Sri Lanka gained partial independence in 1948 since the Queen/King remained Head of State and the highest court was the UK Privy Council.
This meant that from 1948 to 1972 UK continued to have the final say in all of Sri Lanka’s affairs. Sri Lanka became truly independent only on May 22, 1972 and rightly Sri Lanka should be celebrating Republic Day and not a partial independence.
However, from 1972 to present, Sri Lanka has witnessed too many internal conflicts, majority of which have been orchestrated externally through clandestine operations to ensure Sri Lanka never raises its head.
The interventions that Sri Lanka cannot ignore comes from India-UK-EU-UN/UNHRC and now the US. All of these entities have different fronts operating within Sri Lanka – hired political parties/politicians, NGOs, the church, jihadists and locals induced to betray the nation.
While these externally induced factors impede development, internal factors include corruptions (public and private) and other nuances like lethargy, lack of consistent national policies, yo-yo political culture and so on. It is as a result of periodically despatching these destabilising elements that Sri Lanka can never develop.
1949 – ITAK formed seeking separate Tamil State as its objective (a year after partial independence).
1962 Jan – Catholic action attempting to overthrow Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
1964 Feb – Chinese PM Zhou Enlai visits Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
1964 March – Non-Aligned Conference hosted in Sri Lanka.
1960s – Nationalisation of petroleum, insurance, banking impacted relations with UK, US, Australia, Canada (Ceylon Petroleum Corp created in 1961) and US suspended foreign aid in 1963.
1970s – Sirimavo Bandaranaike opposes Anglo-US communications centre in the Indian Ocean claiming area should remain “neutral” and a nuclear-free zone.
1971 April 5 – JVP insurrection (ended in June 1971) just 1 ½ years of Sirimavo Bandaranaike returning to power.
1972 May 22 – Republic Day (Ceylon becomes Sri Lanka).
1972 May 22 – Prabhakaran (just 18 years) forms Tamil New Tigers.
1976 May 5 – Tamil New Tigers rechristened LTTE.
1976 May 14 – TULF ‘s Vaddukoddai Resolution calling for a separate Tamil State.
1970s – Sri Lankan Tamil youth secretly trained in India “these are boys trained by us from 1977” (J. N. Dixit Indian envoy to Sri Lanka).
1978 May – LTTE banned.
1978 May 7 – LTTE blows up Air Ceylon plane on day new Constitution is tabled.
1981 June 1 – Burning of Jaffna Public Library (Ranil W took responsibility).
1982 May – Tamil Eelam Army bombs Chennai airport killing 30.
1983 July 23 – 13 Sri Lankan soldiers killed (though many Sri Lankan police had been killed earlier).
1983 July 24 – July riots orchestrated by UNP thugs.
1984 – LTTE opens international headquarters in London (open support for terrorism by UK).
1984 – LTTE civilian killings commences with Kent and Dollar Farm massacre of innocent villagers and pregnant women/children.
By 1986 – India had secretly trained over 3500 Tamil youth to rebel against Sri Lanka (Jain Commission Report).
1987 April 15 – JVP insurrection attacking Pallekalle army camp.
1987 April 17 – LTTE kills 127 civilians in Aluth Oya.
1987 April 21 – Pettah Bus attack kills 118 civilians.
1987 May 26 – Army launch Operation Vadamarachchi and corners Prabhakaran (India orders a halt to operations and forbids capture of Prabakaran).
1987 June 2 – Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi sends flotilla by sea but Sri Lanka Navy sends them back.
1987 June 4 – India violates Sri Lanka’s sovereignty dropping 22 tons of parippu (an act of aggression by India).
1987 July 21 – India whisks Prabhakaran and family to India in six helicopters.
1987 July 28 – Prabhakaran and Rajiv Gandhi meet at Ashok Hotel, Delhi.
1987 July 29 – Sri Lanka forced to sign Indo-Lanka Peace Accord.
1987 July 30 – Over 100,000 Indian soldiers land in Sri Lanka.
1987 Aug 2 – Prabhakaran flown back to North (after signing of Indo-Accord).
1987 Sept 15 – Dixit orders IPKF commander to kill Prabhakaran (as RAW created an alternative group Tamil National Army to replace LTTE).
1991 May 21 – LTTE assassinate Rajiv Gandhi in India.
2009 May – LTTE defeated.
2009 onwards international interference in Sri Lanka increases via multiple fronts.
JVP and real objective
The outcome of both JVP insurrections and the response by the then Governments in power was that the victims on either side were Sinhalese.
Was this the subtle game plan in funding both sides and choreographing to cut short the lives of talented Sinhala undergraduates, Sinhalese businessmen, academics, artists, Security Forces and police? This aspect of the raw deal has never been looked into.
