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What’s “National Security” for Sri Lanka?

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Remember listening to a young lady TV Anchor in a private TV channel a few months ago, demanding from an Opposition MP, what threats he is referring to as “threats to national security”. On her own definition, she was quite certain there are “no threats to national security” as claimed by the Opposition. “Its past midnight when I go home…. after these programmes” she said on camera. “I have never felt any threat to me” she added. The opposition argument was, heavy increase in “shootings” during the past few months in most parts of the country and an increase in deaths due to such shootings, would bring about a threat to “National Security” if not controlled immediately.

The concept of “national security” evolved over many decades ago with assumed “external threats” to a nation and its people. During the past two plus decades, especially after the New York 9/11 terrorist attack, the concept of national security has been broadened beyond “nations” with intensive intelligence gathering networks. Ethnic and religious conflicts, border clashes and environmental degradation have been added since. The most recent Indo-Pak armed conflict, is one that is spoken of as a “national threat” to India among “Shiv Sena and Hindutva” groups.

We in Sri Lanka, did have remotely manipulated threats to our national security, first in early 1980’s when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister in neighbouring India. Her perception of Jayawardene presidency as heavily weighted towards US, was what compelled her to intervene in our politics. In his book “Assignment Colombo” the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo J.N. Dixit wrote, “The first step that Mrs. Gandhi took was to give support to Sri Lankan Tamil parties and Tamil militant groups from 1980 onwards, details of which have been mentioned in a number of articles and books over the last 09 years. There is no need for me to repeat them”. (p/15)

As said, details given in many other writings confirm PM Indira Gandhi provided Sri Lankan armed Tamil groups with funds, military training and arms. In 1997, visiting Dehradun that borders Himalayas, I had a wholly unexpected meeting with a social activist very close to the Gandhi family. He took me to the “Rashtriya Indian Military College” in Garhi Cantt, where a select group of LTTE cadres had been trained to use “RPGs” and mortars. I was shown a massive rock in the hills, not too far away from the military college and told, mortars were fired at that rock during training.

Then Tamil Nadu (TN) Chief Minister, Sri Lankan born M.G. Ramachandran, popularly known in Tamil cinema as MGR, provided special accommodation to most Tamil armed group leaders and is said to have funded the LTTE nurturing a special fancy towards Prabhakaran. All that certainly was collective Indian manipulations in undermining our national security.

The next came in 1987 June. Then State Minister of Defence Lalith Athulathmudali a hardliner in Indo-Sri Lanka relations, endorsed a military offensive in March 1987 to take over Jaffna peninsula. Towards end May, the state military entered Jaffna peninsula and was pushing the LTTE towards Wadamarachchi. New Delhi hastened to inform the Colombo government, they want the “Wadamarachchi offensive” stopped immediately, to avoid a situation of mass hunger in the peninsula. Food not used as a “weapon of war”, Athulathmudali was determined to take-over whole of Jaffna peninsula in less than 02 weeks and was in no mood to halt the military offensive.

Yet Tamil Nadu convinced PM Rajiv Gandhi to decide on a flotilla of naval boats to deliver food to Jaffna. When Sri Lankan navy stopped them from entering SL waters and forced them to return to Rameswaran on June 03, India had decided on the ill-famed “air drop” on Jaffna, violating Sri Lankan airspace. On 04 June the airdrop of food parcels was carried out with SL High Commissioner in New Delhi Bernard Thilakaratne informed of the air drop about an hour before. Next day the Indian media carried the news of Indian Air force “successfully” completing “Operation Poomalai” by dropping food parcels on Jaffna that brought the Wadamarachchi offensive to a stop.

The last such threat on Sri Lankan national security was when PM Rajiv Gandhi in July 1987 almost coerced President Jayawardene to accept his government’s answer to the Sri Lankan Tamil armed conflict. The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed in Colombo in July 1987 that led to Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) taking over security of North-East and formation of elected Provincial Councils with devolved power. In Sinhala South, opposing the PCs and the IPKF presence, the JVP unleashed a terror campaign leading to complete mayhem.

