This is the first of a two-part series.
By Darini Rajasingham Senanayake*
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 23 July 2025 (IDN) — Was the same Playbook to unmake Multiculturalism and stage the Palestine Nakba (catastrophe) for the violent birth of Israel in May 1948 used years later in the July 1983 pogrom and staged riots in Sri Lanka? Moreover, were the same foreign institutional forces, clandestine actors and networks involved?
Our Sri Lankan Nakba, which included killings, staged riots, forced migration and brain drain to de-develop the country, inaugurated a 30-year cycle of war. The July 1983 pogrom also served to construct a dominant narrative of a perpetually divided people locked in ethno-religious strife in ‘Paradise Lost’. This was much like the Disinformation spread about Palestine — a highly multicultural land before the Nakba in which millions were forcibly displaced to invent Israel.
The narrative of ‘perpetual ethnic conflict’ in Lanka belied centuries of Multiculturalism, co-existence and intermarriage across generations among Sinhala and Tamil-speaking peoples. So too, was Palestine a multicultural and multi-religious mosaic of Arab, Bedouin, Christian, Druze, Jewish, etc. peoples, before organised violence was unleashed to displace non-Jews and birth the settler colonial state of Israel on 14 May 1948.
Israel was born exactly three months after the Crown Colony of Ceylon was transformed into a British Dominion on 14 February 1948, with pomp, circumstance, and the façade of Independence. The catastrophe staged for the founding of the Zionist state was backed by the occupying colonial power–Britain and an increasingly powerful American Jewish Diaspora. That history of violence repeats today in Gaza and the West Bank as tragedy and genocide. Sri Lanka, thankfully, escaped the fate of divided, partitioned and pounded Palestine—for now at least.
The Ethnic Conflict Research Industry
Post July 1983, a dominant narrative of perpetual ‘ethnic conflict’ between the Sinhala and Tamil speaking communities was funded and constructed mainly by the Ford Foundation’s ethnic conflict research industry, headquartered at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo and Kandy. The narrative of perpetual conflict between Sinhalas and Tamils re-inscribed local ethno-nationalist and Mahavamsa historiography, albeit as critique. More often than not, this was inadvertent, but then, the path to hell is often paved with good intentions!
The ethnic conflict research industry was, in turn, part of Cold War Area Studies grant Programs in the American academy, which the State Department and USAID funded. It included human rights, peacebuilding, trauma and reconciliation, as well as literature and film production. The ethnic turn in the social sciences (also known as identity politics, as seen in the Culture Wars) was bolstered by a lost generation of historians, who were isolated and trapped in the Anglo-Dutch colonial archive, producing Eurocentric, Raj Nostalgia histories of Ceylon, often dependent on European Union grants and perks. Replete with Orientalist tropes (such as Slaves in Palenquines, this genre of trendy post/colonial resistance social history remains largely unable to de-island and reconnect Ceylon/Sri Lanka to Global South geopolitical economy and Indian Ocean World history even in the Asian 21st Century.
The perpetual ‘ethnic conflict’ narrative in Lanka is built on spurious colonial racial classifications. This was achieved by biologizing fundamentally cultural (i.e., linguistic) differences among Sinhala and Tamil-speaking people who had coexisted and intermarried for centuries across generations. Crucially, the permanent ethnic conflict narrative served to conceal the fact that the armed conflict in the geostrategic island at the centre of the Indian Ocean world was just another Cold War Proxy war, staged between blood brothers and sisters, as external actors weaponised ethno-religious identity politics. Hence the title of Harvard Anthropologist, Stanley Tambiah’s book “Ethnic Fratricide”.
After the pogrom and staged riots of July 1983, a shadow war was waged across geostrategic Sri Lanka. This, between the India-backed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the Sri Lankan armed forces whose units were being trained and armed by British MI-6 linked Special Air Services (SAS) officers, of the Keenie Meeni mercenaries (KMS), and Israel’s Mossad.
In short, Sri Lanka’s ‘ethnic conflict’ was NOT unique. Instead, it evolved, waxed and waned as a small piece in the larger global jigsaw puzzle of regional Cold War Proxy Wars roiling much of decolonising Asia, Africa and South America, including Palestine. This was to protect the security and economic interests of European empires in retreat and preempt genuine decolonisation, often led by Communist and Leftist forces.
Military Bases and Gladio in the Global South
With the wisdom of hindsight and new research into declassified documents, it is now clear that Sri Lanka’s so-called internal ‘ethnic conflict was really part of a wider Indian Ocean and South Asia Cold War proxy war. As the Cold War between the Capitalist Western allies and the Soviet Socialist Bloc, led by Russia, escalated at the end of World War II in Europe, South Asia was drawn into a regional proxy war.
