If such evidence existed at the time directly linking Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay to operational control of the attackers, it would reasonably be expected to have featured prominently in earlier investigations and public proceedings – at the least during this particular direct questioning.
Also, this testimony contradicts again with Asad Maulana’s C4 as he claims Suresh Sallay phoned him & asked him to pick up Jameel the Taj suicide bomber.
Additionally, when PSC directly asked if there was evidence of attackers links to ISIS – the Snr DIG claimed that 41 banks accounts were identified & they were all local. Were any of the identified financial transactions or accounts linked to Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay in prior investigations?
If not, investigators must explain how a large coordinated suicide operation involving logistics, explosives, safehouses, financing, ideological indoctrination, and operational secrecy functioned without any contemporaneous financial, digital, intelligence, or operational trail connects the alleged mastermind.
Key security heads were aware of Zaharan and his extremism, they were additionally warned of a terror attack by him which included names of the other attackers (which intel had already lists on) and even venues –
Can the operational failures of multiple agencies and officials who possessed advance warnings now be retrospectively transferred onto one individual outside the operational chain?
QUESTIONS ABOUT CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Another serious issue is this:
Some of the people and institutions now connected to the investigation were themselves questioned in earlier investigations regarding failures before and after the attacks.
The earlier reports examined:
intelligence failures,
investigative failures,
delays,
and negligence by agencies operating during the attacks.
Yet now the focus appears to be shifting away from those operational failures and toward one individual.
This creates an important question:
Can people connected to the earlier failures now influence an investigation that redirects blame elsewhere?
That raises concerns about fairness and conflict of interest.
Natural justice requires that investigations remain free from both actual bias and the appearance of bias.
QUESTIONS THE PUBLIC DESERVES ANSWERS TO
If the attacks were ISIS-inspired religious suicide attacks, where is the evidence linking Suresh Sallay to that extremist ideological network?
How could one person supposedly control an entire network of suicide bombers without clear evidence?
Why did all earlier investigations focus on systemic failure instead of one mastermind?
Why was Suresh Sallay not identified as the main operational figure in earlier reports and testimonies?
Why are the agencies and officials who received warnings no longer the main focus?
If names, targets, and warnings were already known before the attacks, why were the bombings not stopped?
Why did the Attorney General’s Department reportedly take years to respond to material relating to Zaharan?
Is the investigation following evidence — or trying to fit evidence into a pre-decided story?
Why did none of the earlier commissions, committees, or institutional findings identify Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay as the controlling figure behind the attacks if such evidence existed
Where is this new narrative emerging – have Fr. Rohan, Fr. Cyril Gamini or even Asad Maulana given evidence for implicating Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay – or are they expecting the investigators to find the evidence that they have failed to present?
THE REAL ISSUE
The Easter Sunday victims deserve truth and justice.
But justice must be based on facts, fairness, and evidence.
Truth must be two-fold
About the attackers – what they stood for & why they killed
About those who neglected to prevent the attacks – we know that they knew about the attacks – but we don’t know why they didn’t take action. We want to have the answer to this.
If investigators now want to say one person was the mastermind behind the attacks, they must fully explain:
how he allegedly controlled a radical ISIS-linked suicide network which is linked globally
what role he had to play in the 32 Sri Lankans who went to join ISIS – he cannot have a role in one & not the other as he has to be part of the ideology for members to agree to carry out a suicide.
The present theory appears to separate ideological indoctrination from operational causation by suggesting that Zaharan motivated the attackers religiously while another unseen actor allegedly directed the attacks for political purposes. Investigators must therefore explain whether there exists any established precedent — locally or internationally — where ISIS-style religious suicide attackers operated under dual command structures separating ideological leadership from operational masterminding.
Otherwise, the danger is serious.
Because this would mean that:
large institutional failures,
failures by multiple agencies,
and failures by officials who had advance warnings
can later be pushed onto one selected person.
Another major issue is the apparent absence of contemporaneous evidence.
If Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay was truly the mastermind behind the attacks:
why did earlier investigations not identify him centrally,
why did intelligence reports not prominently feature his role,
why did operational agencies focus primarily on Zaharan and NTJ,
and why did arrested suspects and witnesses not consistently identify him as the controlling figure behind the attacks?
Why has there been no links to the 32-38 Sri Lankan Muslims who went to join ISIS in 2016.
Why did none of the earlier intelligence assessments identify Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay as connected to the wider ISIS-linked radicalization pipeline already under observation before 2019?
The later emergence of a substantially different theory years after the attacks inevitably raises questions regarding consistency, evidentiary development, and retrospective reconstruction.
That is not only a question about one investigation.
It is a question about fairness, equality before the law, and public trust in justice itself.
Moreover, if institutional failures remain unaddressed while attention shifts solely toward retrospective individualized attribution, the underlying risks that enabled the attacks may continue unresolved.
The country cannot afford a situation where the search for a later ‘mastermind’ overshadows the unresolved failures that allowed a known extremist network to operate, organize, radicalize, and ultimately carry out mass murder despite repeated warnings.
In many parts of the world, May Day is marked by loud demonstrations, political rallies, and street protests. However, in Norway, the observance of May 1st—known as International Workers’ Day—takes on a more measured and disciplined character, reflecting the country’s unique social and economic philosophy.
Norway does in fact recognize May Day as an official public holiday. Yet, what distinguishes the Norwegian approach is not whether people have the right to take time off, but how society subtly encourages productivity, responsibility, and balance. While organized labour unions do hold parades and gatherings, participation is generally orderly, peaceful, and limited in scale compared to more politically charged nations.
The Norwegian model is built on mutual trust between employers, employees, and the government. Workers’ rights—fair wages, safe working conditions, and social security—are already deeply embedded in the system. As a result, there is less perceived need for aggressive protest. Instead of confrontation, there is cooperation.
Interestingly, many Norwegians use the day not purely for activism but for reflection, family time, or even voluntary work. There is a cultural undertone that values contribution over agitation. The state does not coerce people to work on May Day, but through its policies and societal norms, it promotes a mindset where work is seen as dignity rather than burden.
This approach offers an important lesson for countries like Sri Lanka. True respect for labour is not only demonstrated through slogans or marches, but through consistent policy, economic stability, and a culture that values both rights and responsibilities. Norway shows that when workers feel secure and respected, May Day becomes less about protest—and more about quiet pride in one’s contribution to society.
For Sri Lanka, where May Day is often highly politicized, there may be value in reflecting on this model: strengthening institutions, ensuring fairness, and gradually shifting from confrontation to collaboration.
