Sri Lanka’s storytelling excellence took centre stage at Inspire Global Media Awards 2026, held recently in London, United Kingdom.
The Sri Lankan travel documentary produced by Mark Julian Edwards won the prestigious Television Broadcast of the Year at the ceremony, contested by BBC and Amazon TV.
The documentary was selected from a competitive international field of entries, with the judges highlighting its focus on the depiction of authentic human experiences and destination narratives.
This whole episode of shooting and filming in Sri Lanka, I would say, it was a concophony of incredible people with fascinating stories to tell. The fascinating wildlife, culture, heritage, the fabulous food using ancient, medicinally beneficial recipes passed down through generations, the landscapes, traditions were a joy to watch.
Above all, it’s the warm, kind nature of the hospitable Sri Lankans that truly left an everlasting impression,” Edwards said.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau hosted Edwards as a member of the British Guild’s Media FAM Tour to Sri Lanka last year, with 33 other media. The Off the Beaten Path Press Trip took the media journalists to extraordinary life-changing places and authentic local experiences around Sri Lanka.
The film was produced based on his experience across Sri Lanka during the FAM tour, featuring cultural traditions, wildlife, nature, food, authentic arts, crafts, lifestyle and community-based experiences.
Through Mark’s lens, the world is invited to experience Sri Lanka not just as a destination but as a living, breathing story filled with warmth, wonder and an exciting discovery.
Radhakrishnan and Dissanayake also had productive discussions on further deepening the multifaceted bilateral ties, housing projects and fishermen issues between the two South Asian neighbours
Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan meets with Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the Presidential Secretariat, in Colombo on Sunday. | Photo Credit: ANI
Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Sunday discussed the proposed link between India and the island nation through an oil pipeline, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said here.
Radhakrishnan and Dissanayake also had productive discussions on further deepening the multifaceted bilateral ties, housing projects and fishermen issues between the two South Asian neighbours.
Some initiatives that are underway from the Indian side and some proposals that have already been discussed between the two countries, notable amongst them, the project related to the energy hub in Trincomalee and the proposal to link India and Sri Lanka through an oil pipeline.
And in fact, the point was made as to the value of such energy connectivity, especially at a time like now, when the entire world and this region especially is facing the fallout of an energy crisis generated by the Situation in West Asia,” Misri told reporters here after Radhakrishnan’s first day of the visit.
Radhakrishnan’s visit is the first ever by an Indian vice president to Sri Lanka, he said.
The president underlined the very strong bond, civilizational bond, between the two countries. He referred on more than one occasion to the difference that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Neighborhood First’ policy has made in strengthening relations between India and Sri Lanka,” Misri said.
He also highlighted India’s first responder role, first in recent years, first during the economic crisis faced by Sri Lanka in 2022 and then more recently, after Cyclone Ditwah in November-December of 2025 and also referred to the assistance that India is providing at this moment as Sri Lanka deals with the fallout of the West Asia crisis, Misri said.
The vice president, who arrived here earlier in the day on a two-day visit, also discussed with Dissanayake the ongoing Indian project implementation in Sri Lanka with emphasis on the USD 450 million Cyclone Ditwah aid offered by India.
Apart from the Sri Lankan president, Radhakrishnan also met Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Dr Harini Amarasuriya and Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa.
During his meeting with Dissanayake, Radhakrishnan laid emphasis on India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and developmental bilateral cooperation, officials said.
Both leaders held productive discussions on further deepening the multifaceted India–Sri Lanka ties, rooted in shared history, strong civilizational and people-to-people linkages,” according to a social media post by Radhakrishnan.
They held wide-ranging discussions on various initiatives, including the Indian housing project and projects being implemented under the USD 450 million package for areas affected by Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka, including reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the most affected regions of the Indian-origin Tamil community, it added.
The two sides also discussed fishermen issues in a humanitarian manner, considering the livelihoods of fishing communities on both sides.
Prime Minister Amarasuriya hosted a luncheon meeting for the vice president at her official residence, during which both leaders shared the civilisational heritage of the two countries” and discussed the importance of further strengthening bilateral ties, including people-to-people bonds.
When Opposition leader Premadasa called on Radhakrishnan, both leaders discussed further strengthening India-Sri Lanka bilateral ties.
Sri Lanka and India are not just neighbours, we are true partners with shared history, shared challenges, and a shared future. It is time we move with greater ambition, intent and trust, to reap the benefits of this partnership for all citizens,” Premadasa said in a social media post.
The vice president also met leaders of Sri Lankan Tamil parties and Indian Origin Tamil parties.
The Tamil parties thanked the Government of India for its efforts for the USD 450 million rehabilitation and relief package post Cyclone Ditwah, as well as other relief measures taken.
A number of memoranda of understanding between the two countries are also scheduled to be exchanged during the visit, a Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry release said.
The India Foreign Secretary also stated that the digital ID project and the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) were also deliberated during Radhakrishnan’s visit to Sri Lanka, a local media report said.
Later in the day, the vice president also participated in a community reception organised by the Indian diaspora here during which he virtually handed over houses to beneficiaries from Tamil communities, built with assistance from the Indian government as part of the third phase of the Indian Housing Project.
With this, the total number of houses for Tamil communities will reach 50,000, and 10,000 more houses are being built in the fourth phase of the project, an official statement said.
During his speech, Radhakrishnan, who spoke in Tamil, greeted people on the occasion of new year and said, the Tamil new year and the Sinhala new year celebrated on the same day four days ago pointed towards the ancient civilisational ties between the two communities.
Radhakrishnan also visited the Gangaramaya Temple and then visited the New Kathiresan Temple in the Sri Lankan capital. He was warmly welcomed with traditional Tamil music and dance.
On Monday, the vice president will travel to Nuwara Eliya, visit the Indian Housing Projects, and interact with the local Tamil community.
Accompanied by a 49-member delegation, the vice president was earlier received at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo by Sports Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage and several other dignitaries.
This visit, which follows recent high-level engagements between the two countries, is expected to further strengthen the millennia-old civilisational and people-to-people ties between India and Sri Lanka, an official statement said.
The cover of the report launched by the Centre for Society and Religion and titled ‘Memory, Pain and Hope; Seeking Justice Even after 7 Years’
A recent report regarding the carnage indicates that organising the attacks went beyond just a gang of suicide bombers
The Attorney General’s Department has so far filed 41 cases in the High Courts related to the Easter Sunday attacks
Centre for Society and Religion launched its latest report titled ‘Memory, Pain and Hope; Seeking Justice Even after 7 Years’
Since 2019, April 21 is not just another day for Sri Lankans who became victims of the deadly Easter Sunday attacks. Seven years have elapsed since this tragedy took place, but the victims and survivors still await justice. Despite many commissions and committees that have been appointed, families of victims and interest groups who have been demanding truth and justice are yet to know the mastermind(s) behind these attacks. It is in this backdrop that the Centre for Society and Religion (CSR) launched its latest report titled ‘Memory, Pain and Hope; Seeking Justice Even after 7 Years’ on April 17 (Friday).
Progress of investigations
The report sheds light on eight investigations which were conducted following the attacks. These include the Justice Vijith Malalgoda Committee which was appointed 24 hours following the attack, Presidential Commission of Inquiry under Justice Janak De Silva, Parliamentary Select Committee, Justice S. I Imam Committee, Justice Jayaki De Alwis Committee, Criminal Investigation from April – November 2019, investigation that continued from November 2019 to October 2024 and the latest investigation from October 2024 to present.
The report indicates that findings from these investigations and committees ‘has characteristics of an organised conspiracy that goes beyond just a gang of suicide bombers who carried out the attacks’. It highlights the failures of intelligence agencies in acting upon information received to them and new details revealed by Hanzeer Azad Moulana through the Channel 4 video.
The Attorney General’s Department has so far filed 41 cases in the High Courts related to the Easter Sunday attacks. One important case is the one being heard in the Colombo Permanent High Court, Trial at Bar against 25 accused. The case is being heard daily, and as one accused has passed away, the case is being heard against 24 accused.
The need to connect the dots
Even though religious establishments including the St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade, St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, Zion Church, Batticaloa and several leading hotels in the country have been revived and restored following the attacks, the psychological trauma and the wounds of this tragedy remains fresh,” said Centre for Society and Religion Head Fr. Rohan Silva during the launch of their report titled ‘Memory, Pain and Hope; Seeking Justice Even after 7 Years’.
But we are yet to know the reality of this whole incident. When would we know about the unseen forces behind this disaster and when would they be brought before the law,” he questioned.
He spoke about attempts being made to bury the truth behind this tragedy. Such attempts are sometimes showcased as a drama, sometimes in media and at times there are announcements being made with much song and dance. Many forces are attempting to bury the truth. The fact that such tragedies should never occur on this island shouldn’t merely be a campaign slogan of sorts but it should be reality,” Fr. Silva added.
Referring to a quote from Saint Augustine, Fr. Silva said that ‘in the absence of justice, what is sovereignty, but organised robbery’. Justice is not about a result of law, but it’s a fundamental pillar of peace. The objective of launching this special report is to keep memories alive, to go in search of the truth and to make some impact in this quest for justice. We see that investigations are now taken in the right direction and that has brought us some relief. But any interferences would further delay these efforts. We have come to realize that the findings revealed from numerous committees and commissions haven’t been investigated together and it is one of the obstacles along this quest for justice. Our investigation team identified that certain facts were lead to dead-ends and they were not subject to further investigations. Therefore it is important to analyse these reports in detail in order to connect the dots,” he emphasised.
Call to expedite further investigations
CSR also calls upon the government to expedite investigations on the following;
Abdul Latheef Jameel and the phone calls he received,
Revealing the identity of the individual named Abu Hind,
Whether Sara Jasmine is dead or alive, whether she escaped Sainthamaruthu attacks and if she’s alive, identifying those who provided her protection,
The Vanathavilluwa incident and intelligence agencies
Conflict between State Intelligence Service (SIS) and Military Intelligence (DMI).
‘Unseen forces’ at work?
Speaking at the event, journalist Tharindu Jayawardena spoke in detail about evidence revealed during key investigations. He spoke about contradicting statements allegedly made by DMI during investigations to the effect that Zahran Hashim is not based in Sri Lanka but in India. These contradictions were observed during investigations conducted by the Justice Malalgoda committee. So it’s questionable as to why the DMI made this statement when Zahran has been working on the ground planning the attacks in different places across the country. While testifying before the Parliamentary Select Committee Former President Maithripala Sirisena said that despite having 7000 officers and seven regiments under the military intelligence this incident had not been reported at least once. Therefore the DMI’s role in this incident is questionable. These revelations further indicate that there had been ‘unseen forces’ at work when executing these deadly attacks. This is why we repeatedly urged successive governments to publicise findings of these committees,” Jayawardena added.
Key demands
Some of the key demands included in the report are as follows;
Removal of current Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara who was the Commander of the East when the Sainthamaruthu attacks took place until investigations conclude,
Publicise all investigations and evidence records conducted so far,
Appoint a mixed commission comprising of local and foreign experts to study evidence and findings of all commissions and committees appointed to investigate Easter Sunday attacks,
Take disciplinary and legal action against those who obstructed and misled investigations and destroyed evidence,
Guarantee the safety of all witnesses related to the Easter Sunday attacks
Christian devotees carry a partly damaged statue of Jesus salvaged from the rubble after the 2019 Easter Sunday bombing, during a Easter procession at the St. Sebastian’s church in Katuwapitiya (file photo)
April 21 (Daily Mirror) – Ship-tracking data indicates that a crude oil tanker intercepted by the US military in the Indian Ocean made a sharp change of course in the early hours of this morning and is now broadcasting its position around 700km (430 miles) south-east of Sri Lanka.
According to data from MarineTraffic, the crude oil tanker *Tifani*, which has a carrying capacity of nearly 300,000 tonnes, is currently loaded with cargo.
The vessel has been sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and is linked to an Indian shipping company that is also subject to US sanctions over alleged ties to Iran.
Tracking data shows that the tanker departed the Gulf region on April 10 and made a brief stop near Sri Lanka’s southern port of Galle on April 18 before being intercepted by US forces.
It was previously expected to reach its reported destination of Singapore on Sunday, according to MarineTraffic.
Sarath Wijesinghe President’s Counsel Former Ambassador to UAE and Israel and former Chair Consumer Affairs Authority
Ombudsman System
Ombudsman system is prevalent worldwide successfully and in Sri Lanka too from the time of Kings as advisor (called Duck – Ganna Rala) to the king and take part in settlement of disputes when king has the full power of adjudication of disputes and all kinds of wrongdoings in the country. Concept stated in China during 12 AD and now spread in the West, Commonwealth and Scandian and other parts of the world including Sri Lanka India and Asia in easy resolution of disputes in place of arbitration which is expensive. Sri Lankan constitution provides for an Ombudsman which is difficult to reach as his ace ss will be through the speaker whereas in India a citizen has access to the Ombudsman by a letter or assisted by a group of activists in India ready to help the citizen.
Financial and Insurance Ombudsman
Financial and Insurance Ombudsman are private arrangements through limited liabilities companies but operating fairly successfully. There is a grave need for a Consumer Ombudsman as the Consumer Affairs Authority spending billions to operate is one of the most sloe, incompetent, and inefficient regulators when the citizen consumes junk food and hospitals are full of cancer patients having consumed poisonous food, fruits and vegetables no fit for human consumption. Unfortunately the governance has no knowledge, vision, or need to put these correct. It is the duty of the governance to appoint Ombudsman and relevant officials including Chairman Consumer Affairs Authority difficult to meet, talk or locate due to sheer indifference or in competency. State spends millions and the citizen is aware of the service they are given by the main regulator in the country.
Consumer Ombudsman
Ambassador’s forum in UK/SL now have resolved and intervened to take steps to form a limited company as has been done in the cases of financial and insurance ombudsman and appoint a consumer ombudsman soon and the public is requested to send their views to the Ombudsman what’s app group created for the purpose.
Ombudsman will fill the vacuum created in the inefficiency of CAA and it will be a powerful unit of reconciliation, arbitration and settlement free as in Singapore and Hyong Kong when Sri Lankans pay high few and seek redress from centers in Singapore and Hongkong. Sarath wijesinghe PC former Chair CAA those who wishes to join the ombudsman group may send a message to 0094766530166
As the recruitment landscape evolves, platforms must continuously adapt to meet the changing expectations of both employers and candidates. XpressJobs has consistently taken this approach, building a connected ecosystem that serves multiple talent segments across Sri Lanka.
The latest addition to this ecosystem isInternJobs.lk, a platform designed to better engage Gen Z talent through a more focused and simplified experience.
Why InternJobs.lk?
Rather than taking a traditional approach, XpressJobs identified an opportunity to create a dedicated, easy to navigate space specifically for interns and early talent.
InternJobs.lk goes beyond just internships. The platform features four key categories that resonate strongly with Gen Z:
Internships School leaver opportunities Trainee roles Remote jobs
By grouping these together, the platform makes it significantly easier for young job seekers to find relevant opportunities in one place, especially as remote work continues to grow in popularity among this audience.
One Ecosystem, Multiple Entry Points
While InternJobs.lk offers a specialised front end experience, it is fully integrated into the XpressJobs ecosystem.
Regardless of where a job is promoted, whether on InternJobs.lk or elsewhere, all applications are seamlessly managed through XpressJobs viahttps://xpress.jobs. This ensures a single, centralised CV database, no additional cost for existing clients, and greater visibility across multiple platforms.
When a role is suitable for early talent, it is automatically extended across platforms, increasing reach without added effort from employers.
A Proven Multi Platform Strategy
This approach builds on XpressJobs’ ongoing efforts to expand access and inclusivity in recruitment.
The acquisition of MyJobs.lk, previously powered by Mobitel, was a key milestone, bringing additional traffic and opportunities into the XpressJobs ecosystem.
To further improve accessibility, Rakiya.lk was introduced to support job seekers who prefer local languages or do not have formal CVs. For relevant roles, jobs are published across both platforms, while applications are still managed centrally throughXpressJobs, ensuring a smooth experience for employers.
Additionally, the launch of HRNews.lk marked XpressJobs’ move into employer branding and HR engagement. As Sri Lanka’s first dedicated HR news platform, it supports organisations in amplifying their hiring campaigns while providing valuable industry insights.
More Reach, No Extra Complexity
With InternJobs.lk, employers benefit from increased visibility among Gen Z candidates, extended reach across multiple platforms, and centralised application management through XpressJobs, all at no additional cost for existing clients.
This means more exposure without added complexity, while maintaining a single, powerful recruitment system.
Looking Ahead
The launch of InternJobs.lk reinforces XpressJobs’ vision of creating a truly inclusive and comprehensive recruitment ecosystem. By combining specialised platforms with a unified backend, XpressJobs continues to simplify hiring while expanding access to opportunity for every segment of the workforce.
Since May 2021, a sequence of public statements has attempted to reshape the understanding of the Easter Sunday attacks and promote a new narrative burying a critical factor that may contribute to future attacks if the indoctrination that Zaharan & associates were subject to was not identified and remedial actions taken at a national level.
The new narrative was initiated by:
Former Attorney GeneralDappula de Livera referred to a grand conspiracy” before leaving office in May 2021
In October 2021, Cyril Gamini publicly linked intelligence actors — naming Suresh Sallay as being linked to Zahran Hashim
In Aug-Sept 2023,Asad Maulana, through Channel 4, advanced a narrative that the attacks were planned to create chaos and change government
These claims intentionally or unintentionally
Introduced new actors not named in any of the reports/commissions to the narrative
More dangerously the new narrative replaced the motive of the attacks
If a new theory is being introduced while replacing the established motive 7 years after the attacks the burden to prove the new links to displace the existing demands powerful evidence not hearsay.
Failure to do both renders the new narrative incomplete.
Contradictions in the new narratives
If Zaharan was co-opted to commit suicide for regime change – how can Fr. Cyril & Asad Maulana explain the decision to commit suicide of 10 or so others? Did the wife of Shangri-la suicide bomber commit suicide in Dematagoda killing her 2 children & unborn baby for that same regime change?
Did the 15 who died in Sainamaradu 4 days after the Easter Attacks also commit suicide for regime change?
These incidents depict ideologically consistent suicide clusters. Indoctrinated individuals don’t require external command to act. This removes any need for a central handler directing multiple suicide events.
Anyone questioning this must present the command structure linking these actors to a political objective?
No evidence has been presented of communication, command instructions, or coordination logs linking multiple attackers to any external controller.
The Sainthamaruthu incident was not an operational attack—it was a defensive mass suicide triggered by imminent arrest.
This behavior is consistent with ISIS doctrine: avoid capture, die as martyrs.
Similar patterns have been observed globally in ISIS-linked cells:
Final stand → detonation
No surrender → self-destruction
Inclusion of women and children → ideological totalization
This raises a decisive contradiction:
A political operation requires survivability, deniability, and post-event leverage
A mass suicide eliminates all assets, intelligence trails, and strategic value
Which political operation designs a plan where every operative self-destructs—including non-combatants?
The father of 2 of the suicide brothers & his daughter-in-law were not politically linked to the party assumed to be brought to power – the father was on the national list of the party that Zaharan campaigned to bring to power in 2015. In fact, the family was funding Zaharan’s training & safe houses – why would 3 members of this family fund and decide to commit suicide to bring an opponent to power?
The funding pattern itself contradicts the conspiracy theory: Funding came from within the network, not from an external handler
Safehouses, logistics, and materials were internally sustained
No evidence has been presented of: state funding, covert transfers, intelligence-linked financial trails
This leads to a critical evidentiary gap:
Where is the financial link that connects this alleged operation” to any state or intelligence actor?
Because: No modern covert operation exists without a financial trail. Absence of such contradicts claims of a state-linked operation.
This contradiction strikes at the core of the regime-change theory:
If the father, sons, daughter-in-law supporting one political party cannot logically decide to sacrifice their lives to enable another political party to power.
