රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

රහස් පොලීසියට හිටපු ජනපති ලේකම් සමන් ඒකනායක එපා වූයේ, භාරත තෙන්නකෝන්ගේ උදේ හෑල්ල නිසා පමණක් නොව තවත් හේතු කිහිපයක්ම නිසාය.  

ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරුන් පත්වන්නේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 41 (1) වගන්ති ප්‍රකාරව ය. ඔවුන්ගේ වගකීම නැත්තම් රස්සාව විධායක ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ ‘ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ බලතල, කාර්ය සහ කර්තව්‍ය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේලා සහ ඉටු කිරීමේලා තමාට සහාය දීම පිණිස තම මතය අනුව……………’’ කටයුතු කිරීමකි.

ජනපති රනිල්, තම ලේකම් සමන් ‘මට ලන්ඩන් යන්න ඕනි’ කියූ විට රාජ්‍ය නායකයා යන්නේ කොහෙද? නිදාගන්නේ කොහෙද? නිදාගන්නේ කා සමඟදැයි විමසීමට ඔහුට හැකියාවක් නැත. තානාපති කාර්යාල සහ ප්‍රොටකෝල් නිලධාරීන් එය කලමනාකරණය කරන අතර, ජනාධිපතිවරු සමාන්‍යයෙන් ගුබ්බෑයම්වල ලගින්නේ ද නැත.  ජනාධිපතිවරුන් තමන් කරන කියන දෑ, හැම කොල්ලා – බල්ලා සමඟම කියන්නේ ද නැත!   රාජ්‍ය නායකයා යනු තම ලේකම්වරුන් සමඟ ‘එක ගේ කන්නෙකු’ නොවේ.  

හිටපු ජනපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මහතා කුමක් පැවසූව ද, තවමත් හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරුන්ගේ මුක්තිය ව්‍යවස්ථා පොතෙන් ඉවත් කර නැත.  ඒ නිසා, හිටපු ජනපතිවරයෙකු සිය ධූර කාලය තුල ලබාදුන් නියෝග සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඔහුට මුක්තියක් තිබේ.

රනිල් ගේ කාර්යාලය මේ ගමනට අදාල ලේඛන කිහිපය් එළියට දමා තිබුණි. මේ සියළු ලේඛන විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශය හා තනාපති කාර්යාලයේ තිබූ/තිබිය යුතු දේ ය. ලන්ඩන් හි ලංකාව නොවන විදේශ තානාපති කාර්යාලයකින් ද ලේඛන ලැබී ඇති සෙයකි. නගර සභාව විසින් සිය සභා වාරයේ වර්තාව ද සපයා දී තිබුණි.

සමන් අද එන්න අවශ්‍ය නැත! රහස් පොලීසිය කියන්නට ඇත්තේ ඒ නිසාය.  

ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ බලතල හා ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ගේ සීමා මායිම සලකුණු කරන සුවිශේෂ නඩුකරයක අත්දැකීම ඒ අනුව රටට අහිමි විය. 

පොදු ජන දැනුම සඳහා ලියා තැබිය යුතු දේ නම්, සමන් ඒකනායක මේ සිද්ධියේ දී කියන රජයේ මුදල් රුපියලක් හෝ තම පරිහරණයකට ගෙන නොතිබුණි.  ඔහු එම මුදල් කිසිවක ප්‍රසම්පාදන ක්‍රියා සිදු කර නොතිබුණි (එය තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ වැඩකි). ඇස්තමේන්තුවට මුදල් අනුමත කිරීම පමණක් ඔහු සිදු කර තිබුණි.  සරළව සමන් ගණුදෙනුවේ පොදු 35 වියදම් වව්චරයක්වත් අත්සන් කර නැත! දැකලා ද නැත. නමුත්, පොදු 35 වත් අත්සන් නොකර හිටපු ජනපති ලේකම්වරයෙකු වුව ද, රාජ්‍ය සේවකයෙකුට පත් විය හැකි බලවත්ම අවමානයට, හිංසනයට පත් කළ හැකි බව ක්‍රියාවෙන් ඔප්පු වී ඇත.

රනිල් ගේ ලන්ඩන් ගමන රාජ්‍ය නායක, සේනාධිනායක, මුදල් ඇමතිවරුන්‍ගේ විදේශ සංචාර පිළිබඳ කිසිදා ඇති නොවිය යුතු අමිහිරි අප්‍රසන්න සිද්ධි රැසක් ද, තානාපති අංශවල හාස්‍යයට හා උපහාසයට ද ලක්වී ඇත. රනිල් – සමන් හිරේ ගියත් – නැතත් රාජ්‍යය විසින්ම මේ අවුල විසඳාගත යුතුය.

මුදල් අනුමැතිය ලබාදීම, පොදු 35 අත්සන් ගැසීම අනතුරු සහිතය.  ප්‍රවේශමෙන් පරිහරණය නොකරන්නේ නම්, අපරාධ පරීක්ෂණයකින්, නින්දා අපහාස ලැබෙන ප්‍රවෘත්ති සිරස්තල සිය ගණනකින්, නඩුව අසා අවසන් වන තුරු රිමාන්ඩ් බන්ධනාගාර ගත කිරීමකින් හා වසර ගණන් ඇදෙන නඩු හබයක් දක්වා දීර්ඝ විය හැකිය.  බව දැන් සක් සුදක් සේ පැහැදිලියි.  බී වාර්තාව පදනම් වන්නේම පොදු 35 වව්චර මත ය.  එම අනුමැති ලැබුණු කොන්දේසි/පදනම ඇත්තේ ලිපි ගොනුවේය.  අනාගතයේ උසාවියට කරුණු වාර්තා කර ඇප අයඳුම් කරන විට චූදිත රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරියා අනුමැතිය ලබා දුන් ලිපි ගොනුව නැත.

හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයා බන්ධනාගාර ගත වන්නේ ආරාධනා පත්‍රයේ විශ්වසනීයත්වය ගැන සැකකරන බව අධිකරණයේ දී පවසන නිසාය. අවම වශයෙන් ඊ මේල් පණිවුඩයකින් තහවුරු කර ගත හැකි දෙයක් වත් නොකර අත්අඩංගුවට ගැනීමට විමර්ශකයින්ට හැකියාව ඇත.  අධිකරණය ද සැකය මත පදනම්ව හිටපු ජනපතිවරයෙකු ද රිමාන්ඩ් බන්ධනාගාර ගත කර එයට අනුකුලතාව දක්වා ඇත්තේය! ජනාධිපතිවරයෙකු හුදු සැකය නිසා රිමාන්ඩ් බන්ධනාගාර ගත වන්නේ නම්, පහල නිලධාරීන්ට දෙවි පිහිටමය.    

රජයේ මුදල් පාලනය සම්බන්ධයෙන් පරිපාලන නිලධාරීන් සතු දැනුම, චක්‍රලේඛන, ව්‍යවහාරයන් කිසිදු නිදහසට කරුණක් නොවන බව පැහැදිලිය.

අභ්‍යන්තර විගණන අංශය මුදල් කාබාසිනියා කරන තැනක් මිසක් වැඩක් හරියට නොකරන බව මේ නඩුකරය සාක්ෂි ය.   අද අට වන්නම නටා පිහිටවු ‘ස්වාධීන විගණන කොමිසමට’ හෝ කෝපා වලින් රිංගා ජනාධිපතිවරයාට විදේශ රටක තානාපති වරප්‍රසාද සහිතව හොර ගමණක් යා හැකි බවට දැන් අධිකරණයට කරුණු කියා ඇත.

සමන් තවමත් අත්අඩංගුවට පත් නොවූයේ මන්ද?

පී.බී. මැනික්දිවෙල ගේ සිට සමන් ඒකනායක දක්වා එදා මෙදා තුර  ජනපති ලේකම්වරු සියළු දෙනා ජනපතිවරුන්ගේ පුද්ගලික හා රාජකාරි සම්බන්ධ වියදම් — ආරක්ෂාව, ප්‍රොටකෝල්, ගමන් විදයම්, පිළිබඳ කටයුතු කළ ව්‍යවහාරයක් ඇත.  ජනපති හිටපු ලේකම්වරු හා ගණනාධිකාරීවරුන් විශේෂඥ සාක්ෂිකරුවන් ලෙස සමන්ට පක්ෂව අධිකරණයට කරුණු දක්වනු නිසැකය.

ලංකා ඉතිහාසයේ එදා මෙදා තුර සියළුම ජනපති ලේකම්වරුන් විදේශ ගමන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ව්‍යවස්ථාව උල්ලංඝනය කර ඇති බවත්, වගකීම් පැහැර ඇති බවත්, රජයේ අධිනීතිඥවරයාට අධිකරණය හමුවේ ‘සාධාරණ සැකයෙන් තොරව’ ඔප්පු කර පෙන්වීමට සිදු වන්නේය. එය ‘සිදු කළ නොහැකි’ වැඩක් ලෙස පෙනීයයි.

මෙතැන අධි ගෙවීමක් සිදුව ඇතැයි මොහොතකට උපකල්පනය කරමු.  ප්‍රශ්නය ඇත්තේ, සමන් ඒකනායකගේ අනුප්‍රාත්තික නිලධාරීයා (එනම් කුමානායක) එම මුදල් අය කර ගැනීමට ගනු ලැබූ පියවර කුමක් ද? යන්නය.  උත්තරය, කිසිවක් නැත!

සමන් වරදක් කර ඇති නම්, වත්මන් ලේකම් ද, අනුප්‍රාප්තික නිලධාරියා ද ඒ හා සමාන වරදක් කර ඇත.

මෙහි අනෙක් පස තර්කය, ජනාධිපති ලේකම්ට ආයතන සංග්‍රහය හා මුදල් රෙගුලාසි අදාළ නොවේ! යන්නය.

වත්මන් ලේකම් කුමානායක ‘ජනාධිපති ලේකම්ට ආයතන සංග්‍රහය හා මුදල් රෙගුලාසි අදාල නොවේ යන ස්ථාවරයට යන්නේ නම්, ඔහු රනිල් – සමන්ට විරුද්ධ පැමිණිල්ල සිදු කළේ ඇයි ද? යන්න මතුවන්නේ ය.  දැන් මේ නූල් බෝලය හොඳටම අවුල් කර ගෙන ඇත.

1973 ‍ෆීලික්ස් ඩයස් ගේ යුගයේ ඉයන් වික්‍රමනායක මෙවැනිම ආකර්ශනීය ප්‍රවේශකින් කටයුතු කළ ආකාරය ‘සාරයක් මැද’ චිත්‍රපටියේ කතාවයි. ‘ලෝරන්ස් මාෆියාව’  නමින් රණසිංහ ප්‍රේමදාසගේ යුගයේ හිටපු නියෝජ්‍ය ප‍ොලිස්පති ලෝරන්ස් පෙරේරා හොරු අල්ලන්ට මෙලෙස ම කටයුතු කර ඇත.  එම අවස්ථා දෙකේදීම ඊයන් වික්‍රමනායක මෙතඩ් එක ද, ලෝරන්ස් මෙතක් එක ද, ජනතාවට ආකර්ශනීය විය. දේශබන්දු තෙන්නකෝන් ගේ ‘යුක්තිය මෙහෙයුම’ ට අත් පොලසන් දුන් පිරිසක් ද ‍රටේ වූහ.

කුමන හෝ වාසනාවකට, සමන්ටත්, රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහටත් මේ උත්සවයේ නිල ආරාධනා පත්‍රය පමණක් නොව දිවා භෝජන සංග්‍රහයේ සමරු කාඩ් පත ද, මෙනූ පත, විඩියෝ, මෙට්‍රපොලිටන් පොලීසියේ වාහනය ගැන පවා සාක්ෂි සොයා ගැනීමට හැකිවී ඇත.  එවැනි වාසනාවක් – හැකියාවක් රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ අවශේෂ  සියළු දෙනාට තිබිය නොහැකිය.  රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ සියළු නිලධාරීන් තමන් අත්සන් කරන, නිර්දේශ – අනුමත කරන පොදු 35වව්චරයක පමණක් නොව අනුමත – නිර්දේශ නියෝගයක ද, පිටපත් කොට තබා ගැනීම මතු ආරක්ෂාවට වැදගත් වනු ඇත.  සෑම පොදු 35 වව්චර අත්සනක්ම, රාජ්‍ය දේපල අයථා පරිහණ නඩු නිමිත්තක් විය හැකිය. හෘර්දය වස්තුවේ කිරීට ධමනි අවහිරවී නැති නම් නඩුව අවසන් වන තුරු රිමාන්ඩ් බන්ධනාගාර ගත විය හැකිය.

පොදු 35 අනතුරුදායකයි. ප්‍රවේශමෙන් පරිහණය කරන්න. 

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

The Chris Hedges Report

August 9, 2025

Author and attorney Jennifer Harbury describes the Silent Holocaust” in Guatemala and its links to the genocide in Gaza, using any methods of barbarity necessary.”

Known as the Silent Holocaust,” the genocide in Guatemala is seldom mentioned in modern history.

The United States, with support from Israel, backed yet another violent crusade against an indigenous population as well as against communism.

The Guatemalan genocide — preceded by a C.I.A.-instigated coup d’état of the Guatemalan government in 1954 and the ensuing civil war — saw hundreds of thousands of the Mayan Indigenous peoples and alleged communists massacred or disappeared.

Jennifer Harbury, an attorney, author and human rights activist, witnessed the horrors of the genocidal campaign waged by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan military. Included in these horrors was the torture and disappearance of her husband, Mayan rebel leader Efraín Bámaca Velásquez (known as Everardo) by C.I.A.-backed Guatemalan military officials.

Harbury joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to dissect the brutal history of the genocide as well as recount her own experiences, including several hunger strikes in Guatemala and Washington, D.C., that ultimately led to the exposure of the C.I.A.’s complicity in the atrocities.

Please see this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PEg0ai_lAk

Host: Chris Hedges

Producer: Max Jones

Intro: Diego Ramos

Crew: Diego Ramos, Sofia Menemenlis and Thomas Hedges

Transcript: Diego Ramos

Transcript;

Chris Hedges Report: Israel Also Sponsored a Genocide in Guatemala

National Development Bank PLC

NDB Bank’s SME Re-Energizer Loan is designed to fuel the growth ambitions of Sri Lanka’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups. Launched in collaboration with the Sri Lankan Government, this timely initiative underscores NDB’s role as a steadfast partner in enabling entrepreneurship and empowering businesses that form the backbone of the national economy.

The SME Re-Energizer Loan provides eligible businesses with access to investment funding of up to LKR 25 million at a highly competitive interest rate of just 7% per annum. With flexible repayment terms, the facility is structured to ease the financial burden of expansion and innovation, allowing businesses to focus on scaling their operations sustainably.

Targeting priority sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, exports, apparel, construction, and agro-based industries, the scheme supports a wide range of business needs. These include investments in machinery, equipment, solar installations, and productivity enhancements, vehicles for the tourism sector, factory expansions, and technology upgrades.

Commenting on the launch, Indika Ranaweera, Head of NDB Business Banking reaffirmed his commitment to SMEs, stating: SMEs are at the heart of Sri Lanka’s economic progress. The SME Re-Energizer Loan has been designed to provide affordable and practical financing to help them overcome challenges, invest in their growth, and achieve long-term resilience. NDB remains dedicated to creating impactful financial solutions that go beyond transactions to deliver sustainable value.”

With SMEs contributing significantly to employment generation, innovation, and export potential, NDB’s SME Re-Energizer Loan represents more than a financial facility, it is a strategic enabler of national development and private sector competitiveness.

For further information on the SME Re-Energizer Loan, interested parties can visit the nearest NDB branch or call 011 744 8888.

NDB Bank is the fourth-largest listed commercial bank in Sri Lanka. NDB was named Sri Lanka’s Best Digital Bank for SMEs at Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2025 and was awarded Domestic Retail Bank of the Year – Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Domestic Project Finance Bank of the Year by Asian Banking and Finance Magazine (Singapore) Awards 2024. NDB is the parent company of the NDB Group, comprising capital market subsidiary companies, together forming a unique banking and capital market services group. The Bank is committed to empowering the nation and its people through meaningful financial and advisory services powered by digital banking solutions.

Wimal Weerawansa

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Colombo, Sept. 2 (Daily Mirror) – The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has written to the Mahanayake Theras of the Asgiriya and Malwathu Chapters, expressing concern over what it alleges are government attempts to oppress war heroes.”

In letters, SLPP General Secretary, Attorney-at-Law Sagara Kariyawasam, the party accused the government of pursuing actions that undermine military personnel who fought to end terrorism in the country.

While noting that terrorism ended 16 years ago, the SLPP claimed the ideology” behind it still exists. It further alleged that the government is acting in line with groups hostile to war heroes, under the influence of external forces that backed its rise to power.

The party also criticized the administration for failing to give due recognition to annual commemorations for fallen soldiers, while allegedly allowing events that glorify terrorism to take place both in Sri Lanka and overseas.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Colombo, Sept. 2 (Daily Mirror) – Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Namal Rajapaksa has accused the National People’s Power (NPP) of resorting to violence and intimidation against other political parties.

In a post on X, Rajapaksa claimed that members of the Frontline Socialist Party (FLSP), who were formerly associated with the JVP, had faced harassment at the hands of NPP supporters. 

He alleged that a large group of NPP members had barged into the FLSP office this morning (02) and forcefully taken it over.

Rajapaksa warned that such actions threaten the country’s democratic framework. If this is the new system change that the NPP pledged, then Sri Lanka’s democracy is truly at risk and the law and order in shambles where the olden JVP fear will be created once again,” he stated.

Kelum Jayasumana

by Shenali Waduge · 1st September 2025

The Association for Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances has issued a letter to the UNHRC Head on 30 August 2025 appealing to the international community”. Claims of enforced disappearances” in Sri Lanka are being weaponised to construct a one-sided narrative that erases LTTE atrocities and unfairly blames the State. Any serious investigation must distinguish between combat deaths, LTTE abductions, forced recruitment, and genuine disappearances — without this identification, broad accusations of a state policy of disappearances are misleading, politically motivated, and devoid of credibility tarnishing the image of the State & its Armed Forces/Police.

General Claims of Enforced Disappearances”

1. If enforced disappearances” were a systematic state policy, why do Sri Lanka’s official inquiries (e.g., LLRC, Paranagama) and missing-persons records show a large number of complaints lodged after 2009, many by families of LTTE cadres who went missing during combat?

Please provide the data and methodology you used to exclude combat deaths from your totals.

2. Your statement, groups all missing persons together without clarification.

Can you please specify how each case has been classified?

• How many are confirmed LTTE combatant deaths during hostilities?
• How many are civilians abducted, forcibly recruited, or detained by the LTTE?
• How many are alleged state-perpetrated enforced disappearances (excluding voluntary or forced LTTE conscription), and what documentary evidence substantiates this claim — such as arrest records, official detention logs, CCTV footage, sworn witness statements, forensic DNA identification, or a verifiable chain-of-custody for human remains?

Without such disaggregation, the claim of systematic state ‘enforced disappearances’ lacks any credibility.

In short, ARED must clarify:

• No of LTTE combat deaths
• No of abductions/forced recruits (by LTTE)
• No of Tamils killed by LTTE since 1970s (those from other militant groups, unarmed civilians)
• No of alleged state-linked disappearances & proof (arrest/detention records, CCTV, DNA, chain-of-custody, verified witnesses)

• UNICEF (claimed LTTE had abducted over 5000 children) and other credible sources documented extensive LTTE child abduction and recruitment. Are these children not also categorized as disappeared”.

If ARED’s objective is accountability for vanished children, why is there no equal emphasis on the thousands of children abducted and militarised by the LTTE? How many of your listed cases are proven to be LTTE abductions, training deaths, combat deaths, or executions by LTTE internal discipline?

• Further, ARED overlooks that the LTTE deliberately blurred the line between combatant and civilian by creating a trained and armed civilian force. When such units were engaged in hostilities, casualties cannot truthfully be classified as civilian dead” or missing.”

None of these (deaths of missing) can be attributed to state-perpetrated disappearances.

• Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s population statistics do not reflect any form of genocide. Tamil population growth before, during, and after the conflict clearly disproves allegations of mass extermination intentional or otherwise.

2. Tamil Genocide” Narrative

• Why does ARED frame disappearances as part of Tamil genocide” when Sinhalese and Muslimswere also victims of enforced disappearances and LTTE killings (e.g., Muslim villagers massacred in Eravur, Sinhala villagers in Kebithigollewa – number of villages LTTE attacked are too many to name)?
• Why are the disappearances of over 600 policemen executed by the LTTE in 1990not part of this genocide” narrative?
• If disappearances = genocide, how do they explain the fact that more Tamils live freely in Colombo and other government-controlled areas than in the LTTE’s former areas during the war?
• Why would Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces save close to 300,000 Tamils but kill unverified 40,000 whose names have still not been given even after 16 years.

3. Chemmani Mass Grave Claim (2025 Excavations)

• If Chemmani is presented as new evidence,” why have earlier excavations since the 1990s not proven a systematic pattern of state-led killings?
• How do we verify that the skeletonsallegedly found are victims of enforced disappearances” and not:
  • LTTE battlefield deaths,
  • Civilian war casualties buried in haste,
  • Or even LTTE’s own executions of dissidents?
• Why are forensic reports or DNA results not shared transparently with both local and international observers?

4. No Confidence in OMP / Domestic Mechanisms

• If the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) is politicized, why did international actors (including UN) previously endorse its establishment or rather demand it?
• Why does ARED call every domestic mechanism dead” unless it gives the verdict they demand? Does justice mean only outcomes favorable to their narrative?
• If Sri Lanka’s judiciary is incapable, why do these groups continue to file petitions and cases in Sri Lankan courts?

5. Genocide of the Tamils – Renewed Fears

• Did the 12,000 LTTE who surrendered not do so in civilian clothing?
• If surrendering LTTE cadres were disappeared,” why do thousands of surrendered cadres still live openly in the North and East, rehabilitated by the government?
• Why do ARED documents omit the fact that LTTE leadership itself killed surrendering cadres and dissenters (e.g., Mahattaya, dissenting cadres in 1994–95 as well as the injured LTTE during the last phase who were put into buses & set on fire)?
• Can ARED provide verifiable lists (with names, dates, and evidence) of those who allegedly surrendered and disappeared,” or are they relying on hearsay?

6. Role of International Community / Call for ICC Referral

• Why should Sri Lanka be singled out for ICC referral when far larger civilian casualties occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Gaza — with no ICC referrals?
• If universal jurisdiction is the principle, why are Western leaders (Bush, Blair, Obama, Sarkozy) not equally pursued for war crimes?
• Why does ARED call only for a country-specific rapporteur” for Sri Lanka but remain silent on enforced disappearances in India (Kashmir), Pakistan (Balochistan), or Latin America?

Evidence & documentary requests to attach or demand

• ARED must publish acase-by-case spreadsheet (name, date, last-seen location, alleged perpetrator, evidence type, status of investigation). Insist on non-redacted identification where safety allows.
• ARED must provideforensic/DNA reports, chain-of-custody logs, and independent excavation reports for sites they cite (e.g., Chemmani).
• ARED must provide clarity on methodology: how were combatant vs civilian deaths distinguished? who conducted that classification & source documents?
• ARED must provide copies of letters, petitions and replies between ARED and Sri Lankan state agencies (OMP, courts), including response times and outcomes.

While we recognise and do not dismiss the grief of families who cannot locate loved ones, assertions that Sri Lanka conducted a state policy of widespread ‘enforced disappearances’ are unproven without transparent case-level evidence.

Many missing-person reports post-date 2009 and involve LTTE cadres lost in combat or children abducted and militarised by the LTTE.

We call on ARED and UN bodies to publish detailed case data and forensic findings so that legitimate claims can be distinguished from combat losses or LTTE crimes —so true justice for all victims may be pursued.

7. The Double Standards Question

• Is this campaign about justice for allvictims of disappearances in Sri Lanka — Sinhala, Muslim, and Tamil — or only about building a separatist case for international intervention in favor of one community and done timed for Geneva sessions?
• If justice is truly the aim, why not demand accountability for both LTTE and state actors, instead of erasing LTTE’s atrocities from the record?
• Why do these organizations repeatedly release statements timed with UNHRC sessions, but rarely engage in reconciliation or truth-sharing with other communities within Sri Lanka?

Justice cannot be selective.

To ignore LTTE abductions, child soldier recruitment, the deliberate militarisation of civilians, and LTTE’s killings of its own cadres & Tamil people while exaggerating unverified disappearance” claims is to distort history and deny victims on all sides. Unless ARED and its partners produce transparent, case-by-case evidence separating combatants, LTTE crimes, and genuine civilian disappearances, their allegations remain propaganda — not justice.

Shenali D Waduge

Shenali  D Waduge

All Parents & Religious Heads must rise to prevent inclusion of LGBTQIA curriculum & condoms in schools – Let children be children … dont turn them into sex objects 

Dr. Asoka Bandarage, Courtesy IDN-InDepth News

In July 2025, the influential global travel website Big 7 named Sri Lanka the most beautiful island in the world,” stating that the teardrop-shaped island off the southern coast of India has it all—golden beaches, terraced tea plantations, timeworn temples, colonial towns, misty mountains, and wildlife safaris … elephants and leopards.”[i]

The beauty of the island is not limited to its physical environment, unique Buddhist culture, and the diversity of its population; it is the simplicity, warmth, and generosity of ordinary people that make the island beautiful.

The popular perception is that international accolades boost tourism, bringing much-needed foreign exchange to the debt-trapped island and prosperity to its long-suffering people. The Sri Lankan government has set an ambitious target of attracting three million tourists and $5 billion in tourism revenue for 2025.[ii]

Tourism, however, is fickle and highly susceptible to environmental and political-economic downturns. Following the 2019 Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, and during the COVID years and the 2022 economic crisis, tourist arrivals dropped sharply, bringing the entire sector to a standstill. Instead, it was the remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad that maintained external sector resilience during those crises. Even now, from January to July 2025, worker remittances have exceeded $4.4 billion,[iii] while tourism revenue reached only about $2 billion.[iv]I

If managed properly, the tourism sector could play a major role in the country’s recovery. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. Although tourism is asserted to be the primary foreign-exchange earner, much of the money generated by foreign-owned tourist businesses is likely repatriated abroad. Sri Lanka permits full repatriation of earnings, fees, and capital from foreign exchange transactions, though the extent of this wealth transfer remains opaque.

In Sri Lanka, as in many other tourist destinations in the Global South, tourism exacerbates global inequality and rarely helps improve local poverty. While tourist hotels overflow with all kinds of local and foreign food, drink, and luxuries, average Sri Lankans struggle to secure essential food items such as rice, dhal, coconut, and even salt. According to World Bank figures, a quarter of the island’s population is living below the poverty line,[v] and according to the World Food Program, roughly one-third of children under the age of five are malnourished.[vi]

Lacking viable means of survival, doctors, engineers, teachers, IT professionals, and others are leaving Sri Lanka in large numbers to seek economic opportunities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and elsewhere. Out of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, about three million are working abroad. Government policy encourages migration for employment and worker remittances but this brain drain” poses a serious challenge to the island’s economic recovery and future survival.

Ironically, as record numbers of Sri Lankans are leaving, record numbers of tourists are arriving. Over 2.05 million tourists arrived in 2024, representing a significant 38 percent year-on-year growth, with most visitors coming from India and Russia. The focus on quantity over quality has led to overtourism, with overwhelming numbers of visitors in popular tourist destinations such as the iconic Sigiriya Rock Fortress, Yala National Park, and the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. Exceeding carrying capacity has significant negative impacts on the environment, local quality of life, and the visitor experience.

This raises urgent questions: Are the short-term benefits of mass tourism worth the long-term costs? And is Sri Lanka now facing a new, more troubling phenomenon of neo-colonial globalization—settler tourism?

The Rise of Settler Tourism

Lax visa and tourist regulations have allowed hundreds of mostly young white tourists from Europe and North America to settle in exclusive communities along Sri Lanka’s southern and eastern coasts. These enclaves—promoting perpetual paradise, surfing, yoga, and meditation—are often run entirely by foreigners living on the island for extended periods. Contrary to visa restrictions, some tourists engage in enterprises such as driving three-wheeler taxis and guiding tours, taking income opportunities from local people.

While digital nomads work remotely, others have opened hotels, restaurants, and spas, often bypassing taxes and money transfer regulations. Foreigners cannot directly buy freehold land in Sri Lanka but may acquire property through Sri Lankan companies with local majority ownership, which is often facilitated by local middlemen.

As of February 2024, more than 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians had traveled to Sri Lanka since the start of the war in Ukraine, seeking peace and quiet. In the Unawatuna beach area—nicknamed Little Moscow”—many businesses are now owned by Russians. The stresses of war, carried by some tourists, have been expressed locally in food fights among Ukrainians in luxury hotels and aggressive exchanges between Ukrainians and Russians on Sri Lankan beaches.

Even more disconcerting is the re-emergence of white supremacy in a land that endured nearly five hundred years of European colonialism under the Portuguese, Dutch, and British (1505–1948). Many locals perceive the arrogance and aggression of some white tourists as fostering racial segregation and hierarchy, making brown-skinned people second-class citizens in their own land. A notable example is the Russian-organized white party” in Unawatuna in February 2024, advertised as Face control: White,” and canceled only after sparking backlash online.

Russians are not the only settler tourists accused of being disrespectful and arrogant. Critics point out that some Israeli tourists are known for breaking the surfing code of conduct and failing to share waves with others. A post on Instagram by Australian tourist Tom Monagle, dated July 31, 2025:[vii]

Israelis are coming to Sri Lanka, and they’ve done what they do best — taking over the place. They’ve occupied it and made it feel like Tel Aviv. They host parties advertised as ‘no locals allowed.’ The Israelis have come to Arugam Bay, throwing raves and refusing to let Sri Lankan people attend.”

Just as the war in Ukraine brought an influx of Russian and Ukrainian visitors, the war in Gaza has led to a rapid influx of Israeli tourists. According to Al Jazeera, as Israel’s military campaign intensified, the number of Israeli visitors to Sri Lanka doubled, with an estimated twenty thousand arriving in early 2024.[viii]

Israelis have acquired extensive beachfront property, especially in Ahangama. Their development of trendy, expensive restaurants has transformed local economies and cultures—benefiting only a handful of local people. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli nationals have also been involved in acts of physical violence in the south against Sri Lankans known to be vocally pro-Palestinian.[ix]

The Israeli presence in Arugam Bay, a resort on the eastern coast, has invoked even greater alarm than their expansion in the south. Many young Israeli tourists—reservists in compulsory military service—stay for extended periods, bringing with them the dynamics of Israeli state militarism.

IDF (Israel Defense Forces) tourists and others have created a Jewish enclave in the predominantly Muslim surfing town of Arugam Bay, with Jewish restaurants, Hebrew posters, and Israeli flags. An unauthorized Chabad House—part of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Movement, which is committed to the creation of Greater Israel—also exists there (others are found in Colombo, Ella, and Weligama).

In October 2024, after a U.S. Embassy travel advisory regarding threats to tourists in Arugam Bay, the town emptied out but soon returned to normal.” As a 2025 advertisement puts it, The sun is shining, the waves are rolling, and the good vibes are flowing—Arugam Bay is OPEN and ready for a brand new season!”

Nevertheless, local fears of future Jewish-Muslim clashes and the emergence of Arugam Bay as a military hub for United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) persist.[x]. The Sri Lankan government has not cracked down on Israeli violations, allegedly due to fears of retaliation from Western countries.

A Besieged Island

Settler tourism is only one aspect of Sri Lanka’s multifaceted besiegement. Strategically located in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is caught in the geopolitical rivalry and proxy war between China and the Quad Alliance (United States, India, Australia, Japan). The country has signed the ACSA (Acquisition and Cross-Services Agreement) and SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) defense pacts with the United States, and is increasingly drawn into USINDOPACOM efforts.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is also a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The southern port of Hambantota is under Chinese control for 99 years, as is the new Port City in Colombo. The natural harbor of Trincomalee, north of Arugam Bay, is now under Indian control and may become an energy and military hub. India recently signed seven memoranda of understanding, still concealed from the public and media, allowing Indian control over defense, energy, electricity, health, pharmaceuticals, and digital ID. Several terminals of the busy port of Colombo on the west coast are controlled by India, Japan, and China.

Sri Lanka is sovereign” and independent” only in name. Besieged by external powers, the island may well become a future site of geopolitical conflict. As elsewhere, Sri Lanka’s vast resources—land, water, and people—are increasingly controlled by external forces working in complex ways with local collaborators.

Environmental collapse is another form of besiegement. Sri Lanka, dubbed the most beautiful island,” is also one of the countries most threatened by climate change. Sea level rise is eroding 55 percent of the shoreline, at a staggering coastal erosion rate of 0.30–0.35 meter a year.”[xi] Deforestation and biodiversity loss continue, turning both the Sri Lankan elephant and leopard into threatened species.

Whether Sri Lanka remains a paradise or becomes permanently besieged—by neo-colonialism, geopolitical rivalry, and climate disruption—depends on deeper awareness and the choices made by its leaders and people. International friends, including those who have visited the island, can also help by advocating for transparency, regulation, and local empowerment.

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[i] EnjoyTravel. The 50 Best Islands in the World.” EnjoyTravel, July 2025. https://www.enjoytravel.com/en/travel-news/guides/best-islands-in-the-world.

[ii] Staff Writer, Sri Lanka to introduce visa fee waiver for 40 nations in major tourism push,” Economy Global, July 29, 2025, https://economyglobal.com/news/sri-lanka-visa-fee-waiver-40-nations-major-tourism-push/.

[iii] Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka’s remittance inflow exceeds US$ 4 billion in 2025,” Ada Derana, August 12, 2025, http://www.adaderana.lk/news/111426/sri-lankas-remittance-inflow-exceeds-us-4-billion-in-2025.

[iv] Staff Writer, Sri Lanka Tourism Tops $2B; Migrant Remittances Boost Economy,” Lanka News Web, August 12, 2025, https://lankanewsweb.net/archives/108056/sri-lanka-tourism-tops-2b-migrant-remittances-boost-economy/.

[v] World Bank, “Sri Lanka’s Economy Outpaces Growth Projections, More Efforts Needed to Reduce Poverty, Boost Medium-Term Growth,” press release, April 23, 2025, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2025/04/23/sri-lanka-s-economy-outpaces-growth-projections-more-efforts-needed-to-reduce-poverty-boost-medium-term-growth.

[vi] World Food Programme, “Sri Lanka,” March 26, 2025, https://www.wfp.org/countries/sri-lanka.

[vii] Tom Monagle, Tom Monagle on Instagram: ‘#srilanka #arugambay #palestine,’” Instagram, July 31, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/tommonagle/reel/DMwTqNGym6A/.

[viii] Al Jazeera, ‘No more silence’: Israelis face Gaza war backlash on Sri Lanka’s beaches,” February 17, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/17/no-more-silence-israelis-face-gaza-war-backlash-on-sri-lankas-beaches.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] https://www.pacom.mil/About-USINDOPACOM/

[xi] Baba, Nazran. Sinking the Pearl of the Indian Ocean: Climate Change in Sri Lanka.” Global Majority E-Journal 1, no. 1 (June 2010): 4–16. https://www.american.edu/cas/economics/ejournal/upload/baba_accessible.pdf.

By Palitha Ariyarathna

Mahanuwara, known globally as Kandy, is not merely a geographic location—it is a breath of history, a rhythm of reverence, and a sanctuary of Sri Lanka’s spiritual heritage. Its ceremonial silence, especially in the evenings, is not a sign of stagnation but a reflection of centuries of Buddhist discipline. Yet today, this legacy faces a challenge disguised as progress: the push to expand nightlife.

In recent months, a familiar set of six talking points has surfaced repeatedly in discussions surrounding nightlife expansion in Mahanuwara–Kandy. These claims are not limited to public press releases—they have been voiced inside government offices, circulated through planning discussion, and echoed across social media platforms that promote urban entertainment culture. Several community leaders, including heritage advocates and civic stewards, have reported hearing these same justifications when they visited municipal offices to raise concerns and request that the nightlife proposal be halted. Instead of receiving answers rooted in cultural stewardship or legal clarity, they were met with rehearsed responses that framed nightlife as progress, tourism appeal, and youth relief. This repetition suggests not a public dialogue—but a pre-scripted narrative.

Native voices—those who live the rhythm of Mahanuwara, not just observe it—respond with clarity and conscience. These are not casual objections. They are cultural rebuttals rooted in lived experience, ceremonial stewardship, and the Buddhist civic ethic that has protected this city for centuries.

 Kandy is dormant in the evenings and must be activated.” Mahanuwara’s quiet is not a failure—it is a civic achievement. The silence around the Dalada Maligawa is intentional, sacred, and protected. To activate the city through nightlife is to disrupt its rhythm, not revive it. A city that breathes in reverence should not be forced to shout in commerce.

 Nightlife will uplift merchant economic conditions.” True revival lies in crafts, cultural tourism, and ethical trade—not in alcohol sales and late-night entertainment. Nightlife benefits a narrow sector while burdening the broader community with noise, waste, and insecurity. Merchants deserve support, but not at the cost of cultural erosion.

 Social transformation is needed to align with global trends.” Transformation must be rooted in context. Mahanuwara’s strength lies in its ceremonial identity—not in its conformity to global nightlife models. To reshape this sacred city into a festival town is to abandon its uniqueness and risk delisting from UNESCO’s heritage protections. Civic transformation should elevate tradition, not erase it.

 Young people need nightlife to relieve stress and enjoy themselves.” Youth deserve safe, inclusive, and meaningful spaces—not exposure to alcohol, harassment, and commercial exploitation. Cultural centers, music forums, and heritage walks offer recreation without risk. To commercialize youth stress for profit is not empowerment—it is abandonment. Mahanuwara must offer dignity—not indulgence—to its future generations.

 Hotels already host nightlife—so expansion is justified.” Isolated violations do not justify policy. If nightlife in hotels violates zoning or disrupts sacred areas, it must be regulated—not normalized. Expanding nightlife across Mahanuwara is not a solution—it is a surrender. It undermines zoning laws, Buddhist traditions, and public trust.

 Nightlife is a tourist attraction.” Tourists do not come to Mahanuwara for neon lights—they come for the Temple of the Tooth Relic, the Esala Perahera, and the quiet dignity of the lakeside. Heritage tourism fosters deeper engagement, longer stays, and greater civic appreciation. Nightlife tourism is fleeting, transactional, and often disruptive. Mahanuwara’s true draw is its ceremonial rhythm—not its commercial noise.

Nightlife Activity vs. Crime Rates in Selected Countries

Country	City/Region	Nightlife Intensity	Crime Index (2025)	Common Issues
South Africa	Cape Town, Johannesburg	Very High	75.4	Violent crime, gang activity
Brazil	Rio de Janeiro	High	65.6	Theft, drug-related crime
United States	New York, Miami	High	49.3	Assault, alcohol-related incidents
United Kingdom	London, Manchester	High	47.4	Harassment, vandalism
France	Paris	High	55.3	Pickpocketing, nightlife-related theft
Thailand	Bangkok, Pattaya	High	37.9	Tourist scams, drug arrests
Sri Lanka	Colombo, Negombo	Moderate	42.1	Localized nightlife, rising petty crime
Japan	Tokyo, Osaka	Regulated	22.7	Low crime due to strict civic discipline

This global snapshot reveals a clear pattern: nightlife intensity often correlates with higher crime rates. Mahanuwara’s ceremonial restraint contributes to its civic stability. To abandon that restraint is to invite the very disorder we have long avoided.