As part of a broader Cold War strategy and the anti-communist global crusade, that also weaponised world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism), to fight ‘God-less Communists’, the British and Americans were keen to establish military bases in geostrategic Sri Lanka at the centre of the Indian Ocean. However, India, the regional hegemon, being close to the Soviet Union, was dead set against UK and US bases being set up in her backyard.
Hence, various Gladio-style ‘stay behind’ clandestine operations were unleashed much as in Europe and other countries in the Global South, often with deep penetration and infiltration of local authorities and national institutions.[i] This is also to protect Euro-American economic, corporate and security interests in the decolonising Global South. These took the form of terror attacks, assassinations, coups against Socialist and Leftist decolonisation and national independence leaders and movements; ‘false flag’ operations to blame and de-legitimise the Left that were also penetrated, as was the case with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramua uprisings and Dirty Wars of 1972 and the late eighties.
As in Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Burundi, DRCongo, Chile, Argentina, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, the list goes on and on; tensions among historically multicultural and multi-religious communities were generated and/ or systematically weaponised to greater or lesser degree by mostly Western intelligence agencies and Mossad. This was, of course, in collusion with local elites and religious groups by weaponing ethno-religious identity politics as part of Cold War proxy wars against the leftist movements and de-colonial agendas.
The war in Sri Lanka was triggered after 13 soldiers were killed in the northern Province of Jaffna, 42 years ago on 23 July, by a small group of separatists backed by neighbouring India. As the bodies of the soldiers were brought to Colombo for cremation, segments of the J.R. Jayawardene regime and some Trade Unions (notably at the Colombo Port, the largest in South Asia), which foreign intelligence agencies infiltrated, carried out the pogrom.
After the pogrom of July 1983, there were attempts to blame leftists. At the time, Inspector General of Police, Rudra Rajasingham, whose request to impose curfew and preempt the pogrom based on Police Intelligence that there were plans to attack Tamil homes and businesses after President J.R. Jayawardena denied the funerals on the fateful night of 23 July 1983, when Colombo burned. On several occasions, IGP Rudra Rajasingham questioned the attempt to blame the Left for the violence that ensued. Later, his first cousin, senior lawyer, Bala Tampoe, the founder of the Ceylon Mercantile Union, defended members of the JVP who were accused of the events of July 1983 in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
The July 1983 Shock Doctrine enabled the entry of British MI-6, Special Air Services (SAS), linked Keenie Meenie mercenaries and Israeli Mossad to establish the desired bases in the Eastern Province. This was purportedly to train Sri Lankan Special Forces (STF) in ‘counter-terrorism’ and paramilitary operations against India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) backed LTTE and other Tamil militant groups.
Militarisation also served President J.R. Jayawardena’s Neo-liberal economic agenda of setting up free trade zones with attenuated Labour Rights. The island’s national and local political and Business Elites in Sri Lanka were well trained to follow the instructions of their former colonial masters, and later their Development Aid “advisors”, and assist the retreating British Raj to protect its economic and security interests.
The Endgame of setting up foreign bases, cells, networks and ‘spider webs’ of control within local armed forces and paramilitary units was in sight. Later, these would morph into “Jakarta Method’ style Dirty War terror and torture house operations by paramilitary groups against the purportedly Leftist JVP, again with British and Israeli ‘advisors. This included the infamous Batalanda and other Torture Camps in Southern Sri Lanka.
Hidden Hands in Sri Lanka’s Nakba and Dirty Wars
Beneath the official narrative of interminable ‘ethnic conflict’ in Sri Lanka, lurked foreign intelligence agencies, clandestine networks and external forces, skilled in researching ethno-religious identity politics, creating or weaponising tensions in historically multicultural societies. This included the use of blackmail and honey traps against political elites, such as Sri Lanka’s Ranil Wickramasinghe. Some of this is now being revealed in the Jeffrey Epstein case files. [ii]
While the role of India and its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is relatively well known, as also though the book ‘Assignment Colombo’ by former Ambassador Dixit, the role of Western intelligence agencies in Sri Lanka’s multiple dirty wars (LTTE and Janatha Vimukthi Peramua JVP vs. the State) is less known.[iii]
Parts of that story were revealed in Victor Ostrovsky and Clair Hoy’s book published in Canada in 1990 that became a New York Times bestseller, which the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, tried to ban. “By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer” is the true story of an officer in Israel’s most secret operations, including in Sri Lanka
Other parts of the story of Western Cold War foreign intelligence agency networks involved in Sri Lanka, namely the British colonial office, are revealed in Phil Miller’s book; “Keenie Meenie: the British Mercenaries who got away with war crimes”, and resonate with Vincent Bevin’s “Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anti-Communist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that shaped our World. Israel’s Mossad was a proxy for the US Central Intelligence Agency due to India’s opposition to the US intelligence agency in Sri Lanka.