What Fr. Cyril & Asad are doing is selective focus on Zaharan & alleged intelligence links against the former head of the intelligence.
But they cannot sustain their argument unless they present evidence that the others who pledged to commit suicide at Span Towers, Mt. Lavinia before the attacks & uploaded several videos of their allegiance to ISIS did so not for Al Bagdadi but to enable regime change.
These were not symbolic gestures. They followed a standard ISIS bay’ah (pledge) protocol:
oath to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
group synchronization
pre-operation recording
dissemination through ISIS media channels
ISIS did not merely claim” responsibility:
It validated and broadcastthe attackers
It integrated the attack into its global propaganda
This creates a legal and logical barrier:
You cannot reinterpret a declared ideological allegiance as a political act without proving coercion or deception.
Does Fr. Cyril & Co have any recording that claims the suicides are for political change and requested by intelligence?
The evidence is clear:
ideological causation explains collective participation – the members of NTJ followed a code, an ideology, believed in scriptures Zaharan preached and promoted among participants that took part in many sessions held across the country. At none of these sessions is there testimony to ask participants to commit suicide to bring regime change.
Testimony regarding repeated training sessions, ideological instruction, weapons familiarization, and operational preparation indicates a structured radicalization process. This process aligns with extremist indoctrination models, not short-term political manipulation.
The training pattern reflectslong-term radicalization, not short-term tasking:
indoctrination over months/years
religious framing of violence
normalization of death and martyrdom
Importantly:
Participants weresegregated, controlled, and ideologically conditioned
Some were reportedly warnednot to disclose teachings
This raises a decisive question:
If this was a politically engineered attack, where is the evidence of political messaging within these sessions?
Because:
No testimony indicates:
political targets only churches (against Catholics) hotels (foreigners)
electoral objectives
regime-change narratives
Cyril & Co wish to substitute these facts with a conspiracy-based motive they must explain actions of individual suicide actors and explain the background to the training sessions, military training camps (loading guns, learning online to make explosives) securing safehouses, and how all these actions fit into their regime-change conspiracy in particular the suicide in Dematagoda & Sainamarathu.
To date, no such comprehensive explanation has been presented.
What has been Proven — Cannot Be Ignored
Multiple investigations, including the Presidential Commission and judicial findings, international investigations by the world’s top intel agencies have already established:
Violence driven by the same ideology existed before Easter & before Zaharan
Attacks and hostility towardSufi has a historical timeline
Spread ofWahhabi/Salafi exclusivist teachings, including within religious education spaces has been detailed in the PCoI. Extremist teachings had been spreading through informal and formal religious channels
Aclear ideological trajectory of Zahran Hashim evolving locally, complimented with international developments calling to avenge attacks against Muslims.
Zaharan explicitly pledged allegiance to Al Bagdadi – no one else.
Such a declaration cannot be substituted by an alternative motive which must exist across all the suicide bombers.
Targeting of bothnon-Muslims and rival Muslim sects (including Sufis) were done before Zaharan came into the scene. Intelligence agencies had flagged over 90 reports on ISIS-linked radicalization networks
Sri Lankan families had already traveled to Syria to join ISIS. By 2016 some 38 members from 4 families had travelled to Syria.
These departures occurred years before 2019, establishing:
pre-existing ideological commitment
willingness to migrate, fight, and die under ISIS
These individuals had:
no connection to Sri Lankan electoral politics
no role in any alleged regime-change plan
Therefore Fr. Cyril & Co must answer if their departure to commit suicide were also part of a Sri Lankan political conspiracy?
These departures establish that the willingness to die existed prior to 2019 and independent of any alleged domestic political objective. Or does it re-establish the ideological pipeline?
The violence aligned with ISIS ideology was relevant to both Muslims & Non-Muslims.
Important to note that Sri Lanka was shown on the 2014 IS expansion map as part ofKhurasan Province”. In Januaty 2015 ISIS announced Wilayat Khurasan”, its South Asia wing. This inspired Tamin Chowdhury to mastermind July 2016 attacks in Dhaka killing 29 people. Zaharan wanted to do same. In fact PCOI includes this conversation in the testimony Zaharan had with team on 27 March 2019. The call for a separate Muslim homeland with the Oluvil Declaration was made in 2003 – not by Zaharan (he was only 13 years in 2003)
This shows that extremist violence was not initiated by a single actor but existed as a broader ideological current capable of independent activation across different groups.
The targeting of Sufi communities is critical:
It reflects intra-religious ideological purification
It predates Zaharan and mirrors global extremist patterns
This establishes:
violence driven by doctrine, not political utility
A political conspiracy does not require sectarian purification. An extremist ideology does.
The formal claim of responsibility by ISIS seals the attacks within a global ideological framework. There can never be two co-joined motives that are ideologically poles apart for all of the suicide bombers.
The conspiracy theory creates a dual-motive impossibility:
Religious martyrdom for divine reward
Political engineering for earthly power
These do not compliment each other because:
Martyrdom requires belief in afterlife reward
Political operations require survival and outcome control
Therefore:
Which motive did each suicide bomber follow? And where is the evidence that ALL followed the same political objective?
Fr. Cyril cannot isolate Zaharan from all the suicide bombers – as they all were members of his group & all pledged allegiance to the ideology that Zaharan followed.
This raises a critical question for Fr. Cyril to answer:
If the attacks were part of a domestic political conspiracy, why were they executed in exact alignment with a global ISIS operational model?
Any alternative theory must therefore explain not only local actions but also their precise alignment with global jihadist doctrine, timing, symbolism, and execution patterns.
Zaharan was not an isolated creation — but part of a wider ideological framework that will continue regardless of Zaharan’s existence.
The broader implication is critical for national security:
If the ideological root is ignored and replaced with conspiracy:
the real driver remains unaddressed
the pipeline for future radicalization remains intact
This creates a policy danger:
Misdiagnosing ideology as conspiracy does not prevent the next attack—it enables it.
Fr. Cyril must 1st disprove the ideological motive & then prove the political change motive
Ignoring the clear ideological motive and introducing a new narrative suggests:
The attacks were carried out not primarily due to any ideology — but toengineer political change. However, you cannot replace an established motive without disproving it first and thereafter proving the new one.
Fr. Cyril must show with evidence that:
The original ideological motive did not drive the attacks
The new political motive was the dominant reason for carrying out the attacks
Fr. Cyril & Co must now show evidence that Zaharan abandoned:
his ISIS allegiance
his martyrdom ideology
his religious justification for violence which he had been preaching
and instead acted to engineer political change at a request made by an intelligence officer?
Without disproving the original motive, the new theory is not a replacement — but an unsupported diversion.
III. Fr. Cyril & Asad Maulana & Dappala De Livera Must Now Explain
Fact 1:
The Easter attacks were not a single-person act.
Presuming Zaharan agreed to commit suicide for political change – how did all the other suicide bombers agree to the same or how did 38 Muslims who went to Syria in 2016 differ from Zaharan & Co?
Face 2:
Multiple coordinated suicide bombers and others being trained for suicide
Dematagoda explosion— a mother killing herself and her children
Sainthamaruthu mass suicide (26 April 2019)— approximately 15 individuals, including women and children
These incidents are central to understanding the motive.
In Dematagoda, a pregnant woman detonated explosives, killing herself and her children including unborn along with 3 police officers. She was trained in karate & conducted training for other women – these actions have nothing to do with regime change.
In Sainthamaruthu, approximately 15 individuals — including women and children — chose mass suicide when confronted 4 days after the main attacks.
These are not acts of isolated individuals acting on a political instruction.
They reflect:
deep ideological indoctrination
internalized belief in martyrdom
collective commitment to a cause beyond life
This leads to a critical question:
Can a political objective inspire entire families — including mothers and children — to die or even go abroad to die?
Or does this instead confirm the presence of a shared extremist ideology?
These incidents are particularly significant because they involve not only trained operatives but entire family units, including women and children, engaging in self-destruction.
Such behavior is empirically consistent with ideological indoctrination models rather than externally directed political objectives.
The Question That Breaks the Narrative of Fr. Cyril & Co
If Zahran Hashim was:
directed” or used” for political purposes
Then:
Who directed all the others to commit suicide?
Who indoctrinated entire families (over 30 persons) – to lay down their lives? The seriousness of this was brought to focus in Parliament by then Justice Minister in 2016. The SIS had prepared over 90 reports on developing ISIS ideology spreading across Sri Lanka.
Who influenced women to die – some women were even trained in karate and arms and attended the numerous training camps Zaharan held?
Who led children into death – free meals, free courses lured youth who were indoctrinated and threatened not to disclose what was taught?
Who ensured ideological consistency across all actors – was the motive to change govts?
The central weakness in the conspiracy narrative is its inability to explain why different suicide clusters acted independently yet exhibited uniform ideological justification for death.
If a political change was the primary cause, uniform behavioral patterns across unrelated family groups would still require a core objective. We are talking about not changing political affiliations but sacrificing one’s life.
A political theory that explainsone individual but not all participants is incomplete.
The scale of participation further weakens the conspiracy narrative vis a vis suicide (sacrificing one’s life)
The attacks and related incidents involved:
multiple coordinated suicide bombers
trained operatives across locations
families embedded within extremist networks
If one individual was directed,” then:
who directed the others?
who ensured ideological consistency across all actors?
A theory that explains one individual but fails to explain the collective cannot stand.
Proving the First Link Test – made in October 2021by Fr. Cyril
Before any new narrative is accepted:
Where is the first independently verifiable link
BetweenSuresh Sallay and Zaharan that prompted Fr. Cyril Gamini to quote his name at the webinair in October 2021 (2 years after the Easter Attacks & almost 8 months after the handing of the Presidential Commission report in January 2021)
Can Fr. Cyril prove his claims by:
records
communications
intelligence logs
direct witnesses
In the webinair he refers to receipts – have these been presented as evidence to the PCOI or police? Let us not forget that special approval was obtained to allow a representative of the Cardinal sit throughout all proceedings making him privy to every bit of testimony given.
In criminal evidentiary standards, the absence of a first verifiable point of contact invalidates downstream chain construction, regardless of later assertions. Narrative linkage without origin verification constitutes inference, not proof
Has Fr. Cyril provided a verifiable chain. It was he who made the first allegation not Asad Maulana. Father Cyril cannot make an allegation – not present verifiable evidence but expect the investigators to find the evidence or ask investigators to investigate what Asad Maulana claimed 2 years after Fr. Cyrils allegation.
Questions to those Making the Claims
To Dappula de Livera
He first mentioned a grand conspiracy.” just before leaving office during a private tv interview. (He was Attorney General from 29 April 2019 to May 2021)
The public must ask:
What is thefirst piece of evidence that led to this conclusion?
Is there documented communications?
intelligence intercepts?
identified actors?
If so:
Why werecharges not filed?
Why was this not pursued through court?
What action was taken while in office
ToFr. Cyril Gamini
The October 2021 statement and recent Sinhala media address, you continue to claim:
The attack wasnot limited to Zaharan
There wereactors above him”
Elements linked tointelligence connected to political actors were involved.
The public must now ask: Where is your evidence
What is the primary evidencelinking Suresh Sallay to Zaharan that you first claimed existed in October 2021?
Is it:
firsthand knowledge?
named witnesses?
documents?
Have these been presented to the police in 2021 after publicly making the allegation.
Are you aware that your allegation has replaced the Motive for the attacks
What evidence shows Zaharan’sideological motive was replaced by a political objective –and how can you explain this
On Ideological Reality
How do you explain:
attacks on Sufi before Easter and not only by Zaharan?
the spread of extremist doctrineindependent of politics or even Zaharan and preachers who have even been banned by countries for their ideological indoctrination?
On Multi-Actor Suicides
Who influenced:
the Dematagoda pregnant mother to commit suicide and even commit her 2 children?
the Sainthamaruthu group who committed suicide with 6 children?
Were all of them:
part of a political regime change operation?
or part of a shared ideological belief?
On Timing
Why did your allegation emerge:
8 months after the Commission report (Jan 2021 → Oct 2021)?
Did you present this as evidence to the Commission, if not why?
ToAsad Maulana
Through Channel 4, you claim:
You were asked toarrange contact between Zaharan & Suresh Sallay by Pillayan
The attacks were tocreate chaos and enable regime change
But your claims create direct contradictions:
On Introduction
If you introduced the two parties:
does this not prove theydid not previously know each other
Fr Cyril claims that Suresh knew Zaharan.
If so, he could have directly contacted Zaharan there was no need for an Asad Maulana to arrange a meeting.
This creates a direct contradiction with earlier claims.
In 2021, Fr. Cyril Gamini implied that Zaharan and Suresh Sallay already knew each other
In 2023, Asad Maulana claims he introduced them
Both cannot be true.
Therefore:
Which version is correct?
What evidence supports either claim?
If neither can be proven, both collapse.
On connections to Zaharan
What is your connection with Zaharan and how were you able to contact him when he was a fugitive and on the run from authorities.
On February 2018 Meeting
A further evidentiary problem arises regarding the physical possibility of the alleged interactions.
At the time that you claim to have arranged the meeting – Feb 2018:
Suresh Sallay was not present in Sri Lanka – do you have travel documents to prove he arrived in Sri Lanka for the meeting?
There was no house in the estate in Feb 2018 – a house was built only in Aug-Sept 2018
On Easter Sunday call
You claim he called you on the day of the Easter Attacks
Suresh Sallay was in India – do you have phone proof of such a call from India to Colombo?
On Intermediary Role
If direct contact existed between Suresh Sallay & Zaharan:
why was an intermediary (Asad) needed at all?
On Motive
What evidence replaces:
Zaharan’s ISIS-linked ideological motive with
a political objective?
On Timing
Why did this information emerge:
only in 2023?
in an asylum context?
More contradictions
Another fundamental contradiction arises from established intelligence activity prior to the attacks.
Zaharan Hashim was under investigation by the CID prior to 2019
CID took over Zaharan’s investigation from 9 July 2018 onwards
His network had already been flagged through intelligence reports
Multiple warnings — including foreign intelligence alerts — identified him and his group
This leads to a critical inconsistency:
If Zaharan was being controlled” or handled,” by an individual on behalf of an opposition party, while he was not holding any command position nor was even in the country why did he help the party in power to come to power:
Was this why inspite of reports, warnings – he was never arrested?
An individual cannot logically be both:
an intelligence-controlled asset and
a known target of active intelligence pursuit
This contradiction must be addressed.
In criminal evidentiary standards, the absence of a first verifiable point of contact invalidates downstream chain construction, regardless of later assertions.
Narrative linkage without origin verification constitutes inference, not proof.
Therefore, the first allegation was made by Fr. Cyril in 2021 – this requires he present his evidence instead of asking investigators to investigate claims made by Asad Maulana 2 years after Fr. Cyrils claim.
Moreover, in the recent media address by Fr. Cyril – he claimed anyone arrested is not necessarily guilty and guilt is decided by the Courts. He must then explain why after his claim in October 2021, when Suresh Sallay filed complaint with CID & a defamation case – he evaded and appealed to court against arrest. His actions contradict his own public claim.
The Section 127 Risk: When Allegations suprecede Truth
Under Sri Lanka’s legal framework:
Statements can be recorded asvoluntary
Without verification of truth at that stage
This creates a danger:
Allegations can:
enter the system
influence investigations
affect custody
before being proven in court years later.
This makes it essential that:
The burden of proof remains on those making the allegations
The risk is not the recording of statements, but elevating these unverified statements to reconstruct the conspiracy narrative.
This creates a legal distortion where procedural admissibility is mistaken for factual verification.
VII. The Supreme Court and Established Responsibility
The Supreme Court identified:
failures to act • lapses in coordination • negligence in preventing the attacks
Any attempt to move from:
negligence to
conspiracy
must be supported by new, direct evidence while disproving the established theory.
This distinction is critical in law.
No such evidence has been presented.
It is legally essential to distinguish systemic failure from intentional orchestration. Even demonstrable lapses in intelligence coordination do not, in themselves, establish the existence of a hidden controlling conspiracy without direct evidence of coordination or instruction.
No amount of conspiracy theory can remove the fact that
warnings were given –
circulars were despatched and
even at the 11th hour those in positions could have prevented people entering the churches as well as informed hotels to beef up security.
This is what none of the conspiracy theorists can deny.
Unlike other terror attacks – repeated warnings were given, these were not new warnings as the security apparatus were aware of Zaharan and the CID was directly involved in investigations from July 2018 onwards.
Therefore, when foreign intel gave names of the targets and even the identities of the suicide bombers everyone who got the message cannot escape accountability by bringing names of people who were not in the country to pass blame.
VIII. Where the New Narrative Collapses
All three narratives must answer two questions:
Where is the first proven link?
Who explains the actions of ALL actors — not just Zaharan?
Because:
If the first link is missing → the chain collapses
If the motive cannot explain all actors → the theory collapses
Any theory seeking to replace ideological causation with political orchestration must satisfy a higher evidentiary threshold because it introduces an additional causal layer not supported by the original investigative record. Without independently verified linkage at every stage, such theories remain speculations rather than reconstructed facts.
Evidence Must Match the Claim
The Easter attacks were:
ideologically driven
collectively executed
supported by a documented trajectory of radicalization
Any attempt to:
introduce new actors
replace motive
construct a conspiracy
must meet the same legal standard:
Evidence beyond assertion
Consistency beyond narrative
Proof beyond timing
Until then, the public is entitled to ask:
Where is the first proven link first spoken about by Fr. Cyril in October 2021?
A theory that cannot simultaneously explain:
the global ISIS alignment
the pre-existing ideological network not just in Sri Lanka but globally
the large number of coordinated attackers
the participation of entire families
the mass suicide events after the attacks
and the documented intelligence warnings including foreign
is not a complete explanation.
It is an incomplete narrative attempting to override established facts.
To date, no such comprehensive explanation has been presented to deny the ideological motive and showcase the political motive was superior.
THE TEST THAT CANNOT BE AVOIDED
Any narrative seeking to replace the established account of the Easter attacks must pass three non-negotiable tests:
The Link Test Where is the first verifiable, independently proven connection between the alleged actors claimed in October 2021? Without this, the entire chain collapses.
The Motive Test What evidence proves that a political objective replaced the clearly established ideological motive — acrossallattackers, not just one individual?
The Collective Participation Test Who can explain the actions of:
multiple coordinated suicide bombers
entire families willing to die
the Dematagoda explosion
the Sainthamaruthu mass suicide
prior departures to ISIS
A theory that cannot explain all participants is not a theory — it is a partial narrative.
The Easter attacks demonstrate:
ideological indoctrination
collective commitment to martyrdom
alignment with global ISIS doctrine
To override this, any alternative claim must provide:
direct evidence — not inference
consistency — not contradiction
completeness — not selective focus
Until then, the public is entitled to ask:
Where is the proof? Where is the first link made by Fr. Cyril in October 2021?
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 12-18 April 2026
*
A man dressed like Jesus Christ caused panic in Negombo…
‘People should act intelligently and should not get deceived by
impostors,’ [pleaded the Catholic Church] on the report of a certain
foreigner who was going around in Negombo dressed like Jesus
Christ. This man caused havoc by going into churches in Negombo.
He had gone to the Katuwapitiya Church during the service & had
caused panic. A villager said the people rushed towards him when
he appeared & had worshipped him. He had then gone to the Grand
Street Church. The priests at Grand St Church had then called the
police. The police had apparently deported him from Sri Lanka.”
– see ee Media, SL Catholics should not get deceived by impostors
*
Tourists & leaders & officials from the most expensive countries in the world, are cosplaying as whitened saviours. They may not be the heretics, the much-revered economist GVS de Silva was referring to, in his 1973 classic, Some Heretical Thoughts on Economic Development (SHTED), which eeFocus begins to reproduce this week. GVS stated that truer heresies are needed when the dominant ‘orthodox’ economic theories and their much-celebrated exponents fail to understand and solve the country’s problems.
