Dr Sudath Gunasekara Ex-Permanent Secretary to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayaka and past-President Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association (1991–1994)
3.29.2025.
UK Sanction on the Sri Lankan former military leaders, for defending the territorial integrity of their motherland and defeating the LTTE, the cruelest and savages’ terrors group in the world, that waged a 30-year terrorist war to overthrow the democratically elected government of the country is the latest naked western colonial interference and intervention with the sovereignty, independence and the freedom of this country.
This high handed, exhibition of their past outdated colonial attitude clearly shows that even now, they think we are one of their Crown colonies? Do they know that Sri Lanka is a fully independent Republic from the 22nd of May 1972 under a new Republican Constitution that abolished the British made Solebury constitution of 1948.The Solebury Constitution conferred only a fake independence by keeping this country tightly tied to their dying empire. Solebury Constitution in my opinion was only a mere caveat tightly tied on to the UK with the so-called Commonwealth of Nations, fully controlled by the UK. For example, it kept this country tightly tied on to the UK by retaining all three main prerequisites of a free state, namely the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers tacitly in the hands of the United Kingdom, with many other rights like the power to enter in to agreements with foreign countries. Even the appointment of Ambassadors to foreign countries as the emissaries under the name of this country was done in the name of the Queen of England. Furthermore, it also retained the right to use Trincomalee and Katunayaka Air bases with them, and also the right over all sterling Tea plantations in the country. Therefore, the 1948 so-called Independence was handed over to us with tight controls. It was only a contract handed over to a set of their own proxies, brainwashed to run the country, on their behalf in the British way, to safeguard their own interests.
This country became a fully independent Sovereign country free from all the constraints and ropes that were kept in the hands of the Brish Parliament under the now dead Solebury Constitution only, after the newly formed Constitutional Assembly adopted the Republican Constitution and declared as the Republic of Sri Lanka under the new Constitution in 1972 after abolishing the Solebury Constitution.
Therefore, it is high time that the UK Government fully understand this legal position at least now and restrain from interfering with the sovereignty, freedom and independence of this country as if what they had done to destroy this country and its civilization for nearly 150 years is more than is not enough.
In spite of this defecto and de jure situation, it is unfortunate that the present Government, has so far adopted a very lukewarm attitude with regard to Sanction on the Sri Lankan former military leaders violating all internationally accepted legal provisions and civilized norms highlighted in the Viana Convention The government, so far has failed to take prompt action to safeguard the interests of the country’s military Commanders who saved the country at very high cost and protect the sovereignty, dignity and the good name of the country defeating av30 year terrorist war deployed to divide the country and establish an EELAM on this land of the Sinhala nation.
This indifference on the part of the government reminds me the famous Sinhala adage “නිවට කරණවෑමියා දුටුවාම එලුවාත් රැවුළ පානවා”. The truth behind this old adage has come true whenever we don’t have a patriotic government of strong and patriotic Statesmen of standing, who have the courage to stand up as lions, against this type of unsavory interference by enemy governments and have the courage to fight back to defend the mother land and its sovereignty, independence, freedom the people who have elected them to power.
Therefore, I call upon the government to take stern action at least now to safeguard the good name of the former military leaders in particular and the overall interests of the military forces and country at large.
The first question I would like to pause here to the Government of the UK is what moral right on earth does the, former colonial invader and a repressive and oppressive exploiter who has a long chain of cruel and inhuman crimes and violation of basic huma rights committed to their account on the native Sinhalese of this country for a period of about 150 years and the whole world in general for centuries , has to impose such sanctions on our military leaders who has defended the democratically elected Government, the State and the its citizens, that being their first duty by the state.
It appears that UK is acting under the impression that we are still a vasal colony of theirs, which is far from the truth. While reminding them that we have ceased to be so long time ago, in spite of their low and mean maneuvering and conspiracies. I would request the Government of this country to lodge a strong protest at least now, though belated, against this blatant breach of all accepted international laws and ethics. UK Government must tender an open apology to the three Generals, Government and the people of Sri Lanka for the humiliation it had done to our military leaders in particular and the whole country in general, just to collect the vote of the Tamil Diaspora, living thee.
The UK appears to have forgotten that we are also an independent and fully sovereign country as much as the UK is. This colonial thuggery and bullying must stop at least now. How can they sanction members of our army as we are not a vasal colony under them anymore. Isn’t it not enough what you have and exploited us for 133 years from 1815 1948 and ruined not only our country but its Millenia old Sinhala Buddhist civilization as well.
Now that we have a government elected by is sovereign people, I suggest that the government of this country first summon the UK Ambassador immediately and lodge our strong protest and ask them to immediately withdraw this ugly and uncivilized sanctions on the clean Sri Lankan former military leaders. If they prefer to sleep with our enemy for political gains at local elections let them do so. Even if they want to have a LTTE Tamil diaspora man or woman as their King/Queen, we don’t mind and let them dig their own burial pit.
