By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake –

Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

The bodies of eighty-four Iranian sailors who died in a US torpedo attack in the seas of Sri Lanka were repatriated yesterday, 13 March 2026. Describing the scene of the rescue of some of the sailors who survived the dastardly attack, the Sri Lanka Navy Commander Buddhika Sampath said that the boats that reached the location of the distress call on March 4 had observed only an oil slick.

In Washington Donald Trump and his War Secretary had boasted that they had finished off the Iranian Navy. “An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was ​safe in international waters,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Pentagon. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”

“We found people floating in the water and rescued them,” Sri Lankan Navy officer Sampath told reporters. “Later on, we found upon inquiring that they belonged to the Iranian ship.” The bodies of the drowned Iranian sailors and those rescued alive were brought to the Galle Habour by the Sri Lanka Navy.

The sunken IRIS Dena was unarmed having just participated in the International Fleet Review in India’s Nagapatnam. Had the Colombo regime of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake not delayed, like the Modi regime in India, in providing safe habour to the IRIS Dena due to US pressure, the war crime would likely not have happened in the island’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone.

Subsequently a second Iranian Ship was given habour in Sri Lanka enabling the Colombo regime to play up its humanitarian role while citing UNCLOS.

Environmental Damage

A couple of days after the sinking of IRIS Dena, fishers and coastal communities in Hikkaduwa, Galle and Unawatunna noticed a thick oil patch along the coast, impacting the coastal economy, fisheries and tourism in the island nation. These are some of the most pristine coastal belts in the south of Sri Lanka, frequented by tourists throughout the year with a peak tourism season from December to March.

It is increasingly clear that a proper inquiry must be held into the sinking of the Iranian ship and response, as well as an environmental damage impact assessment. If responsible for environmental damage the United States must pay reparations to Sri Lanka for harm caused to fisheries livelihoods and the Tourist sector by the sinking of an unarmed Iranian ship in Sri Lanka’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone. The new spiritual leader of Iran has stated that the US and Israel must pay reparations for the war they started.

The US is in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and has no right to bring its environment polluting war machine to the Indian Ocean. The US should return it war toys to the Atlantic Ocean and remove all its military bases form the IO. So too its NATO partners UK and France.

Hybrid War Spreading in the Indian Ocean

Once upon a time the Indian Ocean was called a ‘British Lake’ or Pond, when ‘Britannia Ruled the Waves’. Today the US war machine uses the huge Diego Garcia military base on the British occupied Chagos Islands, not far from the Maldive Islands and Sri Lanka, to stage attacks in its war of aggression on Iran and to wage hybrid economic warfare on Rising Asian and Indian Ocean countries, particularly South and Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, Israelis have set up the Chabad Lubovitch ‘Spider web’ across Sri Lanka, which is located front and center of the Indian Ocean on the world’s busiest trade, energy and submarine Data cable route. So too, Israeli settlements have targeted the Indian Ocean world’s tourist hotspots in environmentally vulnerable coastal areas and mountain tops. Meanwhile, Israeli surfers claim they ‘own the waves’ in Arugam Bay on the East Coast of Sri Lanka!

Although not an Indian Ocean county, France has claimed more than ten percent of the total Indian ocean surface and more seabed as its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) at UNCLOS!!

France uses small islands it colonized centuries ago that are scattered in the Indian Ocean for military bases and to loot Indian Ocean fisheries resources. France and Spain with huge industrialized fisheries trawler fleets, along with Japan and Taiwan, China, are the biggest Ocean Grabbers of Indian Ocean fishery.

These industrialized Distant Water Fishing States deprive impoverished Indian Ocean littoral communities of their ocean resources according to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Data. It is hence too, that British, French and US military bases in the Indian Ocean should be shut down and the Indian Ocean decolonized to enable impoverished littoral communities to harvest their marine resources.

At this time the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran is spreading across the Indian Ocean World which remains to be de-colonized and liberated from past and present US-UK-French military bases, and occupation, also to end their exploitation of Indian Ocean fisheries and mineral resources.

The US, UK, French (NATO) war machine which is highly environmentally polluting must be expelled from the Indian Ocean and sent back to the Atlantic Ocean where they belong. These imperialist and neocolonial countries have a terrible habit of waging war in other peoples’ lands and seas causing massive environmental pollution.

The Indian Ocean as a ‘Zone of Peace’ : A call led by the World’s First Woman Head of State, Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike

During the Cold War the Indian Ocean was declared a ‘Zone of Peace’ at the United Nations in 1971; to be free of great power competition and Nuclear Weapons. The Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971 as resolution 2832 (XXVI) on Sri Lanka’s initiative, later joined by Tanzania on the Western border of the Indian Ocean.