Back office Claim vs. Native Civic Responses to Nightlife Expansion in Mahanuwara–Kandy

Back office Claim	Native Civic Response
Kandy is dormant in the evenings and must be activated.	Mahanuwara is ceremonially quiet by design—its silence reflects spiritual dignity.
Nightlife will uplift merchant economic conditions.	True revival lies in heritage-aligned trade, not nightlife that burdens residents.
Social transformation is needed to align with global trends.	Transformation must honor Mahanuwara’s uniqueness—not mimic global entertainment models.
Youth need nightlife to relieve stress and enjoy themselves.	Youth deserve safe, meaningful spaces—not exposure to alcohol and unsafe environments.
Hotels already host nightlife—so expansion is justified.	Violations must be regulated—not normalized. Expansion threatens zoning and public trust.
Nightlife is a tourist attraction.	Tourists come for heritage, not nightlife. Mahanuwara’s ceremonial identity is its true draw.

Mahanuwara’s low crime rate, ceremonial rhythm, and civic harmony are not accidents—they are achievements of Buddhist culture. The city’s stability is rooted in silence, discipline, and intergenerational respect. Nightlife expansion threatens this balance. It invites noise, indulgence, and fragmentation. It replaces ritual time with recreational time, and collective well-being with individual escape.

This is not a rejection of development—it is a defense of dignity. Not a refusal of youth engagement—but a refusal of unsafe commercialization. Not a fear of transformation—but a fear of erasure.

Let Mahanuwara remain what it was always meant to be: a city of light, not of nightlife. A city of rhythm, not of rupture. A city whose silence speaks louder than any sound system ever could.

Any nightlife activity is not a solution to your problem—it complicates your problem and creates new ones. What’s presented as relief often becomes erosion.”

All Six talking points hilting by back office are  conflict with the values upheld by Buddhist Sāsana law and ceremonial civic tradition in Mahanuwara–Kandy.

By Palitha Ariyarathna

Courtesy Hiru News

The 41st War Heroes Commemoration Ceremony of the Police Special Task Force (STF) was held today (1) at the STF Training Camp in Katukurunda, Kalutara.

The event was presided over by the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs, retired Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Ravi Seneviratne.

The annual ceremony honours the 464 STF personnel and 6 civil workers who sacrificed their lives for the country’s sovereignty, as well as the 774 injured personnel.

In his address, the Ministry Secretary stated that the nation is safe today because of these courageous war heroes, who prioritised the country over personal glory.

He added that the nation is in a debt that can never be repaid and that the pain endured by their parents, wives, children, and relatives reminds us of the true value of peace.

During the ceremony, distinguished guests and the relatives of the fallen heroes laid floral tributes at the War Heroes’ Monument at the STF training camp.

The chief guest also laid a wreath at the statue of former Director Upali Sahabandu.

Among the other dignitaries who attended the event were the Inspector General of Police, Attorney-at-Law Priyantha Weerasooriya; Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police for the Western Province, Sanjeewa Dharmaratne; STF Commandant, Deputy Inspector General of Police Samantha de Silva; and the Director of Training at the Katukurunda STF Training Camp, Nisheed Fernando.

Ministry of Defence  – Media Centre

‘Deegawapiya’ graced by the Lord Buddha is renowned as one of the sacred ancient religious sites among the sixteen places of worship of the Buddhist devotees, located in the Ampara District of the Eastern Province.

This Stupa, believed to have been constructed around the 3rd century CE, is recorded in historical sources as having been built during the reign of ‘King Saddhatissa’ and as containing the relics of Lord Buddha. The Stupa was destroyed during various hostile attacks and was first restored in later times during the Kandy kingdom by King ‘Keerti Sri Rajasingha’. After further episodes of destruction, fragments of the Stupa were rediscovered in 1916 by the Venerable Kohukumbure Sri Revatha Thero.

Because of more than three decades of armed conflict, the Deegawapiya Stupa received no attention for many years. Restoration work began on 11 November 2020 under the full supervision of the Ministry of Defence and according to instructions from the Department of Archaeology, and construction has since been carried out with labour contributions from members of the Sri Lanka Army and Civil Security Forces.

From that time construction of the Stupa proceeded continuously. By the end of 2022 the relic chamber had reached a height of about 60 feet, and by the end of 2024 it reached about 70 feet. According to a recent survey carried out up to 25 August 2025, the relic chamber’s height has now been completed to approximately 72 feet 4 inches. Once fully restored, the Deegawapiya Stupa regarded as the largest Stupa in the Eastern Province, will have a total height of 268 feet 6 inches.

Members of the Sri Lanka Army and Civil Security Forces produce the bricks required for the Stupa restoration, manufacturing roughly 6,000 bricks per day. More than 700 members of the Army and Civil Security Forces are providing full labour support for the restoration works, while financial advances for the sputa’s restoration and conservation are being provided through donations from local and foreign Buddhist devotees.

Ministry of Defence  – Media Centre

Deputy Minister of Defence Major General Aruna Jayasekara (Retd) paid a visit to Abhimansala-3 in Pangolla, Kurunegala, and Abhimansala-1 in Anuradhapura on 29th and 30th of August. These visits reflected not only the Defence Ministry’s broader welfare vision but also its enduring commitment to the wellbeing of differently-abled war heroes.

The Abhimansala facilities, established by the Sri Lanka Army, stand as sanctuaries of healing and rehabilitation for soldiers who sustained injuries in service to the nation. Offering lifelong care, the centres provide a comprehensive range of services including medical consultations, prosthetic and orthotic support, physiotherapy and mental health counseling, ensuring that every war hero receives the attention, dignity and respect they deserve.

During his visit, the Deputy Minister personally engaged with the residents of both rehabilitation centres, listening to their experiences and assuring them of the Ministry’s unwavering commitment to their welfare. His compassionate approach underscored the government’s recognition of the immense sacrifices made by these heroes in safeguarding national peace and security.

In addition, Major General Jayasekara (Retd) held discussions with the officials overseeing the rehabilitation process, reviewing operations and emphasizing the importance of continuous improvements in services. His observations highlighted the Ministry’s determination to not only maintain but also elevate the standard of care offered at these facilities.

The visits to Abhimansala centres serve as a reminder that the nation’s duty to its defenders extends beyond the battlefield. Through sustained care and holistic rehabilitation, the Ministry of Defence ensures that the bravery and sacrifice of differently-abled war heroes are honoured with dignity, compassion and unwavering support.

Deputy Minister of Women and Child Affairs, Hon. (Dr.) Namal Sudarshana,  Members of Parliament  Hon. (Prof.) Sena Nanayakkara, and Hon.  Nimal Palihena, were also associated with these visits.

Planet Protectors

Courtesy Hiru News

The opposition has reportedly appointed a team of representatives to inform and file complaints with the relevant institutions regarding corruption allegations against the current government.

According to former Member of Parliament Tissa Attanayake, the team includes Nalin Bandara, Kabir Hashim, and Dayasiri Jayasekara from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

Other opposition parties have also appointed representatives to the team.

The formation of the team is said to be the result of recent joint discussions held among the opposition political parties.

Courtesy Hiru News

The country could become bankrupt again in 2028, just as it did in 2022, if it continues on its current path, warns Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa.

He made the remarks yesterday (31) while addressing the Ampara District Samagi Jana Balawegaya Local Government Councillors’ Forum.

Premadasa stated that the country is currently in a “tragic and regrettable situation.”

He accused the government of misleading the public with false hope and promises, leaving 22 million people stranded.

He highlighted the lack of solutions for the medicine and facility shortages at the Cancer Hospital, the unresolved issue of the brain drain of thousands of doctors, and the government’s failure to accelerate the country’s development.

He described the current administration as an “incompetent and incapable government” that lacks the understanding to implement a vision for the country.

The Opposition Leader also spoke about the country’s economic and agricultural crises.

He claimed that the government is using the ‘parate’ law to auction the properties of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which provide livelihoods for around 4 million people and contribute 50% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He also pointed out that Sri Lanka, once self-sufficient in rice, is now forced to import it, with farmers not even receiving a fair price for their paddy due to “rackets” operating under the guise of protecting consumers.

Premadasa warned that to pay the annual foreign debt of $5.5 billion from 2028, the country needs to maintain a 5% economic growth rate from 2025.

He added that current statistics show this target is unattainable.

He reiterated that his party is not willing to use people’s suffering and frustration for political gain.

He also revealed that although his party requested the government to discuss and amend the IMF agreement, the government did not do so, and the public has a right to know about these issues.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

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For Sri Lanka to overcome its current economic difficulties and bring about prosperity to its citizens, maintaining the trajectory established during Wickremesinghe’s leadership remains crucial. (FILE PHOTO)

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With Sri Lanka’s economy collapsing under Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022, the country faced unprecedented hardship, threatening society

The Former President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, utilised the experience that he had assimilated throughout his extensive political career, with invaluable insights into crisis management and debt restructuring

Leaders from opposition political camps recognise why Ranil’s policies are important and do not try to stray away from them, which, if done, can lead to dangerous consequences

In the annals of Sri Lankan political history, few leaders have faced the daunting challenge of navigating a nation through complete economic collapse. Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe stands as a unique figure who has twice assumed the monumental responsibility of rescuing Sri Lanka from its worst economic crises—first in 2001 when the economy dropped below zero under CBK, and again in 2022 under Gotabaya. Despite holding just one parliamentary seat during the latter crisis, Wickremesinghe demonstrated the rare combination of expertise and courage required to pull a nation back from the brink of economic catastrophe.

Ranil’s early experience provided him with invaluable insights into crisis management and debt restructuring. The lessons learned during the 2021 period would prove instrumental two decades later when Sri Lanka faced an even more severe economic meltdown. 

When Sri Lanka’s economy imploded under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration in 2022, the country was plunged into unprecedented hardship that threatened the very fabric of society. Citizens endured hours-long queues for fuel and cooking gas, transforming daily life into a constant struggle for basic necessities. Entire neighbourhoods remained without electricity for up to eleven hours daily, crippling businesses and disrupting education. Ships laden with essential goods sat idle at Colombo harbour, unable to unload their cargo due to an acute shortage of foreign currency that had brought international trade to a virtual standstill.

The crisis had reached such severity that many political leaders hesitated to take responsibility, recognising the enormous challenges that lay ahead. It was during this zenith of economic collapse that Wickremesinghe stepped forward to shoulder the burden of national recovery for the second time in his career, demonstrating the kind of political courage that separates true statesmanship from ordinary politics.

According to former Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardana, who worked closely with Wickremesinghe during this tumultuous period, the former president demonstrated exceptional leadership during the most challenging economic circumstances in the country’s history. I learned a lot from Ranil,” Siriwardana stated, emphasising the valuable knowledge he gained under Wickremesinghe’s guidance. I worked the longest with Ranil Wickremesinghe. He managed the economy during its most difficult period,” Siriwardana noted in a recent televised interview.

Siriwardana’s testimony provides valuable insight into Wickremesinghe’s sophisticated approach to crisis management, refined through his experiences in both 2001 and 2022. Under his leadership, the former Treasury Secretary learned how to make decisions during crises and how to see through their implementation”. This hands-on mentorship proved crucial during complex international transactions and debt restructuring negotiations, where Wickremesinghe provided what Siriwardana described as exceptional leadership”.

Wickremesinghe’s economic management strategy, deep understanding of international financial markets, honed over decades, allowed him to navigate sovereign debt restructuring with unprecedented skill. The former president’s ability to guide negotiations with other nations became particularly evident during Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process, where his diplomatic finesse and technical expertise proved invaluable. What sets Wickremesinghe apart is his unique ability to learn from each crisis and apply those lessons to subsequent challenges. The methodologies he developed in 2001 were refined when applied to the more severe 2022 crisis, demonstrating his capacity for adaptive leadership in economic management.

Perhaps most remarkably, Wickremesinghe’s economic stewardship has earned praise from across the political spectrum. Minister of Agriculture K.D. Lal Kantha, one of the most senior members of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the current cabinet, offered a candid assessment of Wickremesinghe’s unique capabilities.

When the economy had collapsed, Ranil Wickremesinghe came in and managed things within this system. That’s a fact. At that moment, there was no one else in Sri Lanka who could have done it,” Lal Kantha stated during a YouTube programme. This admission is particularly significant, coming from a member of a party that has historically opposed Wickremesinghe’s economic philosophy.

Lal Kantha drew comparisons with other former presidents, noting that while leaders like Mahinda Rajapaksa possessed skills in managing society and political situations, they lacked the specific expertise required to handle such severe economic crises. He characterised Wickremesinghe as someone deeply connected to the current economic system,” describing him as its clear leader”.

The fact that leaders from opposing political camps recognise the necessity of maintaining these policies speaks volumes about their effectiveness and the dangerous consequences that could arise from abandoning them. The stabilisation framework established by Wickremesinghe includes crucial elements such as fiscal discipline, monetary policy reforms, and structural adjustments that have gradually restored confidence in Sri Lanka’s economy. These policies, though sometimes politically unpopular in the short term, have proven essential for long-term economic stability. The current administration’s commitment to continuing these measures demonstrates a mature understanding that economic recovery requires sustained policy implementation rather than populist reversals.

For Sri Lanka to fully emerge from its economic difficulties and build sustainable prosperity, maintaining the trajectory established during Wickremesinghe’s leadership remains crucial. The policies that brought the country back from the brink of economic collapse must be preserved and refined, not abandoned for short-term political gain. 

Lal Kantha’s assessment places Wickremesinghe in a historical context, suggesting that after President J.R. Jayewardene, he represents the most significant figure produced by this system.” This evaluation transcends party politics, acknowledging Wickremesinghe’s unique position in Sri Lanka’s economic landscape.

Today, as Sri Lanka continues its path toward economic recovery, maintaining Wickremesinghe’s policy framework remains crucial. His legacy as the leader who twice prevented deeper economic catastrophe serves as both a historical record and a practical guide for future economic management. The country’s continued adherence to the principles he established will determine whether Sri Lanka achieves lasting stability or risks sliding back into the chaos from which he rescued it—twice!

(The writer can be reached at kksperera1@gmail.com)

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Says they are lessons that may offer valuable guidance for Sri Lanka as it navigates its economic development journey

• Solidarity, mutual learning, and joint advocacy are central to addressing global economic challenges and advancing inclusive development.
• While both countries are recognized exporters of apparel products… we believe that complementarities outweigh competition.
• Viet Nam’s experience demonstrates the importance of consistent policies, investment in human resources, and global integration, lessons that may offer valuable guidance for Sri Lanka as it navigates its economic development journey.
• Success depends on synergy: the State provides transparent regulations, infrastructure, and enabling policies, while private enterprises contribute efficiency, creativity, and market responsiveness.
• Viet Nam has always remembered Sri Lanka’s support during difficult periods, particularly in the struggle for national independence and reunification.
• These intensive measures ensure that the high-level commitments and agreements… are translated into actionable, mutually beneficial cooperation.

Vietnamese Ambassador Trinh Thi Tam, in an interview with Daily Mirror, speaks about the way forward for enhancement of bilateral ties. She shares her views in this regard on the occasion of the 80th Anniversary of Viet Nam’s Independence Day (1945-2025) and the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and Sri Lanka (1970–2025).

QDuring the State visit to Viet Nam by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, there were commitments and agreements to enhance cooperation in various areas. What tangible action has been taken since then to advance ties?

The state visit of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to Viet Nam in May 2025 was a landmark event, marking the first state visit to Viet Nam by a Sri Lankan President since 2009. 

It coincided with the 55th anniversary of Viet Nam-Sri Lanka diplomatic relations, opening a new chapter for partnership and cooperation across multiple sectors.

During the visit, a Joint Statement was released, highlighting key commitments to uplift bilateral relations to the next level. Moreover, five key agreements were signed in trade, agriculture, education, machinery, and customs.

Since then, Ministries and agencies of the two countries have been in active performance to translate these commitments and agreements into concrete outcomes. The Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation and the Joint Sub-Committee on Trade have been reactivated to review pending issues, particularly in trade, aiming to facilitate smoother bilateral trade. Most recently, ROX Group from Viet Nam made a study visit in Sri Lanka for possible solar energy investment, and was received by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. 

Business delegations are preparing reciprocal visits this year, focusing on textiles, garments, tea trade, and processed food products, enabling direct partnerships between enterprises. 

In agriculture, Viet Nam has shared technical know-how in rice cultivation, aquaculture, and coffee processing, while Sri Lanka expressed strong interest in Viet Nam’s experience with vocational training and agricultural modernization. Intensive discussion has also been ongoing for early direct flights between the two countries. In addition, cultural and people-to-people exchanges have been promoted through commemorative activities.

These intensive measures ensure that the high-level commitments and agreements made during the State visit by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake are translated into actionable, mutually beneficial cooperation.

QHow can Viet Nam and Sri Lanka collaborate to overcome challenges posed to our economies?

Both Viet Nam and Sri Lanka face significant economic challenges, including macroeconomic volatility, supply chain disruptions, fluctuating commodity prices, and climate-related risks. 

Collaboration is therefore vital to ensure stability, resilience, and sustainable growth.

There are three main avenues for cooperation. First, policy sharing. Viet Nam’s experience in controlling inflation, diversifying exports, managing fiscal discipline, and promoting structural reforms can provide insights for Sri Lanka as it implements its economic recovery measures.

Second, South–South cooperation in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and digital transformation presents opportunities for joint growth. 

Viet Nam has developed expertise in solar and wind power, as well as the application of digital technologies in public services, manufacturing, and trade facilitation. 

Sharing knowledge and best practices can help both nations strengthen green and resilient economies.

Third, multilateral engagement is essential. Viet Nam and Sri Lanka continue to support each other in international forums to promote fair trading rules and amplify the voice of developing countries. Solidarity, mutual learning, and joint advocacy are central to addressing global economic challenges and advancing inclusive development.

Q Sri Lanka and Viet Nam are competitive economies as apparel product exporters and investment destinations. What are the plans to make our economies complementary?

While both countries are recognized exporters of apparel products and attractive investment destinations, we believe that complementarities outweigh competition. Sri Lanka is known for high-quality, ethically produced garments with sustainable manufacturing practices, whereas Viet Nam benefits from large-scale production, integrated supply chains, and diversified trade agreements, allowing it to compete effectively in global markets.

The strategy is to harness the strengths of both countries to create mutually beneficial partnerships. 

For example, Viet Nam and Sri Lanka could co-develop apparel brands that combine Sri Lanka’s premium quality with Viet Nam’s competitive production scale. Supporting sectors such as textiles, accessories, logistics, and e-commerce could be jointly developed to integrate supply chains and expand market reach.

Additionally, the two countries can jointly target new export markets in Africa and the Middle East, broadening their customer base without undermining each other. This shift from zero-sum competition to a win–win framework leverages complementarities, strengthens resilience against global market fluctuations, and encourages innovation and collaboration in both manufacturing and trade.

QViet Nam underwent economic hardships in the 1980s. Today, yours is a major economy. What kind of reforms did you implement? Does it serve as a reference for Sri Lanka?

Viet Nam’s transformative experience began with the Đoi Moi economic reforms in 1986, when the country faced hyperinflation, food shortages, and stagnating growth. The reforms focused on four key pillars: (i) Transitioning from a centrally-planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy, allowing market forces to drive growth while the state ensured social equity and strategic planning; (ii) Trade liberalization, opening up the economy to global markets and promoting export-led growth; (iii) Encouraging private enterprise alongside the State sector, fostering entrepreneurship, innovation, and competition; and (iv) Actively attracting foreign direct investment through legal reforms, infrastructure development, and stable policies.

The results have been transformative. Viet Nam achieved rapid, sustained economic growth for over three decades, with GDP growth averaging around 6–7% annually, lifted tens of millions out of poverty, and became one of Asia’s most dynamic economies and an important player in global supply chains, especially in manufacturing and agriculture. 

Doi Moi also emphasized education, infrastructure, and human capital development, which remain central to sustaining growth.

While no reform model can be directly transplanted, Viet Nam’s experience demonstrates the importance of consistent policies, investment in human resources, and global integration, lessons that may offer valuable guidance for Sri Lanka as it navigates its economic development journey.

QHow do you define the role of the State sector and the private sector in running the economy in both Viet Nam and Sri Lanka?

In Viet Nam, the State sector plays a strategic role in industries critical for national development and security, such as infrastructure, energy, and defense, providing long-term planning and regulatory oversight. The private sector, meanwhile, has become the engine of growth, driving innovation, creating jobs, and expanding competitiveness both domestically and internationally.