At the same time the government of this country must also assert and submit the following list of demands to the UK predator as soon as possible.
“We the people of this free, independent and sovereign country, Sri Lanka submit the following list of your unpardonable crimes and violations of human rights committed against this country and the sons of the soil, the Sinhala Buddhist people and we demand you to pay the full compensation as retribution for the crimes your country had committed on our people for 151 years starting from 1797
1. For capturing the maritime provinces and the crimes committed, such as unethical and forcible conversion carried out there up to 1803.
2. All crimes committed on the people including taking over of all native lands and property of this country including the destruction of the Kandy city in the 1803 invasion of the Kandyan Kingdom
3. For dismantling the undefeated Kandyan Kingdom from 1505 to 1815 by intrigue and deception by entering in to a mutually agreed Kandyan Convention of March 2nd 1815 and deposing the Kandyan King to India promising the Kandyan chief Ehelepola the Kingship of the Kandyan Kingdom and for violating the promis that King of England will protect the Buddha sasana they made under sec 5 of the Convention and allow the local system of governance to continue in the Kandayn Kingdom.
4. Breaching the Kandyan Convention of March 2nd in 1817 by Royal Proclamation no 1 of Nove 1st and adopting a rule by the gun and the sword with repressive deprivation and arson.
5. Banishing Keppetipola Disava who was used as a tool to capture the Kingdom promising that he would be made the King of Sinhale and banishing him to Mauritius as a war prisoner and allowing him to die there as a war prisoner of the British empire for the, for the invaluable help he rendered to the British to annex the Kandyan Kingdom tot the British Empire, after the subversive and deceptive taking over of the Kandyan Kingdom was complete.
6. The massacre and the suppression caused at the first freedom rebellion by the native Kandyans in the famous Uva wellassa rebellion in1817-1818 by a Royal Proclamation as follows
“In order to understand the real cruelty of the British colonial aggressor just have a look at the Order given by Governor Brownrigg to Major Mack Donald in 1817, with the beginning of the first freedom struggle by the native Kandyan patriots, called the Uva Wellassa rebellion 1817-1818.
“That all men above 18 should be killed, all houses pulled down and burnt and all trees bearing fruits of use to human beings felled. All grain should be destroyed or confiscated. Irrigation tanks and canals should be breached. All cattle belonging to them which were in excess of the requirements of the army should forthwith be destroyed” (source EELAM Exposed 2020. by L.K.N. Perera)
(This in short was how British violated the human rights of a great nation who agreed to hand over a Kingdom after singing an agreement on equal terms, as two independent sovereign nations on march 2nd 1815. And this was also how your grandfathers respected human rights of a Great nation who handed over their country in good faith only to retrieve it from the cruelties of a despotic King.)
7.Taking over of the properties of the Kandyan Kingdom under Royal Orders and Taking over of all lands belonging to Kandyan people under the Land /Encroachment Ordinance on crown Land No12 of 1840 totaling up to 1.3 million acres and converting them to Coffee and Tea after destroying the entire primeval forest cover that protected the physical stability of the whole country, its entire river system that guaranteed the islands total life system and the civilization of the whole country.
8 Flooding the Kandyan areas from 1840 onwards with Indian slave labour (the sworn historical enemies of the Sinhala nation from the second century BC) to work on the lands so taken over under draconian laws with no compensation to their owners and leaving the country in 1948 leaving behind that labour gang of Indian citizens high and dry with the ulterior and subversive intention of planting a political economic, social and security, time bomb right at the center of the Island, the geographical HEARTLAND of this Island nation.
9 Thereby dispossessing millions of native Kandyan people of their ancestral lands which they had owned for millennian from the beginning of history and pushing them to a landless set of refugees on their own Motherland buried in abject poverty and misery forever.
10 Taking over all lands belonging to the Buddhist Temples under the Temple lands Ordinance and destroying their sustenance causing the breakdown of the Sinhala-Buddhist Cultural foundation.
11Forcible taking over of all lands in the rest of the Kandyan provinces by the So-called Waste Land Ordinance of 1897 and making millions of Kandyan people a set of landless virtual paupers on their own motherland.
12 Removing the premier forest cover that was there from the day this land was uplifted from the sea and removing over 1.3 million acres of premier forest of the central hill country and planting Coffee and Tea on them by destroying the millennia old premier forest cover and the physical stability of the central hill country followed by soil erosion, land degradation and drying up of all the 103 rivers which had their sources on it causing destabilization on the hill country due to earth slips followed by devastation and misery in the lowlands due to floods
13 Settling an Indian slave labour gang of nearly 1.2million right at the center of the country, that formed the geographical Heartland of this Island nation that also provided the best hideout for Sinhale Royalty from the inception of history and also provided the best defense fortress against three major aggressors Portuguese, Dutch and the British from 1505 -1815 without becoming another America, Australia or New Zeeland that enabled the protection of the Land of the Sinhalese for posterity.
