By Manuka Wijesinghe –

It has been said that the great emperor Ashoka, seeing the immense bloodshed he had caused in the battle of Kalinga, filled with great remorse had introduced a new public policy; Ahimsa; ‘do no harm to living beings.’

Ahimsa was inspired by the idea that all living beings, possessing the spark of divine energy should not be harmed. Ahimsa is the seed that gave birth to Buddhism and Jainism. On the other hand, we have been taught that the emperor Ashoka, filled with compassion after Kalinga, had converted to Buddhism and sent missionaries to surrounding kingdoms in order to spread the idea of ahimsa; non-violence.

It is immaterial if Ashoka was a Jain or a Buddhist, for ‘Ahimsa’ is noble and the foundation upon which the greatest pacifist religious philosophies of Jainism and Buddhism were built.

Yet, let us consider another angle. What if emperor Ashoka had adopted the policy of non-violence, not due to compassion but so as to make passive the neighboring kingdoms, so none would take revenge upon him? Or wage war against him?

Despite reason of motivation, Ahimsa was a noble decree. If not; history’s noblest. For two thousand years Ahimsa had been our Asian moral code. Even the many satyagrahas or passive resistance, with which Gandhi resisted the British empire were guided by the principle of Ahimsa.

Ahimsa is the first of Buddhism’s five precepts and was made the codex of the non-aligned movement, which was built upon the idea of Pancasila; the five precepts of Buddhism. These precepts, applied to geo-politics was understood as – Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence.

These were the five cardinal features of the non-aligned movement founded in Bandung, Indonesia, by the Muslim head of the Indonesian state, President Sukarno, who insisted that ‘ahimsa’ should be the binding that held the non-aligned nations together.

The non-aligned movement was born, not immediately after the great war, but during the Cold War when it was evident that the west, unlike emperor Ashoka, was filled neither with remorse nor compassion, but continued to proliferate their military industrial complex; killing machines, in a new and imagined state of Cold War. And, into its black hole of Soviet bashing, idealism killing, lies, hate, propaganda and avarice, the third world was expected to gravitate.

The non-aligned movement was the grid that prevented this gravitational pull.

Unlike Asia and other third world nations, Europe has been a slaughter house for most of history. The United States has been a slaughter house, even in pre-history. But, after the second world war, when Europe was broke, its youth killed and crippled and Britain and its western alliances had won the war, not for their moral goodness, but for the superiority of their weapons and the sacrifice of human pawns, foot soldiers conscripted from the colonies and slaughtered in millions, for a war that had been caused by the most enlightened and industrialized of western nations; Germany, belatedly satiating its desire for colonial expansion, Lebensraum; living space, only then, when the Germans began moving east did the Allies declare a war. Not because Hitler did anything extraordinary, for what he did was what the British, Belgians, French and Dutch had been doing in the colonies for most of modern history, but he was a contender in the colonial gambit. He had to be stopped before he conquered the vast terrain of natural resources in the Soviet homelands. He was stopped, not by the Allies but by the ten million Soviets who laid down their lives for Allied victory.   

When the second world war ended the colonies had come of age. Furthermore, the colonial powers had reached their financial limits and could no longer execute direct influence in the colonies. Then, upon President Roosevelt’s idea, the United Nations (UN) was established. The UN charter required that member states maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve higher standards of living for citizens and maintain human rights and fundamental freedom for all without distinction. Article 2.7 of the UN Charter enshrined Non-interference in the Domestic Jurisdiction of States. However, reality was different. Secret ‘stay behind’ operations which included the weaponization of religion and a hyped but ineffective developmental apparatus, undermining the intelligence of native people was secretively maintained.

The member states had long realized that the achievement of higher living standards for citizens could be won, only with decolonization. Hence, in 1960, the UN general assembly passed Resolution 1514(XV), declaring the granting of Independence to colonial countries and people. Former subjects were about to get the same rights as their masters. ‘Equal rights and the self determination of people’ was the modern world’s Ahimsa.

But, was its intent the same?

It was not. Deceiving the recently independent nations with democratic and equal rights rhetoric, the west continued to do what they always did; siphon off wealth though privately owned foreign companies and corrupt native elites. Accompanied by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) modus operandi; the weaponization religion.

The United Nations had a noble charter, but even its General Secretary’s hands were tied by the veto powers of its permanent members of the Security Council. While the first general director paid lip service to the charter, its second general director, Dag Hammarskjöld, attempted to ensure the correct and just decolonization procedure so that new nations would have the fiscal reserves to survive.

In the bitter battle that erupted in Congo, when former imperialists sabotaged a legitimate election, refused to cede the most lucrative copper and cobalt mines and had its elected leader Patrice Lumumba kidnapped and killed, Dag Hammarskjöld, contrary to opposition, did everything contained in the UN charter to enable the peaceful birth of the new republic of Congo. For that, he was killed.