*
‘& as our member countries navigate this moment of uncertainty,
we are helping them think ahead so they can handle
any form of turbulence. We love our membership.’
– IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva (see ee Quotes)
*
‘The US Department of the Treasury is 0.5 miles from
the IMF & the World Bank headquarters, all near the
White House. The US Pentagon is 5 miles from the
World Bank & IMF, & 3-4 miles away from the
US Treasury building in Washington, DC.’
*
GVS de Silva was writing in 1973, just after a mainly agricultural Vietnam was left in horrific devastation yet united as never before, after defeating a massive US military invasion of their country, having before that, fought off Japan & France, all industrialized economies – all at great cost. GVS, recording their heroic struggle, recalled the need for heresies, at a moment in 1973 when Sri Lanka’s still import-dependent economy, 25 years after ‘independence’, was still to recover. Lanka had only just become a ‘republic’ (after the JVP’s 1st insurrection), and was about to receive another shock from West Asia’s OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), increasing oil prices by 400%, after the USA’s Yom Kippur War.
*
‘& yet, during the quarter century since Independence,
we have been going round in circles, & today we are
confronted with every conceivable problem that
an underdeveloped country could possibly face.’
*
Architect of the monumental Paddy Lands Act (sabotaged by a judge in London, which still had jurisdiction over SL in 1958, 10 years after ‘independence’), GVS de Silva recalled ‘the English, when they left, handed over to us a totally dependent economy’ (see ee Focus). Yet, instead of healing the country, bringing urban & rural together, our misleaders kept trying ‘exceedingly hard to make the English language, culture & traditions our own’ – anxious ‘to keep up with the International Joneses’, worshipping at their smelly toes. We keep yearning to transform Colombo into a ghetto-ridden New York, or a concrete Singapore. He called for us to first regain our sanity & then our freedom (PS: the English Joneses, as far as we know, are mostly colonized Welshman, still showing off their pale thigh muscles and bumping their brains together, not to liberate themselves from English rules, but to play rugby – ee).
*
‘International firm to conduct forensic audit
into NDB internal fraud’ – CBSL: Ada Derana
*
‘Forensic audit with foreign experts of NDB fraud
soon, Central Bank says’ –Sunday Times Online
*
‘Sri Lanka’s NDB, central bank to engage
global firm for forensic audit’ – EconomyNext
*
Arrest the Bankers Before They Flee –
‘Failure of Statutory Audits: The fact that this fraud
remained undetected for years by both internal &
external audits points to more than a mere system glitch.
Under Section 148 of the Companies Act No 7 of 2007, the
maintenance of accurate accounting records is a mandatory
statutory duty. The deliberate bypassing or disabling of these
controls constitutes a pre-planned financial crime.’
– see ee Finance, The Rs13.2bn NDB Scandal:
a Systemic Heist or a Lone Wolf Act?
*
So, the board of directors & auditors of the National Development Bank (NDB), most of whom represent foreign multinationals, still feel the need to engage foreigners to tell us what is going on with these banks who have been announcing massive profits, while refusing to invest in modern industry.
*
‘What is the robbing of a bank compared
to the founding of a bank?’
– Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht
*
• eeFocus begins to reproduce GVS de Silva’s SHTED this week, starting with its Preface, because these times do resemble 1973, in many other ways. In 1973, the peasants of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were, without hurling their nation into unpayable debt bondage to the IMF & Wall Street, etc, building their modern ‘heavy’ industrial base. And now in 2026, China is reinforcing its policy of rural revitalization:
*
‘A country can import technologies. It can subsidise adoption.
It can even produce impressive targets on paper. But it is
something else entirely to create a living industrial ecology
capable of reproducing & improving those technologies at scale…
The future is today… & China is building the future in plain sight’, insists Warwick Powell (see ee Focus): ‘China has not waited for a perfect future to arrive. It has been assembling it, piece by piece, inside the present’. Countries such as Sri Lanka are welcome to critically learn from the ‘practical clues’ offered by China. ‘Development is not the privilege of a few core economies but can become more widely shared.’ Indeed, while our still-colonial media & their merchant owners keep giving themselves awards, about this invention & that entrepreneur, China is dramatically showing that it is more a matter, as Marx taught, to create a system to invent inventors, to manufacture manufacturers, to machine machines! And the key to the future, as Lenin taught (& Laxapana DJ Wimalasurendra dared to attempt, yet was sabotaged a century ago) is electrification, which with Soviet power, adds up to communism (oooh, that dreaded word that still haunts the world). Powell describes China’s ‘patient construction of a new energetic basis for economic life’, and the need to ‘reduce dependence on volatile hydrocarbon chokepoints’. This certainly explains why the USA (& their killer pit bulls & poodles) are all in an almighty hurry to smash any attempts to do so. China is a threat indeed. A threat to the old yet dominant unequal order. It is the threat of a good example!
*
• The secret, yet not-so-secret meeting of the 99.99%-exclusively white Bilderberg Group (who claims to be a ‘Shadow World Government’) took place, minus mass-media coverage, at the USA’s Salamander Washington DC hotel, from April 9-12 (see ee Random Notes). Those Bilderberg members who have visited Sri Lanka in the recent past, include US Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander, US Indo-Pacific Command, who is in charge of realizing US plans for war on China. He visited Lanka last March (see ee 22 March 2025) and was welcomed by US envoy Ju Chung to ‘Reaffirm our bilateral defense partnership with Sri Lanka’. Paparo was more recently fronted by US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler who visited Sri Lanka from 19-21 February, just before the US ambush outside Galle of the Iranian ship Dena
Another Bilderberg attendee was the lost-AfroGuyanese David Lammy, appointed England’s Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice & Deputy PM. Lammy visited SL in February this year (see ee 21 Feb 2026). It was Lammy, who as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs who, in March 2025, imposed sanctions on former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Shavendra Silva, former Commander of the Navy Wasantha Karannagoda, former Commander of the Army Jagath Jayasuriya, as well as Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, aka Karuna Amman. Lammy’s purported February visit was to sign an agreement on the Charter for the Global Campaign on Children’s Care. Lammy has pointedly ignored the LTTE’s use of children as cannon fodder. Lammy met President Dissanayake with English High Commissioner Andrew Patrick, Principal Private Secretary Ben Archibald, Head of the Deputy PM’s International Unit David Meyer, Special Adviser Fiona Meagher and Deputy Head of Mission Theresa O’Mahony. It was Lammy who had to announce that England was ‘giving up’ sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, in a deal that would allow people displaced decades ago to return home while England retains use of the English-US military base on Diego Garcia – the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Lammy baldly claimed (he’s also bald) this deal was to prevent the Indian Ocean from being used as ‘a dangerous illegal migration route’. Imagine that! The new ‘agreement secured’ the rights of England to operate a military base at Diego Garcia for at least the next 99 years. England’s Foreign Office said, ‘the status of the base will be undisputed and legally secure following a political agreement between the 2 countries’.
Another Bilderberger, Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski, attended with his US wife Anne Applebaum: a Staff Writer with the US lip-service The Atlantic. Sikorski visited Sri Lanka last May (see ee 31 May 2025). He met President AK Dissanayake, accompanied by yappy EU Ambassador Carmen Moreno. ee then noted that he was an apparent expert on, and sympathizer of, terrorist acts, if not a planner of terrorism himself. The visit was purportedly due to Poland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. After ‘some mysterious someone’ blew up on 26 Sept 2022 the NordStream pipelines supplying Russian gas to Germany, this funny Pole Sikorski infamously tweeted with an aerial photo of gas billowing to the Baltic Sea surface with a simple ‘Thank you, USA.’ Hours later he followed up with a tweet that Ukraine & the Baltic states had opposed NordStream’s construction for 20 years.
Other Bilderbergers, who have not visited Sri Lanka, publicly at least, but are linked to SL, include Dutchman Rolly van Rappard, Co-founder & Chair of the US Citibank agency CVC Capital Partners. CVC bought Ekaterra, the former tea division of Unilever, after the MNC’s supposed withdrawal from tea plantation management in Kenya, etc, while James Finlay’s plantations were sold to the almost-equally notorious Sri Lanka finance house LOLC. Another Bilderberger attendee was France’s Valérie Baudson, CEO of Amundi Asset Management. Amundi is part of a ‘Steering Committee’ of a so-called ‘Ad-hoc Group of Bondholders’ who own about 40% of $12.55bn of defaulted bonds, while a ‘Local Consortium of Sri Lanka (LCSL)’, with 11 members including banks, have around 12%. The Steering Committee is made of funds managed or advised by Amundi Asset Management, Barings, BlackRock & its subsidiaries (see ee 30 Nov 2024).
*
‘The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed
Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world
…& also divide the Africans against the Asians.’
– ee Sovereignty, Zionist Logic, Malcolm X, 1964
*
‘In the west, nothing is true, everything is plausible’
– US Diplomat, Charles Freeman, CGTN, 17 April
*
‘Everything is permitted, nothing is possible’
– Michel Clouscard, On ‘Liberal’ Capitalism
*
There were many real-world movers and shakers missing from that Bilderberg fete: like Kyle Haustveit, US Undersecretary for Hydrocarbons & Geothermal Energy, who recently grabbed Venezuela’s oil for Rockefeller’s Exxon-Chevron, and then released that country from banking sanctions (see ee Sovereignty, Venezuela, Chevron Signs Key Deal to Boost Energy Sector). But what is really curious is how the media plays the anti-Jew game blaming Israel for the US invasions, when in fact it is the US, EU & England that fund & feed the white settler state of Israel. True, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbies US politicians, also funds the ‘Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific Caucus, the Republican & Democratic Parties (see ee Who’s Who). But what about the USA’s Oil, Mining, Weapons, Pharma multinationals, etc., who profit massively from these wars? They fund Israel, and AIPAC just returns some of it as bribes to the USA. England & Europe and other white colonies are acting coy about their involvement in US wars. Meanwhile, ‘German men must ask army for permission to leave the country for over 3 months under new rules.’ They are all preparing for war, and want recruits… Sustainable means sustaining if not accelerating imperialism! Worldly shadows indeed!
*
‘Trump’s flurry of positive claims lifted the stock market while
oil prices slumped. That may well have been its sole purpose:
‘Breaking: Just 20 minutes before Trump’s announcement that
the Strait of Hormuz was open, massive trades hit the market.
Investors sold a combined 7,990 lots of Brent crude futures, a
$760mn bet that oil would go down. These orders were
much larger than anything else at the time. The traders made
huge gains.’ Soon after Trump’s victory jump Iranian officials
stepped in to counter his claims.’ – see ee Sovereignty,
Trump Claims Victory, Lays Grounds to Resume Fighting
*
Two Indian-flagged vessels attempting to sneak through the Strait of Hormuz northeast of Oman were fired at by the Iranian navy on Saturday – Indian media reports citing unnamed ‘sources’, claim no one was injured, yet they are not clear if the ships were damaged (see ee Sovereignty, NDTV). The 2 ships were forced to turn back. New Delhi has conveyed ‘India’s deep concern’ to the Iranian ambassador. Observers claim India’s foreign ministry may be ruing their government’s decision to declare their ‘eternal’ support to Zionist Israel, immediately before the USA attacked Iran. Both the Indian & Sri Lankan governments have also been accused of colluding with the USA to ambush the Iranian navy training ship IRIS Dena. India had invited the Dena to participate in friendly exercises. Sri Lanka’s National Joint Committee (NJC) has called on the government to seek compensation for both the terrible human costs and environmental damage caused by the US ambush of the unarmed Dena just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters and within its Exclusive Economic Zone, on 4 March (see ee Random Notes).
India denies reports that the USA used the ceasefire negotiations to reload guided missile destroyers in India, and return to their theater of war. Once India joins the white war on West Asia, they will try to pull Sri Lanka in too. The US -India Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) is one of the 3 major foundational agreements which facilitates the exchange of logistics between military forces of the 2 nations, permitting the military forces of each country to resupply and replenish, and stage operations out of the other’s military air bases, land facilities, and ports. Sri Lanka too has signed agreements on such ‘logistics’. It is unlikely Sri Lanka or India will be allowed to use US facilities to launch wars in the Atlantic or Pacific, so these agreements suggest the USA is about to drag us into their maneuvers in the ocean call Indian (for now; what we call the Golu Muhudha, and others called the Erythraean – Red – Sea).
After creating a hornets’ nest midst their annihilation in West Asia, ensuring it will take years to rebuild, the USA is slowly retreating, not into its ‘Western Hemisphere’ which it claims as exclusively its own, but further towards Sri Lanka. We cannot allow them to postpone our independence for another century.
*
‘The proprietors had a scant regard for truth & justice;
a compulsion to pay labourers for work done
seemed to them a strange injunction.’
The man who would be anointed the ‘Father of Ceylon Planters’, Robert Boyd Tytler, entered Ceylon from Jamaica in 1840 carrying a copy of the white French ‘refugee’ PJ Laborie‘s classic Coffee Planter of Santo Domingo (1798). Laborie, had fled the first successful revolution by enslaved Africans in Haiti, begun in 1791. His book recommended: ‘Punishments must be certain, immediately inflicted, proportionable to the fault, and never excessive. Racks, tortures, mayhems, mutilations, & death are reserved for crimes of an atrocious nature, and fall only within the province of the public magistrate: through perhaps more speedy executions, and particularly on the spot, would have more striking effect.’ Laborie’s book was immediately excerpted in Ceylon Miscellany Vol 1 (1842, which included ‘The wild elephant & the method of capturing & taming it in Ceylon’) and became ‘the authority on all that relates to Coffee planting’. Thus the English transferred their expertise from the enslaved plantations of the Americas, introducing ‘The West Indian System’.
This ee indeed offers a brief history of the laws governing waged workers in Sri Lanka, continuing reproduction of SBD de Silva’s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. In this Chapter 9, de Silva continues to detail how those workers hired were consistently not paid, even whipped for demanding payment. He demolished sociologists’ theories about ‘ethnicity’ & ‘indifference to money’ in trying to explain the Sinhala aversion to working of the estates, and the English resort to entrapping workers from India. The Sinhala soon preferred working on contract & piecework. He pointed out that the official English reports are easier to understand than academic prevarications.
The robbery of land & mistreatment of workers led even the colonial governor & ‘butcher of 1848’ Torrington to write to the colonial secretary Lord Grey: ‘Our plantation estates are a source of deadly hatred to the hill country people (Kandyans).’ In this ee, SBD detailed how the English feared the planters’ delays & non-payment of wages would jeopardize labour recruitment to the plantations, as ‘Ceylon had got a bad name and migration had fallen’ due to indebtedness and delays in wage payments. Such practices led to the Cooly Wages Ordinanceof 1884, and a Commission of Inquiry in 1908. These recommended a ‘statutory payday so as to reduce the labourer’s recourse to credit’ on the basis of planter’s promise to pay. The robbery of wages were noted by colonial agents and police and courts, who were also fooled, or let themselves to be fooled, with workers lacking legal advice and the laws themselves full of loopholes, lacking ‘teeth’ (see ee Focus).
We should add that, when Tytler arrived in 1840 there was a ‘fevered cry’ about ‘where shall I go for land’, which led to more robbery of land from the Sinhala, with the collusion of English officials: ‘Land became a commodity to be bought and sold’, and a flourishing land market was set up. The Crown Lands Ordinance Act (plus the 1897 Waste Lands Ordinance No 1) demanded people to produce land title, thus 1,000s lost their lands to judges and other officials. Access to forests and common land was also restricted, called ‘crown’ land. The Sinhala peasants were hemmed in and pauperized. Peasants started to sell chena land to speculators. 1930: 2.5 million acres of land had been robbed. Deforestation for plantations turned waterfalls into trickles, rivers became narrower, rain decreased, landslides increased… which reminds: Unilever, or CVC Capital, etc, should pay compensation for the erosions that enabled cyclone Ditwah’s destructions…
Did no one tell President Trump who sent shock waves around the world when he claimed that he would ‘destroy a civilization overnight’ that the Straits of Hormuz controlled and bordered by Iran, is an integral part of the vast Indian Ocean’s energy superhighway? The Sea Silk Route of yore connected the maritime regions and heartlands of the Supercontinent of Asia for millennia – long before the United States was thought of, let alone came into existence a mere 250 years ago.
Did no one tell Trump that blockading Indian Ocean sea lanes in the Asian 21st Century was a very bad idea– for everyone? Indeed, do Trump’s advisors have a grasp of Asian and Indian Ocean World history and geography? Or, are they sold on their own propaganda about a non-existent Indo-Pacific”, a US intelligence Think Tank neologism contrived to Divide and Rule the Indian Ocean World?
The Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea are all in the Indian Ocean and integral to the ancient and modern maritime Silk Route that ran from China in the East to South Africa in the West. Indeed, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for Global Connectivity and infrastructure development traverse parts of the maritime sea Silk Routes forged through Monsoon rains and winds, which long ago knit the regions of the Supercontinent of Asia with East Africa and the peninsular of Europe.
Many World Systems historians and theorists who study the long arc of history have noted that we are once again in the Asian Century. The American Century is almost done and dusted. Still, President Trump is putting up a valiant fight to save face and defend the exorbitantly privileged dollar by oil grabbing and seeking to controlling energy trade routes. To succeed, Trump and his Secretaries of State and War, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegeseth, would do well to learn some Asian and Indian Ocean history and geography. Asian Philosophy may help them come to terms with the fact that nothing is permanent.
Partition of the Indian Ocean World to Divide and Rule: No Indo-Pacific
Trump appears to have stumbled into an Indian Ocean World whose history and geography his advisors had little knowledge of — notwithstanding attempts by US intelligence think tanks to Partition the Indian Ocean via the ‘Indo-Pacific’ neologism, ironically with the collaboration of Indian counterparts in Delhi
The ‘Indo-Pacific’ neologism connotes the Partition of the ancient and modern Indian Ocean WORLD in order to divide, rule and recolonize it at the center–with the eastern reach of the Indian Ocean yoked to the American Pacific. To divide and rule the Indian Ocean Sea Lanes that European maritime empires fought over in order to loot the wealth of Asian Civilizations, the US has created a layered India-centered Security Architecture: The QUAD in the Eastern Indian Ocean and 12U2 in the western Indian Ocean, of which more later.
The QUAD and I2U2 are in turn supervised and controlled by the White AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) Nuclear Submarine Club, the rump of the vanished British Empires’ Old Commonwealth.
Together the QUAD, I2U2, and AUKUS are an elaborate security architecture to contain the Rise of Asia, particularly China in the Asian Century. While China remains the focus, Iran and other Asian Powers, including Russia in the Indian Ocean are also targets.
The Janus-faced behavior of India with the US dominated QUAD and I2U2, on the one hand and BRICS on the other hand, as India tries to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare, means that it has all but lost face and betrayed the Global South which it once aspired to lead.
Let us be crystal clear at this time: There is no such thing as the ‘Indo-Pacific’; the QUAD, I2U2 and AUKUS notwithstanding.
Moreover, the United States which is in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has No Right to bring its environment-polluting war machine to the Indian Ocean World, which belongs to littoral States of the Indian Ocean who were part of the world’s oldest and wealthiest maritime trade system. Nor does the US have the right under the guise of its free and open Indo-Pacific neologism to control IO sea lanes and intra-Asian energy shipments.
The Indian Ocean World was colonized, partitioned, divided and ruled in for three centuries by competing European maritime empires skilled in weaponizing ethno-religious identity politics. While subsequent de-colonization, independence and national liberation struggles swept Asia and Africa in the aftermath of World War 2, the Indian Ocean remained more or less colonized, controlled and occupied by UK, France and later US military bases, given technological advantage.