14 For retaining the hill country as an enclave of South Indian Tamil completely separated from the native Sinhala settlements, with the ulterior political and strategic motive of building up a future political, economic and social time bomb to destroy the Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country.
15 Chasing out all native people, who were spared by the gun and the sword to valley bottoms, after robbing all their highlands, paddy fields, home gardens and grazing lands and making them landless paupers on their own motherland, while looking after the Indian slave labour with all facilities such as food, medicine and shelter and clothing etc at subsidized cost on our account.
16 Converting the natives to their religion by force and various incentives.
17 Dividing the Sinhalese in to two major antagonistic groups as Candians (Kandyans) cinglese (Lowcountry Sinhala people) (see Robert Percival 1803) to facilitate their divide and rule policy by creating antagonism among the Sinhalese the native inhabitants of themotherland
18.Making the natives addicted to arrack through an exhaustive rental system given to low country business men and distributing it in the villages by bullock carts and making them to invade the diehard Kandyan villages
19 Discriminated native Sinhalese against the minority Tamils and the Muslims by favoritism towards Tamils and Muslims in education and Govt employment to weaken the Sinhalese in the fields of education and employment in addition to cultivating ethnic and religious clashes like the 1915 Sinhala Muslim riots and arresting all prominent Sinhala leaders of the day including Sir D.B. Jayathilaka and F.R. Senanayaka.
20 Again discriminating Sinhalese in the field of justice by supporting Muslims and Tamils by providing them with their own legal systems
17 Promoting Indian Tamils and Muslims and setting them against the native Sinhalese by adopting the divide and rule policy to destroy the pristine Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country
18 By naming all Malabar Tamils in the North and East Ceylon Tamils in 1901 through a Malaba cooly descendent Civil servant called Arunachalam Ponnambalan.
19 Establishing Catholic English Schools mainly in the Jaffna Peninsula and coastal towns like Colombo, Galle Batticaloa Trinco and discriminating against the native Sinhalese. For example, out of 105 schools for the whole Island established by 1845, 45 were in the Jaffna Peninsula and all the rest were located in coastal towns like Colombo, Galle and Batticaloa where the concentration of Tamils Muslima and Catholics were in a majority. The Kandyan areas were supposed to have had only 3 English schools and they were also located in Kandy and Matale.
20.Destroying the native Pirivena education and introducing English education system to meet the type of education they needed to run their colony
21. Importing thousands of Tamil and Malay sepoys to kill the Sinhaal se who rebelled against the British in 1817-1818 Uva-Wellassa first freedom struggle against the unilateral violation of the Kandyan Convention by appointing Muslim men to high posts like Disaawa in the Kandyan Kingdom and 1848 Matale rebellion against repressive taxes including a tax on domestic dogs.
22. Naming many places in the country in English and Tamil names to obliterate the Native Sinhala image
23 Giving English and Tamil names to places, mountains, people, water falls, tows and streets, cities and giving two names for rivers in the North and East where they gave Tamil names to the downstream parts of rivers in the NW, Northern and the Eastern parts of the country, covering more than 2/3 the area of the country to build up evidence to support that those areas had been under the Tamils for a long time in history first, as an attempt to substantiate the infamous and bogus Cleghorn minute to Fredric North in 1799 that stated thus.
”NATIVE INHABITANTS SINHALESE Two different nations, from very ancient periods, have divided between the possessions of the Island .First the Cingalese inhabiting the interior of the country in its Sothern and Western parts from the river Walowe to that of Chilow, AND SECONDLY THE Malabars who possess the Northern and eastern districts and further to substantiate what the Wesleyan Methodist Mission had been preaching from1879”. Erven in the demarcation of Provinces in 1833 you have hatched a conspiracy to mark their Tamil homeland when it marked the Northern Province from Marthondikudah far south of Mannarama at the estuary of Malvathu Oya the cradle (whose lower part had been named as Modaragan (Sinhala)Aru (Tamil) of Sinhala Civilization) to Kumana in the far South East at the Kumbukkan oya estuary covering more than 2/3 of the coastal belt of the country and almost 2/3 the total area of the Island.
When the Colebrook Commission divided the Island in to 5 provinces in1833, ( in place of the historical Tun Sinhale, RuhuNu Pihiti and Maya it included all that area north of the boundary of the Central Province including a major part of the present-day North wester n province coming to Challow in the coastal stretch and running across the country to the boundary of the Eastern Province in an attempt to Cleghorn conclusion. Subsequently the British who compiled the cadastral survey of the island had deliberately employing Tamil labourers had named most places in Tamil including the lower parts of all the rivers in the Dry Zone, in a meticulous and painstaking attempt to prove that all those areas, including the Thambapanni, Upatissa gaama, Anuradha pura, Polonnaruwa, Dambadeniya and Yaapahuwa The heartland and the cradle of the pristine Sinhala Buddhist Kingdoms and the civilization in this country) had been a part of the mythical Tamil district (country) as mischievously given in the Cleghorn minute and the writings of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission to destroy the millennia old Sinhala Buddhist identity scribed on stone at the command of our ancient Kings.