Sri Lanka exhibits a similar dynamic. While the State sector retains a central role in certain areas, private enterprises are dynamic in apparel, tourism, and services. Success depends on synergy: the State provides transparent regulations, infrastructure, and enabling policies, while private enterprises contribute efficiency, creativity, and market responsiveness. 

A complementary relationship between the two sectors strengthens economic performance, ensures social inclusion, and builds resilience in the face of global challenges.

QHow do you see the evolution of the partnership between Viet Nam and Sri Lanka after 55 years of diplomatic relations (1970–2025)?

The 55-year journey of Viet Nam–Sri Lanka relations has been remarkable. In 1970, Sri Lanka was among the first South Asian nations to establish diplomatic ties with Viet Nam, demonstrating solidarity during a challenging period. Viet Nam has always remembered Sri Lanka’s support during difficult periods, particularly in the struggle for national independence and reunification. This foundation has evolved into a multifaceted partnership, encompassing political cooperation, trade, investment, education, defense, agriculture, and maritime collaboration.

Over the past 55 years, high-level contacts and visits, including those by Presidents, Prime Ministers, Speakers and Foreign Ministers, frequent operation of bilateral mechanisms, as well as the signing of various cooperation agreements have reinforced mutual trust and facilitated strategic planning for bilateral cooperation. Economic ties have gradually strengthened, with bilateral trade expanding nearly tenfold from US $ 30 million in 2000 to about US $ 300 million in recent years. 

Sri Lanka has 30 investment projects in Viet Nam with total registerd capital of over US $ 43 million. At the same time, cultural and educational exchanges, Buddhist connections, and people-to-people links have helped to nurture mutual understanding and goodwill at the grassroots level. 

In addition, the two countries have consistently supported each other at multi lateral fora, especially the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as in issues of mutual concern such as climate change, energy transition, disaster relief…, for peace, stability, and development in the region and beyond.

Looking back, we can be proud of the achievements gained. Looking forward, the partnership aims to enhance economic linkages, expand maritime cooperation and foster collaboration in technology, renewable energy, aviation, logistics. 

This multi-dimensional approach ensures that Viet Nam–Sri Lanka relations will continue to grow, bringing prosperity, stability, and mutual benefits to both peoples.

QWhat are the plans for the development of cultural, religious ties, and people-to-people links?

Cultural and Buddhist connections are central to our bilateral relationship. Buddhism, in particular, forms a strong bond, with Viet Nam hosting Sri Lankan monks, scholars, and students, while Vietnamese pilgrims visit Sri Lanka’s sacred sites, including Anuradhapura and Kandy.

Beyond religion, initiatives are underway to strengthen cultural exchange through festivals, film screenings, art exhibitions, and academic collaborations. Scholarships and training programs for Sri Lankan students in Viet Nam enhance educational links and mutual understanding.

Tourism remains a key pillar of people-to-people relations, not only contributing to economic growth but also playing a vital role in strengthening cultural exchange and people-to-people links. 

In 2024, Viet Nam welcomed 14.000 arrivals from Sri Lanka; almost the same number of Vietnamese tourists and pilgrims visited Sri Lanka. 

To attract more visitors, both countries should intensify promotional campaigns, develop tailored packages and soon realize direct air links, among others.  

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

NDTV World – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday travelled in the same car to the destination of their bilateral meeting after the proceedings at the SCO Summit venue in Tianjin, China– a visual statement amid US President Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught against New Delhi’s oil trade with Moscow.

“After the proceedings at the SCO Summit venue, President Putin and I travelled together to the venue of our bilateral meeting. Conversations with him are always insightful,” PM Modi said in a post on X, sharing his picture with the Russian leader.

The timing of the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin holds significance as it comes amid the United States’ public condemnation of India’s oil trade with Russia, with President Donald Trump accusing New Delhi of funding Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Last month, he imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods bound for the US, the highest in Asia, to penalise it for those energy purchases.

Despite US pressure, India has not stopped its oil trade with Moscow and said its national interests will guide its energy import policies. New Delhi also labelled US levies as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.

India and Russia have been among the steadiest of the major relationships in the world after the Second World War. New Delhi became one of the biggest Russian oil buyers since the Ukraine war broke out in 2022, and Western nations shunned energy imports from Moscow and imposed price caps on Russian crude trade. However, there is no blanket prohibition on the purchase of Russian oil if the deals meet the parameters of the Western sanctions.

The two nations are also making efforts to simplify the rupee-ruble trade mechanism, aiming to reduce reliance on the US dollar amid growing global financial complexities.

Earlier, PM Modi met President Putin at the Tianjin summit, where the Russian leader addressed India’s role in Ukraine peace efforts. Putin said he “appreciates China and India’s efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine,” highlighting the growing role of Asian powers in conflict resolution, traditionally dominated by Western nations.

This is PM Modi and President Putin’s first in-person meeting since October 2024, when they met on the margins of the BRICS summit in Kazan. PM Modi last spoke on a call with Putin after the Russian leader’s summit with Trump in Alaska to seek a peace deal.

Earlier in the day, striking photos of PM Modi’s informal interaction with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin surfaced, capturing a light moment shared between the three leaders on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.

The images showed all three leaders smiling and conversing, reminiscent of a similar photo taken during the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia.

In the latest photo, Putin is seen on the left, Prime Minister Modi at the centre, and Xi Jinping on the right, walking together in a relaxed manner to pose for a SCO family photo.

Sharing the picture on X, PM Modi wrote, “Interactions in Tianjin continue! Exchanging perspectives with President Putin and President Xi during the SCO Summit.”

The Prime Minister also posted another image with Russian President Putin, where the two leaders were seen shaking hands and hugging.

PM Modi shared the photo on social media and captioned it, “Always a delight to meet President Putin!”

Additionally, the Prime Minister and Russian President were seen walking past Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday, who appeared isolated, as both leaders engaged in an informal conversation.

As the two leaders engaged in an animated discussion, Sharif stood alone with a grim expression while watching them pass by. The moment occurred as leaders of SCO member states gathered for a family photo in Tianjin.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Colombo, September 1 (Daily Mirror) – The Supreme Court today granted leave to proceed with a Fundamental Rights petition filed by the Centre for Environmental Justice against former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and several others. 

The petition challenges the sale of Eppawala phosphate by Lanka Phosphate Limited to three companies at prices allegedly far below the world market rate, which is said to have caused losses to the government.

The petitioners state that on the 6th of July 2023, Lanka Phosphate Limited communicated via letter addressed to the Additional Secretary (Primary Industries), Ministry of Industries, their decision to sell 10,000 metric tons of ERP (Eppawala Rock Phosphate) to specific companies, as requested by those companies. Lanka Phosphate Limited further recommended the issuance of export licenses for the same quantity, without any legal authority to do so. 

Additionally, the letter requested coordination with the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) to issue the necessary permits. The companies for which this arrangement was proposed are: D.M Traders, Disaru International Engineering Company and Ichiban (Pvt) Limited.

The petitioners have cited the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Cabinet Ministers of former government and several others as respondents.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has laid the foundation stone for the construction of the proposed new international cricket stadium in Jaffna.

Following this, the President is also expected to participate in a public gathering scheduled to be held at the same location, according to a statement issued by the Presidential Media Division.

President Dissanayake participated in several events today (01) in Jaffna, including the inauguration and opening of multiple new development projects in the region.

Shenali D Waduge Political Analyst

May 2009 – 30-year terrorist conflict ends

·      Unlike 9/11, a single incident resulting in immediate bombing & occupation of several nations, Sri Lanka’s decision to military deal with LTTE was taken after failure of internationally promoted peace talks, cease fires, negotiations & when LTTE denied water to 40,000 farmers in the Eastern Province.

·      UNHRC Action: Special Session resolution (May 2009) welcomes Sri Lanka’s victory and rehabilitation efforts but the Western bloc frustrated by outcome brings another Resolution condemning Sri Lanka.

·      High Commissioner –Pillay (2008–2014): Even as war ended, Pillay questioned civilian casualty figures, framed the end as a humanitarian crisis,” and echoed LTTE diaspora narratives — ignoring the fact that Sri Lanka’s National Army rescued nearly 300,000 civilians while engaged in hostilities with the LTTE, the largest humanitarian rescue operation in modern history.

2010–2011 – UNSG’s unprecedented moves

UNHRC/UN Action: 

·       Despite Sri Lanka appointing the Lessons Learned & Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)in May 2010, without waiting for Sri Lanka to present its report, Ban Ki-moon in June 2010 unilaterally appoints the Panel of Experts (PoE) and later commissions the Petrie Report (2011) — both without UNGA or UNSC mandate. 

These reports, leaked to the public, become political tools against Sri Lanka and form the foundation for successive UNHRC resolutions and OHCHR reports.

·      First time in the history of the UN, a UN Secretary General had appointed a personal panel report on a conflict that concluded & questions whether 5^th Committee funding was approved.

·      High Commissioner –Pillay: 

Strongly endorses the PoE; treats its unverified, confidential allegations as fact while ignoring Sri Lanka’s reconciliation programs and the core principle that Sri Lanka was fully within its sovereign right to end terrorism and protect its citizens and territory.

2012– Turning Point

1.     LLRC Report released in December 2011 sidelined:

2.     Diplomatic manipulation in UNHRC:

·      Resolution was aggressively pushed by the US and Core Group, despite opposition from majority Global South members.

·      Vote outcome: 24 in favour, 15 against, 8 abstentions — showing clear division and lack of consensus.

3.     Bias in framing:

·      Resolution called on Sri Lanka to implement the PoE recommendations — even though the PoE had no legal standing and was a leaked report 

·      It marked the first time a state was targeted with a resolution based on a non-UN mandated report & a conflict that had concluded.

4.     High Commissioner’s role (Pillay):

·      Used her office to lobby behind the scenes for the resolution.

·      Ignored Sri Lanka’s resettlement of 296,000 IDPs, rehabilitation of ex-cadres, demining efforts, and restoration of democratic processes in the North as well as the massive development initiatives taken in some areas where LTTE controlled people lived without electricity.

·      Framed the issue as accountability deficit” while sidelining LTTE’s systematic use of civilians as human shields and child soldiers including killing fleeing civilians.

5.     Precedent set for future bias:

·      2012 Resolution became the template for subsequent resolutions (2013, 2014), each escalating demands and venturing into non-conflict related, UNHRC non-mandated purely domestic areas.

·      Crucially, the UNHRC had no mandate to venture into intrusive investigative or quasi-judicial processes. By doing so, it set a dangerous precedent of mandate overreach.

·      It showed how the Council could be used as a political weapon by powerful blocs rather than a neutral body.

2013–2014 – Escalation

UNHRC Actions:

·      2013: Resolution repeats demand for independent investigations.” (a clear example of venturing beyond GA 60/251 mandate when establishing UNHRC

·      2014: Resolution authorizes OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) — an intrusive probe without Sri Lanka’s consent.

·      Pillay: Visits Sri Lanka (2013), issues hostile statements, meets pro-Tamil lobby groups but neglects LTTE victims. Pushes OISL in 2014 as her final act before leaving office.

2014–2018 – Entrenchment of Bias

High Commissioner (Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, 2014–2018):

·       Continued openly hostile stance against Sri Lanka, ignoring progress on reconciliation and development.

·       2015: OISL Report released, heavily citing LTTE-linked NGOs and unverified testimonies — ignoring standards of evidence.

·       Aggressively promoted Resolution 30/1 hybrid court with foreign judges/ prosecutors — a blatant violation of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, Constitution, and GA 60/251 which gave UNHRC no mandate to impose judicial mechanisms.

·       Dismissed Sri Lanka’s domestic accountability efforts (LLRC, Paranagama Commission) without consideration, and questioned the competence of Sri Lanka’s judiciary and legal system.

UNHRC Actions:

·       2015 (Sept): Resolution 30/1 adopted, co-sponsored by Sri Lanka’s regime-changed government, marking the first time a sovereign state endorsed a resolution against itself.

·       2017 & 2019: Roll-over resolutions (34/1, 40/1) extended intrusive external monitoring, keeping Sri Lanka trapped under UNHRC scrutiny despite the end of conflict.

Impact:

·       Entrenched a precedent where UNHRC became a political instrument for regime change, external intervention, and erosion of sovereignty, rather than a forum for impartial human rights protection.

2018–2022 – Permanent Case File

High Commissioner – Michelle Bachelet (2018–2022):

·       Consistently portrayed Sri Lanka as a permanent case”, signaling an institutionalized, never-ending scrutiny.

·       Framed Sri Lanka’s 2020 withdrawal from Resolution 30/1—originally intended for a hybrid court—as a “betrayal of victims”, thereby delegitimizing Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and public mandate to defy foreign-imposed mechanisms.

·       Advocated for strengthening international measures and mechanisms against Sri Lanka, positioning accountability as an external demand rather than a domestic possibility.

·       2021 (March): Championed UNHRC Resolution 46/1, granting the OHCHR a prosecutorial, evidence-gathering mandate—a significant overreach, since Sri Lanka is not an ICC member.

The resolution passed with 22 votes in favor, 11 against, and 14 abstentions in the 47-member Council.  

Countries voting in favor included Argentina, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, the UK, and others.

·       Countries voting against included Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, the Philippines, Somalia, and others.  

UNHRC Actions:

·       2020 (February): Sri Lanka formally withdraws from Resolution 30/1, citing sovereignty violations and constitutional conflicts. The UNHRC and Core Group rejected this as a legitimate exercise of national authority.

·       2021 (March): Resolution 46/1 is adopted, institutionalizing the Sri Lanka accountability project”through OHCHR—effectively granting a permanent external accountability mechanism. 

Key Takeaways

·       Mandate Overreach: 

Resolution 46/1 represents a dramatic extension of OHCHR authority—permitting quasi-prosecutorial functions without national or Security Council mandate.

·       Selective Application: 

This intrusive mandate was invoked for Sri Lanka despite it not being a party to the ICC—highlighting selective enforcement.

·       Entrenched Oversight: 

Under Bachelet, Sri Lanka remained entrenched in external oversight even after its withdrawal from earlier mechanisms.

·       Deepening Divisions: 

The Council remained evenly split on Sri Lanka—reflecting geopolitical cleavages about sovereignty versus international accountability.

2022–Present – Institutionalizing Bias

High Commissioner: Volker Türk (2022–present): Inherits and strengthens OHCHR’s Sri Lanka unit.

·       Expands funding/staff for Sri Lanka accountability project,” effectively creating a permanent prosecution mechanism within OHCHR.

·       Issues one-sided reports focusing only on alleged state crimes, avoiding LTTE atrocities, post-2009 rehabilitation efforts, or Western double standards in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Gaza.

·       September 2025 visit: 2025 visit: Visits one grave site during 1990 promoted by LTTE narratives, ignores Thunukkai torture chamber graves of 3,000 Tamils documented by families. This selective memorialization reveals bias.

·       Interferes in domestic cultural/legal matters: Calls for legalization of same-sex marriage during official meetings — far outside OHCHR’s mandate, disregarding Sri Lanka’s Constitution, sovereignty, and cultural values.

·       Fails to acknowledge Sri Lanka’s de-radicalization programs, rehabilitation of 12,000 LTTE cadres, and resettlement of 300,000 displaced civilians as post-war achievements.

·       Continues pattern of pressuring Sri Lanka to adopt externally driven constitutional reforms and undermining Article 9 (special place for Buddhism).

UNHRC Actions:

·       2022 (Res. 51/1) & 2023 (Res. 53/1): 

Extend 46/1’s evidence-gathering mandate, locking Sri Lanka into permanent Chapter VI surveillance — without UNSC or UNGA approval.

·       Funding for OHCHR Sri Lanka unit continues through voluntary contributions” from Core Group states (US, UK, Canada, Germany, EU) — raising questions of conflict of interest and political selectivity.

·       2024–2025: 

Core Group insists Sri Lanka remains on the UNHRC agenda, despite global humanitarian crises (Afghanistan, Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan) being far more severe but sidelined.

·       Demonstrates double standards: 

UNHRC refuses to apply 46/1-style evidence units” to US/UK-led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or Israel’s war on Gaza.

Pattern of Bias (2009–2025)

1.     Unprecedented Actions: 

UNSG-created PoE & Petrie Reports without mandate, later weaponized by UNHRC.

2.     High Commissioner Bias: 

Successive Commissioners — Pillay, Zeid, Bachelet, Türk — all maintained one-sided narratives, legitimizing LTTE propaganda while sidelining Sri Lanka’s achievements.

3.     Violation of Sovereignty: 

Hybrid courts, OHCHR evidence units, foreign judges — all imposed externally.

4.     Selective Justice: 

No accountability for LTTE terrorism, nor for Western/NATO atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.

5.     Precedent Setting: 

Sri Lanka used as a test case to override sovereignty of Global South nations.

We ask all UN Member States: Is Sri Lanka’s real ‘crime’ that it defeated terrorism? Are we being punished for safeguarding our sovereignty and ending 30 years of LTTE bloodshed? If so, does this not set a dangerous precedent — that any Global South nation which defeats terrorism will be punished with regime-change attempts and external intervention? Why is the UNHRC allowed to be weaponized in this way, drafting resolutions through 4–5 nations and passing them without universal mandate? 

Why are the UNGA and UNSC watching silently as their powers are being usurped by UNHRC?

Shenali D Waduge

Political Analyst

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

හිටපු ජනාධිපති ලේකම් සමන් ඒකනායක 2025 සැප්. 1 (හෙට) උදේ 9 ට අපරාධ පරීක්ෂණ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවට කැඳවා ඇත්තේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහගේ  ලන්ඩන් සංචාරය ගැන ප්‍රශ්න කිරීමටය. රහස් පොලීසිය රනිල් ලෙසම ඔහු ද, අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්නේ නම් (if), පොලිස් අත්අඩංගුවට පත් වන දෙවන  ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයා හෙවත් රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ ඉහළම පුටුව හෙබවූ නිලධාරියා සමන් ය.  

අද වත්මන් ජනාධිපති ලේකම් කුමානායක සිද්ධියේ පැමිණිලිකරුය. එදා, ජනාධිපති ලේකම් සැකකරුවෙකු බව රජයේ නීතිඥවරයා දැනටමත් අධිකරණයට පවසා ඇත.

එබැවින් මෙය රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ ඉහළම තනතුර සම්බන්ධ ප්‍රශ්නයකි.  

මු.ලේ. පැත්තක

වියදම් දැරීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් යම් වරදක් වී ඇති නම්, රනිල් ගේ ආණ්ඩුවේ නිලධාරීන්ට එය අතපසුවී හෝ නොතකා හැර හෝ ඇති නම්, ජනාධිපති කාර්යාලය අඛණ්ඩ ආයතනයක් බැවින් එහි වත්මන් කාර්ය මණ්ඩලය විසින් සිදු කළ යුතු ආයතනික ක්‍රියාවලියක් වේ.  ඒ වැඩිපුර ගෙවීමක් හෝ වැරදි සහගත ගෙවීමක් (අධිගෙවීමක්)  ගැන මුදල් රෙගුලාසි 102 – 107  ප්‍රකාරව අය කර ගැනීම් කළ හැකිය. එය රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ සුලබ ව්‍යවහාරයකි.  

මුදල් ගොනුවක් නිවැරදිව සකස් කිරීම ගණකාධිකාරිවරයාගේ වගකීම ය. වත්මන් ජනාධිපති ලේකම් සනත් කුමානායක ගේ වාහන අනතුරු නඩුව ප්‍රශ්නයක් බවට පත්වන්නේ ලිපිගොනුව නිවැරදිව සකස් නොකිරීම නිසා මිස බිරිඳට රාජකාරි වාහනය භාවිත කළ නොහැකි නිසා නොවේ. වැරදියට ෆයිල් හැදීම දැන් ජාතික ප්‍රශ්නයකි. රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ වියදම් යාන්ත්‍රණය නැවත ප්‍රශ්න කරන තැනකි.