The Indian Ocean remains to be decolonized at this time. However, India has become irrelevant in the struggle of Indian Ocean countries to liberate their seas and marine resources, fisheries and seabed minerals, from Euro-American occupation and exploitation.
India once partitioned by Britain and now, dubbed the BRICS spoiler, has been conspicuously silent about Trump’s excursion to oil grab in Iran and blockade in the Indian Ocean sea lanes for Energy Colonialism. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Tel Aviv to flag off the illegal Israeli-US war on Iran.
No doubt Delhi is now smarting given the prominence of Pakistan in Islamabad Peace negotiations. Just deserts.
Enter China Exit India
Modi’s India with Foreign Minister Jaishankar focused on perpetual colonial era conflicts with Northern neighbors, China and Pakistan, are widely perceived to have betrayed India’s claims to be a leader of the Global South, as well as, the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which declared the Indian Ocean as a ‘Zone of Peace’.
Rather, New Delhi has led the rush to militarize the Indian Ocean disregarding the environmental impacts of militarization particularly on impoverished littoral countries and fisheries communities.
Is it not time now for Delhi to move on from its bittern conflicts and rivalries with Pakistan and China, which are no doubt fanned by Euro-American divide and rule neocolonial machinations, in order to enter the Asian 21st Century?
Instead, land-locked and brain-washed Delhi appears to have given step-motherly treatment not only to the Global South but also to the interests of its Southern States – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra and Karnataka which face the Indian Ocean.
Intent on containing China in partnership with USA, India appears to have relinquished the interests of her Southern Dravidian States and smaller Indian Ocean countries as well as the South Asia neighbourhood, giving precedence to America’s neo-imperialist security architecture in the Indian Ocean, over fisheries livelihoods and de-colonizing the Indian Ocean which is looted by distant water fishing states, particularly France, Spain, Japan, EU, Taiwan, China.
India has prioritized security alliances with the US and its proxies in East and West Asia, and membership of QUAD (Australia, Japan, India and USA), and the I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE and USA), a US security architecture designed to Partition the Indian Ocean world, and divide and rule it.
The India-US security collaboration moreover appears to sustain Petrodollar energy colonialism and stymies the attempts of BRICS and Global South countries to de-dollarize and escape the Eurobond Debt trap that is being deepened with IMF reforms of Energy Sector in countries like Sri Lanka, in turn deepening Energy Colonialism.
The question now is: Will Xi’s China, the Superpower located at the far-eastern corner of the Indian Ocean World, understandably averse to carrying the mantle of ‘Superpower’ unlike Trump’s America, intervene with other Asian civilizational powers to help the crashing, flailing, violent and dangerous US hegemon come in for a soft landing and exit the Indian Ocean with its Armada?
Remarkably, the I2U2 in the Western Indian Ocean, the QUAD to the East, and the AUKUS Nuclear Sub Club to contain the Rise of Asia and ensure Christian Zionist hegemony in the Indian Ocean World seem to be going nowhere at this time– much like BRICS with its Saffron tinted partner, Modi’s India, the current Chair?
Sri Lanka is now gripped by a new illusion—that artificial intelligence can somehow compensate for decades of poor decision-making, weak policy frameworks, and a chronic inability to act on opportunity.
It cannot.
Artificial intelligence is not a magician. It is not a policymaker. It is not a visionary. It is, at best, a tool that amplifies the quality of thinking fed into it. And in Sri Lanka’s case, that is precisely the problem—there has been very little structured thinking to amplify.
Take Trincomalee.
For over half a century, experts, engineers, and maritime professionals have identified Trincomalee as one of the greatest natural harbors in the world—strategically positioned to become a global hub for offshore industry, energy logistics, bunkering, and ship repair. This is not speculation. This is a fact known even during colonial times.
Yet what has Sri Lanka done?
Nothing of consequence.
Instead, we have watched governments parade empty rhetoric while systematically failing to convert this strategic asset into an economic engine. No coherent offshore development plan. No serious FDI framework. No urgency. No accountability.
At the same time, Hambantota was handed over on a platter—without a competitive long-term vision, without leveraging geopolitical advantage, and without extracting maximum strategic value. Today, policymakers still speak of expanding container operations there, as if repeating the same narrative will somehow produce a different outcome.
Meanwhile, Trincomalee remains underutilized, under-promoted, and politically neglected.
And now, in the middle of this failure, comes the latest distraction—AI-generated policy discussions.
Let us be clear:
AI cannot fix intellectual laziness.
If a policymaker asks AI, How can we develop Trincomalee?” they will receive a textbook answer—generic, safe, and ultimately useless. But if they input real constraints—land acquisition issues, environmental sensitivities, investor risk perceptions, regional competition from ports like Singapore and Dubai, and the absence of bankable PPP structures—then AI can begin to produce something meaningful.
But that requires effort. It requires knowledge. It requires honesty.
Three things our system consistently avoids.
Sri Lanka’s tragedy is not a lack of opportunity—it is a refusal to engage with it seriously.
Foreign investors are not waiting for speeches. They are waiting for:
Bankable project structures
Policy consistency across political cycles
Transparent approval mechanisms
Protection from arbitrary regulatory changes
Instead, what they see is confusion, delay, and political interference.
And then we ask why FDI does not come.
The truth is uncomfortable:
Investors are not avoiding Sri Lanka. They are avoiding Sri Lanka’s decision-making culture.
Trincomalee could have been positioned today as a regional offshore hub—servicing oil and gas operations, providing bunkering facilities, supporting maritime logistics, and generating thousands of skilled jobs. It could have been the economic counterbalance to Colombo and a strategic lever in engaging both India and China competitively.
Instead, we are still discussing potential.”
This is not a policy gap.
This is a leadership failure.
Artificial intelligence will not rescue us from this reality. It will only make it more visible. When given weak inputs, it produces weak outputs—just like our institutions.
If Sri Lanka is serious about recovery, it must first abandon the illusion that tools—whether AI or otherwise—can replace disciplined thinking and decisive action.
The way forward is brutally simple:
Stop talking about Trincomalee as a concept
Start presenting it as a portfolio of investment-ready projects
Invite global investors with clarity, not confusion
And most importantly, remove political ego from economic strategy
Until then, no amount of artificial intelligence will change our trajectory.
Because the real problem is not the absence of technology.
It is the absence of courage to think and act differently.
If you want, I can push this even further— naming specific ministries, policy failures, or contrasting India’s likely strategic moves in Trincomalee vs Sri Lanka’s paralysis.
Colonial Wounds: The Untold Atrocities of the British Empire in Sri Lanka 🕯️
A story of pain, resilience, and survival. For over 150 years, the island of Sri Lanka — once a proud and sovereign land — was held under the shadow of the British Empire. Behind romanticised myths of railways, tea, and civilisation,” lies a darker truth: scorched earth campaigns, mass executions, cultural erasure, and ecological devastation.
This documentary uncovers the forgotten horrors of British colonial rule — from the Uva-Wellassa Liberation Struggle of 1818 to the massacre of elephants, and the destruction of ancient irrigation systems to the rise of resistance movements across communities.
Secret of using AI resources for somone who wants generate a assay or an article
The person should have made some technical input and past resources and data into AI search engine
Ie
I keep searching about Trinco offshore development and need for FDI for Sri Lanka and AI keep referring to same
Then only AI can provide a resourceful essay as per a request
I need AI opinion please
Unquote
By Sarath Obeysekera
In recent times, there has been a growing fascination with artificial intelligence as a tool to generate essays, policy papers, and even national strategies. Many assume that by repeatedly searching a topic—such as offshore development in Trincomalee or foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunities in Sri Lanka—AI systems will eventually learn” and produce increasingly refined outputs.
This assumption is misleading.
Artificial intelligence does not think, reflect, or accumulate wisdom through repeated prompts. It does not develop conviction about Trincomalee becoming a marine hub simply because one individual has searched for it a hundred times. Instead, AI operates as a mirror—reflecting the depth, clarity, and structure of the information provided to it at a given moment.
If the input is shallow, the output will be generic.
If the input is rich, technical, and purposeful, the output becomes insightful.
This distinction is critical for Sri Lanka, particularly at a time when the country is searching for viable economic pathways in a volatile global environment.
Take Trincomalee, for example—one of the finest natural harbors in the world, strategically positioned along major Indian Ocean shipping routes. The potential for offshore industry development, bunkering, ship repair, and energy logistics is immense. Yet, despite decades of discussion, progress has been slow, fragmented, and often politically diluted.
Now imagine two individuals asking AI to write about Trincomalee:
One simply types: Write an essay on Trincomalee development.”
Another provides context: existing port limitations, comparative analysis with regional hubs like Singapore and Dubai, policy bottlenecks, FDI barriers, and specific proposals for PPP-driven offshore infrastructure.
The difference in output will be profound.
The second individual is not using AI as a crutch, but as a collaborator—feeding it structured insight and expecting structured amplification.
This is where Sri Lanka’s policymakers, professionals, and young thinkers must adapt.
If we want AI to produce meaningful contributions to national discourse, we must first elevate our own inputs:
Provide data, not just opinions
Frame problems, not just topics
Offer solutions, not just criticism
In the context of attracting FDI to Trincomalee, this means going beyond slogans. It requires clearly defined project pipelines, bankable feasibility studies, transparent regulatory frameworks, and a willingness to engage global investors on competitive terms.
AI can help draft proposals, simulate scenarios, and refine arguments—but it cannot substitute for vision, experience, or courage in decision-making.
In fact, the real risk is not that AI will replace human thinking, but that it will expose the lack of it.
Sri Lanka does not suffer from a shortage of tools. It suffers from a shortage of structured, decisive input into those tools—whether they are institutions, policies, or technologies.
Artificial intelligence, when used correctly, can become a powerful ally in shaping the future of sectors like offshore development in Trincomalee. But only if we understand one fundamental truth:
In the 11th century, Sri Lanka fell under the shadow of the mighty Chola Empire. For seventy-seven years, the island endured foreign rule, its sacred relics hidden, its temples in ruins, and its kings dethroned. But from the jungles of Ruhuna rose a teenage prince — Kitti, later crowned Vijayabahu the Great. Through seventeen years of relentless struggle, he united his people, outwitted the Cholas in battle, and launched a three-pronged assault that ended Chola power in Lanka forever. This is the epic story of the Lion of Lanka — the only ruler in the world to completely defeat and expel the Chola Empire. ⏳
Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:38 Island in Chains 1:38 The Prince in the Wilderness 3:20 Years of Fire and Steel 4:31 The Final Campaign 5:26 Rebuilding a Nation 6:32 Legacy of the Lion 📚
References • Geiger, Wilhelm (ed. & tr.). Cūḷavaṃsa: Being the More Recent Part of the Mahāvaṃsa, Part I. Translated by C. Mabel Rickmers. Asian Educational Services, 1998 (reprint). •
Paranavitana, Senarat. Panākaduva Copper-Plate Charter of Vijayabāhu I. Epigraphia Zeylanica, Vol. V, Part I (Archaeological Survey of Ceylon, 1955), pp. 1–27. •
Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. “Vijayabāhu I, The Liberator of Laṅkā”. Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1955), p. 66 (citing Paranavitana, ASC Report 1949, para. 158).
There was a time when Norway was a modest fishing nation at the edge of Europe—cold, remote, and largely dependent on the sea. Today, Norway stands as one of the most prosperous, disciplined, and forward-thinking societies in the world.
Sri Lanka, by contrast, sits in the Indian Ocean with strategic advantages Norway never had—warm waters, global shipping lanes, fertile land, and a proud civilization. Yet, we struggle.
The convenient explanation is that Norway was lucky” to discover oil in the North Sea. But luck alone does not build a nation. Many countries have discovered oil and descended into corruption, conflict, and economic ruin. Norway made a different choice.
When oil was discovered, Norway did not rush into reckless spending. It built institutions. It created the Government Pension Fund Global—arguably the most disciplined sovereign wealth fund in the world—ensuring that oil wealth would benefit future generations, not just current politicians.
Norway taxed its resources wisely, enforced transparency, and insisted on accountability. It did not allow political patronage to swallow national wealth. It trusted systems—not personalities.
Sri Lanka’s problem is not lack of resources. It is lack of discipline in managing them.
I had the privilege of living and working in Norway. I saw firsthand a society where systems function, where rules are respected, and where public officials understand that they are custodians—not owners—of national wealth.
Inspired by that experience, I returned home, determined to contribute. I tried to introduce structured thinking, accountability, and long-term planning into our institutions. But too often, ideas are ignored, systems are resisted, and reform is suffocated by short-term political thinking.
We do not lack intellectuals. We lack the willingness to listen to them.
We do not lack opportunities. We lack the courage to act on them.
Take our maritime sector. Sri Lanka sits astride one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. We could have built a marine and offshore hub rivaling global centers. We could have developed Trincomalee into an energy and logistics powerhouse. Instead, we debate, delay, and dilute.
Norway did not become Norway because it was perfect. It became Norway because it made hard decisions early—and stuck to them.
Sri Lanka, unfortunately, has perfected the art of avoiding hard decisions.
If we are serious about progress, we must adopt a few non-negotiable principles:
National resources must be managed transparently and professionally
Political interference in economic institutions must be minimized
Long-term planning must replace short-term populism
Merit must replace patronage
Most importantly, we must cultivate a culture that respects systems over individuals.
This is not about copying Norway. It is about learning from it.
I could have stayed in Norway and enjoyed the benefits of a well-managed society. Instead, I returned, believing that Sri Lanka too could rise with the right leadership and discipline.
That belief still remains—but it is being tested.
Sri Lanka does not need sympathy. It needs honesty.
Clear Japan’s name from the records of the Tokyo Trials (1946 – 1948) of committing war crimes – A moral challenge for Sri Lanka to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of International Criminal Law as a follow up to J.R.Jayewardene’s breathtaking plea for love and compassion to be shown to Japan at San Francisco (1951)
AI Response
The call to clear Japan’s name from the records of the Tokyo Trials (1946–1948) is a perspective argued by some, notably spearheaded by Sri Lankan voices like attorney Senaka Weeraratna, who framed the Tokyo Trial as a “victor’s justice” and “Kangaroo Court”. This movement suggests that the Tokyo Trial, or the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), was fundamentally flawed, functioning as a weapon of the allied powers rather than an impartial instrument of justice.
This argument often builds upon the historic plea made by J.R. Jayewardene at the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference, which laid the foundation for post-war reconciliation and challenged the continued demonization of Japan.
The Critique of the Tokyo Trials (1946 – 1948)
“Victors’ Justice”: Critics argue the tribunal was a product of the United States, which supplied the funds, staff, and chief prosecutor, leading to a biased, one-sided prosecution.
Dissident Judgment of Justice Pal: Indian Justice Radhabinod Pal, a member of the tribunal, provided a strong dissenting opinion, arguing that the entire prosecution case was weak regarding the charge of “conspiracy to commit an act of aggressive war,” and he felt the tribunal lacked legitimacy.
Exoneration of Key Perpetrators: Emperor Hirohito and members of the imperial family were spared prosecution for political convenience. Furthermore, Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731, received immunity in exchange for data on horrific human medical experimentation.
No Asian Judge at Start: Despite being held in Asia regarding Asian nations, the tribunal initially included only one Asian judge, with the power structure being starkly imbalanced resting with Western victors.It led to arguments that it criminalized the struggle against Western dominance in Asia while upholding the territorial claims of European empires.
J.R. Jayewardene’s 1951 Plea: A Moral Stand At the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Finance Minister J.R. Jayewardene delivered a breathtaking speech that shifted global perception of Japan.
“Hatred Ceases Not by Hatred”: Quoting the Buddha’s teachings, Jayewardene argued for the rehabilitation of Japan, not its continued punishment, renouncing war reparations to ensure a free and independent Japan.
Impact: His speech is credited with swaying the opinion of several countries demanding strict sanctions against Japan and helping Japan reintegrate into the international community.
Hypocrisy and Double Standards of International Criminal Law Critics arguing for the clearing of Japan’s name point to the double standards inherent in the postwar legal structure:
Immunity for Allied Crimes: Atrocities committed by Allied forces were generally ignored, creating a “victor’s justice” scenario.
Retroactive Charges: The charge of “crimes against peace” was largely retroactively applied, as there was no clear consensus on the legality of war as an “instrument of national policy” before the conflict.
Contextualizing War Crimes: Proponents of this view argue that Japan’s actions, while brutal, occurred within a context of attempting to liberate Asia from Western colonial domination.
No Asian country can afford to ignore the blood sacrifices made by Japanese soldiers for the liberation of Asia during WW2. In 1939 the whole of Asia bar Japan and Siam (now Thailand) was under occupation by western colonial countries. Within 20 years of the end of WW2 the majority of Asian countries had gained independence.
” The impact of Asia’s liberation, which Japan had won at such a high price, was soon felt on the African continent as well. The peoples of Africa, who had been oppressed by Western powers, achieved their independence, one after another. Japan played a monumental role in human history. Today’s world of racial equality was forged through battles fought by Japan”. Hideaki Kase
Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara made the following observation in 1995 ” Many Westerners act as if Human Rights are their moral ace in the hole, until their abysmal record in Asia is cited, and their position collapses like a pack of cards”.
Heramba Lal Gupta, one of the leaders of the Indian Independence Movement, gave the following speech in 1946: ” I think that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East will surely be re-evaluated by the nations of Asia by the time we enter the twenty-first century, and then, a second Tokyo Trial will be held where Asia and all the world will regain its good sense and will judge all deeds in a fair, equal, and truthful manner. At that time, all the war heroes of the United States and of the great powers of Europe, who have been committing acts of aggression against Asia for many years, will receive stern punishments. Conversely, the Japanese who were accused of serious crimes by the IMTFE, especially the seven killed as Class A war criminals, will be rehabilitated, and the day may come when they shall be worshipped like gods as the saviors of Asia. That is what should rightfully happen.”
In every aspect of the Tokyo Trials, there was unfairness and perversion of justice to achieve both political and unlawful objectives. Basically, the trials were one-sided and lacked even the trappings of Justice.
A survey of Courts set up by colonial authorities all over the world in European colonies to try freedom fighters, whether they be black, brown, yellow, or even white, shows a remarkable consistency in the manipulation of justice to serve the political ends of colonial rulers.
Enlightened leaders of Asia drawn from various professional and academic backgrounds must convene a Tribunal of Judges (like the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal which works like a court of conscience rather than as a UN-Backed body that has powers to enforce its determinations) to re-examine the verdicts of these so-called ‘Tokyo Trials’ and set aside the flawed judgments as unacceptable as they constitute a travesty of justice.
‘Asia for Asians’ is not a slogan of the past. It has power and relevance in this ‘ Asian Century ‘. It is Asia’s turn to ensure Justice for its fellow Asians. There is no greater feat of Justice in Asia than to have a Re – Trial for the wrongfully convicted Japanese leaders by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Even the dead are entitled to be exonerated from false charges and wrongful convictions.
The Challenge for Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka must take up the leadership in this high stakes moral endeavour to restore confidence in ‘ Even Justice ‘ rather than in the hollow ‘ Victor’s Justice’ exercise. As a follow-up to Jayewardene’s 1951 stance, Sri Lanka has a unique moral authority to lead a campaign to re-evaluate the historical records of the Tokyo Trials, arguing that true justice requires recognizing the flaws in the Victors’ Justice of 1946-1948, just as J.R. Jayewardene recognized the need to move beyond hatred in 1951.
Trump’s warning that a whole civilization will die tonight” was more than bluster—it was a reckless invocation of nuclear destruction that shattered diplomatic norms and reignited questions about his fitness to command American power
It is hard to exaggerate the dire implications of Trump’s April 7 post on Truth Social, stating that a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if no deal is reached with Iran. Such a damning statement implies that he would use ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ i.e., nuclear, to execute his threat. Obviously, he cannot destroy such a huge country and annihilate a population of 95 million with conventional weapons. Even though Trump was unlikely to carry out his threat, what he said was not taken lightly by either Iran or much of the international community.