All that being history, since President Rajapaksa declared the war as “victoriously concluded” on 19 May, 2009 with the LTTE and its entire leadership eliminated, Modi’s India has become a strong ally of Sri Lanka in its efforts to tide over the recent economic crisis. There remained no other external factor that can be assumed as an imminent threat to Sri Lanka’s national security.

What then is the Opposition assuming as a possible threat to our national security with increased shootings and deaths during the past few months? Unless these underworld groups are bought over by an “external agency” in the future, for now, they are only a threat to social stability and peace, and not “national security”. They act on their own agenda, nevertheless creating an uncertainty about citizen’s safety and security to life. It is therefore about how efficient the government is, in policing society, ensuring law and order for all and one.

If at all, what could in the future be a threat to our national security is the present NPP government’s pro-US foreign policy that accommodates Israel as a “peaceful” non-aggressive State, ignoring the genocidal war against Palestine. But on the ground, with mass recruitments of Israeli youth for the ongoing military offensives against Palestine since October 2023, Israeli government needs labour for their community based farming and for quick reconstruction of damaged buildings due to Hamas rocket fire.

Since Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence opened up links for Sri Lankan migrant employment in Israel, 02 MoUs signed between the two governments have in 2020 provided jobs for home stay female caregivers and again in 2023 for agriculture labour, subsequently extended for construction work as well. This year during the first 03 months, nearly 2,000 Sri Lankans have left to Israel as construction workers. In mid May this year, another 447 Sri Lankans were ready to leave according to Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE). (https://www.slbfe.lk/slbfe-news/447-sri-lankans-to-begin-employment-in-israels-construction-sector/)

Added is the space provided by this NPP government for Israeli “tourists” to basically live here in Sri Lanka, with their own abodes and establishing cultural centres called “Chabad Houses”. It is rather puzzling how the NPP government could allow Israeli “tourists” to establish their cultural centres the government too accept as illegal, while providing armed police security for their safety. Presumably after a protest on the opposite pavement in front of the Chabad House in Kollupitiya on 09 May, a hurried announcement made by the Police Media Division on 11 May (2025) says, Israelis staying in Sri Lanka who have established Chabad Houses in some police divisions for their convenience, have been provided adequate security by those police divisions, due to threats to Chabad Houses. The police media division also says, if any foreign nationals staying in Sri Lanka needs security, SL Police would provide adequate security after an assessment on threats.

This NPP government’s foreign policy that officially provides SL labour for warring Israel and allows Israelis to “stay” in Sri Laka with State security, may in the future open Sri Lanka for “external” anti-Israeli threats as was discussed in many social forums over alleged ISIS links during the 2019 April Easter Sunday attacks that left 253 fatalities.

This possibility of destabilising Sri Lanka by external anti-Israeli agents, can only be counted by a principled change in foreign policy of the NPP government. With strong US support to stay within the IMF programme and with no alternate thinking, this government’s foreign policy can only be positively changed by rational social interventions by the Opposition that to date is totally absent. Sadly in Colombo, even the generally accepted educated, professional middleclass perception is wholly flawed. They claim they oppose genocide and stand in solidarity with Palestine, but have no demands for this NPP government to honour at least a viable ceasefire. No demand the NPP government should stop providing SL labour to Israel, heavily engaged in a brutal a war that to date has left over 55,000 Palestinians killed counting around 70 percent children and women, 180 journalists and over 224 humanitarian aid workers including 179 that worked for UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).  

If dollar remittances are all what matters to the NPP government, this NPP foreign policy of accommodating Israel, whose PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, may invite threats to our national security, neither the NPP government nor the Opposition is willing to pay attention to.

– Kusal Perera

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Will JVP/NPP leaders respond to this, while dabbling on populist politics?

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Half this year 2025 has also been spent with no answer to how Sri Lanka would begin settling its restructured foreign debts and interests on them, from year 2028 August. When President Wickramasinghe led government began discussing its foreign debt restructuring with the IMF framed within IMF conditions, Sri Lanka had amassed a massive USD 56,092.95 million by end third quarter 2024, the time we were tied to presidential election campaigns.