Now you can see how your British ancestors had been conspiring and planning to divide this land of the Sinhala Buddhist from the latter part of the 18thc century with the American Wesleyan Methodist Mission to destroy this Island of the Sinhala Buddhists nation Isn’t it the same dirty and uncivilized game your colonial ancestors did in the days gone by, you all western governments are repeating even today.
In this historical backdrop I strongly hold the view that this sanction imposed on the Sri Lankan former military leaders on your part, is nothing but an extension of the same conspiracy against the Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country hatched by your ancestors right from the beginning. We condemn outright your continuation of the same barbaric colonial policy of divide and rule. You must understand that your days are gone. The Empire whose sun never set today is only a day dream. It is Fastly sinking in the Atlantic Ocean. The day the Tamil Diaspora will take over UK and Canada in retribution to what your ancestors had done and what you are also continuing to do is also not that far.
24 Introducing Roman Dutch law for the whole Island on 1852 while Thesawalamei assigned to Northern Tamils and Muslim law to Muslims all over the Island with Karthi courts, (thereby to have three different judicial dispensation in one country all over, designed to destroy the native legal systems called the Kandyan Law, limited to marriage and succession only to the Kandyan areas, thus committing naked discrimination against the Bhumiputhras of this land.
25 Introducing their own legal system called Roman Dutch Law for the whole Island during the time of Governor Andrew Caldicott in1852 thereby completely burying the native Kandyan law for ever.
Finally, to show how your ancestors had treated the Sinhalese, the sons of the soil who had been the only nation on this land who founded and developed a unique Sihala Buddhist civilization on this land for 2500 odd years, I quote from one of your own men John Davy for you to realize as to how your blood thirsty ancestors had violated our human rights as a nation from the beginning of your savages invasions of the world.
“John Davy commenting in the aftermath of the 1818 observes that “The history of British rule in Sri Lanka after 1818 rebellion cannot be related without shame. None of the members of the leading families in the Kandyan families in the Kandyan country have survived. Small-pox and privations have destroyed those spared by the gun and the sword”. (John Davy. Scholar, Army surgeon and physician in attendance on Brownrigg during 1817-1818.)
This how one of your distinguished military officers in 1818 had described the atrocities committed by your own people in 1818 in plain language. Therefore, you cannot for a moment dismiss what I have said in this, message as untrue or unsubstantiated.
The criminal records of oppression and suppression and extra judicial murder and genocide committed by your ancestors during the 1848 Matale rebellion, under the murderer Governor Torrington where he kept corpses murdered hung on the branches of trees to frighten the locals at the main gateways to the local towns in the Kandyan Kingdom were even worse and were more savages according to extant historical records, than what Davy has described above.
This is not a complete list of crimes committed by your colonial ancestors in this land of the Buddha. It is only a random selection hurriedly picked up from the long list of crimes of your barbaric ancestors committed on this land to tell you, what you are doing is wrong, by interfering with the internal governance of this Island nation.
Finally, I would propose to the Government of this country, if there is any?
First, to open its eyes at least now and lodge a strongly worded protest to the UK Government against this latest undemocratic, unethical and irrational action it has taken, that violate all accepted international covenants on human rights and condemning its pro Tamil Diaspora, anti-Sinhala anti Buddhist and anti-Sri Lankan action, that does not fit in to a civilized and cultured world.
Second, I propose to the Government to appoint a full powered Presidential Commission to make a detailed study of all crimes and human rights violations committed by the British colonial Government from 1797 to date against this country and its native Sinhalese people.
Third, work out a full list of compensation that should be paid to the native people of this country, the Kandyans in particular, for all the oppressions, damages, human right violations, antiques stolen arising under the above list of 25 items
Fourth, Summon the UK Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry immediately, handover this protest letter and a request for a firm undertaking that the UK government will agree.
First, to withdraw all the Sanction imposed on the Sri Lankan former military leaders
Next agree to pay compensation to Sri Lanka as decided by the above Presidential Commission and
Finally, I also suggest that until such agreement is reached, ask the British Ambassador to go home and suspend all diplomatic relations with UK immediately until a full settlement of this issue is closed.
All political parties, including the present Government must arrive at a collective and united consensus on this proposal.
None of the political parties whether you are in the Government or not, which is not prepared to accept these suggestions and include them as a part of theit manifestoes is suitable to govern this country in future.