International Outrage Over Trump’s Threat Trump’s outrageous statement has drawn an extraordinary wave of condemnation, from Tehran to the Vatican to international rights bodies.
Amnesty International’s Secretary General denounced Trump’s screed as an apocalyptic threat,” warning that his vow to end a whole civilization” exposes a staggering level of cruelty and disregard for human life” and should trigger urgent global action to prevent atrocity crimes. Pope Leo XIV called the language truly unacceptable,” and UK Prime Minister Starmer condemned Trump’s threat, stating that they are not words I would use — ever use — because I come at this with our British values and principles.”
Together, these reactions, among many others, underscore that Trump’s rhetoric is not being treated as mere bombast, but a genocidal threat that shreds basic norms of international law.
Iranian Officials’ Reaction to Trump’s Statements The Iranian Embassy in Pakistan mocked the idea that Trump could erase a culture that survived Alexander and the Mongols, insisting that civilizations are not born over a night and will not die over a night.” Trump’s vows to bring [Iranians] back to the Stone Ages” and to let a whole civilization…die” have, indeed, landed in Tehran not as an outburst. Iranian leaders are treating this language as an open admission of an intent to commit war crimes—and they are already treating it as a narrative of existential struggle with Washington.
In the hands of the Revolutionary Guard, the Stone Age” threat becomes a propaganda gift: it is proof, they claim, that the United States does not merely oppose the regime, but dreams of erasing an entire people. The IRGC’s response has been defiant rather than cowed, promising stronger, wider, and more destructive” retaliation and signaling that any American escalation will be met in kind.
To be sure, many Iranian leaders see Trump’s posts as desperate brinkmanship—a schoolyard bully bluffing nuclear annihilation he cannot deliver. That interpretation may calm nerves around the country, but it might also tempt Tehran to call his bluff, raising the risk of miscalculation. Under any circumstance, Trump has provided Iran’s rulers the opportunity to claim that any concession wrung from Washington under such apocalyptic pressure is not capitulation. Still, Iran’s millennium-old history attests that these proud people with the richest civilization will not succumb to any threat.
The Iranian Public’s Reaction
Trump’s promise to hit Iran extremely hard” also operates as psychological warfare against an already exhausted society. They place the threat of physical destruction on top of years of sanctions, economic meltdown, and repression. For many Iranians, especially parents and the elderly, hearing a US president casually warn that a whole civilization will die tonight” converts abstract geopolitics into an intimate dread they can imagine and quantify: hospitals without power, children without food and water, people starving to death, and cities lying in ruins.
This deepens their anxiety, concerns, and a sense that they are being collectively punished for decisions made by a mad authoritarian whose genocidal tone hardens a defensive nationalism. Even the Iranians who despise the regime still view the threat as an assault on a 3,000 year old culture. They would rally around the flag, as they see their own lives as expendable in a struggle where the alternative, as Trump himself spells out, is civilizational extinction.
On the Iranian street and in the diaspora, one hears echoes of Trump’s rhetoric triggering a volatile mix of fear, fury, and contempt that the regime can readily weaponize. For some Iranians, talk of a civilization” dying reopens the psychic wounds of crippling sanctions and war, making American threats feel dreadfully real, not figurative. For others, it’s an insufferable insult to an ancient culture that predates the United States by millennia, reinforcing national pride and engendering support even among critics of the clerics.
Trump’s Fitness to Command American Power These Iranian reactions rebound into US politics because a president whose threats are interpreted abroad as genocidal, unhinged, or clearly insane is not projecting resolve but publicizing volatility and strategic incoherence. This inevitably undermines deterrence and hands Iran both a recruitment tool and a pretext for escalation if they must.
On the home front, the perception of a man on the loose feeds directly into already fierce debates over Trump’s mental fitness to command American power—arming critics who argue that his apocalyptic language is not just morally repugnant but operationally unthinkable. This led even some Republicans and national security conservatives to ask whether a commander in chief who casually talks of destroying a civilization” and whose finger is on the nuclear button can be trusted with the judgment, discipline, and national security on which the US ultimately depends.
When a president of the United States threatens that a whole civilization will die, the world must listen—not because the threat is necessarily credible, but because it exposes the peril of letting unrestrained rhetoric shape global realities. Trump’s words are not the tantrum of a man out of power; they echo a worldview that wields extinction as diplomacy and gambles civilization itself for theatrical dominance and projection of raw power.
Trump’s declaration that millions might perish is not merely the ravings of an unbalanced mind—it is a chilling testament to how easily words can imperil peace when uttered by one who commands the world’s most formidable military. His invocation of civilizational death transcends political recklessness; it reveals a moral collapse that renders him ominously unfit to wield influence over American power and global order.
There seems to be no level of disgrace that Trump will not embrace. One day, he threatens to wipe out a whole civilization and exterminate 95 million Iranians; the next, he portrays himself in an AI-generated image as Jesus Christ-like savior healing the sick—a blasphemy that only Trump can commit, debasing the exalted and sublime values of Christianity only to feed his sick soul.
What was once dismissed as bluster must now be recognized for what it is—a warning that when dangerous mendacity meets bottomless ego, humanity itself becomes collateral. The world cannot allow a madman’s narrative to become the language of statecraft.
____________
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.alon@alonben-meir.com
Future legal proceedings will target all individuals involved in coal scams, with cases filed in court under a subsequent administration, says National Freedom Front leader Wimal Weerawansa.
He made these remarks during a press conference held in Colombo today.
This is the first bilateral official visit of an Indian Vice President to the island nation. Though, in October 2000, the then V-P Krishan Kant had visited Sri Lanka, it was for the state funeral of former PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Vice President C P Radhakrishnan will begin an official visit to Sri Lanka on Sunday, his office announced on Saturday. During the two-day visit, Radhakrishnan will call on Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Disanayaka, and also meet Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya.
During the two-day official visit, the first by an Indian vice-president to the island nation, he will also interact with leaders of the Indian-origin Tamil community and Tamil leaders from the Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka, as per his office.
Later in the day, the vice president will address the Indian diaspora at a community event in Colombo, where he will virtually hand over houses to beneficiaries from Tamil communities, built with assistance from the Indian government as part of the third phase of the Indian Housing Project.
With this, the total number of houses for Tamil communities will reach 50,000, while 10,000 more houses are being built in the fourth phase of the project, the statement mentioned.
Explained
Keeping the promise
India’s development cooperation with Sri Lanka stands out as one of the most important pillars of the bilateral relationship. The Indian government has been carrying out people-oriented development projects across the 25 districts of Sri Lanka, with the construction of 60,000 houses under the four phases of Indian Housing Project at a total cost of more than Rs 1,800 crore – among the largest grant assistance projects. The fourth phase, covering 10,000 houses for plantation sector workers, follows an announcement made by PM Modi in May 2017.
On Monday, the vice president will travel to Nuwara Eliya, visit the Indian Housing Projects, and interact with the local Tamil community. Indian-origin Tamilians comprise approximately 1.6 million (about 7%) of Sri Lanka’s population.
This visit, which follows recent high-level engagements between the two countries, is expected to further strengthen the millennia-old civilisational and people-to-people ties between India and Sri Lanka, the statement said.
This is the first bilateral official visit of the Vice President of India to Sri Lanka. In October 2000, the then Vice President Krishan Kant had visited Sri Lanka for the state funeral of former PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
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High-level engagements between the two countries have taken place in the recent past, with President Disanayaka visiting India in February, and PM Amarasuriya visiting India in October 2025. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had three telephonic conversations with President Disanayaka: in April 2025, in the aftermath of Pahalgam terror attack; in December 2025, post Cyclone Ditwah; and just last month, to discuss the West Asia conflict.
In the wake of widespread devastation in Sri Lanka due to Cyclone Ditwah in November 2025, New Delhi had announced immediate and multi-sectoral assistance for relief and rescue under Operation Sagar Bandhu. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had visited Sri Lanka and announced a $450 million package for rebuilding and rehabilitation.
Earlier, India has been the ‘first responder’ for Sri Lanka with Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard assisting in Sri Lankan waters to avert large-scale environmental damage incidents such as MV XPress Pearl in May 2021 and MT New Diamond in September 2020.
The United States Armada seems stranded half way around the world in the Indian Ocean whose energy trade routes it seeks to blockade to stymie Asian economies amid the fog of war on Iran. In the western reach of the vast Indian Ocean (IO), far from home bases in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the American Armada assembled against Iran is spilling blood and treasure that the US can ill afford.
South and Southeast Asia, and China, the workshop of the world, are global growth hubs at this time. Perhaps President Trump reckons that by starving these economies of fuel and fertilizer from West Asia he may Make America Great Again” (MAGA), and shore up the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar? The oil backed US greenback’s global reserve currency status is under pressure given America’s whopping 39 trillion deficit and the rise of the Chinese Petro Yuan.
The US war machine is trying valiantly to blockade the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman in the Arabian Sea, all of which are part of the ancient Indian Ocean maritime Silk Route. This sea silk route connected the supercontinent of Asia and its civilizations for millennia- long before the United States came into existence in the new world. These past and present Asian Sea Lanes, are part of the modern Chinese Belt and Road (BRI) for global connectivity, and constitute the world’s Superhighway for energy, trade and submarine data cable routes.
It was at the center of the same Indian Ocean in the Seas of Sri Lanka that a US torpedo sank the IRIS Dena, killing 84 Iranian sailors, while causing environmental damage and affecting local fisheries and tourist livelihoods in the first week of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Does Trump reckon that he may shore up the exorbitantly privileged US Petrodollar through energy colonialism and occupation of Indian Ocean SLOC; including oil grabbing, energy infrastructure destruction, and taxing global supply routes while playing war games targeting with Middle East proxy, Israel?
Indian Ocean Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC), forged and traversed by monsoon winds and rains, have been increasingly subject to geoengineering, staged climate disasters and weather warfare, a la Operation Popeye during the Vietnam War. This was evident in a series of devastating twister storms unleashed last year on Aceh, North Sumatra at the Strait of Malacca Choke point and Sri Lanka, another SLOC chokepoint. The US and UK occupy the Chagos Island with the Diego Garcia military base due southwest of Sri Lanka at the center of the IO.
With fuel prices through the roof and blackouts in many monsoon Asia countries, ridding the Indian Ocean of the US war machine and sending the American Armada back to the Atlantic Ocean is now a priority. Demilitarizing and shutting down foreign, mainly Euro-American military bases to end neocolonial occupation and looting of fisheries and sea bed mineral resources which belong to the littoral peoples of the Indian Ocean World is increasingly a security priority -to return to a modicum of Peace and Prosperity in the region.
Across maritime Asia there is a growing perception that America, an Atlantic and Pacific Ocean county has no right to be blockading the SLOC of the Indian Ocean with an environment despoiling war machine, of aircraft carriers, submarines, missiles, bombs, drone warfare and other environment despoiling war toys.
Imperial Overreach? Oil Grabbing in Venezuela, Iran, blockading Cuba
With the US Armada treading water in the Indian Ocean to blockade Iranian ports, a Russian tanker recently bought oil to Cuba in the Caribbean Sea – off the coast of Florida. The Socialist government of Cuba had been long sanctioned, and is now blockaded, starved of fuel and strangled by the Trump regime. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State seeks regime change in his country of ancestral origin, much as happened earlier this year in Venezuela and Iran.
Russia discreetly stated that the oil delivery to Cuba which has suffered extended blackouts was a ‘humanitarian’ gesture. The Russian tanker, Anatoly Kolodkin docked in Cuba in late March 2026, delivering approximately 730,000 barrels of crude oil to the Port of Matanzas.
Shades of American Imperial Overstretch: Has President Trump’s operation Epic Fury to oil-grab in Iran, fresh from the oil-grab in Venezuela to control global oil supply, markets and pricing to shore up the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar come a cropper in the Indian Ocean? Meanwhile, Iran allied Yemeni Houthis (Ansarallah) have also threatened to block the Red Sea !
Trump lifted sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil earlier this month only to do a volte face, moving to blockade the Straits of Hormuz and Indian Ocean energy trade routes. Are the flip-flops and Disinformation meant to distract from attempts to take down the Asian Century, while pumping and dumping countries as much as stock and bond markets with exogenous economic oil shocks enabling Oil companies to make big profits?
Iran after all had said that the straits were open to friendly countries. The Disinformation, flip flops contradictory messaging as a maximum pressure tactic by Trump signal another broader, global agenda besides shutting down Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Control of Indian Ocean Sea Lanes to take down the Asian 21st Century?
Presumably, Admirals of the American Armada would take note of these developments and history to look for an off ramp; a face saving Exit Strategy from the Indian Ocean World before Asia Unites to drive out the American Armada and restore the ‘Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’
During the Cold War the Indian Ocean was demarcated a ‘Zone of Peace’ to be free of Nuclear weapons and big power rivalry by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace was led by the world’s first woman Head of State, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike at the 1971 United Nations General Assembly. Resolution (2832) proposed by Sri Lanka, supported by Tanzania and NAM aimed to halt foreign military expansion, eliminate nuclear weapons, and remove great-power rivalries. It was formally adopted on December 1971, to create a secure maritime region.
The history and memory of the NAM initiative to declare the ‘Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace’ have not died in Asia or the Indian Ocean World despite invention of the Indo-Pacific” to Partition, Divide and Rule the Indian Ocean by US Central Intelligence Agency linked security think tanks.
It’s the Petrodollar, Stupid!
President Trump claimed that the US blockade of the Straits of Hormuz that runs in Iran’s territorial waters was done to unblock it! Iran however, has made it clear that the Straits of Hormuz which carries almost 20 percent of global fuel supply are open to friends in the Asian neighborhood and the Indian Ocean World. Ships that pass through Hormuz may need to pay a Toll in Petro Yuan — rather than the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar for safe passage.
And here lies the rub. The US dollar which is a fiat currency or paper money without intrinsic value (unlike Gold for instance), is backed by Petroleum or Oil, which is the world’s most traded commodity. It is hence that oil due to its near universal demand is sometimes referred to as black gold”. However, the oil-backed Petrodollar is increasingly under pressure for many reasons, particularly, the ongoing transition to renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydro, lowering demand, as well as, the BRICS de-dollarizing and trading in national currencies. Hence, the US push to monopolize oil sources, processing infrastructure, trade routes and choke points at this time also given the huge US deficit which puts pressure on the dollar which is increasingly and unsafe haven. The IMF has warned that America’s debt to GDP ratio is unsustainable.
Having first claimed that the purpose of moving the American Armada to the IO was to prevent Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, President Trump seems to have shifted goal posts to the Straits of Hormuz and control of Indian Ocean sea lanes via war on Iran. Energy supply chain disruption and blockade would of course starve Asian economies. Was this the Endgame of President Trump’s latest war of choice–taking down the Asian 21st century to Make America Great Again? Mixed motives, none of which are particularly attractive are par for the course.
Energy Colonialism in the Fog of War: Shades of a Staged Emergency
As a recent Primer from the Tri-continental Institute noted: The US-Israeli war on Iran is exposing the Oil-Dollar-Wall Street complex that binds oil, financial markets, and dollar power, with consequences that reach far beyond the region.
A pattern of energy neocolonialism is emerging at this time as the US Armada tests the waters toward establishing a new normal of control across Indian Ocean SLOC, under the guise of a free and open Indo-Pacific”. The blockade on Iranian ports and oil shipments establishes a US presence in the IO, even as US corporations profit maximize by rerouting energy supply chains and establishing new markets in Asia and other parts of the world, particularly in geostrategic countries that it seeks to control.
Amid the fog of war and Hormuz blockade, US oil companies sold overpriced American sweet crude oil and gas at exorbitant prices and transport cost to Asian countries already ensnared in Petrodollar Eurobond debt traps. If not for the blockade these countries would source cheaper energy closer home in Asia.
For instance, geostrategic Sri Lanka at the center of the Indian recently purchased American gas and oil at astronomical prices. Citizens saw a 25 percent increase overnight in gas prices. [i]Meanwhile the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) purchased diesel at a whopping 286$ a barrel.
Russia’s offer to supply oil and gas at lower cost was cold shouldered by the Colombo regime, which wears a mask of neutrality, being caught in a Eurobond Petrodollar debt trap and subject to IMF advice and control of the Central Bank.
Energy has become a battleground for geopolitical control through development aid, loans, and other bilateral and multilateral assistance in the geostrategic island which has a high potential for renewables – solar and hydro – which are being underutilized at this time.
Trump has described BRICS and the attempts of Global South countries to become energy independent, de-dollarize and conduct bi-lateral trade in local currencies as an attack on the Petrodollar. Colombo and its business elites fear US sanctions would cripple the economy.
Sri Lanka which staged a first ever Sovereign Default into the waiting arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2022, like other Petrodollar Eurobond debt trapped countries has lost economic sovereignty and Energy policy autonomy to the Washington Twins (IMF and World Bank) at this time and now buys exorbitantly priced US sourced energy with exorbitantly privileged US dollars that it does not have!
IMF Reforms and Energy Corruption Rackets: The New Normal?
Energy Sector corruption and price gouging in the fog of war has become the new normal thanks also to IMF reforms of the Energy Sector, which fragmented the national electricity grid and infrastructure, while decimating oversight mechanisms. The substandard coal scandal is the tip of the iceberg of external networks embedded in the electricity sector which has been subject to IMF reforms in the past 2 years.
Ironically in the name of ‘good governance’, IMF-induced reforms in the Energy Sector have enabled unprecedented corruption rackets to thrive extending energy neocolonialism also as part of the green transition, now exacerbated in the fog of war and Energy Emergency.
Of course, corrupt officials at the Ceylon Electricity Board and Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), have been also embolden by Ministers dancing to Washington’s oil sanctions tunes. Just this week in Sri Lanka, the Minister of Power and Energy, Kumara Jayakody already under investigation for fertilizer and coal tender scams was finally forced to resign after the expose of the CPC purchase of diesel at $ 286 per barrel. [ii]
Was the Minister a casualty of US energy colonialism in the fog of Disinformation and War in Iran as much as IMF reforms to extend Energy colonialism in the geostrategic Indian Ocean island? Many shady energy deals like the US Gas deal pass through Dubai, Swiss and Singapore companies. Singapore, proximate to the Strait of Malacca choke point also houses a US military base. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Indonesia on the Malacca Strait were recently persuaded like Sri Lanka to sign defense corporation agreements with the US.
Finally, there are Shades of the Covid-19 virus and vaccine Pandemic Emergency and global transport, trade and supply disruptions across the Indian Ocean world at this time. The CV-19 panicdemic, global lockdown and supply chain disruption enabled massive wealth transfers from the Global South to north, Big Pharma profit maximizing with Emergency authorized mRNA injections and GAFAM Digital colonialism and GAFAM Digital colonialism. Today oil companies and their stockholders are making a chilling killing on Trumps energy markets chaos strategy.
Much like the Covid-19 chaos operation to disrupt the global economy, the current US blockade of Indian Ocean SLOC is being used to promote QR coded fuel rationing for tracking and surveilling populations for the Great Reset.