ජනාධිපති ගේ කාර්යාලයේ නිලධාරීන්ට, ජනපති/හිටපු ජනපති ගෙන් මුදල් අය කරගැනීමට යම් පැකිලීමක්, නොකැමැත්තක් අපහසුවක් ඇති නම්, රනිල් විසින්ම පිහිටවනු ලැබූ ‘ස්වාධීන විගණන කොමිසමට’  විගණන පනතේ ප්‍රතිපාදන අනුව අධිභාරයක් පැනවීමේ හැකියාවක් තිබුණි.  එය ද සිදුකර නැත.  අභ්‍යන්තර විගණන, රජයේ විගණන, කෝපා වැනි ආයතන විසඳිය යුතු ප්‍රශ්න දැන් ‘අපරාධ පරීක්ෂණ’ බවට පත්වෙමින් ඇත. මෙය ඛෙදවාචකයකි. 

උපුල් ගේ මතය

ජනාධිපති නීතිඥ උපුල් කුමරප්පෙරුමට අනුව ‘ලංකාවේ නීතියේ කොහෙවත් තැනක ජනාධිපතිවරයා සම්බන්ධයෙන් මුදල් වෙන් කිරීම හැර, ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ පැවැත්මට අදාළ මුදල් වෙන් කිරීම ගැන සඳහන් කර තියෙනවා හැරෙන්නට, ජනාධිපතිවරයා මුදල් වැය කළ යුතු ආකාරය, ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ මුදල් සම්බන්ධයෙන් තියෙන … කටයුතු කළ යුතු ආකාරය ගැන ලංකාවේ තියෙන කිසිම නීතියක කිසිම සඳහනක් නෑ…..’’ අනුර කුමාර ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ සමීපතම මිතුරාගේ මේ ප්‍රකාශය හෘර්ද සාක්ෂියකට එකඟ කතාවකි.  සත්‍යයකි.

නීති කේෂ්ත්‍රයේ කිසිවෙකුත් පුද්ගලික – රාජකාරි වියදම් ඉර කුමක්දැයි තවම නම් වචනයක් කියා නැත!

ව්‍යවහාරය හා යථාර්ථය

ජනපති මැනික්දිවෙල ගේ සිට සමන් ඒකනායක දක්වා ජනපති ලේකම්වරු සියළු දෙනා ජනපතිවරුන්ගේ පුද්ගලික හා රාජකාරි සම්බන්ධ වියදම් — ආරක්ෂාව, ප්‍රොටකෝල්, ගමන් විදයම්, පිළිබඳ කටයුතු කළ ව්‍යවහාරයක් ඇත.  ඒ සියල්ල උඩු යටිකුරු වන ලෙස අවස්ථා දෙකක දී රජයේ නීතිඥවරයා දැන් අධිකරණයට කරුණු දක්වා ඇත. මේ සිද්ධිය යටතේ කවදා හෝ අධිචෝදනා බාර දෙන්නේ නම්, මේ වන විට ජීවතුන් අතර සිටින සියළුම ජනපති හිටපු ලේකම්වරු හා ගණනාධිකාරීවරුන් විශේෂඥ සාක්ෂිකරුවන් ලෙස අධිකරණයට කැඳවීමට ඉඩ ඇත! පොලීසියට, රජයේ අධිනීතිඥවරයාට ඔවුන් සියළු දෙනාගේ ආයතනික ක්‍රියාමාර්ග වැරදි බව ගරු අධිකරණයට සාධාරණ සැකයෙන් ඔබ්බට ඉර ඇඳ පෙන්වීමට සිදුවන්නේය.

කෙසේ නමුත්, ගරු අධිකරණය ද රනිල් බන්ධනාගාරගත කරමින්, රජයේ නීතිඥවරයාට සවන් දී ඇත.

මේ වියදම දරා ඇත්තේ ලන්ඩන් තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ නිලධාරීන් විසිනි. සියළු වියදම් ඔවුන්ගේ ‘මිලදී ගැනීම්’ පටිපාටියට අනුකූලවය.   ප්‍රසම්පාදන ක්‍රියාවලියේ වගකීම පැවරෙන්නේ තානාපති කාර්යාලයටය.  මු.රේ. 137 සිට 139 දක්වා අනුමත කිරීම, සහතික කිරීම, ගෙවීම සිදු කර ඇත්තේ ඔවුන් ය.   විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ගණන්දීමේ නිලධාරී අරුණී විජේවර්ධන දක්වා නිලධාරීන් මෙම ගෙවීම ගැන තෘප්තිමත් වී ඒවාට අනුමැතිය හෝ සහතික කිරීම  ලබාදී ඇත.

ජනාධිපති කාර්යාලයේ අතිරේක ලේකම්රයා ද, ගණකාධිකාරිවරයා ද මේ සියල්ල අනුමත කර ඇත. ඉන් පසුව, අභ්‍යන්තර විගණනය ද, විගනකාධිපති ද, කෝපා එක ද මෙහි වරදක් දැක නැත. දැන් රහස් පොලීසිය එයට පරිබාහිර ක්‍රමයට සිතයි.  එය නැවුම් ප්‍රවේශයකි. 1973 ‍ෆීලික්ස් ඩයස් ගේ යුගයේ ඉයන් වික්‍රමනායක ද,,  රණසිංහ ප්‍රේමදාසගේ යුගයේ හිටපු නියෝජ්‍ය ප‍ොලිස්පති ලෝරන්ස් ද, මෙලෙස නැවුම් ප්‍රවේශයකින් විමර්ශන සිදු කර ඉතිහාසය වෙනස් කර ඇත.

ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයෙකු මෙවැනි කටයුත්තක දී සිදු කරන්නේ මුදල් වෙන් කිරීම (Allocation) අනුමත කිරීම හා මුදල් මාරු කිරීම (ගණකාධිකාරී) පමණී. පුදුමය නම්, මේ සියළු කටයුතු සිදු කළ ලන්ඩන් තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ කාර්ය භාර නිලධාරිනිය ගෙන් මේ දක්වා ප්‍රකාශයක් ලබා නොගැනීමය.

මේ දත්ත මත පදනම්ව රනිල් වැසිකිලියන්නට  වව්චර් අංක 71/09 යටතේ පවුම් 6600 ක් වැය කළ බව සමාජ මාධ්‍යයේ රස කර පළ විය. ගුවන්තොටුපලකට මගී පර්යන්තයේ ගාස්තු තීරණය වන්නේ වියානා සම්මුතියේ රාජ්‍යයන් අතර එකඟතාවය අනුවය. ලංකා රජය මෙරට ගුවන්තොටපුල මගී පර්යන්තයන්ට අය කරන ගාස්තු එංගලන්තය ද (‍අනෙක් රටවල් ද) ලංකා ජනරජයෙන් අය කරනු ලබයි! එය රනිල් ට හෝ අනුර ට වෙනස් වන්නේ නැත.   

ජනාධිපතිවරයා සහ බිරිඳට බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය රජය විසින් Range Rover රථයක් හා අතිරේක රථයක් සහිතව මෙට්‍රපොලිටන් පොලිස් අංගාරක්ෂකයන් ලබාදී තිබූ බව කියවේ. එය සිදු වන්නේ ද, ජාත්‍යන්තර සම්මුතිගත ප්‍රොටකෝල (පොදු රාජ්‍ය මණ්ඩලීය කාර්යාලය ද ඇතුලත්ව) අනුව ය.

මෙම විමර්ශනය සහ අනාගත නඩුකරය රාජ්‍ය සේවය රාජ්‍ය සේවය, විදේශ සංචාර මුළුමනින්ම නැවත නිර්වචණය කරන ඇත. අර්ථ ගන්වනු ඇත.

අනාගතයේ දී, මේ සියල්ල ඔට්ටුවට තබන්නට ලංකා රාජ්‍ය නායකයින්ට, ප්‍රොටකෝල් නිලධාරීන්ට, විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශයට, අමාත්‍යාංශ ලේකම්, අගමැති – ජනපති ලේකම්වරුන්ට සිදුවේ. වඩාත් වැදගත් දේ නම්, ගුවන් ගමණක් අතර ට්‍රාන්සිට් අතරතුර අමාත්‍යවරුන්ට, අමාත්‍යාංශ නිලධාරීන්ට, ව්‍යවස්ථාපිත ආයතන නිලධාරීන්ට කිසිදු පුද්ගලික කටයුත්තක යෙදීමට අවසරය, හිමිකම, අවස්ථාව තිබේද යන්න මෙමගින් පරීක්ෂාවට ලක්වන බවකි. යම් අවස්ථාවක ගුවන් ගමණක් අතර ‘රී රුට් කිරීම’ එනම් ගමන් මාර්ගය වෙනස් කිරීම අධිකරණය මගින් විසඳිය යුතු කාරණයක් බවට පත්වන බවය.

මෙම විමර්ශනය සහ අනාගත නඩුකරය රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ සියළු විදයම් නව මානයකින් විග්‍රහ කරනු ඇත.

මතුපිටින් බැලූ විට පෙනන ආකාරයට නම්, රනිල් ජනපතිවරයා කොටු කර ගැනීමට නොහැකි නම් ජනාධිපති ලේකම් සමන් ඒකනායක හෝ කොටු කර ගැනීමට විමර්ශකයින් උත්සහ දරනු ඇත. එහි තාර්කික බවක් ඇත. ප්‍රශ්නය ඇත්තේ සමන් ගේ නොවේ. ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ධූඍයේ ය.

ජනපති හිටපු ලේකම්වරුන් වන ලලිත් වීරතුංග, පී.බී.ජයසුන්දර, ගාමිණී සෙනරත්, අබේකොන්, ඔස්ටින් ප්‍රනාන්දු හෝ උදය සෙනෙවිරත්න වැනි ඕනෑම අයෙකුට මේ සංචාරයේ විදයම්  සම්බන්ධයෙන් වෙනත් කලමනාකරණ ප්‍රවේෂයක් ගත හැකිව තිබුණේ ද යන්නය.  අතිරේක ලේකම්වරු, ගණකාධිකාරීවරු තම පූර්වගාමීන්ට වෙනස් මඟක යනු ඇති ද යන්නය.

මේක සමන් ඒකනායක ප්‍රශ්නයක් නොව ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ප්‍රශ්නයකි!  අනාගතය ලියවෙන ප්‍රශ්නයකි.

ප්‍රශ්ණය ඇත්තේ දැන්, විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ගණන් දීමේ නිලධාරීන්, තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ මෙම කටයුත්ත සිදු කළ නිලධාරීන් ට සිදු වන්නේ කුමක් ද? යන්නය.

මේක සමන් ‍ඒකනායක හෝ අරුණී විජේවර්ධන (හෝ රණරාජා) ගේ ප්‍රශ්නයකන් නොව ජනාධිපති ලේකම්, විදේශ ලේකම් ප්‍රශ්නයකි!

මේ දිනවල මා මිත්‍ර නදීක ගුරුගේ ලන්ඩන් සංචාරය ගැන සමාජ මාධ්‍ය විවේචන දුටිමි.  මෙය තානාපතිවරුන් ගැන ප්‍රශ්නයක් බවට මේ වන විටත් පත්ව ඇත.  

සමස්ත රාජ්‍ය සේවයම තම විශ්‍රාම වැටුප බේරා ගැනීමට නම්, තමන් අත්සන් කරන වච්චර ගැන පමණක් නොව මු.ලේ. 135 සිට 139 දක්වා කාර්යයන් නැවත – නැවත වෙනම දෘෂ්ඨියකින් විග්‍රහ කර ගැනීම අවශ්‍යය.

රනිල් අත්අඩංගුවට ගැනීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඔහුගේ නීතිඥයින් නීති කටයුත්තකට සුදානම්වන බව දැනගන්නට ඇත. ජනපති හිටපු ලේකම් ලෙස කටයුතු කිරීම නිසා, සමන් ඒකනායක අත්අඩංගුවට පත් වන්නේ නම්, එය ද නිසැකයෙන්ම තවත් මානව හිමිකම් නඩුවක් බවට පත් විය හැකිය.  

අපරාධ චෝදනා නඩු වසර ගණනාවක් දිග් ගැසෙන බැවින් ද, 1978 සිට සියළු ව්‍යවහාරයන් මේ නඩුව මගින් ආපසු හැරවෙන බැවින් ද, ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ වියදම් ගැටළුව අභියාචනාධිකරණය හා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට දිගු වනු ඇත. ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ වියදම්, ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ධූරයේ බලතල, කාර්ය හා වගකීම, ආයතන හා නිලධාරි වගවීම ගැන නැවුම් අර්ථ ගැන්වීමක් එමගින් ලැබෙනු ඇත.

එතෙක් තම බෙල්ල බේරා ගැනීම සඳහා සියළුම රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන්, මේ විමර්ශන හා අධිකරණ ක්‍රියාවලිය ගැන තම බුද්ධිමය ඇස යොමු කර සිටීම වැදගත්ය!

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

e-Con e-News

No, no one else plays, it is a game purely for one.

Once a chess piece is moved; ‘we’ (USA)

simply turn the board the other way around

– & move the other side’s chess pieces (for ‘them’).

There is ‘no other’ in this game.

– Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard,

US Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)

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A naked woman is waving her hands and jumping up & down in the middle of Thunmulla roundabout at 8am on a sunny day, shouting: ‘You can’t see me… I can say what I want’, etc. It appears this nakedness is what all talk of ‘free speech’, ‘privacy’, etc., amounts to on the US-policed internet, in countries such as Sri Lanka. The internet, as it presently operates, was initiated by the US military (e.g., DARPA; tho early prototypes were mooted by the socialist USSR, Chile, etc). The US internet maybe like the paved Kolomba-Nuvara A1 Road, albeit built by unfree Sinhala labor, to connect port & plantation via the Fort – a creation of an invading English army.

     Critics respond that the right to free speech does not guarantee the ‘the right to be amplified’. US tech giants profit from amplifying online harms, spreading false & distorted information, hurting the mental & physical health of children & adults. They also erode any economic basis for a professional & national news media, while toxifying an increasingly digital public sphere upon which any democracy depends.

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Meta Digital Government Day in Sri Lanka! – Yes, that’s what it was called – as US Meta (which owns Facebook & WhatsApp) this week trained Sri Lanka’s media secretaries & state media representatives on ‘enhancing’ their use of US social media apps. Meanwhile, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) embroiled in its own ‘corruption’ scandals was announcing that its ‘state-of-the-art trade surveillance system’ is from Wall Street, New York-based NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations). The earlier SEC system was from the London Stock Exchange! The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) claims their system is now ‘homegrown’, though before that, it was from the National Stock Exchange of India. (see ee Finance)

     Recall the now infamous 2015 Central Bank bond-scam involving the then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran (a refugee in rule-of-law Singapore, where Sri Lanka recently held an investors’ conference!) & his son-in-law whose company secured most of the bonds issued at that time, acting on confidential information he had access to. In May 2024, then-President Ranil Wickremesinghe, claimed the stock market was being manipulated by ‘some individuals’ spreading contradictory information on economic downturns. And now we get NASDAQ! Meanwhile, the recent postal strike here with the related issues distorted by a capitalist media – that is their job! – may be a harbinger for US ‘logistics’ corporations like Amazon fully privatizing such services.

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• This week’s local media has been busy faking a feeding frenzy about the arrest, remand, hospitalization & bail of a member of the seemingly-still-ruling dynasty. This media, largely owned by his relatives (family of Ranil Wickremasinghe’s nephew Ruwan Wijewardena, who’s UNP deputy leader), is turning RW into a hero, hoping he’ll be a rallying pivot for the capitalist cause. Meanwhile, US warships enter & leave Colombo, with Maharajah media (News1^st) reporting a US embassy press release as their own ‘news’ (see ee Sovereignty, Fast, Armed & Friendly – USS Tulsa Visits Colombo Port!), just as the USAID-funded National Peace Council wants the Sri Lankan Government to share its ‘Plan for National Reconciliation’ with the people; then there’s the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (another US front), claiming to avoid ‘lobbying for narrow interests’, lamenting that they too are ‘in the dark about what is being negotiated & what the Government plans to offer the US’ with regard to easing tariffs.

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• In early 2023, the Government of Sri Lanka sought to increase revenues through a Digital Service Tax, to tax the huge digital multinational corporations (MNCs) reaping profits through sales to customers in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka could generate $104.5million from a 4% digital service tax, as opposed to the ~$29.5mn from the Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion & Profit Shifting (BEPS) pushed by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). According to internationally renowned economists, including Jayati Ghosh, Joseph Stiglitz, et al, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Finance then came under ‘severe pressure’ from the IMF to drop their plans for a digital service tax and to use the OECD solution, as a condition for receiving additional lending from the IMF. The IMF however denied it had any such discussions with the government (see ee Economists).

     There are increasing indications that the Sri Lankan government will also ‘cave’ in to the US demands on a digital tax as part of the tariff threats. Our current President AKD recently noted that Sri Lanka may have political sovereignty, but no economic sovereignty. The failure to control these US corporations spreading misinformation, especially without promoting local alternatives, indicates that we lack both political & economic sovereignty.

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• The USA (& their regional poodles) are escalating war on Iran & Yemen, which threatens to send fuel prices booming, undermining all economic forecasts & IMF prescriptions. This week, saw SL’s Ministry of Defence, as well as the Communist Party of SL celebrating the 80^th anniversary of winning the World Anti-Fascist War & the Chinese People’s War against Japanese Aggression, which falls on 03 September (see ee Sovereignty). Meanwhile, the US & its colony Japan stand accused of threatening countries not to attend the grand commemoration in China, with US leaders claiming it is they who have won all the world wars! Well… They certainly are thrilled to begin them. Many of the wars led by the USA now are world wars in the making – if not yet, in the doing. From East & West Africa, East & West Asia, to Eastern Europe (with an increasingly Nazified Ukraine – the 17^thC German settlers in the western part now being opposed to the more ancient Russian speakers in the eastern. It would be naive not to understand these wars are largely the doing of the old colonial powers working overtime under the leadership of the US to maintain, if not extend, their old domains.

The US nuked Japan, not to force their surrender as always claimed – when Japan had already begged the Tokyo USSR envoy for surrender terms – but as a warning to their then-allied Red Armies, Soviet & Chinese. The US media now spreads disinformation about the still-free Korea (DPRK) participating on the Russian side in the NATO war on Ukraine. The DPRK has an old relationship with China & the USSR & Russia and have every right to support their trusted & true allies, let alone acquire versatility in the latest materiel. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc, have to pay for 100,000 US troops on their soil, and like most NATO countries are all but US colonies, and have all participated in US wars on China, Korea, Vietnam, West Asia, etc.

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• In Sri Lanka, a US front group called the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC, note: it’s not called Indo-Pacific Internet Coalition, though representing the same imperialist US designs) has demanded the withdrawal of the SL government’s ‘draconian’ Online Safety Bill. The usual NGO-dollared suspects (CPA, NMSJ, etc.) have also criticized the Bill, claiming it undermines privacy & free speech. None of them mention any need for a mass media truly independent from such imperialist monopolies & agencies from AP to BBC to CNN to Reuters, etc. They have also criticized the Inland Revenue Department (IRD)’s April VAT amendment on foreign digital services, which is set to begin on October 1, after a 6-month delay was ordered, following a Supreme Court challenge by the USA’s Uber. They have also opposed proposals to tax huge e-commerce websites like booking.com, mooted in 2 recent budgets but not implemented. The decision, debated in Parliament, aims to level the playing field between local & foreign service providers. Local hotels have complained that, while they have to pay the high local taxes on hotel bookings, including through these travel platforms, the higher-profiting international websites don’t pay any taxes to the local exchequer. The so-called Sri Lankan online ride-hailing Pickme, whose CEO recently exposed these ‘global’ digital companies for legally stealing billions without paying local taxes, has also joined in the anti-VAT whine; though Pickme has supported Uber being also taxed like them (do note: the US World Bank’s International Finance Corporation made a $2.5million venture capital investment in PickMe in 2018).

     The US has been able to force countries (India, Canada, New Zealand etc) to withdraw Digital Services Taxes, claiming they discriminate against the US companies that dominate the internet and supposedly enable ‘free speech’. The Canadian tax was expected to generate $7billion in revenue over the next 5 years. The US government proudly announced that they had forced the Canadian government to ‘cave in’. The US had threatened to ‘terminate all discussions on trade’ with Canada, calling the digital services tax ‘a direct & blatant attack on our country’. (see ee Sovereignty, ee Media) Note: The US has declared a national emergency on trade, because a trade imbalance is harmful to US national security. But what of the rest of the world including Sri Lanka’s colonially wrought ‘imbalances’ & ‘emergencies’?