The last quarter with parliament elections also slotted in, the new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD), sworn in late September last year, had no time to intervene in the economy. Thus the fourth quarter of the year 2024, the first 03 months of President AKD’s rule closed in December with foreign debt increasing to USD 57,133.49 million. An increase of USD 1,040.54 million in 03 months. Sri Lanka had by then agreed with IMF to restructure USD 12.55 billion of its total debts.

According to the IMF agreement signed by President AKD’s NPP government, Sri Lanka has to begin repayments from 2028 August. That would be under AKD’s NPP rule.   

Meanwhile Sri Lanka has to settle this year 2025, a total of USD 2,454 million in routine debts including USD 1,085 million as interest, according to Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Anil Jayantha. That, excluding the annual foreign trade deficit the GoSL has to settle every year.

In year ending December 2024, the total foreign trade deficit was USD 6,100 million with an import bill of USD 18,841 million, an increase of 12.1 percent over the previous year, despite fuel imports decreasing. This year 2025, the trade deficit in month of May was USD 473 million, according to the CBSL figures published. This was an increase of 16.9 percent over previous year trade deficit in month of May.

We are in the midst of a two year Middle East armed conflict, that may drag on, even if it does not lead to a cease fire between Israel, Iran and the Hamas armed organisation in Palestine. Uncertainties looming in Middle East may not provide the dollar remittances from migrant labour the government estimated for this whole year and received during the past 05 months. Thus, GoSL may have to face a serious increase in the external trade deficit, if a miracle does not make a change. Assumed the increase would be around 10 percent over the previous year 2024, the external trade deficit may reach or even go beyond USD 6,710 million. To this, has to be added the annual routine debt of USD 2,454 million disclosed by Deputy Minister Jayantha in parliament, to have the total commitment of the GoSL for year 2025. That then would be USD 9,164 million in 2025.

As much as the NPP government, the SJB in Opposition is inefficient and intellectually timid too in responding to governance issues. Thus there is no serious, intellectual debate in how the government could earn the extra USD 9,164 million needed to bridge the trade deficit this 2025. The IMF has no proposal for increased exports to fetch extra dollars. They are only focussed on axing State expenses and increasing “Rupee income” with increased taxing. The IMF thus approved import of luxury vehicles as a source of Rupee income from taxes, wholly ignoring the fact, GoSL would have to burn a heavy load of hard earned dollars including remittances from migrant labour. From January this year till beginning of month of May, Sri Lanka had spent USD 200 million for vehicle imports, according to CBSL Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe. He told media on 22 May, the total value of Letters of Credit opened by then for vehicle imports was USD 450 million. And the NPP government seems happy with a tax collection of Rs.136 billion by end of April.

Now, what is important? Collecting 136 billion rupees, form spending USD 200 million for vehicles, that would need extra dollars for extra consumption of fuel, with greater traffic congestions on urban roads? Fact remains, the IMF has no programme, no proposal to increase the export and service income despite all tax concessions, privileges and State patronage for FDIs and for tourism development given by the State at the expense of the tax payer. The annual gap between import trade cost and the export trade income remains around USD 7,000 to 8,000 million with another USD 2,000 million required for debt servicing.

This should be stressed without ambiguity. The required extra annual income in many millions of dollars cannot be earned with Ministers reducing numbers in their vehicle fleet, from not taking residency in official bungalows, from reducing State expenses in patches, from Ministers stepping into paddy fields carrying a mammoty, or by indicting few officials and politicians of the previous regime.

We need a well designed national development plan that can guarantee annual increase in dollar exports to bridge a trade deficit of about USD 10,000 million. Will the JVP/NPP leadership tell the People what their plan is for such income earning, while going round with their populist propaganda stuff?