It is increasingly clear that the US Armada is testing IO waters to promote a new normal of energy colonialism to contain Asian economies and Make America Great Again (MAGA), but may needs an Exit Strategy to return home soon to Atlantic and Pacific shores– before Asia Unites to evict it from the Indian Ocean World. Trump clearly overplayed its hand when he boasted that he would ‘destroy a civilization overnight’. TO BE CONTINUED: America’s Waterloo, Enter China, Exit India
Sarath Wijesinghe former Ambassador to UAE and Israel
Bribery and corruption are rampant and a menace to the humanity and corruption is rampant all over like air and breath. It is happening all over and happen historically during all times. Development and reputation of the country depend on the impact of the corrupt regime and governance which has a direct impact of law and order and rule of law. Corruption is accumulation of wealth by illegal means mainly by using their position entrusted with to be honest living as a government servant. White collar corruption is massive when small timers do it in small scale. There is no room for law and order with corrupt rule and rulers involved in bribery corruption and nepotism. Sri Lanka has ranked the 4th position in the globe with law and orders ranked very much below, also ranked as a main Hub on drugs and drug peddling with daylight robberies and crimes increasing day by day. Mainly due to increase of bribery and corruption President Sirisena” (then) during his regime has launched war against Bribery and corruption by appointing three Ministers headed by the Health Minister who is inquired into by the on accusations and misuse of public funds in rent, shipping scams and other shady transections which are in the public domain. Incidentally then Prime Minister who is alleged to be a main brainchild of Bond Scam by inviting and defending the main accused Arjun Mahandran”, too have launched a vigorous campaign against bribery and corruption in the recent past by appointing a group to carry out the program under his personal supervision, despite programs by both President and the Prime Minister whilst Bribery and corruption is thriving countrywide as before. It is an open secret that the members of the executive and legislature is accused of direct and indirect bribery and corruption known to the citizen carrying on the criminal acts of bribery against the state without being investigated. Only few members of the government are inquired into for petty incidents when accusations amounting to millions and trillions on the ministers on the government are still shelved. Accusations against former President Mahinda Rajapaksa” swindling and siphoning 18 billion dollars in Dubai complained by the Health Minister” Rajitha Senaratna” is shelved with no inquiry or further proceedings.as the entire Sri Lankan budget do notes less than the Brive be mentioned. Allegations against the President on corruption and nepotism will emerge only after he relinquishes the post as he is currently protected by the immunity under the constitution. Bribery Commission should take notice of complaints via media and take immediate steps or exonerate the accused person to be fair by him. Bribery is an offence against the state punishable jointly under the bribery act and the penal code with a special procedure by a Commission appointed by the Constitutional Council and headed by a Director General a reputed and experienced lawyer also appointed by the President. Independence of the Commissioners, Director General and the staff is guaranteed and adequate facilities are given to conduct the inquiries with no fear and interference. Bribery act no 11 0f 1958/2 of 1965/7 of 65/38 of 79/1 of 75/9 of 88/19 of 1994/11 of 1954 and no 19 of 1994 will be amended soon again, which defines bribery as who offers any gratification to a public servant as an inducement or reward for a public servant for performing or abstaining for performing any official act or expediting or hindering or preventing the performance of any official act whether by that public servant or any other public servant or assisting favoring hindering or delaying any person in the transection of any business with the Government. With the limited staff and the resources, it is not possible to net the countrywide bribe takers unless other modern methods such as Education, Name and Shame methods with the help of the media, recognizing and rewarding the complainants and the informants, appointment of dedicated officers in the public sector, are few suggestions to be followed in the clamping process. But in the complicated economic regime of millions of transactions, it is hard to find millions of indirect/direct bribing in business transactions and government dealings adopting traditional methods of investigations. JVP government came into power with the slogan of eradication of corruption and there is news the new minister who is the leader of the movement of capturing thieves has asked for 30% instead of the 10% commission claimed by a political in a previous government. This reminds of the story of the Dragan in na cave in China killing man in large scale, when the most powerful giant was sent in to destroy the dragon to find the strong man in the end has become a new Dragen show whoever taken the position become Dragen in the cave of power and money. Current JVP government came to power with the promise of catching thieves with piles of files but not a single thief I s found and bribery corruption thriving and nepotism takes place at a large scale with emergency regulations is on to catch thieves. There are doubts on those who demanded power to catch thieves who has accumulated new wealth which is published in media on assert declarations of politicians appear to be white as white, now has become black as ever.
Currently – a hot and sad topic in how difficult it is to prevent the menace
Because it is the current hot topic of the day two seminars were organized sometime back at Organization of Professionals on 15th and 16th – one on 15th by Sri Lanka 2050 organized and moderated by the former Ambassador Sarath Wijesinghe, with speakers D E W Gunasekara- former Mister, Rusiripala Tennekoon, former BOC Chairman, Nanagananda Kodituwakku, activist lawyer and Sham Nuwan Ganawatta the journalist who inaugurated his book on the title Kawada Hora” – Who is the Thief in the bond Scam with the topic” Bond Scam and Corruption and impact on the economy” ,and the other seminar on 16/2/2018 jointly organized by the BASL and OPA on the topic Bribery and Good Governance” addressed by Sarath jayamanna – then Director General Bribery Commission, S C Mayadunna – a former Auditor General, and Yasantha Kodagoda Additional Solicitor General and Presidents Council. First seminar was lively while the second seminar was somewhat academic. The seminars indicated the interest and activism in the field of Bribery and corruption and deliberations were extremely useful on planning combating war on bribery and corruption and planning out short- and long-term strategies for eradication of the menace. There is news that the Commission will be given more powers to expand the jurisdiction, and to bring private sector under the Bribery Act are moves on the right direction though the existing powers could be properly utilized if there a genuine need, desire and direct power without the influence of invisible forces acting with remote controls of the governance which has proven to be bitter past experiences as once Churchill state med what worries is inaction and not necessarily active in the right direction” . Bond Scam responsible for the loss of billions of EPF, Bank, and public money took long time to expose those responsible in the toothless commission of inquiry which could have been easily dealt with the Bribery Commission on its own motion. We do not find fault of the Director General and the Commission as it is not our culture as in USA where the sitting President was rigorously interrogated by the special prosecutor, when in Sri Lanka prime Minister who invited Mahandran to Sri Lanka and defended him in the Parliament was soft peddled by giving few questions in advance contrary to the professional way the other witness were interrogated. Minister Duminda Dissanayaka and Minister Rajitha Senaratna are alleged to overspent millions on rental scams which are in the public domain which has not come to the purview of the Bribery Commission with many other scams in the public domains. Public will have trust and confidence on the Commission and will cooperate if proactive matters are taken place to bring the offenders to justice whilst catching sprats in small transactions. Today the accusation that the current director general has been a member of the JVP claimed by one time president late Nandana Gunathilake is a worrying statement. Corruption cannot the completely eradicated but the governance must try to control it by strict legislation and discipline by the governance setting an example ego the public sector. Justice appear to be seen and the governance should be transparent to gain the confidence of the citizen.
Previous convictions of members of legislature
It is ironic that despite the steps against Bribery and Corruption no member of the legislature or Executive was convicted is except during S W R D Bandaraneika’s regime when Monnakulama” Marrikker” and few members of the parliament were convicted as a result of the findings of Talgodapitiya” Commission. Members of the Parliament were found guilty in India and many countries on charges of bribery and corruption, but in Sri Lanka despite the citizen’s knowledge and information on the public domain bribery is rampant from the top downwards. Activist lawyer N Kodituwakku” has filed a case in the Supreme Court on misuse and corruption by all the members of the Parliament with a loss of 3 billion to the tax payer on tax free vehicles which is dragging on technical grounds without quick disposal which is the need of the hour to set an example to the culprits. Today unfortunately there are public show of images and news of finding culprits but no cases appear to be filed or proceeding which is a worrying factor. 159 luxury double cabs to all MPs is unwanted for and amount to corruption to please them who has agreed to travel on public transport in power.
Complete eradication impossible but try to minimize the cancer
Eradication of bribery and corruption is impossible. The attempts should be to minimize and to introduce a bribery/corruption free culture in the society. Is it possible in the current political and economic situation of poverty struggle corruption with easy black money and disappearance of the values of the citizen cherished historically with religious and cultural bonds which now has diapering fast. Director General Sarath jayamanna was comparing the situation in the west culturally anti Bribe trends to be followed in the Sri Lankan polite and citizen, which is an arduous task in the most corrupt society with free economy freedom for bribery absence of law-and-order opportunities for illegal deals drug crime and weak implementation of legal regime.
Director Generals competence honesty background and accusations to him
Director General should be working hard within his mandate which is an impossible task to achieve alone, unless legal structure is strengthened and new strategies adopted with honest dedicate and committed leadership whiter than white. Allegations against the current d9 that he has been a member of JVP by Nandana Gunatilaka a former Chairman of JVP is worrying and needs clarification from the present Director General If the leadership is corrupting inert the political situation inevitably is worsened with disability.” Dilrukshy de Silve” then DG bribery and corruption had started the job with enthusiasm and funfair who was compelled to leave, when services of” Lucille Silva” was abruptly discontinued by a powerful invisible hand with a blow on the trend against bribery. Toothless commission was appointed on the bond scam to catch the thieves of the biggest robbery in Sri Lanka ever when the main culprit is free with others enjoying the fruits freely worldwide. Prime Minister who invited controversial Arjun Mahandran” to Sri Lanka and defended him in the parliament was soft peddled at the commission with prearranged few questions reminding us of how Clinton was interrogated by the special prosecutor whilst he was still the powerful President – the most powerful person on the planet! Law and Order, Rule of Law and Equality Before Law should be rigorously implemented to clamp down bribery and corruption. These are history and the present too is not rosy. Coal fiasco has come to the surface sacrificing the minister and secretary with many questions un answered. Asset declarations of larders of JVP politicians have raised many questions to be answered. Imposition of emergency law during this peaceful era too is worrying as it is draconian law that can arrest citizens with no procedure is followed and Col Sallay’s arrest and detention people say is not called for considering the service and sacrifices made by him to the nation. Author Sarath Wjesinghe could be contacted on 0094766530166 wijesinghesarath05@gmail.com
Justice Radhabinod Pal (1886–1967), the only judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946–1948) to find all Japanese defendants not guilty, remains a towering figure in international law for his critique of “Victor’s Justice”.
The call for his posthumous felicitation in Sri Lanka centers on his rejection of retroactive laws and his stance that conquerors should not pass judgment on the conquered. This sentiment aligns historically with Sri Lanka’s own diplomatic legacy, most notably the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference speech by J.R. Jayewardene, who invoked the Buddha’s words—”Hatred ceases not by hatred, but by love”—to advocate for an independent Japan.
Key Dimensions of the Felicitation Call
Redoubtable Judgment: Pal’s 1,235-page dissenting opinion argued that the charges of “crimes against peace” were ex post facto (retroactive) and therefore legally invalid.
Regional Legal Solidarity: The initiative seeks the “blessings” of the legal fraternities in India and Japan, where Pal is already highly honored. In Japan, memorials are dedicated to him at the Yasukuni Shrine and Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine.
Sri Lankan Context: Recent legal discourse in Sri Lanka has called for greater attention to Pal’s dissent in law schools to foster a more inclusive, South Asian perspective on international criminal law.
This proposed Felicitation can take the form of a Symposium on the Tokyo Trials initiated by Asian countries which were deliberately marginalized from the Tribunal Bench despite the war with Japan being conducted on Asian territory.
Symbolic Venues for Recognition and the Symposium
If you are looking to visit or organize events at sites related to this shared history, several locations in Colombo reflect the deep Japan-Sri Lanka-India connection:
Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI)
Location: Independence Square, Colombo 07
Justification: A common venue for international conclaves and legal workshops.
Embassy of Japan in Sri Lanka
Location: Colombo 07
Justification: A focal point for Japan-Sri Lanka friendship and commemorative events.
Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL)
Location: 153, Mihindu Mawatha, Colombo 12
Justification: The primary body representing the Sri Lankan legal fraternity.
The High Commission of India
Location: 36-38, Galle Road, Colombo 03
Justification: Key diplomatic mission representing Justice Pal’s home country.
The call to posthumously felicitate Indian jurist Justice Radhabinod Pal in Sri Lanka seeks to honor his courageous and historic dissenting views.
This proposal emphasizes recognizing his legal contribution to the understanding of victor’s justice in post-colonial Asia, with the goal of engaging legal professionals from Sri Lanka, India and Japan in the initial phase of the review of the Tokyo Trial process.
Key Aspects of the Commemoration Proposal:
Recognition of the Judgment:
Justice Pal argued that the Tokyo trials were a tool for “satisfied revenge” rather than genuine law, highlighting that the Allied powers lacked legal authority to pass judgment on the vanquished. His dissenting opinion emphasized that international laws, particularly the concept of “crimes against peace,” were applied retrospectively.
Significance in Asia-Pacific:
His dissent, which argued that the Western colonial powers, rather than just Japan, should be held accountable for imperialism, resonates strongly with anti-colonial perspectives and post-colonial contexts such as Sri Lanka.
Legacy in Japan: Justice Pal is immensely revered in Japan, often seen as a champion who “defied the world.”
Monuments to him stand at the Yasukuni Shrine and Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine. In 1966, he was awarded Japan’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
Call for Commemoration in Sri Lanka:
A recent move in Sri Lanka (April 2026) aims to increase attention on Pal’s stand-alone judgment as an act of courageous, non-biased legal principle, linking his legacy to the broader Asian effort to resist victor-imposed narratives in international tribunals.
Indian Legal Perspective: While relatively unknown to the general public in India compared to his fame in Japan, Justice Pal was a prominent figure who served on the UN International Law Commission.
A move to recognize his contribution through the legal fraternity would align with acknowledging India’s historical role in international law during the post-WWII era
This initiative seeks to recognize his dedication to “Even Justice,” which argues that justice cannot be truly impartial if it is only enforced by the victors.
Source: AI Overview
Comments Off on A call to felicitate posthumously Justice Radhabinod Pal for his redoubtable Judgment at the Tokyo Trials (1946 – 1948) with the blessings of the legal fraternities of India and Japan
No dollars to face imports. Perhaps what I did in Bangladesh to create the Youth Self Employment Programme- is a story that offers ideas and a way.
It all happened in the Bangladesh Secretariat, three days after General Ershard took over the country in a bloodless coup on the 24 th of March 1982. The Minister for Youth Development was clamped in prison and the work of the Ministry was in jeopardy. The third in command, Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam, the Minister for Labour and Manpower evaluated the work done by the Ministry. Suddenly at the close, he realized that I was an outsider and inquired who I was and I was then introduced as the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Youth Development.
What can you contribute for Bangladesh”. It was more a military command. I could have spoken in support of the youth training programmes done by the Ministry but decided otherwise. I replied.
I would like you to consider approving a new programme aimed at making the 40,000 youths who are being trained every year to be guided to become self employed.”
The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest officer in the land, objected.
The Creation of self employment can never be done. The ILO of the United Nations has just folded up a self employment programme which they have been trying to establish in Tangail, Bangladesh over the past three years with a massive loss. They brought experts from all parts of the world to guide the programme but it was a total failure. The Bangladesh Treasury has no more funds to waste. The ILO are the experts. They hold the last word on employment creation.
I replied that though the ILO failed I had the experience as well as the academic qualifications, which was contested by the Secretary to the Treasury. He was adamant that I would fail. I argued with the Secretary to the Treasury explaining how I had successfully established employment projects in Sri Lanka and how I held the academic qualifications at doctoral level. The heated battle went on for over two hours. The Minister allowed the two of us to argue; he was making notes and finally commanded us to stop.
Are there any development programmes in Bangladesh that train people to become self employed?”
The Secretary to the Treasury replied: None”
How many youths are trained in vocations every year.” The Minister inquired.
The Secretary to the Treasury rattled out the number that were being trained by all Government Departments and it totalled to some two hundred thousand. This included the 40,000 the Ministry of Youth trained a year.
Tell me the number of youths that pass out every year and fail to find either employment or a place for further study and continue being unemployed and destitute, living scraping the barrel for life.”
The Secretary to the Treasury replied. Sir, It is in the millions.”
The Minister without batting an eyelid ordered, staring at me, in my face.
I approve you establishing a self employment programme. Go ahead and show what you can do, which the ILO. failed to do.”
Before I could thank him the Secretary to the Treasury replied;
I will not provide any funds from the Bangladesh Treasury. The failure of the ILO attempt was a massive waste of funds and the Treasury has no more funds to waste.”
I replied even without consulting the two Secretaries of the Ministry with whom I worked, who were present.
I need no new funds. I will find savings within approved youth training programme budgets to hold training sessions. I need approval to divert savings from approved training budgets to create this new programme and approval to alter the remits of officers to include training for self employment.”
The Minister approved my request.
I got cracking with training youth directors and lecturers of training institutes in economics. It included detailed studies on the economy of Bangladesh to identify areas where there was a propensity to create employment in a manner that also helped the economy in terms of production.
We had no funds to offer subsidies of any sort.
Youth Directors were all veteran workers who knew the art of relating to the youth. They moved with the youth and introduced ideas of how the youth could find incomes by rearing chicks and live with the chicks and see them grow. Some youths persuaded their brothers and sisters- even those who had migrated to the UK to help them. Till then they had not known what to with what they had studied in their three months training.
Yousoof Ali, a youth who had been trained did not know what to do with what he had learned and he became a nuisance to his brothers and sisters at home. His elder brother who could not tolerate him even went to the office of the Deputy Director of Youth at Jamalpur and accused the Department of indoctrinating his brother with ideas they could not follow. He even threatened to burn the office down. Instead of reporting to the Police who would have arrested him for public disorder the Deputy Director for Youth Development got in touch with us. I instructed the Deputy Director to somehow placate him and request him to attend our training sessions on self employment with his belligerent brother This was in a weeks’ time. When I marched into the training sessions I was shown his brother who was really breathing fire at us and the Department. Our sessions ran into hours of activity where we inspired the youths to save and commence any enterprises on their own. Some were motivated to even save the small daily stipend we paid for attendance to buy chicks which they could rear and see how the value increased. Our sessions were more inspiring the youth to save and take action to grow something, buy a chick and see it grow. The belligerent brother too joined us in our sessions because we related to them as brothers and sisters, as equals and the brother was so convinced that he immediately coughed up funds for his belligerent brother to buy a cow, ducklings and chicks and rear them. His brother got down to work under our supervision. Ten months later, on a surprise inspection, I met the belligerent lad- he had , 190 layer ducks, one milk cow, 2 goats, earning a net income of Taka 1496 in December1982, all achieved in eight months. Our aim was to make them earn Taka 500 the then salary of a Clerical Officer in the Government Service.
We built up the momentum not by offering money and subsidies, but by relating to the youth day in and day out. One word of a problem- it could be small farm of a dozen chicks two hundred miles away in an inaccessible village but we were there within hours to share the burden with the youth. We were inspiring the youth to become entrepreneurs and it was never instructing, but in youth work language participating with the youth, make the youth think and act -to educate them informally.
We were building up the abilities and capacities of the youth to become entrepreneurs,perhaps the only such programme the World has known.
It was non formal education in action where officials were never instructors but providers of ideas for the youth to think and become motivated. The staff was totally trained in non formal education methods of inspiring the youths to think and act on their own and become productive.
By the time my service period of two years was over, I had trained officials to continue the employment programme as a youth movement. It really paid high dividends. I last met the Minister Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam just before I left Bangladesh. My request to him was to make an order that youths on our Youth Development Programme who had within months created incomes and earned more than the tax level should be given a reprieve to be exempt from taxes for a few years. The Minister said he will get that done.
These were the beginings of a youth self employment programme that commencing in 1982 has created over three million youth entrepreneurs within four decades. 1982 to 2022, the only such programme of development the world has known. In a letter to me on June 20, 2005, a full twenty two years after I had established the Self Employment Programme, MrAsafuddowlah, the Secretary to the Ministry of Youth Development wrote:
You will be happy to learn that the Self Employment Programme of the Youth Department has expanded across the country and attained great success. I have not forgotten your valuable contribution to the success of this great programme.”(Muhammed Asafuddowlah: June 20, 2005)
The Fifth Five Year Plan of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh, makes glorious references to this Programme and devotes eight pages to detail its success. It is a Programme that has achieved accolades in all the subsequent Five Year Plans of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh.