Dag Hammarskjöld’s murder was the proof that the colonial game, despite the UN had not ended. The Security Council was stronger than the united voice of the third world nations. And their fine words, Democracy, Human Rights and Equality to all races; sophistry.

Is the west inherently evil?   

By 1977, with the beginning of our neo-liberal adventure, many of the founders of the non- aligned movement had been deposed by militaries funded and trained by the CIA. And our own mother of non-alignement, Sirimavo, removed of her civic rights by JR’s corrupted judiciary, just like Marie Le Pen in today’s France. Neo-Liberalism tolerated no healthy opposition, its execution was possible, only through a military junta, totalitarianism and a politicized judiciary.

Yet, had Ceylon been spared until now?

Five years after the first non-aligned summit in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1959, we lost a Prime Minister to an assassin’s bullet. This Prime Minister, in contrast to his predecessors was a Socialist. Coincidentally, it was the fear of Communism and its milder version of Socialism against which the United States built its military industrial complex, under the pretext of the Cold War, began the funding of clandestine CIA operations such as the USAID, the Asia Foundation and many more. Their intention was that social equality, which is enshrined in Communist theory, should never prevail. And the best weapon to oppose it was the weaponization of religion.

In this context, let us consider, if Ven. Talduwa Somarama, the monk who assassinated the Prime Ministers. Had truly abandoned Ahimsa or had he merely been weaponized, as Buddhist monks had been, in South East Asia, during the Cold War? (2)

Would a Buddhist monk have abandoned ahimsa, merely because the Prime Minister wanted to give parity of language to the Tamil regions? In 1959, had language been a reason to kill? And if, who would have manipulated a monk’s mind that he would desecrate the very foundation upon which the Buddha’s dharma had been constructed? The order into which he had been ordained since the young age of fourteen. Would such a man kill a man at the age of 46? Would he so desecrate Buddhism, when the foundation of his religious existence was Ahimsa? Or had he been indoctrinated and instigated in the cold war weaponization of Buddhism?

The famous Buddha Jayanthi of 1956, which manifested a birthdate for the Buddha, did not manifest from astrologers or soothsayers born in India or Ceylon. That birthdate was concocted by the CIA funded Asia foundation. (3) CIA and its operations were aimed at undermining traditional society. Its weaponization of religion frayed people and faiths which had coexisted amicably in mutual respect and reverence. The Buddha Jayanti created racial disharmony and a belligerent monkhood to whom chauvinistic nationalism was of greater importance than ahimsa.

Or, was Talduwa Somarama indoctrinated through his close association to Ven. Buddharakhita, the chief incumbent of the Kelaniya temple, whose main functionaries were pro American political actors of Ceylon’s United National Party?

A village monk, how much did Talduwa Somarama know of geo politics? Would he have killed a Prime Minister for an issue such as the parity of language for minorities when the Prime Minister had done something far greater? SWRD Bandaranaike had rid the British from their naval base in Trincomalee and returned the Trincomalee harbour back to the people. Could it not be perceived that the monk had been used as a pawn in a perceived threat of Socialism in Ceylon?

That what cannot be denied is that when the Buddhist monks, including Talduwa Somarama were assembled at Rosmead place, the Prime Minister’s residence, the last person to have seen the Prime Minister had been Bernhard Gufler; the US ambassador. Gufler had worked as a career officer for the US foreign service and after the second world war been instrumental in the winning over of Nazi Prisoners of War to serve American and European (Allied) interests in Europe and East Germany. He arrived in Ceylon, shortly after SWRD’s victory, when it was perceived that Ceylon, under the new Prime Minister was turning left. Gufler was no ordinary ambassador, he was an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. In other words, an officer of the highest rank, clearly on a special mission. As ambassador James J. Lowenstein, in his interview with ambassador Dennis Kux describes his time in Ceylon, when he was just a political officer,

‘Ambassador Lampton Berry rarely came to office and was replaced by a career officer by the name of Bernhard Gufler, a German expert but had been the deputy commissioner of the mission before. He knew everybody in the place. He knew the country well.’

‘He (Gufler) had begun life in the foreign service. He was one of the people who were originally trained in Russian…..’

‘I went with Gufler to the Prime Minister as a note taker When I got there he said, ´´I don’t think I will take a note taker, stay in the car and wait for me.’’. He went in and came out and we left Bandaranaike’s house. As we drove out, there was a popping sound. When we got back to the embassy a friend from British mission, who was their intelligence said to me, ‘Chap’s been shot’. I said, ‘what chap?’. He said, ‘The PM old boy’. I said, ‘Really, that’s impossible, we just saw him’. ‘Well’, he said, ‘He was shot right after you saw him.’ And indeed, he was. I think Gufler was the last person who saw him alive, I can’t imagine anybody else could have gotten in there between Gufler’s departure and the time of that shot. ‘

Had SWRD’s murder been an American and British plan of action?