– Kusal Perera

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Asweddumized fields and sizzling kottu roti: New words from Sri Lanka

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In a letter dated 7 October 1971 and sent from Panadura, Ceylon, OED contributor Pearl Cooray wrote to then Chief Editor Robert Burchfield: ‘I have looked up references for the word asweddumize and have succeeded to a certain extent. The Sinhala word aswedduma means “land recently converted into a paddy field”, and the Anglicized word asweddumize means to prepare a field for sowing paddy’. Cooray was a Sri Lankan academic who visited Burchfield in Oxford earlier in 1971, and upon returning to her country and her position in the Dictionary Department of the University of Ceylon, briefly corresponded with the OED, sending the above quoted letter as well as a selection of Sri Lankan newspapers and magazines for the reading programme for the OED Supplements that were in preparation at the time. Her suggestion for asweddumize would have been too late for the word to be considered for Volume I of the Supplements, so Burchfield wrote the word and definition on a paper slip, the main means by which words were tracked until the 2010s, and filed it alongside an earlier slip from July 1970 with the same suggestion from another Sri Lankan contributor, D. N. Ponnamperuma.  

Nothing further is found about asweddumize in the OED’s files until 1986, when botanist D. J. Mabberley, a regular consultant for the Supplement, sent in a quotation slip for the word, which he would have encountered during the time he spent at a university in Sri Lanka. A decade later, another slip records the decision made not to draft an entry for asweddumize due to lack of evidence. ‘Omit (sadly)’was the responsible editor’s regretful note on the slip. 

Almost thirty years later, this sad omission has finally been rectified, with the addition of asweddumize to the OED as part of this update. Current OED Sri Lankan English consultant Rochana Jayasinghe’s research on Pearl Cooray and her contributions to the Supplement helped put asweddumize back on the OED’s radar, and now that the dictionary’s editors have wider access to historical and contemporary Sri Lankan sources than their counterparts in the 1970s and 80s, it was possible to find sufficient evidence for the word, including a first quotation from as far back as 1857. 

Joining asweddumize among this batch of new words are other borrowings from Sinhala, the Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese, the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka. Mallung (first attested 1893) is lightly cooked, shredded (often leafy green) vegetables mixed with fresh grated coconut, chilli, and other spices, served as a side dish, salad, or condiment as part of a typical Sri Lankan meal, while kiribath (1886) is a Sri Lankan dish made with rice cooked in coconut milk and formed into a block, typically sliced into diamond-shaped pieces and served with various types of onion relish or sweetened with jaggery. Kiribath is traditionally eaten at special occasions such as Avurudu (1881), the first day of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, occurring on the spring equinox (usually falling around 14 April), marked by a period of celebration typically lasting for seven to ten days. 

Other Sri Lankan English words in this update originate both in Sinhala and another widely spoken language on the island, Tamil. Kottu roti (1991) is a Sri Lankan dish consisting of pieces of roti, meat, and vegetables, mixed with spices and curry sauce, and chopped by cleavers as they are cooked on a griddle. It is typically associated with the distinctive sound of the cleavers hitting the griddle as it is prepared by roadside vendors, and its name combines the Tamil word kottu ‘chopped’ with the Sinhala word roṭi ‘bread’. Partly a borrowing from Sinhala and partly a borrowing from Tamil, watalappam (1956) is a custard made from coconut milk (or sometimes condensed milk), cashew nuts, eggs, and spices such as cardamom and cloves, sweetened with jaggery and traditionally eaten by Sri Lankan Muslims during celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. 

Sri Lankan music is represented by the words baila (1973) and papare (2006). Baila, a loan word from Portuguese, refers to an uptempo style of popular music originating in Sri Lanka which combines influences from both Africa and Europe, typically played in 6-8 time, with a syncopated rhythm, as well as to the style of dance performed to this music. Often associated with weddings and other celebrations, types of baila music are also popular in Goa and in the city of Mangaluru, on India’s west coast. Papare, on the other hand, is a genre of Sri Lankan music usually played at cricket and other sports matches, characterized by lively rhythms and typically featuring instrumentation of trumpet, saxophone, trombone, and snare and bass drums. 

Apart from adding new Sri Lankan English words, OED editors have also revised a number of existing Sri Lankan English entries in the dictionary. Both these new and revised entries have been given transcriptions and audio pronunciations based on a new pronunciation model for Sri Lankan English, which is explained in more detail in this article. These enhancements to the OED’s coverage of Sri Lankan English help provide a more complete picture of how the language is used islandwide.