It is important to note that for the first four years we had no funds from the Bangladesh Treasury. We found funds through savings in approved training budgets . But once we proved ourselves though hard work in training youths and inspiring them to become productive the Government funded it aided by the IFAD(FAO)
The youth self employment programme became a national programme and many helped. Way back after my work in Bangladesh I was working in Edinburgh. Whenever I went to London I took bulky and heavy dress pattern books which I handed over to Bangladesh Biman to be taken to the poor youth entrepreneurs in dress making at Jamalpur. That was the contribution made by Bangladesh Biman. Once six cows, all what a youth had died. I with Golam Atahar the Director for Livestock marched to the Insurance Corporation of Bangladesh. The two of us held the floor for an hour, In three days the Insurance Corp approved an insurance programme for cattle on our employment programme. I am dead certain that I could not do such things in my own country, Sri Lanka. In Bangladesh, administrators were dedicated and worked unruffled despite odds.
By now(2023)over three million youths have become entrepreneurs on this programme. Many thanks are due to the officers of the Bangladesh Civil Service and officers of the Ministry , trained by me, who carried on the programme initiated by me to achieve to reach the World Stature of today. The Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh is a world class programme that has found a definite place within the sands of time.
It is high time that the Government of Sri Lanka seeks to establish a similar programme to create employment for our youth and also create the production that will allay the economic meltdown of today. Take employment creation out of the vagary of party politics- these are national programmes that have to be invariably supported, despite changes in Governments.
In 2011,when His Excellency Milinda Moragoda, till recently our Ambassador at Delhi made a bid for the Mayorship of Colombo in his Manifesto stated that if elected, he would seek to implement the Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh which incidentally was am amazingly successful scheme introduced to that country by a distinguished son of Sri Lanka, Dr Garvin Karunaratne, who served in Bangladesh as an international consultant.”(The Nation: 11/9/2011)
It will be a pleasure to serve my Motherland again and I look forward to establish an employment creation programme if called upon. . It will be done in nineteen months- the exact time I took to establish that Programme in Bangladesh.
Garvin Karunaratne, Ph D Michigan State University, formerly SLAS, GA Matara 1971-1973
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Legitimate questions could be asked about Prince Vijaya’s voyage. Why was he coming towards Sri Lanka? Was he actually headed to Sri Lanka? He had no known association with Buddhism, so he would not have made the voyage as a missionary to introduce Buddhism to Sri Lanka. As a trader? Very likely. If so, would he choose a relatively less attractive destination for trading, or would he choose an attractive destination worth his while and go to a place like Korkai, situated at the mouth of the Thamirabarani river in the Southern part of India which was known as a major centre for pearl fishing.
Thamirabarani River (Sanskrit: Tāmraparṇī), is located in the Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu, South India. It is on the southeast coast of India, and it sits directly across the Gulf of Mannar from the north-western coast of Sri Lanka to the area called Tambapanni. Research confirms the Thamirabarani area was a major hub of ancient maritime connections. Tambapaṇṇī in Sri Lanka is a name derived from Tāmraparṇī or Tāmravarṇī (in Sanskrit) and it has got reference to the Thamirabarani river in India. Korkai, situated at the mouth of the Thamirabarani, was known as a legendary centre for pearl fishing. This port was a primary trade partner for Sri Lanka’s northern ports like Mantai, and findings of Rouletted Ware (a type of pottery) prove a shared maritime culture.
Archaeological Research and Findings
Adichanallur xcavations: Just as Pathirajawela has redefined Sri Lankan timelines, the Adichanallur archaeological site near the Thamirabarani River has revolutionized South Indian history. Excavations have revealed a Megalithic burial site with urns, iron tools, and pottery dating back as far as 1000–600 BCE.
The “Copper” Connection: The name Tāmraparṇī (meaning “copper-leaved” or “copper-coloured”) is common to both the Indian river and the landing site in Sri Lanka. In both regions, this refers to the red, iron-rich soil found along the coast.
The Mahavamsa
As Prince Vijaya’s arrival in Sri Lanka has a direct link to the Mahavamsa, the following narrative will be useful to contextualise the question posed in the title of this article. The Mahāvaṃsa records events starting from the 6th century BCE (the 500s BC) when Prince Vijaya supposedly landed in the island but wasn’t physically written down until the 5th century CE (the 400s AD). Because the “6th century BCE” covers 600–501 BCE and the “5th/6th century CE” covers 401–600 CE, the gap between the start of the history and the act of writing it by Ven Mahanama is roughly 900 to 1,100 years. This gap is significant because it highlights that for nearly a millennium, the earliest history of Sri Lanka was preserved primarily through an oral tradition.
Key details regarding its composition:
Context: It was written to record the history of Buddhism and the dynastic succession of Sri Lanka, starting from the legendary arrival of Prince Vijaya (6th century BCE) up to the reign of King Mahasena (4th century CE).
Sources: Ven Mahānāma compiled the work based on earlier documents, specifically the Dipavamsa (4th century CE) and the Mahavamsa-Atthakatha (a 4th-century Sinhala commentary).
Language: It was composed in the Pali language, a sacred language of Theravada Buddhism, in an epic poetic style intended for memorization.
Subsequent Additions: While the original Mahavamsa covers up to the 4th century, the continuation, known as the Culavamsa (Lesser Chronicle), was added by subsequent authors to cover history up to the British takeover in 1815.
The text was largely unknown to the Western world until the first printed edition was published in 1837 by George Turnour, a British civil servant
The Mahavamsa narrative relating to Prince Vijaya’s arrival in the island and landing in an area called Tambapanni (which basically means copper coloured soil), which is in the north-western coast of Sri Lanka, and almost opposite the Thamirabarani River on the other side of the Gulf of Mannar, poses some interesting speculative discussion.
Wikipedia says that from a research standpoint, the Thamirabarani region is seen as the cultural twin of early Sri Lanka on the opposite side of the Gulf of Mannar. The shared name and red soil suggest that any landing at Tambapanni in Sri Lanka may have been part of a broader migratory wave that originally targeted the pearl-rich ports of the Thamirabarani River in India, and not Tambapanni in Sri Lanka which was not known for such wealth.
Maritime archaeological information suggests that the Thamirabarani-Sri Lanka Route in the Gulf of Mannar, was notoriously shallow and filled with reefs (like Adam’s Bridge) and it had led to frequent historical accounts of ships being driven off course or wrecked.
Researchers also suggest that the similarity in names—where the Indian river and the Sri Lankan island share similar titles—indicates that early seafaring groups from the Northwest of India (such as Gujarat/Sopara) may have attempted to reach Thamirabarani in India but were blown off course by monsoons, or ship wrecked, with the sea farers ultimately landing on the red sands of Sri Lanka instead. While no single Vijaya-era wreck has been positively identified to date, recent underwater surveys in the Palk Strait have found stone anchors and pottery shards that confirm the heavy usage of this “S-shaped” trade route by ancient mariners. Considering the hive of trading activity in ports in the Thamirabarani river, it is more likely and logical for sea faring traders to go to Thamirabarani in India rather than Tambapanni in Sri Lanka. Their journeys could have been treacherous at times considering the challenges mentioned earlier, some of them could have landed in Tambapanni in Sri Lanka although their intended objective was to go to Thamirabarani. Besides this, to a sailor from Northwest India, the sight of the red cliffs at Kudiramalai (Tambapanni) would look remarkably similar to the red earth of the Thamirabarani region they were searching for. Landing there might also have been a case of mistaken identity.
Given this possibility, one could ask the question whether Prince Vijaya also faced such a situation and he in fact landed in Sri Lanka and not India due to a logical maritime accident. If he was just a sea farer, a Prince or otherwise, and who was only after the opportunities that Thamirabarani offered, but got carried away to Sri Lanka and if a subsequent mythological legend was not built around him, the incident could have been considered one of those events”.
However, had Prince Vijaya actually reached Thamirabarani as he had planned and not Tambapanni in Sri Lanka, the pivotal link between Prince Vijaya and the Mahavamsa gives rise to a very challenging interpretation to what is stated in the Mahavamsa. Sri Lankan history, particularly the early part of it as related in the Mahavamsa will be subject to challenge, because of the possibility that Prince Vijaya never arrived in Sri Lanka. The legend that the prince supposedly arrived in Sri Lanka on the day the Buddha passed away, and the many stories relating to Kuveni and her clan, the mythical devils called Yaksha and Naga will add weight to the view that the Vijaya story was indeed just a mythical legend.
No conclusions are being drawn here one way or the other, but one fact that can be stated is that there is no scientific evidence, archaeological or otherwise, that a Prince called Vijaya in fact arrived in Sri Lanka. What is available is a narrative written about 1000 years after the poetic verses depicting history that supposedly were composed and memorised and passed down verbally until they were compiled into a document by Ven Mahanama.
A more plausible history based on available research findings
Today, most secular historians view the Vijaya story as part of a natural phenomenon of a gradual, multi-wave migration of Indo-Aryan speakers that took place over centuries, rather than a single event with 700 men. There are challenges to the historical accounts in the Mahavamsa, in the form of physical evidence that actually exist from that period (c. 500 BCE), such as the Anuradhapura Citadel excavations, which show a city already thriving before the traditional founding date in the Mahavamsa. The excavations at the Anuradhapura Citadel (specifically the Gedige and Salgahawatta areas) provide the most powerful evidence that a sophisticated, urban society existed in Sri Lanka long before the traditional Vijaya arrival date of 543 BCE. While the Mahavamsa attributes the city’s founding to King Pandukabhaya around the 4th century BCE, scientific dating has pushed the city’s origins back nearly 500 years earlier.
Key Evidence from the Citadel (c. 900–500 BCE)
The 900 BCE Settlement: Under the direction of Dr. Siran Deraniyagala, radiocarbon dating of the deepest layers (nearly 30 feet down) revealed that a large Iron Age village already existed by 900 BCE. It covered roughly 15 to 25 hectares, indicating it was more than just a small tribal camp.
Rapid Urbanisation (700–600 BCE): By 700 BCE, the settlement had expanded to 50 hectares (about 120 acres), reaching “town” size. This growth coincided with the “second urbanisation” of the Ganges Valley in India, proving Sri Lanka was part of a major regional surge in civilization.
Advanced Technology: Findings from these pre-Vijaya layers include:
Iron Tools: Evidence of a primary metal industry used for agriculture and construction.
Domesticated Animals: Remains of horses and cattle, which were not indigenous to the island and suggest early maritime trade or migration from the mainland.
Agriculture: Remains of paddy rice, black gram, and millet, proving a settled farming community.
The Literacy Revolution (600–500 BCE): Perhaps the most controversial find was Brahmi script on pottery shards (Black and Red Ware) dating to 600–500 BCE. This makes it some of the oldest writing found in all of South Asia—predating the famous Edicts of Ashoka by centuries and suggesting a literate merchant or administrative class existed before the “founding” of the kingdom.
Why this challenges the Myth
This physical evidence directly contradicts the “Vijaya” narrative in two ways:
Chronology: It shows that Anuradhapura was already a thriving proto city for nearly 400 years before Vijaya is said to have landed.
Sophistication: The Mahavamsa describes the original inhabitants (Yakka/Naga) as “demons” or primitive spirits to justify the North Indian “civilizing” mission. Archaeology, however, shows they were already iron-using, horse-riding, literate farmers with international trade links.
The discovery of Black and Red Ware (BRW) pottery is the single most important archaeological link between pre-Vijaya Sri Lanka and South India, particularly the Thamirabarani region. This pottery proves that the two regions were part of a single, unified cultural and economic zone long before the periods described in the Mahavamsa. In Anuradhapura, BRW appears in layers dated to 10th Century BCE (900 BCE), nearly 400 years before the traditional Vijaya date. It was used for both daily domestic life and specialized burial rituals in Megalithic tombs (cist burials and urns).
The Thamirabarani/South Indian Connection
The BRW found in Sri Lanka (at sites like Anuradhapura, Pomparippu, and Kantarodai) is reportedly virtually identical to that found in the Thamirabarani River basin (sites like Adichanallur and Korkai).
Oldest Writing: High-quality BRW flat dishes found at Tissamaharama on the southern coast feature Tamil-Brahmi script dating back to the 3rd Century BCE, referencing a merchant guild (tiraLi muRi).
Burial Practices: The Megalithic burial culture (using stone circles and urns) that used this pottery is identical on both sides of the Palk Strait, suggesting a shared ancestry between the early “Hela” tribes and the South Indian populations.
Because this pottery and its associated lifestyle (iron use, paddy farming) are dated to 900–600 BCE, it proves that the civilization Vijaya supposedly “founded” was already fully operational and trading across the ocean centuries before he arrived. In essence, the archaeology suggests that if a “Vijaya” did land, he didn’t land in a wilderness of demons; he landed in a sophisticated, international trade network that had been using Black and Red Ware to exchange goods with South India for generations
Another archaeological factor that supports this view are the Ibbankatuwa Megalithic Tombs (near Dambulla). These are mentioned as the “silent witnesses” to the people who lived in Sri Lanka between 700 BCE and 400 BCE with excavations proving the existence of a well-organized human society. This is a massive cemetery covering over 13 hectares with burials in tombs (stone boxes made of granite slabs). Experts are of the opinion that this level of organized burial indicates a settled society with clear social hierarchies and respect for ancestors and they included thousands of beads made from carnelian, agate, and quartz, some of which are not native to Sri Lanka and would have been imported from North and West India. Archaeologists had also found fine jewellery, including gold wire and copper rods, proving they were skilled in metallurgy, and farming implements and weapons, showing they had mastered the Iron Age technology long before the “Vijaya” arrival.
Conclusion
There seems to be a substantial amount of archaeological evidence to support the existence of an organised, literate, well-functioning society in Sri Lanka long before Vijaya’s arrival which has no supporting evidence, and therefore more mythical than factual. The discussion and debate is not, and should not be about whether he arrived or not, but about the myths and folklore embedded in the early periods covered by the Mahavamsa using his arrival to virtually spin” a story around him. The origin of the Sinhala race, it embracing Buddhism and making the island a Sinhala Buddhist country, when there is archaeological evidence to support the fact that the island was inhabited as described, that it included people from other parts of the world, perhaps mostly from the South of India considering its proximity to the North West of Sri Lanka, that its inhabitants followed a diverse mix of indigenous animism, spirit worship, and early Indian faiths, where the religious scene was not a single, organized system, but a “hodgepodge” of cults that existed among the early Sinhalese and other ethnic groups like the Nagas. (International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science- https://rsisinternational.org /virtual-library/papers/the-pre-buddhist-religious-beliefs-in-ancient-sri-lanka/#:~:text=We%20can %20categorized %20the%20pre,such%20as%20Chitrar%C4%81ja%20and%20K%C4%81lav%C4%93la)
While it may be too late to change the converted” who subscribe to the traditional Vijaya based Sinhala Buddhist literary narrative in the Mahavamsa, a logical, plausible, researched history should define the narrative relating to the ancient inhabitation of the island. A substantial amount of such researched information is available to recast the islands ancient history into a model that depicts it as one that consisted of several well-functioning, sophisticated human societies when Vijaya supposedly arrived in the island, if indeed he did arrive in Sri Lanka.
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It all happened in the Bangladesh Secretariat, three days after General Ershard took over the country in a bloodless coup on the 24 th of March 1982. The Minister for Youth Development was clamped in prison and the work of the Ministry was in jeopardy. The third in command, Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam, the Minister for Labour and Manpower evaluated the work done by the Ministry. Suddenly at the close, he realized that I was an outsider and inquired who I was and I was then introduced as the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Youth Development.
What can you contribute for Bangladesh”. It was more a military command. I could have spoken in support of the youth training programmes done by the Ministry but decided otherwise. I replied.
I would like you to consider approving a new programme aimed at making the 40,000 youths who are being trained every year to be guided to become self employed.”
The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest officer in the land, objected.
The Creation of self employment can never be done. The ILO of the United Nations has just folded up a self employment programme which they have been trying to establish in Tangail, Bangladesh over the past three years with a massive loss. They brought experts from all parts of the world to guide the programme but it was a total failure. The Bangladesh Treasury has no more funds to waste. The ILO are the experts. They hold the last word on employment creation.
I replied that though the ILO failed I had the experience as well as the academic qualifications, which was contested by the Secretary to the Treasury. He was adamant that I would fail. I argued with the Secretary to the Treasury explaining how I had successfully established employment projects in Sri Lanka and how I held the academic qualifications at doctoral level. The heated battle went on for over two hours. The Minister allowed the two of us to argue; he was making notes and finally commanded us to stop.
Are there any development programmes in Bangladesh that train people to become self employed?”
The Secretary to the Treasury replied: None”
How many youths are trained in vocations every year.” The Minister inquired.
The Secretary to the Treasury rattled out the number that were being trained by all Government Departments and it totalled to some two hundred thousand. This included the 40,000 the Ministry of Youth trained a year.
Tell me the number of youths that pass out every year and fail to find either employment or a place for further study and continue being unemployed and destitute, living scraping the barrel for life.”
The Secretary to the Treasury replied. Sir, It is in the millions.”
The Minister without batting an eyelid ordered, staring at me, in my face.
I approve you establishing a self employment programme. Go ahead and show what you can do, which the ILO. failed to do.”
Before I could thank him the Secretary to the Treasury replied;
I will not provide any funds from the Bangladesh Treasury. The failure of the ILO attempt was a massive waste of funds and the Treasury has no more funds to waste.”
I replied even without consulting the two Secretaries of the Ministry with whom I worked, who were present.
I need no new funds. I will find savings within approved youth training programme budgets to hold training sessions. I need approval to divert savings from approved training budgets to create this new programme and approval to alter the remits of officers to include training for self employment.”
The Minister approved my request.
I got cracking with training youth directors and lecturers of training institutes in economics. It included detailed studies on the economy of Bangladesh to identify areas where there was a propensity to create employment in a manner that also helped the economy in terms of production.
We had no funds to offer subsidies of any sort.
Youth Directors were all veteran workers who knew the art of relating to the youth. They moved with the youth and introduced ideas of how the youth could find incomes by rearing chicks and live with the chicks and see them grow. Some youths persuaded their brothers and sisters- even those who had migrated to the UK to help them. Till then they had not known what to with what they had studied in their three months training.
Yousoof Ali, a youth who had been trained did not know what to do with what he had learned and he became a nuisance to his brothers and sisters at home. His elder brother who could not tolerate him even went to the office of the Deputy Director of Youth at Jamalpur and accused the Department of indoctrinating his brother with ideas they could not follow. He even threatened to burn the office down. Instead of reporting to the Police who would have arrested him for public disorder the Deputy Director for Youth Development got in touch with us. I instructed the Deputy Director to somehow placate him and request him to attend our training sessions on self employment with his belligerent brother This was in a weeks’ time. When I marched into the training sessions I was shown his brother who was really breathing fire at us and the Department. Our sessions ran into hours of activity where we inspired the youths to save and commence any enterprises on their own. Some were motivated to even save the small daily stipend we paid for attendance to buy chicks which they could rear and see how the value increased. Our sessions were more inspiring the youth to save and take action to grow something, buy a chick and see it grow. The belligerent brother too joined us in our sessions because we related to them as brothers and sisters, as equals and the brother was so convinced that he immediately coughed up funds for his belligerent brother to buy a cow, ducklings and chicks and rear them. His brother got down to work under our supervision. Ten months later, on a surprise inspection, I met the belligerent lad- he had , 190 layer ducks, one milk cow, 2 goats, earning a net income of Taka 1496 in December1982, all achieved in eight months. Our aim was to make them earn Taka 500 the then salary of a Clerical Officer in the Government Service.
We built up the momentum not by offering money and subsidies, but by relating to them day in and day out. One word of a problem- it could be small farm of a dozen chicks two hundred miles away in an inaccessible village but we were there within hours to share the burden with the youth. We were inspiring the youth to become entrepreneurs and it was never instructing, but in youth work language participating with the youth, make the youth think and act -to educate them informally.