    How much of Sri Lanka’s advertising rupee is paid to foreign companies? The PR business in Sri Lanka has been dominated by English multinationals like Unilever, Ceylon Tobacco etc. In Canada, 70% of advertising expenditures (comprising $13.5bn) was paid to foreign-owned digital media in 2022. In 2023 alone, US tech giants made $20.7billion in Canada from distributing online content. The withdrawal of digital taxes has been demanded by the US Computer & Communication Industry Association (CCIA), which represents: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Bookings.com, BT Group, Cloudflare, Deliveroo, Dish Network, eBay, Facebook, Google, Intel, Instagram, Intuit, Meta, Mozilla, Nord Security, NordVPN, Pinterest, Rakuten, Red Hat, Samsung, Shopify, Texas.net, Twitter, Uber, Viagogo, Waymo, What’s App, Yahoo, Zebra, etc.

     A Digital Services Tax can ensure foreign tech giants are fairly taxed & held accountable for their enormous power over our societies & economies. The alignment of CEOs of Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon & X Corp with the current US administration’s agenda, threatens all our political & economic independence. Foreign tech giants make massive unfair profits in Sri Lanka and should be taxed to invest in our digital sovereignty, building homegrown alternatives to US monopolies. Sri Lanka must invest in building our own communications infrastructure in the national interest. National companies can help build platforms, networks and tools that advance the country’s values, strengthening cultural and information ecosystems, enabling communities across the country to better serve our own needs to communicate & connect. Even England has not made concessions to its digital services tax to get a trade deal with the US. Sri Lanka should also not make concessions without any gains.

    Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed that the rising digital economy also posed serious security dangers. Digital activity concentrated in a handful of US companies effectively grants the US the power to spy on the world. China actively promotes greater digital sovereignty, restricting US monopoly digital services. But a powerful lobby in Sri Lanka and India is instead pushing for greater integration with the US. They claim the economic benefits of using US digital services outweighs the risks of coercion, and can benefit from the global reach of US power by collaborating with US surveillance. Yet, any US administration can at any time threaten to cut off Sri Lanka from intelligence sharing.

    Critics of such collaboration with the USA say that US monopolies’ online platforms challenge personal data protection and cultural sovereignty, and are the greatest national security threat. Dependence on US digital infrastructure places sovereignty at risk. Digital sovereignty is associated with safeguarding the autonomy and security of a country’s digital infrastructure. Next to protecting critical physical infrastructure and computer networks, it must guarantee the ‘country’s access to data collected on its territory’. Law-enforcement authorities still ‘struggle to access data held by companies located in other countries’. Digital sovereignty must also ‘maintain a country’s economic autonomy’. Most countries rely on a few large US tech companies for their digital services. The absence of national providers can pose a threat to their economic development in case of any external disruption and leave them at risk of unfair practices, including higher prices.

Dependence on SpaceX’s Starlink services for internet connectivity (as in Ukraine) weakens a country’s negotiations with the US. Digital sovereignty also includes a country’s ability to promote and enforce its digital regulatory preferences. Digital technologies connect economic actors across national borders, and risk ‘regulatory arbitrage’ where companies selectively choose which regulations they want to apply. Over the last 30 years the EU & US have clashed ‘over the protection of privacy rights as the EU attempts to ensure its regulations are respected regardless of where their citizens’ data are processed… As with the recent contract handed over to India to develop Sri Lanka’s digital ID cards, data-localization policies can also compel companies to store data collected in Sri Lanka on our soil, thereby limiting its regulatory autonomy.

US companies provide the majority of cloud services: 60% of Canada’s cloud market is owned by 5 US companies; 2 US companies – Microsoft (65%) & Google (28%) own 93% of their office software market. Other than TikTok, Meta & Google dominate the social media landscape and digital advertising, and can at any time cut the country off from such critical services, as Meta did in response to Canada’s Online News Act, which established a revenue-sharing obligation with Canadian media for Meta and other US companies. Microsoft banned the use of specific digital services in Canada after EU sanctions against Russia. Yes, promoting greater sovereignty would not be without costs. Countries rely chiefly on US companies for digital services because they offer significant economic benefits. Governments & businesses, for example, rely on Microsoft Office, which has inserted ‘backdoors’ in the software, to gather intelligence (see ee Industry)      

    Sri Lanka can defend its sovereignty by reducing the risks associated with its dependence on the US by focusing on developing ‘cloud-agnostic services’. Building such digital services, public and private organizations can ensure that if there is any disruption in US cloud services, they can easily move their activities to local or other clouds. Developing a domestic digital industry is part of a vast national investment strategy.

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• ee continues looking at US-occupied Korea’s form of industrialization, enabled under what the authors claim to have been: ‘an especially powerful, transnationally active post-WWII Pacific capitalist class’. Their example is Samsung, founded by a Korean industrialist who collaborated with Japanese colonialism, and was then given access to the US military industrial market. Just like the Japanese capitalists & army who joined in the war on Korea (1950-3), South Korean capitalists were recruited to aid the war on Vietnam, to join US forces as the US shifted toward Southeast Asia and needing more international support for the US-backed puppet regime in Saigon. US-occupied Korea went further than other Asian countries and offered to send troops (along with Thailand, Australia, New Zealand) after the USA in 1965 committed US ground troops. Soldiers were promised 22 times regular Korean military pay and allowed to send US$s home, while Korean capitalists sold cement and other supplies & services to the US war on Vietnam: all packaged under ‘responsibilities to the Free World’.

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• SBD de Silva analyses were more nuanced & dialectical than ee may make them out to be. He felt such ‘geopolitical’ explanations for US-occupied Korea’s industrialization were not sufficient. ee Focus therefore continues reproducing Chapter 1 from his classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (PEU). Here he carefully takes apart all the usual explanations for Sri Lanka’s economy being underdeveloped. Read any news about Sri Lanka’s economy and we are told we lack foreign investments, need to export more, and also diversify. Yet, the types of production that foreigner capitalists have invested in, have never made a positive contribution to the advance of underdeveloped economies. SBD catalogued the destructive effects of plantations and mines, giving examples from Malaysia and Nigeria. Contrary to the nonsense about free trade, he showed how the colonial state power allocated the best land to whites, and crippled local enterprise. The ‘basic nature of the plantation system’ is neither modern nor capitalist, with no spread effects or positive impulses to share with the so-called backward peasant economy. He listed the oversimplifications of economists, who only speak of levels of development, ‘ignoring the fact that some nations not only lack development but are locked into a stagnant state where development is impossible’. He meanwhile also contrasted the state role in the white settler colonies, where it was an ‘engine of growth’. He examined the levels of technology, and the conditions of production, and downplayed the conditions of exchange.

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Upon being taken to Blackwell’s Island, the Warden

of the Penitentiary asked him the usual questions:

‘What occupation?’ ‘Statesman!’ he replied.

‘What religion?’ ‘None.’

• This ee Focus also continues looking at New York’s political machinery, through Gustavus Myers’ 1917 History of Tammany Hall, that famous New York ‘charity’. It proceeds like a teledrama, with ‘stupendous thefts, forgery, bribing & election frauds, weapons of bribery and intimidation, if not violence’, examining the growth of yet another ‘reform movement’ to overthrow the ruling politicians. In the last ee we watched as New York’s city politicians bought off journalists & editors & media owners, and rose to great power. However, in this ee see how in fact these politicians are but creatures of an even higher power, the monopoly capitalists. When Big Boss Tweed decides to divert municipal advertising budgets into his own media outlet the Transcript’ and a printing house he steps on the toes of the mighty New York Times. The NYT rides in like the US cavalry, to provide ‘the proper machinery’ for the exposure of the ‘villains’ and awakens ‘the dormant public conscience’. We get front row seats into the rise & fall of one set of petty oligarchs: ‘The newspapers which had profited most by his thefts grew rabid in denouncing him and his followers, and urged the fullest punishment for them… If Tweed had died in 1870… Broadway would have been festooned with black, and every military and civic organization in the city would have followed him to Greenwood.’

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• Those controversial red-flagged 323 containers released uninspected by SL Customs earlier this year – were some of them from that ill-fated ship heading to Sri Lanka that crashed a Baltimore bridge in 2024? Meanwhile, there is still no mention about the Sri Lankan seafarer, still kept under house arrest in Baltimore, USA, over a year and 4 months after the ship Dali crashed into and destroyed the bridge? Grace Ocean Private & Synergy Marine, the owners of the Dali, filed a lawsuit last week against Hyundai Heavy Industries in US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

     Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge is named after a US slave owner & US national-anthem composer. Oh say, can you see: The Dali ship was made in US-occupied Korea’s Hyundai shipyard, chartered by US-military-linked Danish shipper Maersk. True ownership is kept highly opaque. The ship is supposedly owned by British Virgin Islands-based Grace Ocean Investment, with Singapore-based Synergy Marine ‘overseeing safety’ and managing the crew of 21 mostly Indian nationals. Synergy’s parent, investment holding company, Unity Group Holdings International is based in Hong Kong. It then turns out that the main carriers that also had containers on the Dali are: HongKong’s Gold Star Line, AP Moeller-Maersk, Italy’s MSC, and Israel’s ZIM Integrated Shipping Services. Israel’s Zim’s containers were hidden beneath the other containers to avoid detection. Some speculate those containers contained weapons for Israelis on our East Coast, and a Jihadi-Zionist binary is being promoted, to further weaken the Sri Lankan state…

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Contents:

US Tech Monopolies Stunt Sri Lanka’s Economic & Political Sovereignty

ධර්මසිරි සෙනෙවිරත්න

රාවනා දී වශයෙන් කියවෙන හෙළ පාලනය  පිරිහීමෙන් පසුව  අප දිවයින පාලනය කලේ කුඩා කුඩා හෙළ  කණ්ඩායම්ය.මේ අතර පැමිණි  විජයසිංහගේ සිංහ වංශිකයන්ද  භද්ද කච්චානාගේ ශාක්‍ය වංශිකයන් ද  ග්‍රීක  ආදී විවිධ වාර්ගිකයිනුත් ජෛන, නිඝන්ට,පාශාන්ඩ  ආදී විවිධ  විවිධ ආගමික මත ධාරිනුත් ,’’නිරාගමික ‘හා නිදහස් මතධාරීන්ගේනුත්  සැදී සමාජයත් ආදී හෙළ කණ්ඩායම් හා එකතු කර’’එක්සේසතක් ‘ යටතට ගෙනාවේ  පණ්ඩුකාභය  විසිනි . එය අති විශේෂ ‘ව්‍යාපෘතියකි . විජය සිංහයන් විසින් කුවේණි පරපුරට  කල වෙනස්කම් නිසා අමනාපවී සිටි බොහෝ යක්ඛයින් සමග ඔහු පළමුවෙන් මිතුරු විය .චිත්ත රාජ ,කාලවේල, වලවා මුඛී , චේතියා වැනි නායක නායිකාවෝ ඒ අතර වුහ .මුළු මහත් බහුතරය විසින් නොපිළිගත් ‘’මිතයන්  ‘’පවා රජුගේ පිලිගනීමට ලක් වුවා පමණක් නොව ඔවුන්ට නිදහසේ ජීවත් වීමට ප්‍රදේශ වෙන් කර දුන්නේය.  නානා පාශාන්ඩයන්ට ද අ ක්කර හත් දාහක්  දුන් බව කියැවේ.මේ අතර ඔහුකල සුවිශේෂී ක්‍රියාවක් නම්  වෛදික බ්‍රාහ්මණයන්ට වඩා නිදහස් මතධාරීන් වූ ග්රීකයන් නගර පාලනයට සම්බන්ධ කරගැනීමයි.  කුඩා නගර එක්කර පිහිටුවූ  ‘’අධි නගරයේ.  නගරාධිපති වුයේ  ග්රීකයෙකි.එහෙත් ග්‍රීක පුර රාජ්‍යයේ පැ වතී වහලුන් තබා ගැනීම  හා ස්ත්‍රිය දෙවන තැනට දැමීම වැනි කරුණු පණ්ඩුකාභය තම ක්‍රමය තුලට වැද්ද ගත්තේ නැත.ඒ වෙනුවට බෞද්ධ ක්‍රමය ‘සීරුවෙන්’ යොදා ගත්තේය  . බෙදී විසිරී ගිය ජනසමුහයක් සංතෘප්ත කර ඔවුන්ගේ ජන ජීවිතයට බාධා  නොවනසේ යම් නිදහසක් දී ඔවුන්ද සමාජයේ කොටස් බව අවබෝධ වීමට සැලැස් වීම  ප්‍රථම අදියරේදී අවශ්‍ය බව රජු තේරුම් ගන්නට ඇත .බමුණු මතවාදය ඊට හරස් වෙන බවත් ග්‍රීක  නිදහස් මතවාද එහිදී ඊට වඩා ප්‍රයෝජනවත් බවත් තේරුම් ගන්නට  ඇත.බද්ධ කච්චාන ශාක්‍ය ’බහුජන හිතාය ,බහුජන සුඛාය ‘චින්තනයටද එය එකඟ විය .   චින්තනයෙන් වෙනස් වු නානාප්‍රකාර වාර්ගිකත්වයෙන් යුතු වුවද  මෙසේ මහා සමාජයේ පිළිගැනීමට ලක්වීමෙන්  සංතෘප්ත වූ ජනතාව  එකල භාවිතවූ  ‘’හෙළ  භාෂාව ‘’නම්  රැහැනින්  එකට බැඳ තැබීම  අපහසු නොවීය .  ක්‍රම ක්‍රමයෙන්  එකම බසක් කතා කරන  එකම ‘’ජාතියක් ‘ ටික කලකින්ම බිහි විය. භාෂාව සිංහල විය . ජාතිය සිංහල විය .

                                                      මේ විවිධ වාර්ගික ‘’සුසැදිය ‘‘  කඩා බිඳ විසිරී යාම වලක්වා ගැනීම  සඳහා’’කාලීන අවශ්‍යතාවක් ලෙස ‘’ රජු තවත් ග්‍රීක ලිබරල්  උපක්‍රමයක් ‘’ප්‍රයෝජනයට ගත්තේය . සියලු සත්වයාම මෛථුනයට ආසක්තය.බහුශෘතයෝ ,පණ්ඩිතයෝ , උගත්තු නුගත්තු  කවුරුත් වාද භේද  අ ත හැර මෙහිදී එකතු වෙන බව දත් පණ්ඩුකාභය ‘’රාග දෙවොල් ‘’ සංකල්පයද හඳුන්වා දුන්නේය .ප්‍රභූ නිර්ප්‍රභූ භේදයක් නොමැති බව  ඇඟවෙන් නට  රජු රාත්‍රී කාලයේ රජකමට මාමා අභය පත් කර තෙමේ ද සෙසු ජනතාව සමග රාගදෙවෝල්  තුල විනෝද විය .’’අපි ඔක්කොම රජවරු ‘’යයි ජනතාවට එවන් විට සිතෙන්නට ඇත . ජනතාව ‘’එක්සේසතක් ‘’යටතට ගෙනෙන මේ මුල් සමයේදී ,ජන සිත් සතන් තුල  ඇතිවිය හැකි කලකිරීම් ,කාන්සාව  හා ද්වේශය  මගින් මෙහෙයවෙන ‘’අරගල ‘’හා නොසන්සුන්තා  ඇතිවීමේ ප්‍රවනතාවද මදකින් හෝ  අවුරා ගැනීමට මේ රාග දෙවොල් උපකාරී විය ..මෙසේ නිදහසේ තම  ආතතීන්  පහකරගන්නා  අ ය ‘’දෙනදෙයක් කාබී  වෙනදෙයක්  බලාගෙන සිටින බව ‘’ රජු තේරුම් ගන්නට ඇත. මේ ක්‍රමය නිසා ජනතාවට  පාලකයා එපා වුයේ නැත . රජු ජනතාව එක්සේසතක් යටතට ගත්තේ ,කාලාම සුත්‍රයේ සඳහන් ‘’නිදහස් චින්තන දැල’’ජනතාව මත හෙලා ඒ  දැලතුල හිඳිමින්ම නිදහස භුක්ති විඳීමට ත් ඉඩ ලැබෙන සේ කටයුතු කිරීමෙනි .  

                                                                            බ්‍රාහ්මණ යන්ගේ විවිධ තහංචි  හා මර්දන වෙනුවට ඔහු සීරුවෙන් කච්චානා ශාක්‍ය පරපුරේ  කාලාම සුත්‍රයෙන් කියවෙන නිදහස් චින්තනය අනුව හොඳ නරක  ,වැඩ අවැඩ  ගැන පමණක්  උපදෙස් දෙමින්  තම සීමා  තෝරා ගැනීමේ  නිදහස ජනතාවට ලබා දුන්පසු ,,බොහෝ අංශ වලින් සන්තර්පණය වී සිටි ජනතාවද අලුතෙන් හිතන්නට පුරුදුවී  මේ චින්තනය ට ආසක්ත වන්නට වුහ. සිදුහත් කුමරුට පවා  කාමරාගයේ නිස්සාරත්වය  හා අස්තිරබව හද පත්ලටම කිඳා බැස්සේ  කාමරාගී ජීවිතය උපරිම ලෙස වින්දාට පසුවය .අද වුවත් බොහෝ බටහිරයෝ බුදුදහම සොයා එන්නේ  එසේ  තේරුම් ගත්  පසුවය .මුලික ජීවන අවශ්‍යතා ඉටු කරගත් ජනතාව  ඊට පසුව ගැඹුරු  දාර්ශනික  කරුණු කාරනා ගැන හිත යොමු කරන බව රජු  දැනසිටියේය. එතුමා අනුරාධ පුර නගරය නිර්මාණය කලේද සිය මිත්තනිය බද්ධ කච්චානාගේ සොයුරු  අනුර ශාක්‍යසිංහගේ  උපදෙස් අනුවය .ඒ වනවිටත් එතනම කලකට පෙර දියුණු නගරයක් පැවතී බව ඉසිවර  ශාක්‍ය සිංහයෝ දැන සිටියාද  වියහැක .(( දැරණියගලයන්ගේ සල්ගහවත්ත කැනීමෙන් එවන් නගරයක් ඊට පෙර පැ වතී බව සනාථ විය)).

                                    මෙසේ  ක්‍රි .පූ437 -367  බිහිකළරාජ්‍ය ක්‍රමය හා  අනුරාධ පුර රාජධානිය ක්‍රි .ව  1017  පමණ වනතෙක්   වසර 1500 ක් පුරා අඛණ්ඩව ආශ්චර්යමත් නගරයක් ලෙස  පැවතුනේය.ධර්මාශෝක යන්ගේ පාලන ක්‍රමය  පවා පැවතුනේ ටික කළකි . පන්ඩුකාභයගේ පුත් මුටසිවගෙන් පසු ඔහු පුත් තිස්සගේ කාලය වන විට පණ්ඩුකාභය විසින් බිහිකල ජාතිය  ගුණ නුවණින් මෝරා වැඩී යත්ම  අන්ධ විශ්වාසයන් වෙනුවට බුදු දහමේ ‘’එව බලව’ වැනි සංකල්පයන්  කෙරෙහි වඩාත් යොමුවෙන තත් වයකට පත්ව තිබිණි . වැඩිදුර නොවිමසා යම ක් දැක්ක දුටු පමණින් විශ්වාස නොකල යුතුබව  පසක් කරන චුල්ල හත්ති පදොපම සුත්රය මගින් මිහිඳු හිමි ජාතියේ චිරස්ථිතිය ට හේතුවන මුල් පාඩම  කියාදෙන විටම එය මැනැවින් ග්‍රහණය  කරගැනීමට ඔවුහු  සමත් වුහ.  