Full list of World English additions and revisions in the OED June 2025 update

(oed.com)

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Dog-sized dinosaur that ran around feet of giants discovered

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The full name of the new species is Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae dinosaur

A labrador-sized dinosaur was wrongly categorised when it was found and is actually a new species, scientists have discovered.

Its new name is Enigmacursor – meaning puzzling runner – and it lived about 150 million years ago, running around the feet of famous giants like the Stegosaurus.

It was originally classified as a Nanosaurus but scientists now conclude it is a different animal.

On Thursday it will become the first new dinosaur to go on display at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London since 2014.

BBC News went behind the scenes to see the dinosaur before it will be revealed to the public.

The discovery promises to shed light on the evolutionary history that saw early small dinosaurs become very large and “bizarre” animals, according to Professor Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the museum.

When we visit, the designer of a special glass display case for the Enigmacursor is making last-minute checks.

The dinosaur’s new home is a balcony in the museum’s impressive Earth Hall. Below it is Steph the Stegosaurus who also lived in the Morrison Formation in the Western United States.

Enigmacursor is tiny by comparison. At 64 cm tall and 180 cm long it is about the height of a labrador, but with much bigger feet and a tail that was “probably longer than the rest of the dinosaur,” says Professor Susanna Maidment.

The Enigmacursor was a small dinosaur that lived alongside some of the biggest known

“It also had a relatively small head, so it was probably not the brightest,” she adds, adding that it was probably a teenager when it died.

With the fossilised remains of its bones in their hands, conservators Lu Allington-Jones and Kieran Miles expertly assemble the skeleton on to a metal frame.

“I don’t want to damage it at this stage before its revealed to everybody,” says Ms Allington-Jones, head of conservation.

Conservators Lu Allington-Jones and Kieran Miles assembled the dinosaur onto a frame for display

“Here you can see the solid dense hips showing you it was a fast-running dinosaur. But the front arms are much smaller and off the ground – perhaps it used them to shovel plants in its mouth with hands,” says Mr Miles.

It was clues in the bones that led scientists at NHM to conclude the creature was a new species.

“When we’re trying to identify if something is a new species, we’re looking for small differences with all of the other closely-related dinosaurs. The leg bones are really important in this one,” says Prof Maidment, holding the right hind limb of the Enigmacursor.

When the dinosaur was donated to the museum it was named Nanosaurus, like many other small dinosaurs named since the 1870s.

But the scientists suspected that categorisation was false.

To find out more, they travelled to the United States with scans of the skeleton and detailed photographs to see the original Nanosaurus that is considered the archtype specimen.

“But it didn’t have any bones. It’s just a rock with some impressions of bone in it. It could be any number of dinosaurs,” Professor Maidment said.

Susanna Maidment travelled to the US to look at the original Nanosaurus dinosaur

In contrast, the NHM’s specimen was a sophisticated and near-to-complete skeleton with unique features including its leg bones.

Untangling this mystery around the names and categorisation is essential, the palaeontologists say.

“It’s absolutely foundational to our work to understand how many species we actually have. If we’ve got that wrong, everything else falls apart,” says Prof Maidment.

The scientists have now formally erased the whole category of Nanosaurus.

They believe that other small dinosaur specimens from this period are probably also distinct species.

The discovery should help the scientists understand the diversity of dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic period.

Smaller dinosaurs are “very close to the origins of the large groups of dinosaurs that become much more prominent later on,” says Prof Barrett.

“Specimens like this help fill in some of those gaps in our knowledge, showing us how those changes occur gradually over time,” he adds.

Looking at these early creatures helps them identify “the pressures that finally led to the evolution of their more bizarre, gigantic descendants,” says Prof Barrett.

The fossilised remains are the most complete of any in the world for early small dinosaurs

The scientists are excited to have such a rare complete skeleton of a small dinosaur.

Traditionally, big dinosaur bones have been the biggest prize, so there has been less interest in digging out smaller fossils.

“When you’re looking for those very big dinosaurs, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the smaller ones living alongside them. But now I hope people will keep their eyes close to the ground looking for these little ones,” says Prof Barrett.

The findings about Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae are published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

– Georgina Rannard

Science correspondent

(BBC News)

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