We were building up the abilities and capacities of the youth to become entrepreneurs,perhaps the only such programme the World has known.
It was non formal education in action where officials were never instructors but providers of ideas for the youth to think and become motivated. The staff was totally trained in non formal education methods of inspiring the youths to think and act on their own and become productive.
By the time my service period of two years was over, I had trained officials to continue the employment programme as a youth movement. It really paid high dividends. I last met the Minister Air Vice Marshall Aminul Islam just before I left Bangladesh. My request to him was to make an order that youths on our Youth Development Programme who had within months created incomes and earned more than the tax level should be given a reprieve to be exempt from taxes for a few years. The Minister said he will get that done.
These were the beginings of a youth self employment programme that commencing in 1982 has created over three million youth entrepreneurs within four decades. 1982 to 2022, the only such programme of development the world has known. In a letter to me on June 20, 2005, a full twenty two years after I had established the Self Employment Programme, MrAsafuddowlah, the Secretary to the Ministry of Youth Development wrote:
You will be happy to learn that the Self Employment Programme of the Youth Department has expanded across the country and attained great success. I have not forgotten your valuable contribution to the success of this great programme.”(Muhammed Asafuddowlah: June 20, 2005)
The Fifth Five Year Plan of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh, makes glorious references to this Programme and devotes eight pages to detail its success. It is a Programme that has achieved accolades in all the subsequent Five Year Plans of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh.
It is important to note that for the first four years we had no funds from the Bangladesh Treasury. We found funds through savings in approved training budgets . But once we proved ourselves though hard work in training youths and inspiring them to become productive the Government funded it aided by the IFAD(FAO)
The youth self employment programme became a national programme and many helped. Way back after my work in Bangladesh I was working in Edinburgh. Whenever I went to London I took bulky and heavy dress pattern books which I handed over to Bangladesh Biman to be taken to the poor youth entrepreneurs in dress making at Jamalpur. That was the contribution made by Bangladesh Biman. Once six cows, all what a youth had died. I with Golam Atahar the Director for Livestock marched to the Insurance Corporation of Bangladesh. The two of us held the floor for an hour, In three days the Insurance Corp approved an insurance programme for cattle on our employment programme. I am dead certain that I could not do such things in my own country, Sri Lanka. In Bangladesh, administrators were dedicated and worked unruffled despite odds.
By now(2023)over three million youths have become entrepreneurs on this programme. Many thanks are due to the officers of the Bangladesh Civil Service and officers of the Ministry , trained by me, who carried on the programme initiated by me to achieve to reach the World Stature of today. The Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh is a world class programme that has found a definite place within the sands of time.
It is high time that the Government of Sri Lanka seeks to establish a similar programme to create employment for our youth and also create the production that will allay the economic meltdown of today. Take employment creation out of the vagary of party politics- these are national programmes that have to be invariably supported, despite changes in Governments.
In 2011,when His Excellency Milinda Moragoda, till recently our Ambassador at Delhi made a bid for the Mayorship of Colombo in his Manifesto stated that if elected, he would seek to implement the Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh which incidentally was am amazingly successful scheme introduced to that country by a distinguished son of Sri Lanka, Dr Garvin Karunaratne, who served in Bangladesh as an international consultant.”(The Nation: 11/9/2011)
It will be a pleasure to serve my Motherland again and I look forward to establish an employment creation programme if called upon. . It will be done in nineteen months- the exact time I took to establish that Programme in Bangladesh.
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Sarath Wijesinghe President’s counsel former Ambassador to UAE and Israel and former chairman consumer Affairs Authority
Ombudsman System world over and Sri Lanka a necessity today
Ombudsman is a unique system used in many parts of the world successfully in place of expensive litigation and to settle matters in a friendlier and more amicable way. Litigation as we all know is very expensive cumbersome and time consuming. Ombudsman may be appointed by the government or private entities and groups to themselves ot to cover the entire country. Sri Lankan constitution provides for an Ombudsman for administrative purposes by access to him is difficult as one has to to through the Speaker to the Parliament for services of the Ombudsman. In India and citizen has access to Ombudsman by a letter and there are lawyers on public interest litigation who will help the litigant helped by the judiciary developed the jurisprudence of public interest litigation to hep the citizen.
The ombudsman system is prevalent the world over for convenience, clarity, 6+efficiency in place of complex litigation used in many areas of Administration, Finance, Legal Services, Insurance, Medical and many other areas and sectors, especially in the West when business deals are active and alive. An ombudsman appointed by the State or privately is a person accepted and respected by the parties concerned and the world as impartial, learned, clean and reputed for all parties to accept the decision expected to be given to the family and impartially after having heard or read the documents and representation orally or in writing at a venue amicably agreed upon by parties on the given subject and the disputed deliberations. Services of this Good Office are invited when there is a dispute or requirements for clarity or decisions of disputed areas to the satisfaction of all the parties. In many instances, we tend to look for the British or Western model as a precedent as a system practised successfully, especially in the business world and many other areas the world over. Consumerism in Sri Lanka is at its lowest ebb and needs rejuvenation and drastic exchanges to bring it in the right direction to ease consumer suffering in silence without an organized consumer regime as in other parts of the world. In all directions making it difficult to make ends meet. The Indian Consumerism and Ombudsman scheme is working well with the establishment of Consumer Courts and updated legislative mechanisms, unfortunately, lacking in Sri Lanka with a lame and outdated Act that was introduced in 2003 with no changes to date when we are at the doorstep of the ‘AI’ age. It appears that the expected change is immediate and imminent in consumerism for a better day for the consumer for consumer items and services of quality at reasonable and affordable consideration.
Ombudsman system in operation in the UK, EU and the rest of the world
The history of the Ombudsman runs back to 221 BC to China, 1809 Sweden and established in the West in order to resolve administrative matters in a more amicable way to ease the responsibilities of the King and the administration and give quick relief to the people that developed to the current form in UK, EU, and many other countries in a more organized manner. There is a Parliamentary Ombudsman in the UK and Sri Lanka in operation in a different way when the Parliamentary Administrator is set up under Article 156- 41 (c) and Act No. 17 of 1981 and 1994. To access the Ombudsman in Sri Lanka, the aggrieved party is bound to go through the Speaker of Parliament when it is convenient in the UK by website or contacting directly for redress. It operates in the EU and other countries and many parts of the world in a different way, and the fact that it was in existence in China in 221 BC indicates that the system has been widespread and used by states for a long time for various purposes. The unique aspect of the model is the ability to be used in any kind of system of governance whether a dictatorial or a democracy adopted to suit the situation. In Britain, the ombudsman system functions satisfactorily in Rail, Trade Associations, Insurance Sector, Banks, Energy, Health, Pension, Legal Services, and many others, whereas in Sri Lanka apart from the Parliamentary Ombudsman incorporated in the Constitution, the Financial and Insurance Ombudsman system was in operation and it is doubtful whether it is still in operation which appears not to be successful and effected as expected by legislation and practices in other countries. The offices of the Financial and Insurance Ombudsman seem to be not in operation and no further steps have been taken to explore the concept which is effective and successful sei in other parts of the world.
Ombudsman system in Sri Lanka
In addition to the ombudsman provided in the constitution
Why Consumer Ombudsman for Sri Lanka? And way forward
Consumerism and consumer activism and the main regulator CAA and the price control and regulatory procedure are unfortunately a failure due to a lack of proper vision, leadership, and legislation which is outdated and requires immediate and drastic changes to meet the current demands of the citizen pressed with the excessive pricing regime and lack of control and regulations to control the prices of consumer items and services. Until then, an Ombudsman could be appointed by amending Act No. 9 of 2003 or incorporating regulations under the Act that allow to incorporate new regulations. The ombudsman process is simple, cost-effective, and accessible if applied properly as in the UK that manages on the website unlike the long process in Sri Lanka to access the ombudsman via the Speaker of Parliament. The inquiries at the CAA are accumulating and there is a delay in drafting new legislation and the ombudsman system could assist the Government at no cost as the position could be linked to the existing legislation with minute changes to legislation. The ombudsman system in cost-effective, quick, accessible, and effective if it links with mediation legal board, consumer associations and the CAA with fierce and active programmed on consumer education, to bring about the aspired ‘Change’ to the citizen for consumer items and services of quality at a reasonable and affordable price.
In nutshell the institution of the Ombudsman is a burning necessity for Sri Lanka to ,eke legel system close to the citizen, easier to settle disputes and arbitrage matters accepted to the world and to be in par with the world situation.
About the author:
Sarath Wijesinghe, former Chairman Consumer Affairs Authority of Sri Lanka, former Ambassador to UAE and Israel, President’s Counsel and Solicitor in England and Wales.
The illegal US-Israeli war on Iran is exposing the Oil-Dollar-Wall Street complex that binds oil, financial markets, and dollar power, with consequences that reach far beyond the region.
As you and I worry about how war and inflation will impact our families and nations, bond traders are fixated on the numbers on their screens, calculating what might happen to seemingly arcane financial instruments. Their job is to protect the treasure of the wealthy. For the past fifty years, the relative stability of the US dollar – above all as embodied in US Treasury securities – has rested in part on what is called the ‘petrodollar’ system.
When petroleum prices are relatively stable, the costs of production and transport are more predictable, inflation is easier to contain, and the prices of bonds and other financial assets are less likely to swing wildly. In such conditions, the wealthy can multiply their paper wealth with greater confidence. Despite the existence of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil cartel since 1960, the United States continues to shape the terms on which much of the world’s petroleum is shipped, priced, and paid for through its monopoly on violence – by securing key chokepoints and client states with its bases and fleets, and by using sanctions to make oil sales involving targeted states or firms harder to insure, finance, transport, and settle financially. Coups and wars also serve to discipline states that seek too much control over their own resources or wish to move outside this dollar-centred order.
Inflation – a sustained increase in prices over a period of time – is the enemy of financial wealth, as it depreciates the purchasing power of financial assets. Since the world economy is dependent on energy derived from oil, a rise in oil prices leads to a rise in the price of all other commodities and the overall cost of production and transport, lowering the value of bonds and other financial assets that depend on low inflation. Holders of financial wealth therefore tend to favour policies that curb inflation through austerity, restrictive fiscal policy, and by keeping the prices of oil – and therefore costs of production, including wages – down. The wealthy prefer holding assets that are stable relative to the prices of commodities and wages, which is why the US dollar has been their currency of preference for holding wealth and denominating major debts and contracts. By offshoring production to poorer countries, the US has kept wage levels and inflation low at home and maintained the purchasing power of the US dollar. Although there have been moments of crisis, no other currency has come close to replacing the primacy of the US dollar, since no other state combines the military reach, sanctions power, alliance networks, and financial depth required to command the pricing of key commodities like oil.
Bond traders and their clients are now worried that Iran has already shown it can restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz and thereby challenge Washington’s ability to police the movement of the oil that transits that chokepoint – more than a fifth of the world’s total. In 2025, roughly 21 million barrels a day transited the strait at an average price of $69 a barrel, totalling around $530 billion per year. The global oil market is priced between $2–3 trillion per year. A significant share of this enormous hoard has traditionally been reinvested into US Treasury bonds and dollar-based financial assets. If Washington can no longer guarantee the terms under which that oil moves and, worse, if more of the proceeds are going to be held in non-dollar currencies (such as the Chinese yuan, which is the currency of settlement that Iran prefers), this will provoke great turbulence in the dollar-denominated bond market which is the heart of the global financial system.
Those of you who are not specialists on the subject may be wondering: what exactly is ‘the bond market’? What is a ‘dollar-denominated bond’? What is the ‘petrodollar’, or indeed, the ‘petroyuan’? How does this entire system work? Financial markets are conceptually simple but operationally complex, often appearing opaque because they are laden with jargon and because specialised actors seem to be interpreting and acting on the basis of abstract expectations and relative prices.
This newsletter is a primer on some of the key concepts needed to understand the global financial system in the context of the illegal war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran. For the specialist, the answers to the questions that follow may be too simplistic while for the general reader, some conceptual questions may not be fully answered. That is the limit of any primer, so forgive us in advance.
What are bonds? Bonds are a category of debt security – a tradable financial instrument. A bond is best understood as a claim (or IOU) on a future stream of payments. When a bond is first issued, it is a loan made by an investor to a borrower, usually a government or corporation. In return, the borrower promises to pay interest at regular intervals (called coupons) and to repay the original sum (called the principal) at a set future date (called maturity). For example, if a government issues a 10-year bond for $1,000 at 4% interest, the buyer gives the government $1,000 upfront, receives $40 a year in interest, and gets the $1,000 back after ten years. If the bondholder does not want to wait until the end, they can sell the bond to someone else in a secondary market. Put simply: bonds are a form of interest-bearing or fictitious capital: legal claims on future profits or tax revenues rather than ownership of productive assets themselves. In contrast to bonds, stocks represent ownership shares in a company. Shareholders may receive dividends (which are not guaranteed), and the value of their shares may rise or fall according to the company’s performance, potentially becoming worthless. Bonds typically offer lower returns with lower risk than stocks, while stocks carry higher risk but greater potential returns.
What is the bond market? The bond market is where governments and corporations issue and trade bonds. There is no single marketplace, since the bond market is decentralised. Most bonds are traded directly between banks, institutional investors, and individual investors through major financial centres such as New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Frankfurt. The dollar bond market consists of bonds issued in US dollars – mainly US Treasuries and other dollar-denominated bonds issued by corporations and by governments outside the United States. US Treasuries are bonds issued by the US government. They include bills (short-term debt that mature in under a year), notes (medium-term debt that mature in two to ten years), and bonds (long-term debt that mature in twenty or thirty years). Central banks, commercial banks, pension funds, insurers, corporations, and other investors hold these bonds because they are among the most liquid and widely accepted financial assets in the world. A significant share of global dollar surpluses – including some oil-export surpluses, which we will get to – has historically been recycled into these bonds. This mechanism helps finance the US government’s debt (currently at almost $39 trillion) through purchases of US Treasuries while reinforcing global demand for the US dollar as the world reserve currency – the most universally accepted currency for invoicing trade, settling payments, and holding reserves and wealth.
What is the petrodollar system? As mentioned earlier, the world oil market amounts to about $2–3 trillion a year. So, where do the profits from all those oil sales go? After the 1973–1974 oil shock, and especially through the arrangements Washington built with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, most global oil trade came to be invoiced and settled in dollars. This meant that oil-importing countries needed dollars to buy oil, while oil-exporting countries accumulated large dollar surpluses. Oil-exporting states, central banks, and sovereign funds then reinvested a significant share of those surpluses into dollar-denominated assets. This recycling of oil revenues into dollar-based financial instruments links energy markets to financial markets, sustains demand for dollar-denominated bonds, helps keep US borrowing costs lower than they would otherwise be, and reinforces the US dollar’s status as the world reserve currency. A key part of this process has been the Eurodollar market – the offshore market in US dollars, where dollars are deposited and lent outside the United States – which helps channel oil surpluses into global financial markets. This entire system could be called the Oil-Dollar-Wall Street complex.The United States has weaponised the petrodollar system to sanction countries that do not cooperate with US foreign policy on political grounds. The US Treasury Department has restricted targeted countries from accessing dollar-based finance, forcing compliance with US-dominated markets. Countries that resist, like Iran, have sought alternatives to the dollar oil trade; this is why Iran has said that countries that pay in Chinese yuan can travel safely through the Strait of Hormuz. The Oil-Dollar-Wall Street complex sustains US power (using sanctions) even as it pushes countries to pursue diversification, risk management, and alternative currency arrangements.
If oil profits are no longer held in dollars, would this impact the dollar bond market? If oil revenues are no longer held in dollar-denominated assets, global demand for dollar assets – especially US Treasury bonds – could decline. This could reduce foreign purchases of US Treasuries, raise US borrowing costs, depreciate the value of the US dollar, and weaken the dollar’s role as world reserve currency. But this would not be a simple or immediate process. The overall impact of such a process would depend on how quickly, and widely, alternative currencies replace dollar-based oil trade. In the short term, there will be disruption rather than a smooth transition or an immediate collapse of dollar dominance.
What is the petroyuan? The petroyuan refers to oil trade that is priced in US dollars and settled in Chinese yuan. It emerged in 2018, when the Shanghai International Energy Exchange launched its yuan-dominated crude oil futures market. The petroyuan is estimated to be a small share – no more than 5% – of global oil trade. Despite the emergence of the petroyuan, it cannot overtake the petrodollar because the yuan is not fully convertible. Due to Chinese government regulations, the yuan cannot be freely exchanged with other currencies at market rates, limiting its use in global transactions. US financial markets are more liquid – meaning dollar assets can easily be converted into cash – because of the large deficit that the US government runs to ensure the flow of dollars to the global economy. Entrenched financial systems, geopolitical alliances, and global institutions still favour the US dollar, making large-scale transition to a yuan-based oil trade slow and constrained. While many Belt and Road Initiative countries have adopted the yuan in their transactions, the Chinese government is primarily interested in using its currency to support domestic economic growth and facilitate trade. China is not interested in providing a stable and liquid store of wealth for international financiers, nor does it desire the deindustrialisation and domestic and international polarisation that full currency convertibility would entail.
We hope the above primer has helped explain some of the more arcane parts of the present conjuncture. These concepts and processes are important to understand because Iran has linked yuan-denominated oil trade to safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as a leverage against the United States. By controlling a chokepoint carrying major global oil flows, Iran can bypass sanctions, undermine the petrodollar system, and strengthen ties with China. While this may not in itself destroy the petrodollar system, it inflicts upon the US a significant cost for its unwillingness to come to a grand bargain and end an almost fifty-year conflict.
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Since the end of World War II, several nations have transformed themselves from poverty to prosperity within a generation. Countries such as Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, South Korea during the era of Park Chung-hee, and Rwanda under Paul Kagame have demonstrated how strong leadership can accelerate national development.
Similarly, several Middle Eastern states such as United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have leveraged centralized governance structures to implement long-term economic strategies with remarkable speed.
The Common Factor: Discipline and Direction
In each of these cases, rapid development was not accidental. It was driven by:
Clear national vision
Long-term policy consistency
Strict enforcement of law and order
Low tolerance for corruption
A capable and empowered bureaucracy
These governments were able to make difficult decisions—often unpopular ones—without being paralyzed by political fragmentation.
The Sri Lankan Reality
Sri Lanka, despite its strategic location and educated population, has struggled with:
Policy inconsistency across governments
Political interference in institutions
Weak enforcement of regulations
High levels of inefficiency and waste
The result has been missed opportunities in sectors such as maritime trade, energy, and industrial development—areas where countries like Singapore surged ahead.
The Critical Question: Authoritarianism or Effective Governance?
While it is tempting to conclude that Sri Lanka needs an authoritarian system, global experience suggests caution. Many countries that adopted dictatorship regimes—particularly in parts of Africa and Latin America—ended up with:
Entrenched corruption
Suppressed innovation
Economic mismanagement
Social unrest
The success stories are exceptions, not the rule.
A More Practical Path for Sri Lanka
Rather than advocating dictatorship, Sri Lanka should aim for a model of strong democratic governance with discipline, including:
Independent institutions insulated from political pressure
Performance-based public service reforms
Fast-track approval systems for investment
National-level planning insulated from election cycles
Strict accountability mechanisms for corruption
Conclusion
Sri Lanka does not need to abandon democracy to achieve development. What it needs is decisive leadership within a democratic framework—a system where rules are enforced, policies are consistent, and national interest overrides short-term political gain.
The lesson from Singapore or South Korea is not dictatorship—it is discipline, vision, and execution.
Regards
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
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Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody and Energy Ministry Secretary Professor Udayanga Hemapala resigned from their respective positions.
They submitted their resignation letters to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to facilitate an impartial and independent investigation by the Special Presidential Commission examining the coal importation process.
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