                                                             ක්‍රිස්තු පුර් ව 307 -267   අතර –බු .ව 236  පොසොන් පෝ  දිනෙක හෙළදිව දම්දෙසු  මිහිඳු හිමියන් ගෙන් පසුව හෙළදිව සංස්කෘතිය බෞද්ධ සංකල්ප  හා මිශ්‍රව නවතම සංස්කෘතියක් බිහිවිය.මේ දේවානම් පියතිස්ස රජ සමයයි. රතිය රාගය  හා අධික තෘෂ්ණාව හැකි තරම් සීමා කරන ප්‍රාණඝාතයෙන් බොහෝ දුරට වැලකුණ ලෝකධර්ම විෂයෙහි කම්පා නොවී ලද දෙයින් සංතෘප්ත වෙමින් ඒ සමගම වීර්යයෙන් කටයුතු කරන  යම් මැද මාවතකට  සමාජය යොමු කරන ජීවන ක්‍රමයක් මේ මගින් බිහිවිය. එසේ ජීවන -කෘත්‍යය/පිළිවෙත සංස්කරණය   කර ගැනීමෙන් නව සංස්කෘතිය බිහිවිය. 

                                                                    මෙසේ බිහි වූ සංස්කෘතිය හෙවත් ජීවන දැක්ම නිසාම වෙනත් කිසිම ආගමික රටක නැති උපේක්ෂා කරුණා මුදිතා ගුණයෙන් පිරි ජන සමුහයක් සිංහලද්වීපය තුල බිහිවිය. වෙන අ ය මෙන් මේ සංස්කෘතික ජනතාව අන්‍ය ලබ්ධිකයන් මැරුවේ නැත. අනුන්ගේ සම්පත් කොල්ල කෑවේ නැත. චේතනාන්විත  ප්‍රාණඝාතය පිලිකෙවූ කල, එය දස අකුසලයෙන් එකක්  ලෙස පිළිගත්  එකම සමාජය මේ  බෞද්ධ  සමාජයයි .මෙදා සිටම රාජ්‍ය පාලකයා ‘’බෝසත් ‘’ගති පැවතුම් ඇත්තෙක් විය යුතුය යන මතය  ජාතික විඥානය  තුලට කාවැදුනේය.’’නොබෝසත් නොරජ වම්හ ‘’හෙවත් බෝසත් ගතිගුණ නැත්තෙක් රජ නොවිය යුතුය යන මතය බිහිවිය .  මේ නිසාම සංඝ බෝධි , අග්ග බෝධි වැනි  බෝසත් තේරුම දෙන නම් දැරීමට රජවරු පෙළඹුනේ ය. රාජ්‍යත්වය ස්ථිර වීමට නම්  දළදා සමිඳු ගේ භාරකාරත්වය අයිති විය යුතුය යන අදහස ජාතික විඥානය  තුල කිඳා බැස්සේය . මාඝාත නීති පැනවූ එකම රට සින්හලදීපයයි . මේ ජාතික විඥානය  දිගටම පවත්වා ගැනීමට මුල් වුනේ සංඝ සමාජයයි .මිහිඳු හිමියන් විසින් මෙහි  සම්බුද්ධ සාෂණය  ස්ථාපිත කර   භික්ෂු සමාජය  ගිහි සමාජය හා  බද්ධ කළේය. දේවානම් පියතිස්ස විසින් අඩිතාලම දැමු අශෝකගේ අනුබල ලැබූ මේ සමාජය මෙහෙය වුයේ අනුබුදු  හිමියන් විසිනි.  අශෝක තම පුතා හා දුව යන දෙදෙනාම මේ විශේෂ කාර් ය භාරයට යෙදවූ නිසා මේ දක්වාත් ශ්‍රී සද්ධර්මය මේ දිවයින තුල නිරුපද්රිතව සුරැකී ඇත.භාරතය ඒ අතර හින්දු විය .එසේ බ්‍රාහ්මණ සංස්කෘතියට යට නොවී පිවිතුරු බුදු  දහම ලොවට දෙන්නට සිංහලේ ඉතිරිවිය .

                         මේ සුවිශේෂී වගකීම ගැන වසර දාස් ගණනක් අප ගලේ කොටා පොතේ ලියා ඇත.

                                                            මිහිඳු හිමි දම් දෙසීමට තෝරා ගත්තේ  දඩකෙලි කාමොත්සව දිනයයි.ප්‍රීති ප්‍රමෝදයෙන් අනුරාගයෙන් මත්ව සිටියවුන් නිරන්තරයෙන් අපේක්ෂා කලේ ඒ ප්‍රීති ප්‍රමෝදය නොනැසී රඳවා තබා ගැනීමට වුවත් එය  එසේ නොවන විට ඔවුහු කනස්සල්ලට පත් වුහ. ඒ සියල්ල අනියත බවත් වෙනස්වන සුළු බවත් තන්හාව ශෝකය ජනිත කරන බවත් ,මෙයින්  ගැලවීමේ මගක් වූ ඇති බවත්,ඒ මග සොයා ගත හැක්කේ  විචක්ෂණ ශීලීව ප්‍රඥාව මෙහෙයවීමෙන් බවත්  මිහිඳු හිමියන් විසින් දේශනා කරන විට බුද්ධිමත් ජනතාවට  එය බෙහෙවින් ආකර්ෂණය විය .කාමභෝගී දිවියෙ පවා ඇති අස්තිරත්ව්වයෙනුත් බ්රාමනයන්ගේ නොයෙකුත් තහංචි සම්බාධක නිසාත් හෙම්බත්ව සිටි රාජරාජ මහාමාත්‍යාදීහු බුදුදහමේ නව චින්තනයෙන්  විෂ්මප්‍රාප්ත වී රාජ්‍ය පරිපාලන කටයුතු වලින් පවා ඈත්වී  ඒ මග යන්නට පෙළඹුනහ.ශෘංගාර  දිවියේ අසීමාන්තික නැඹුරුවීම් නිසා දරුගැබ් දැරීම් ප්‍රසව වේදනා  ආදී  විපාක  හෝ හෙම්බත් වීම වැඩියෙන් ම පසක්වූ නිසාදෝ රජ බිසෝ වරු හා අන්තඃ පුර කාන්තාවෝ බුරුතු පිටින්  ගිහි සැප අත්හැර පැවිදි වන්නට වුහ.දිවියේ ශෘංගාර  කලා පයෙන් ඉවත්වී බණ භාවනා පුදපුජා මගින් කෙලෙස් ප්‍රහීන කිරීමට   බිසෝ වරු යොමු වූ විට එය රාජ්‍ය පාලන යටද අහිත කර ලෙස බල පෑවේය .රාෂ්ට්‍ර පාලනයේදී රජුගේ  දුක්ඛ දෝමනස්සයන් , සාංකා හා ආතතීන්  දුරුකර රජු ප්රීතිප්‍රමොදයෙන් තබා ගෙන රාජවංශ නොකඩවා පවත්වා ගැනීමට දු පුතුන් බිහි කලයුතු බිසෝවරු අන් මගක යන අතර  බොහෝ රාජ රාජ මහාමාත්‍යදීනුත්  ගිහි වත හා පැවිදිවත අතර වෙනස හඳුනා ගත නොහැකිව අන්තර්ජාතික වෙළෙඳාම  රාජ්‍ය ආරක්ෂාව මෙන්ම සංවර්ධන කටයුතුද අමතක කරමින් ආගමික කර්තව්‍යයන්ට මුල්තැන දෙමින් මේ නව ක්‍රමය අත් හදා බලන්නට යුහුසුලු වනවිට රාජ්‍යය  අස්ථාවර  වන්නට විය .දෙවන තිස්ස  මියැදී වසර 30 යනවිටම මේ සිදුවන දේ දෙසැ විපරමින් බලා සිටි විදෙශීය අ ස් වෙළඳුන් දෙදෙනෙක් වන  සේන හා ගුත් තික එකල රජුවූ සුරතිස්ස පලවා රාජ්‍ය බලය පැහැර ගත්තේය.වසර 22 ක් පමණ රට සුරාකමින් අපේ ධන සම්පත් සුරාගෙන ගිය උන් ගෙන් රටටහෝ සසුනට යහපතක් නොවුනත් ‘’ධාර්මිකවී සිටි  ‘’ජනතාවඅතරින් උද්ඝෝෂණයක් මතුවුයේ නැත .සටන බුදුදහම පාවාදීමක් යයි කියූ මෙදා තම්බයියාගේ මතයේ උන් සිටියාදැයි නොදනිමි .එනපොට  හොඳ නැතිබව  මෙන්ම ගිහි වත හා පැවිදි වත අතර වෙනස දුටු අසේල තනිවම ගොස් උන් මරා රජවිය.බුදුදහම වරදවා වටහා ගෙන ‘’ආත්මාරක්ෂාවට වත් යුද නොවැදීමේ රෝගයෙන් ‘’ පෙළුන උන් අසේලට සහයෝගයක් දුන්නේ නැත . අසේල වටා ජාත්‍යාලයෙන් ඔදවත් ජනතාවක් හෝ භික්ෂු පිරිසක් මේ වන විටත් සිටියේ නැත .  එහෙත් වසර 19 යන විට නැවතත් එළාර නම් විදේශීය වෙළෙන්දෙක් අසේල ගෙන් රාජ්‍යය පැහැර ගෙන වසර 44 ක් පමණ නිරුපද්‍රිතව රටෙන් අඩක්ම පාලනය කළේය ….මේ තත්වයෙන් සිංහල දීපය වෙනස් කලේ ගාමිණී අභය හෙවත් දුටු ගැමුණු රජතුමාය ..   

                                                              සේන ගුත්තිකලා එළාර ලා  හෝ ඕනෑම විදේශිකයෙක් රාජ්‍යය බලය ගත්තත්  ‘’ඒ උන්ගේ උරුමයයි, අපේ කරුමයයි ‘’ කියා තමන්ගේ වැඩක් බලාගෙන සිටින, ’’විදේශිකයන් ඉඹලා පිළිගන්න ‘’ පිරිසක් එදත් සිටියහ.මොවුන්ගේ පාලනය ඉවසා දරා ගෙන යටත්ව සිටියහ .  වෙළෙන්දා   මෙරට ධන සම්පත් තම රටවලට  ගෙනයාමට අවශ්‍ය සාමය පවත්වා ගැනීමට  පෙන්වූ ප්‍රමාණවත්  ‘’ ධර්මිෂ්ට ‘’ බවෙන් මොවුහු සෑහීමට පත් වුහ . එහෙත් මහින්දා ගමනයේ සිටරටම අපේක්ෂා කල සම්බුද්ධ සාෂණයේ චිරස්ථිතිය  වෙනුවෙන්  මේ විදේශීය පාලකයන් ගෙන්  කිසිදු සේවයක් ඉටු නොවන බවත් රටේ ධනය ඔවුන් විසින් කොල්ල කාගෙන යන බවත් දුටුවේ දේශාභිමානී පිරිස පමණි .අසේල කුමරු තනිව සටන් කර වසර 10 කට මේ ‘’ධන කොල්ලය ‘’නැවැත්තුවත්  සැලසුම් සහිතව අවශ්‍ය තරම් රාජ්ය ආරක්ශාව පිලිබඳ කටයුතු නොකළ  නිසා  එළාර නැවත බලය ගත්තේය .

                                                       ‘’එළාර රජතෙමේ ධාර්මිකය , තෙමේ මිත්‍යා දෘෂ්ටිකය ‘’යි මහාවංශය කියයි .වෙළෙඳ පරංගින්ට වඩා වෙළෙඳ ලන්දේසීන් ද  ‘’යම් තරමකට ධාර්මික ‘වුහ .JR ද තෙමේ ධර්මිෂ්ටයයි පැවසුවේය .ජෛන දහමේ ධාර්මිකත්වයත් හින්දු දහමේ  ධාර්මිකත්වයත්  බුදු දහමේ ධාර්මිකත්වයම නොවේ . බොදු වියතුන්  එළාර  ගේ  ‘’හද දහම’’  දුටුවේ  මානසික විකුර්තියක් ලෙසය .මේ මානසික විකුර්තිය  දනන් තුඩ තුඩ රැවු පිලිරැවූ දුන්නේ මෙසේය         .1. ඔහු  වැස්ස නිසා වී වෙලා ගැනීමට නොහැකි ස්ත්‍රියකට පිහිට වීමට සත්‍ය ක්‍රියාවෙන්  වැස්ස නැවැත්  විය—-(එවිට වැස්ස අවශ්‍ය ගොවියා ගේ තත්වය ?) 2 . තම පැටියා රථයට හසුකර මරා දැමීම ගැන එළදෙනක් විසින් කල පැමිණිල්ල අනුව එළාර  චුදිත තම පුතා මර දැම්මේය .((මෙය නම් ආගමික උන්මාදයක් යයි ජනතාවට  හිතුනා නම් වැරදිද. පුතා මරා දැමීමෙන් එවෙලේ බොරු සාධාරණත්වයක් පෙන්නුම් කර බාලයන් අතර යම් ජනප්‍රියත්වයක් ලබා ගත හැකි වුවද  රාජ්‍යයට අනුප්‍රාප්තිකයෙක්  නැතිවීමේ පාඩුවගැන මුලින්ම සිතී නැත . එහෙත් ඒ ගැන ‘’ හුදියන් නොසිතුවේය ,මැදියන් සිතුවේය යි ‘’යනුවෙන් ඉතිහාස පොතේ  ලියවුනේ එදා ජන මතයයි    )) 3 .තමන්ගේ බිත්තර නයෙක් ගිලදැමුවායයි පැමිණිලි කල කි රිල්ලිය සැනසීමට නයාගේ  බඩ පැලීම–((නයාට වූ අසාධාරණය)) 4 . සම්බුද්ධ සාෂණයේ පැවැත් මට කිසිවක් නොකළ ඔහු  තම  රථය  විහාරයක  ගැටී විහාරයේ කොනක් කැඩුන විට   එය ට වන්දි වශයෙන් කහවනු 14000 ක් භික්ෂුන් අතට  දීම .(((මෙය හිතාමතා කල රංගනයක් බවත් කැඩුන තැන පිළිසකර නොකර භික්ෂුන් තමන්ට නම්මා ගැනීමට මහා පරිමාන අල්ලස් දීමක් බවත් භික්ෂුන් ලාභසත්කාර සඳහා පෙළඹ වීමට කරන ලද්දක් බවත්  බොහෝ අ යට අවබෝධ වන්නට ඇත .)) 

                                           මේ වන විටත් ජාතික  විඥානය  තුලට කාවැදී තිබු  ‘’සම්බුද්ධ සාෂණයේ චිරස්ථිතිය  ඇතිකර එහි සෙවනේ කටයුතුකරමින් අප දැහැමි මිනිසුන් විය යුතුය’’ යන සංකල්පය තුලාබරින් කිරා බලා  එම අහිංසක චින්තනය හේතුවෙන් ජාතියේ හා රටේ ආරක්ෂාව බිඳ හෙලා පාලන බලය අත්පත් කරගෙන   පසුගිය වසර 66 ක් තිස්සේ  විදේශික වෙළෙඳුන් විසින් කල සම්පත් මංකොල්ලය ගැන මනා අවබෝධයක් ලත් ගාමිණී අභය උන්ට විරුද්ධ තම සටනේ තේමා පාඨය ලෙස ‘’මාගේ මේ ව්‍යායාමය වනාහී හුදෙක් සම්බුද්ධ සාෂණයේ  චිරස්ථිතිය සඳහාමය ‘’ යන්න යොදා ගත්තේය .එසේ කලේ ජනතා ජීවන ක්‍රමය දේශපාලන හා ආර්ථික චින්තනය  ආදී සියල්ල සාෂණයේ ස්ථාවර භාවය මත රඳා පවතින නිසාය. .එදා සාතවාහන  ආදී ඉන්දියානු වෙළඳ පාලකයන් හා තරගයට වෙළඳාමේ යෙදුන නොයෙකුත් විදේශීන් ‘’සිංහලේ ධන නිධානය’’ ආක්රමනය කිරීම ඉදිරියේදීත් නොනවත්වන බවත් එළාරට මේවනවිට තමන්ගේම අනුප්‍රාප්තික පුතෙක් නැතත්  භල්ලුක සොයුරා අවස්තාව එනතුරු එතෙර  බලා සිටින බවත් මෙතුමාට අ වබෝධ විය .

      බුදු දහමේ ‘නැවැත්මේ මග’අරමුණෙන් බැහැර නොකරම ‘’පැවැත්මේ මගක්’’ පාදාගැනීම ඔහුගේ අරමුණ විය.

                                                       මෙසේ ක්‍රි :පූ 161දී ස්ථිරසාර ලෙස   ප්‍රතිෂ්ඨාපනය වූ සිංහල බෞද්ධ දේශපාලන ආර්ථික සංස්කෘතික හැඩතල  විසින් සංස්කරණය කල රටේ ජීවන ක්‍රමය  ක්‍රි : ව : 2025 දක්වාත් අවිච්චින්නව  විවිධ කෙනහිලි බාධක මැද පවත්වා ගැනීමට ඉඩ ලැබී ඇත්තේ ඒ ක්‍රමය රටේ පැවැත්මට අවශ්‍යම හා අපටම  අනන්‍ය  ක්‍රමය හෙයිනි.එදා සිට මේ ක්‍රමය වැඩී වර්ධනය වී ජාතික විඥාන ය තුලට කිඳා බැස්ස හැටි පහත දක්වමි .

                                                                   ‘’නො බෝසත් නො රජවම්හ’’ යනු ඉපැරණි පාඨයකි.රජවරු බෝසත් ගතිගුණ ඇත්තන් විය යුතුයි සැලකිණි .බෝසත් සංකල්ප බුදුදහමේ විනා වෙනත් ආගම් වල නැත .එනිසාම බොහෝ රජවරු ‘’බෝධි ‘’යන නම ගත් හ.ක්‍රි :පූ: 161 සිට ක්‍රි :ව : 843 වන විට  සංඝ බෝධි හැර  අග්ග බෝධි නමින්  රජවරු 9 දෙනෙක් ම සිටියහ. සිංහල කමත් බෞද්ධ කමත් එකිනෙකට මොනතරම් බද්ධ වී  තිබුණේදැයි මෙයින් පෙනී යයි .රාජ්‍යත්වය ස්ථිර වීමට නම් දළදා සමිඳුන් ගේ භාරකාරත්වය ලැබිය යුතු විය . අවම වශයෙන් රජවරු තුන් දෙනෙක්  රට තුල ‘’මාඝාත ‘’නීතිය පනවා  ඇත.පුර්ණ බෞද්ධ රටක මිස මෙවන් නීතියක් ආඥාවක් පැන විය නොහැක . චේතනාන්විත ප්‍රාණ ඝාතය දස අකුසලයෙන් එකක් ලෙස සැලකිණි . රජවරු ආඥා දායකයන් නොව රටේ භාරකාරයන්ය යන  දර්ශනය බුදහමින් ලැබුණකි .1815 සිංහල ඉංග්‍රීසි ගිවිසුමේ  5 වගන්තියෙන් බුද්ධාගම නමින් වූ සංස්කෘතිය හා ඒ සමග බැඳී නීතිරීති වලට විශේෂත්වයක් ඇතිබවට ඉන්ග්රීසීන්ට  එකඟ  වීමට සිදුවිය..1893 දී රජයේ අනුමැතියකින් තොරව බෞද්ධ  පුජ්‍ය ස්ථාන ඉදිකිරීමට අවසර දී අනෙක් ආගමික ස්ථාන සඳහා රජයේ අවසරගත යුතුයි තීරණය කිරීමට ඉංග්‍රීසීන්ට  සිදුවුයේ සිංහල දීපය බෞද්ධ රටක් නිසත් ඒ උරුමය  පිළිගත යුතු නිසාත් ය  .රට බහු ආගමික රටක් නම් එසේ තීරණය කරන්නේ නැත. ඒ වන විටත් බෞද්ධයින් 90 % කට වඩා සිටියහ. නොයෙක් බලහත් කාරකම් වලින් පසුවත් අදත් 70 % ක් ඇත . මේ බෞද්ධ කම  නිසාම අන්‍යාගමිකයන්ට අපේ පන්සල් පුදබිම් අසලත්  තම ආගමික ස්ථාන හදා ගන්නට ඉඩක් නිදහසක්  ලැබුනේය.අන්‍යාගමික රටක් වුනානම් මේ නිදහස ලැබෙන්නේ නැත.