India, close ally of the Soviet Socialist Bloc led by Russia (USSR), opposed the setting up of US and British bases in its backyard. Hence, the British and Americans went to the Chagos Islands, located due southwest of Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands, and drove out all its people, who were scattered in Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Britain, to construct the huge Diego Garcia military base in the early 1960s. The British refer to the Chagos Islands as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
Ostrovsky’s revelations about how Mossad trained both the Sri Lanka Special Forces (STF) and LTTE, and sold weapons to both, have been corroborated by new research on declassified documents, as well as local sources. These include Phil Miller’s work and Herman Guneratne’s book ‘For a Sovereign State”. Remarkably, Ostrovsky quoted Penny Jayawardena, wife of Ravi Jayawardena, the son of President J.R. Jayawardena who was involved in setting up of the Special Task Force (STF) -Mossad-KMS- training camps on how World Bank Funds that were earmarked for the Mahaweli Development Project were diverted for covert operations and the setting up training bases in the Eastern Province.
Retrospectively it is clear that Ostrovsky’s revelations about Mossad activities in Sri Lanka were buried in a Cover Up Investigation and Commission Report conducted by S.W.P Wadugodapitiya, PC. The Report dated September 1991, into Mossad’s activities on Sri Lanka was commissioned by President R. Premadasa, who subsequently ordered the exit from Sri Lanka and closure of all foreign military bases, including Mossad and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which controlled the northeast of Sri Lanka between July 1987 and March 1990.
President Premadasa, who had also accused Mossad of instigating an impeachment motion against him, was assassinated on 1 May 1993. As usual, the LTTE was blamed, but this does not add up since Premadasa had sought the help of the LTTE to get rid of the Indian Forces.
Development Aid and Foreign Bases: Hand in Glove?
Taken together, it is apparent that the geopolitical Endgame of foreign forces operating in Sri Lanka staging armed conflicts (both the LTTE ethnic proxy war which later split and morphed into the Southern JVP Dirty War violence of 1989-90), were the establishment of foreign military bases, then as now in the geostrategic island at the center of the Indian Ocean world.
The Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project in the Eastern Province was re-designed also to serve as an entry point for Mossad and the British intelligence MI-6 linked Keenie Meenie mercenaries to enable ‘training bases’ once pro-US J.R. Jayawardena (Yankie Dickie was his nickname), came to power in 1977, unseating the Socialist and Non-Aligned Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime. Some of this is detailed in revealing pages by Ostrovsky.
Sri Lanka’s internal war was also punctuated by international peace building efforts. The wars seemed to wax and wane with Cold War developments in Europe and Indian external and domestic (Tamil Nadu) interests, in tandem with internal political developments and the interests of local actors. This is true of both the LTTE ethnic proxy war and the Southern JVP Dirty War violence of 1989-90, in which many of the same actors were involved. After the IPKF arrived in Sri Lanka in with the signing of the Indian Peace Keeping Accords in July 1987, and took over the Northeast Province, the Mossad, British KMS Advisors and STF moved out of the East to Southern Sri Lanka where they set up camp for Dirty War, counter-terrorism and torture house operations that ensured 1988-1993.
Indeed, the late 80 and early 90s period of assassinations and Dirty War operations involving the leftist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna echo US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ‘Jakarta Method’ operations detailed by Vincent Bevins’ in his “The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anti-Communist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped our World”, published in 2020. It was common knowledge in Colombo circles that the Israelis worked out of a Special Interest Section in the United States Embassy as Sri Lanka had not recognised the existence of the State of Israel, being Non-Aligned and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
The coveted Trincomalee Deep Sea Harbour in the Eastern Province, which was used to surveil and control Indian Ocean trade, energy, and now submarine data cable routes, was a prime target of and for Western and Indian intervention. The British and French, as well as the Portuguese and Dutch, had fought bloody battles in earlier centuries to capture and control the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon.
In these times, a new scandal involving Israeli ‘tourists’ running Chabard — Lubovich Prayer Houses in the Eastern Province, where a mysterious Evangelical Christian Zion Church was even more mysteriously targeted by an Islamic State (ISIS) claimed attack on Easter Sunday 2019, has emerged. (To be continued)
Image: A section of the Nakba commemoration in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 14 May 2024. Source: World Socialist Website.
*Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake is a social and medical anthropologist with expertise in international development and political-economic analysis. She was a member of the International Steering Group of the North-South Institute project: “Southern Perspectives on Reform of the International Aid Architecture”. [IDN-InDepthNews]
[i] Daniele Ganser 2004 NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and NATO’s Secret Armies in Europe.
[ii]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390091892_The_Strategic_Use_of_Blackmail_in_Intelligence_Operations_Analyzing_Mossad%27s_Global_Influence
[iii] https://www.dailymirror.lk/amp/plus/Was-Israeli-intelligence-the-target-of-speculated-Arugam-Bay-attack/352-295335