The call for the Indian Ocean to be a ‘Zone of Peace’ was led by the world’s first woman head of State, Sri Lanka’s Socialist Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike who was a formidable leader of the Non-Aligned Movement.  NAM sought to unite the developing countries of the Global South — Asia, Africa and South America — during the Cold War between the Western allies and the Socialist USSR / Russia.

Although India’s Jawahalal Nehru was also a leader of NAM, with Indonesia’s Sukarno making Buddhist traditions of Panchsheel (the 5 Principles) the ethical bedrock of the organization, it is clear that the current Prime Minister Modi has no such vision for leadership of the Indian Ocean world or Global South or Peace in the world. Rather militarization is the name of the game.

India despite aspiring to lead the Global South has failed to liberate the Indian Ocean from Euro-American military bases and neocolonialism, including exploitation of IO fishery. India appears to have fallen prey to old Imperialist Divide and Rule policies that prey on fear and envy of the Rise of China, including the US Central Intelligence Agency’s narratives about the Chinese “String of Pearls” around India. The latter is similar to disinformation regarding a ‘Chinese Debt trap’ lending in the Global South– to torpedo the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for infrastructure and connectivity across Asia.

At this time, it is increasingly clear that small Indian Ocean littoral states and islands need a peoples’ Peace Campaign to mount a campaign for closure of US-UK-French neocolonial military bases, to de-militarize and de-colonize the Indian Ocean Region which belongs to the littoral states and peoples of Asia and East Africa.

Geoengineering and weather warfare in the Indian Ocean through manipulation of the Indian Ocean Monsoon weather phenomenon and the use of “Weather as a force Multiplier’ on emerging South and Southeast Asian countries to “Make the Economy Scream” are apparent at this time and include the Ditwah Twister storms that hit Sri Lanka and Aceh Indonesia last December.

Environmental disasters reminiscent of ‘Operation Popeye’ during the Vietnam War which gave rise to the Environmental Modification Technologies Treaty or the ENMOD treaty have happened across South and Southeast Asia and warrant further study.

Previously the 2004 Christmas/ Boxing Day Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami destroyed coastal areas countries of the Indian Ocean World. A pattern of ‘plausibly deniable’ weather disasters are part of a pattern of hybrid economic warfare on emerging South and Southeast Asian economies of the Indian Ocean also targeting China’s maritime Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for global trade and connectivity.

Reclaiming Indian Ocean History and Heritage: No such thing as the ‘Indo-Pacific’

Now as the US-Israeli war on Iran drags on and spreads through the Indian Ocean, President Trump and his advisors would do well to look to the past to discern the future, and learn some Indian Ocean World history for likely outcomes. After all, the ancient maritime Silk Routes of the Indian Ocean rendered it the wealthiest ocean-based trading system ever– long before the white man arrived in the region. So too the Indian Ocean energy, trade and submarine data cable routes remain central to the world economy in the Asian 21^st Century

In particular, Trumps advisors would do well to take note of the fifteenth-century trilingual Galle Stelae of the Chinese Admiral Zheng He in the National Museum in Colombo, Sri Lanka which sits front and center of the Maritime Silk Route. Similarly, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry advisors and related international relations experts and think tanks would do well to take a course in ancient Indian Ocean history to discern a path ahead for principled and strategic foreign policy making in the Asian Century.

The unique Tri-Lingual Galle Stelae contains script in Chinese, South Indian Dravidian Tamil, and Persian the language of Iran. It reminds us that the Indian Ocean was a wealthy multipolar and multi-civilizational cultural-economic system long before Euro-American ingress. It was a world where China and Iran were and remain ancient civilizational powers and trading partners framing the Indian Ocean world to the East and West.

The unique fifteenth-century trilingual Stelae was discovered a century ago near the Galle harbor– the same southern port city were the sailors of the torpedoed Iranian ship IRIS Dena came ashore, rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy along with the bodies of their comrades.

In the final analysis for those of us familiar with Indian Ocean World history, heritage, and civilization, there is no such thing as the “Indo-Pacific”; an American neologism invented to partition, divide and rule the Indian Ocean world at its center.

It is hence time for peoples of the Indian Ocean World, particularly small islands to reclaim their history and heritage by calling for an end to US-UK-French neocolonial occupation, aggression and Hybrid Economic warfare against the Rise of Asian economies, particularly, South and Southeast Asia in what Singapore academic Kishore Mabubani termed ‘the Asian 21^st Century”?

The Indian Ocean must be decolonized so that its rich resources may be sustainably harvested and used by Indian Ocean littoral countries and people, many of whom are dirt poor.

Please listen to this presentation and share: The Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace, free of Militarization

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