                                                                         1948 සිට  රට පාලනය කල  මකොලි අධ්‍යාපනයෙන් කුරුවල් වූ  බටහිර චින්තන වහලුන්ට  ගෝචර නොවූ ‘’නොබැඳි ප්‍රතිපත්තිය ‘’ අනුගමනය කර  ජාත්‍යන්තර ගෞරව ලැබීමට  තරම් සිරිමාවෝ නම් බෞද්ධ කාන්තාව  වාසනාවන්ත වුයේ බුදුදහමේ  ‘’මැද පිළිවෙත ‘’ රට ගොඩනගන මාවත ලෙස ඇයවිසින්  තෝරා ගත්  නිසයි. 1977 දී ජේ ආර් වැනි සින්හලයාට එතරම් ලැදී නොවන අ යෙකුට පවා තම ව්‍යවස්තා වෙන්  බුදුසසුනට රටේ ඇති විශේෂත්වය  පිලි නොගෙන බැරිවිය . ලාල් විජයනායකගේ ‘’වයිඩර් ‘’ ආයතනයේ ‘’බෙදුම් වාදී චින්තනයෙන් තම චින්තනය  ‘’වයිඩ් හෙවත් පලල්’ කරගත්    චන්ද්‍රිකාගේ ‘’සුදුනෙලුම් හා තවලම් ‘ පරදා , ‘  රට බෙදන ත්‍රස්තවාදීන්ට විරුද්ධ සටන පවා බුදුදහම පාවාදීමක් ලෙස අර්ථකථන සැපයෙද්දී ත් මුළු එජාපයම බෙදුම් වාදීන්ගේ පැත්තගෙන උසුළු විසුළු කරද්දීත් කොටි පැරද විය නොහැකි යයි  ව්‍යාජ  විශේෂඥයින් කියද්දීත්,එය කලහැකිය කල යුතුය කියූ  ජාතික ජනබල වේගයේ හඬට ඇහුම්කන්දීමට මහින්දට සිදුවුයේ ජාතික විඥානය  තුලට  කිඳාබැස තිබු ගාමිණී අභයගේ ‘’පැවැත්මේ මාවත ‘’ඔහු  වටහා ගත්  නිසාය  .නොඑසේ නම් අද රට කැබලි වී අවසන්ය. 

                                                             ඉන්දියාව බුදුදහම එරටින් තුරන් කළේය. අපි ඒ දහම රැකගැනීම ගැන උන් කිසිදා කැමතිවුයේ නැත.ආගම් අබිං කි යු පුද්ගලයන් හා නිරාගමික ලිබරල් වාදී සංසදයක් මගින්  දැන් අප ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 9 වන වගන්තිය ඉවත් කරවීමට කටයුතු කෙරෙන බව ප්‍රසිද්ධය . 

                                                        ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ  9 වගන්තිය  හුදු ‘’බුධ්ධාගමක් ‘ ආරක්ෂා කිරීමක් නොවේ . ඉහතකී ලෙස වසර දාස් ගණනක් තිස්සේ  රටක් හදා ගොඩනගා  ආරක්ෂා කර  සිංහල නමින් ඒ රටහා කතාකරන භාෂාව  නම් කර,යම් දහමකට ,දැක්මකට අනුව  ජීවන ක්‍රමයක්  සකසා එය  සිංහල බෞද්ධ සංස්කෘතිය හෝ සභ්‍යත්වය  නමින් නම් කිරීමේ මහා ව්‍යාපෘතිය  ආරක්ෂා කිරීම එහි අරමුනයි .

                                                මෙයට පිටු පෑමට  කිසිදු ද්‍රෝහියෙකුට  ඉඩ නොදෙමු .

ධර්මසිරි සෙනෙවිරත්න

by Dr Sunil J. Wimalawansa, MD, PhD, MBA, DSc.Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology, & Human Nutrition

(a failed system designed to benefit Big Pharma, not the public).

From Regulation to Restoration: Reforming Food and Nutraceuticals for Public Health

Post Categories: Diet and Nutrition | Environmental Health | Healthy Aging Practices | Nutrition and Lifestyle | Perspectives 

New comprehensive Legislation is needed to help the public and to reduce healthcare costs.

https://townsendletter.com/from-regulation-to-restoration-reforming-food-and-nutraceutical-for-public-health

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/blog/from-regulation-to-restoration-reforming-food-and-nutraceutical-policy-for-public-health-executive-summary/   
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Full Paper with recommendations:
Foods 2025, 14(13), 2328; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14132328

https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/14/13/2328

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Series of five Q&As—All you need to know about Vitamin D—Disease Prevention

Vitamin D: Everything You Need to Know… and More

—————– –

Prevention of Cancer Incidences and Cost- What Can We Do?

The Role of Vitamin D in Reducing Risks of Cancer and Associated Deaths:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/14/2333  (May 2025)

Executive Summary of Cancer Prevention:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sunil-Wimalawansa/research

නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන B.Sc(Col), PGDC(Col) සමායෝජක, වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන

1. 2019 නොවැම්බර් මස ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ ප්‍රතිඥා දුන් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාට ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ කටයුතු කළ නොහැකි වූ තැන ජනාධිපති ධූරයෙන් ඉල්ලා අස්වී ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව ආරක්ෂා කිරීමට කටයුතු කළේය.

2. ඉන්පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ ඉතිරි ජනාධිපති ධූර කාලය වෙනුවෙන් අනුප්‍රාප්තික ජනාධිපති ලෙස රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහතා පත් කර ගනු ලැබීය.

3. 2024 වර්ෂයේදී පුරවැසියන් විසින් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට මූලික අයිතිවාසිකම් නඩු ගොනු කරමින් ජනාධිපතිවරණය වසර 5ද, 6ද යන ප්‍රශ්නය විසඳා ගැනීමට උත්සාහ කළද හිටපු අගවිනිසුරු ජයන්ත ජයසූරිය මහතා ප්‍රධානත්වය දැරූ විනිසුරු පීඨ විසින් ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව පරිශීලනය කරමින් එකී නඩු ලක්ෂ ගණනින් නඩු ගාස්තු නියම කරමින් නිශ්ප්‍රභා කරනු ලැබීය.

4. ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීන්දු අනුව 2024 ජනාධිපතිවරණයක් පැවැත් වූ අතර ඉන් අනුර දිසානායක මහතා ජනාධිපතිවරණය ජයගත් අතර හිටපු අගවිනිසුරු ජයන්ත ජයසූරිය මහතා ඉදිරියේ ජනාධිපති ලෙස ප්‍රතිඥා දෙනු ලැබූ අතර එකී හිටපු අගවිනිසුරුවරයා විශ්‍රාම යාමත් සමඟම එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නිත්‍ය නියෝජිත තනතුරට පත් විය.

4. නීතීඥවරුන් 209ක් සහ නීතීඥවරුන් නොවන පුරවැසියන් 104ක් විසින් ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 83වන ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ (b) ඡේදය නිවැරදිව පළ කර ගැනීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයා වෙත ඉල්ලීමක් කළ අතර මැතිවරණය කොමිෂන් සභාවද ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයා මගින් ජනාධිපති වෙත එම ඉල්ලීම කර ඇත.

5. ඒ අනුව 1978 ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ සහ එහි ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂා පාඨ අතර වෙනස්කම් පවතින හෙයින් ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂා පාඨ අනුව ක්‍රියා කිරීම හේතුවෙන් ජනාධිපතිවරුන්ගේ, පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරයන්ගේ, කතානායකගේ, පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ, නීතීඥවරුන්ගේ, පුරවැසියන්ගේ අයිතිවාසිකම් අහිමි කරනු ලැබ ඇති අතර, ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය සහ නීතියේ පාලනයද, ව්‍යවස්ථාපිත යුතුකම ඉටු කිරීමද අහිමි කර ඇත.

6. මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව විසින් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ සහ ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 83.(ආ) සහ 83.(b) ඡේද අතර පවතින වෙනස නිවැරදි කිරීමට අදාල පියවර ගැනීමට ජනාධිපති ලේකම් වෙත දැනුම් දී ඇති හෙයින් ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 83.(b) ඡේදය මූලාශ්‍රය කර ගනිමින් ලබා දුන් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණ (Determination) / තීන්දු (Judgement)/ මත (Opinion) නැවත සමාලෝචනය කිරීමට, නෛතික සළකා බැලීමට ලක්කළ යුතු වන අතර (Per Incuriam) මේ වැරැද්ද හේතුවෙන් අයුක්තියට පත් ජනාධිපතිවරයෙකුට, පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙකුට, කතානායකවරයෙකුට, නීතීඥවරයෙකුට හෝ පුරවැසියෙකුට මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් නෛතිකව ක්‍රියා කළ හැකිය.

7. මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව විසින් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ සහ ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 83.(ආ) සහ 83.(b) ඡේද අතර වෙනස නිවැරදි කිරීමට අදාල පියවර ගැනීමට ජනාධිපති ලේකම් වෙත දැනුම් දී ඇති හෙයින් අනුප්‍රාප්තික ජනාධිපති වන රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහතා 2025 නොවැම්බර් දක්වා ජනාධිපති ලෙස ක්‍රියා කළ යුතු හෙයින් ඔහුට එසේ ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ කටයුතු කළ නොහැකි වන්නේනම් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති මෙන් ඉල්ලා අස්වීම කළ යුතු අතර (2025 නොවැම්බර් දිනට පෙර), නොඑසේනම් ඔහු ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව ආරක්ෂා නොකරන්නෙකු බවට පත් වන අතර අනුර දිසානායක මහතා ජනාධිපතිවරණය ජයගත් ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා වන අතර ඔහුගේ ධූර කාලය 2025 නොවැම්බර් ප්‍රතිඥා දීමෙන් වසර 6ක කාලයකට පවතී.

(2025 සැප්තැම්බර් 21 ඉරිදා  සවස 2.00 – 4.30 – අංක 09, කොළඹ පාර හඳපාන්ගොඩ, වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන් දේශන ශාලාවේදී සහ

2025 සැප්තැම්බර් 29 ස‍ඳුදා සවස 1.00- 4.45කොළඹ මහජන පුස්තකාල සම්මන්ත්‍රණ ශාලාවේදී
“මැ.කො. ලිපියෙන් පසු
අනුර වසර 6කටත් , රනිල්  2025 නොවැම්බර් දක්වාත් ජනාධිපති වීම සහ හිටපු අගවිනිසුරු ජයසූරියට එරෙහිව පරීක්ෂණයක් පැවැත්විය යුත්තේත් ඇයි?

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව සහ එහි ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවෙන් ඇති ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව වෙනස් බව මැතිවරණ කොමිසම, නීතීඥවරුන් 209ක් සහ නීතීඥවරුන් නොවන පුරවැසියන් 104ක් විසින් ජනාධිපතිට පෙන්වා දී ඇති බව ජිනීවා මානව හිමිකම් කොමිසමට සහ ජාත්‍යන්තර සංවිධානවලට පෙන්වා නොදිය යුත්තේ ඇයි? මැයෙන් නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන් 2ක් පැවැත්වීමට කටයුතු යොදා ඇත.)

http://neethiyalk.blogspot.com/2025/08/2.html?m=1

නීතීඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන B.Sc(Col), PGDC(Col)
සමායෝජක, වෛද්‍ය තිලක පද්මා සුබසිංහ අනුස්මරණ නීති අධ්‍යාපන වැඩසටහන දුරකථන 0712063394
(2025.08.29)

by Arundathie Abeysinghe Courtesy PIME Asia News

A new environmental emergency has hit the strait separating the Indian coast from Sri Lanka, threatening to cripple local tourism and fishing. Carried by currents from India, mounds of plastic reach the Mannar region. Monsoon currents, which carry dust, are more difficult to collect, compounding the problem. Globally, the failure to ratify or implement agreements and treaties weighs heavily on the country.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – Sri Lanka is facing a major environmental emergency that threatens to deal a severe blow to tourism and fishing, two of the main industries in the South Asian nation’s economy.

Currently, the coastlines of Mannar (Northern Province) are buried under large mounds of plastic brought in by waves coming not only from within the country, but also and especially from neighbouring India in what constitutes transboundary pollution”.

According to many environmentalists, this year’s situation is even worse than in the recent past with the southern coast leading to Adam’s Bridge  covered in plastic waste.

Also known as Ram Setu, the 48-kilometre-long limestone shoals connect Pamban Island (also known as Rameswaram Island), the largest of the Tamil Nadu group located between peninsular India and Sri Lanka, to Mannar.

Although the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) performs regular cleanup to remove plastic pellets (nurdles), the plastic dust dispersed by monsoon winds is harder to collect. For local communities, the problem is getting worse with each season.

Although some plastic debris washes away during the rainy season, monsoon currents typically push the debris toward Sri Lanka,” said Kithsiri Ramanayaka and Anuradha Paranawithana, two environmentalists who spoke to AsiaNews.

Since most countries fail to address their domestic waste management problems, plastic will continue to circulate through ocean currents,” they added. Plastic pollution in Mannar has disastrous ecological consequences,” especially for marine wildlife that ends up ingesting or becoming entangled.”

Habitat degradation and the disruption of production cycles causes “a decline in potential fish populations and health risks for local fishermen who depend on marine resources for their livelihoods.”

The experts warn that, “Addressing this problem requires a cross-sectoral approach involving collaboration between various sectors, including the fishing industry, waste management sectors, and local authorities.”

To this end, Adequate sampling is needed to determine the impact of ‘plastic dust’, which has not been done so far. According to available data, Sri Lanka’s coasts receive plastic from South and Southeast Asia.”

Scholar Ravihari Alwis and Nishantha Gamlath share these concerns, and for them, the issue must be addressed immediately.”

In 2022, the 193 United Nations member states agreed to develop a legally binding international treaty to end plastic pollution, addressing its entire life cycle from production to use and waste disposal.

Despite five rounds of negotiations, the last in April in Kenya, no agreement has been reached, while the follow-up session in Geneva also failed. At the same time, the sixth round of negotiations of the Global Plastics Treaty (legally binding to address the problem of plastic waste) also failed. However, a treaty is still considered crucial, as it would place greater responsibility on the richest plastic-producing nations.

For the experts, there are two key issues, namely whether the entire life cycle of plastics, starting with production, and their health implications, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals, should be included in the treaty. Oil-producing countries oppose these measures.

Overall, island states such as Sri Lanka, compared to producers and users, face the brunt of plastic pollution”, and call for the full cycle to be included.”  

Arjun Pathmarajah (46) and Neelan Ravichandrarajah (39), social and environmental activists in Mannar, are aware of the major issues.

Apart from plastic pollution, there’s plastic dust in the air, too, brought by the winds. We usually get a lot of it, but this time it is intense. We speculate that the trash is coming in from India. The pollution has an extremely bad impact on the environment and our ecosystems, including on groundwater, fish, the primary source of income of the community and health consequences.”

The Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) has been coordinating cleanup operations in co-operation with the military, government authorities, including the Central Environment Authority, local NGOs, and communities in several coastal regions. Several teams have been deployed to Mannar to address the debris that washes ashore.

By Anuka Vimuthi Silva and Amali Wedagedara, Courtesy Al Jazeera

From Africa to Asia to Latin America, billions go hungry while creditors profit.

Sri Lanka is undergoing one of the most complex economic recoveries in its history. The country’s financial collapse in 2022 was precipitated by a toxic mix of unsustainable borrowing, poor fiscal management, and external shocks.

Mass protests erupted under the banner of Aragalaya, a broad-based citizens’ movement demanding accountability, economic justice, and an end to political corruption.

The uprising ultimately forced the resignation of the sitting president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. However, following his resignation, the administration of Ranil Wickremesinghe recaptured power.

Delaying calls for new elections, in 2023 the Wickremesinghe administration negotiated $3bn of support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under its New Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement. Later that year, to unlock a second instalment of this bailout package, Sri Lanka also reached a debt restructuring agreement with a group of creditors including China, India, and Japan.

Even though, by September 2024, the Sri Lankan people elected a progressive government led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, with a historic mandate, the new administration has since been trapped within the constraints imposed by the IMF and the previous political establishment.

The mainstream neoliberal narrative has been quick to highlight the arrangement with the IMF, known as the 17th IMF program, as a sign of stabilisation, praising the debt restructuring agreement and compliance with IMF conditions.

But what of the human cost of this recovery”?

The punitive structural adjustment process includes privatising state-owned enterprises, disconnecting the Central Bank from state control, curtailing the state’s capacity to borrow, and subordinating national development aspirations to the interests of creditors. It has placed the burden of its Domestic Debt Optimisation on working people’s retirement savings, specifically the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), raising concerns among salaried workers whose current real incomes have already been cut by high inflation and higher taxes.

Public sector hiring has been frozen, major rural infrastructure projects in transport and irrigation have been delayed or cancelled, and funding for health and education has stagnated even as costs rise. The reforms undertaken to achieve macroeconomic stability, including interest rate hikes, tax adjustments, the removal of subsidies, increased energy pricing, and the erosion of workers’ pensions, have demanded a great deal from citizens.

The IMF program has also ushered in neoliberal legal reforms that erode the public accountability of the Central Bank, limit the government’s fiscal capabilities, and encourage the privatisation of land, water, and seeds through agribusiness.

To meet IMF targets – most notably, the goal of achieving a 2.3 percent primary budget surplus by 2025 – the Sri Lankan government has introduced sweeping austerity measures. Where else will that surplus come from if not from the money pots of the poor? Bankers may welcome this austerity, but for those living and working in rural areas and coastal villages, it spells hardship and fear. The imbalances within the debt restructuring program prioritise investor profit over the public interest, shrinking the fiscal space needed to rebuild essential services.

Civil society groups estimate that 6.3 million people are now skipping meals, and at least 65,600 are experiencing severe food shortages.

In a noteworthy move, newly elected President Anura Dissanayake has instructed the treasury to reinstate subsidies for the agricultural and fishing sectors. While welcome, this may not be enough. Fishermen report that fuel costs remain steep, eating into their incomes.

Farmers, many locked into chemical input-intensive production, are struggling with rising costs, climate catastrophes, and reduced state support.

Sri Lanka’s 2025 public health allocation accounts for just 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product – five times smaller than the amount allocated to service the interest on public debt. This stark disparity highlights the fiscal constraints placed on basic social spending.

But this is not just a Sri Lankan story.

It is part of a broader global debt emergency draining public finances across the Global South. A vast number of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Central Europe have been forced to cede national policymaking autonomy to international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank (ADB).

A recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report reveals that half of the world’s population – approximately 3.3 billion people – now live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health or education. In 2024 alone, developing countries paid a staggering $921bn in interest, with African nations among the hardest hit.

UNCTAD warns that rising global interest rates and a fundamentally unjust financial architecture are entrenching a cycle of dependency and underdevelopment.

Developing countries routinely pay interest rates several times higher than those charged to wealthy nations, yet existing debt relief mechanisms remain inadequate – ad hoc, fragmented, and overwhelmingly tilted in favour of creditors. The demand for a permanent, transparent debt resolution mechanism – centred on justice, development, and national sovereignty – is gaining momentum among Global South governments.

This issue is also drawing serious attention from global grassroots movements.

In September this year, more than 500 delegates from around the world will convene in Kandy, Sri Lanka, for the 3rd Nyeleni Global Forum for food sovereignty. The gathering will bring together small-scale food producers, Indigenous peoples, trade unions, researchers, and progressive policy think tanks. One of the key themes will be the global debt crisis and how it undermines basic rights to food, education, health, and land.

The forum is expected to serve as a space to chart alternatives. Rather than relying solely on state-led negotiations or technocratic financial institutions, movements will strategise to build grassroots power.

They aim to link local struggles – such as farmers resisting land grabs or workers organising for living wages – with global campaigns demanding debt cancellation, climate reparations, and a transformation of the international financial system.

It is clear to those of us in the Global South that a just recovery cannot be built on fiscal targets and compliance checklists alone. We demand the reclaiming of public space for investment in social goods, the democratisation of debt governance, and the prioritisation of people’s dignity above creditors’ profit margins.

For Sri Lanka – and for countless other countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America – this may be the most urgent and necessary restructuring of all.