Behind the façade of ‘insurrection’ was the real aim to eliminate Sinhalese and weaken them? The answer comes in the manner present day JVP fronts influence undergraduates inside universities to further take their lives into decline.
LTTE and real objective
Tamil terrorism began with India training Tamil youth to commence a guerilla warfare against the State. LTTE emerged the gruesome party and eliminated promising and talented Tamil leaders. LTTE was also used to deny education to thousands of Tamil youth by turning them into child soldiers and killers.
Had these children not engaged in warfare what would they have been today? While India initially supported Tamil terrorism, through the years foreign Governments, international agencies and the church aligned with it to advance their own historical and geopolitical agendas.
If Sinhalese are targets of JVP, Tamils are targets of LTTE and jihadism targets Muslims – we should be mature enough to understand that these external elements are breaking us apart as a nation by putting communities against each other. This is the same blueprint of divide and rule followed by our invaders.
External elements
India remains a key player in its manner to dictate how Sri Lanka is run. Using Tamil terrorism India self-appointed itself as the surrogate mother of Tamils and continues to bully Sri Lanka in all of its decisions in the North and the East.
India uses estate Tamils and its political groups to dictate how Central Province Tamils should be treated. India’s trade pacts further influence Sri Lanka in virtually every sector – food, oil, culture, infrastructure and even politics.
Now India is boldly venturing into forcing Sri Lanka to sign military pacts aligned to the US objective of using ACSA, SOFA and MCC to permanently place US troop presence in Sri Lanka on the pretext of protecting its people and equipment.
India is advancing its initiatives in Sri Lanka realising US cannot be trusted on account of its program to balkanise India eventually. Every country has permanent interests above all which is something Sri Lanka’s politicians and advisors fail to understand.
India dictates how Tamils vote. West/NGOs/church dictate how Christians/Catholics vote, global political allegiance decides who JVP should support every election and how the ground campaign is steered.
The US helped UNP elections in 1956, 1960, 1965, 2000 and 2015. Incidentally, it is questionable why the US didn’t help in the 2005 election unless India and the US thought it was time to eliminate the ground force of LTTE together with its leader and the pass baton to the LTTE Diaspora.
China’s investments
China has never interfered or invaded any country and China’s investments has always been with economic profit in a win-win deal though it is not China’s fault that Sri Lanka has no capable negotiators to strike beneficial deals in favor of Sri Lanka. We can recall how the Mahinda Rajapakse Government was defeated simply because it allowed Chinese submarines to dock at our port.
UK was the last colonial invader to occupy Sri Lanka for over 150 years and continues to think it has a right to dictate the affairs of Sri Lanka.
Amidst these Governmental incursions and interferences, the West’s other front UN/UNHRC /church are busy arm twisting Sri Lanka to change its internal systems so they can be controlled and dictated by UN and Western Governments thus breaking down the sovereign status of Sri Lanka.
With the LTTE ground force no more the LTTE Diaspora is used as pawns. The JVP armed force replaces its political wing often used as foot soldiers by every Government who turn to external help to come to power and compromising their promises to their voters and having to pay back to these external forces for helping them to come to power.
So invariably both the LTTE and JVP had elements of foreign involvement and these became used as soft power tools to arm twist successive Governments. These entities continue to be used under different facades.
Internal crisis
Leaving aside the external elements manipulating politics and how the country functions, our own house is certainly not in order. Corruptions, commissions, cronyism, bribery, favouritism have not helped any of Sri Lanka’s illustrious programs to consistently develop.
National policies plans and initiatives are subject to paper. This is prevalent not only in the public sector but in private sector as well. The gap between the rich and poor is widening to showcase the level of corruptions that prevail.
The salaries and perks of the top CEOs and management in Sri Lanka showcases another element of how the corporate world is able to influence advantage to themselves via Government deals inked abusing the corruptions that prevail.
One cannot take a wand and simply make all these ills disappear. Firstly, the citizens of Sri Lanka must be aware that any developmental goals we may aspire to achieve and political parties promise to their voters is made impossible by the external elements whose main goal is to keep Sri Lanka unstable by using a plethora of players for their objective.
These range from political parties, politicians, media, lawyers, local organisations, trade unions, joint ventures with private individuals/companies and so on and all of these players are used knowingly or unknowingly to advance a bigger agenda.
Each of them is tasked a role, which when fitted together, the jigsaw of destroying Sri Lanka comes on track. This is what we need to understand as the truth behind the political landscape in Sri Lanka.
How do we change this?
We need a leader who understands the real picture, who has a team who also understands the real picture and who wants to carve out a plan with strategies to overcome and counter the googlys that are thrown at us from different fronts. This team cannot compromise or be manipulated by internal or external sources and they should remain committed to bringing Sri Lanka to where it deserves to be.
Do we have such a leader and team amongst us? Let us search.