On answering the question as to what the US’ issues were in Ceylon. Löwenstein states,

‘I would say benign neglect. The issues were cold war issues. Chinese presence. Chinese and Russian economic and political penetration, the cultural wars, non-alignment’

It was believed that the death of the Prime Minister would hail the UNP back to power, the UNP members who SWRD called ‘Black Englishmen’. But, contrary to expectation SWRD’s widow became the new Prime Minister.  She may have faulted in leadership, but she did not return Trincomalee to the former colonial masters nor did she distance herself from non-alignment. Her loyalty to non- alignment’s charter ensured that India did not intervene in our local issues, despite local unrest. We were trusted and respected neighbours.   

But, seven years later, one of SWRD’s ‘white Englishmen’ won the election. JR Jayewardene. His nickname was Yankee Dickey. With no hesitation, JR began to destroyed that what an independent post-colonial nation had worked hard to achieve and to sustain; national sovereignty with mutual friendship with bordering countries.

Firstly, he handed parts of Trincomalee to a US proxy; a Singaporean company.

Then he allowed for the operation of the voice of America in Sri Lanka.

Then, in utmost secrecy, in 1978, just a few months following his victory, he sent his finance minister Ronnie de Mel to Washington, USA, to hammer the first nail on the coffin of non-alignment.

In Memorandum of Conversation 482; Sri Lanka’s finance Minster’s call on the secretary;

‘De Mel sates that Jayewardene’s government has adopted a pragmatic and practical policy in many areas and the time had now come for it to be more practical and pragmatic in its foreign policy. It has studied with great care, president Carter’s State of the Union message. Particularly the reference to the US’ desire to cooperate with States of South Asian region’

Furthermore he states, While Sri Lanka would remained basically non-aligned it now wished to play a different role in the area…..It could play a useful role in working out some form of consultative process amongst them in the face of Soviet aggression…..

There was no such thing as basically non-aligned. Either one was non-aligned or not. And, Sri Lanka, was not facing, either in 1978 or in the years before, any kind of Soviet aggression. The Soviets had always assisted us in education, culture, commerce and industry.

De Mel’s words as communicated by the foreign office states, President Jayewardene was prepared to take the initiative and that Sri Lanka was prepared to be responsive to Carter’s State of the Union address regarding the United States ‘’pursuing the possibility of gaining access to military facilities in the region in times of trouble’’ and in the event of open confrontation Sri Lanka would have ‘Only one friend, the United States.

That was an outright betrayal non-alignment. Yet, it does not end there.

JR’s Sri Lanka was prepared to give the US access to naval and other facilities.

And finally, special emphasis was laid on the importance that the offer be kept secret. For a leak cold be damaging to the JR Jayewardene government.

JR’s betrayal damaged, not the government, but the nation and its people forever. Paddy lands were confiscated and made into free trade zones. These zones had no labour movements, worker rights nor compensation for physical injury.  We became Asia’s Chile.

In 1973, the Chilean Prime Minister Salvador Allende was assassinated by the CIA so that the United States could execute its Neo-Liberal agenda. It was a reign of terror with disappearances and torture, made possible by the military junta, with whom US and Chilean elite economists collaborated. They were known as the Chicago boys.

Was the purpose of Ronnie de Mel’s visit to Washington so that JR could implement the same Neo-Liberal agenda in our country? Was he preparing for a reign of terror too?

Yet, would we take it lightly if we were told that our government was building up its military arsenal against us? We would not. But what they planned could be done, through deception, by making us believe that the Tamil minority was preparing to create a separate Tamil state on our island.

And that is what the JR’s government did. They created ethnic conflict.

For the spread of lies and ethnic hatred, the Voice of America and the recently founded television stations proved its worth. Thus, ethnic harmony was shredded for the fruition of the Neo-Liberal plan of privatization, deregulation, massive deindustrialization and the transfer of assets and control from the government sector to the private. Into the hands of JR’s political cadre; the neophyte Sinhala Buddhists who would achieve their objectives through the murder and forced migration of our traditional traders; the Tamil trading communities.

Thus, the local industry was destroyed and general consumption shifted en masse, to imports.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was brought into being in 1979. Military medals and decorations created in 1981. A military Junta was being born, recruited only from Sinhala rural youth, who were indoctrinated into believing that Tamils, with whom we had shared this island since the birth of time, were our enemies. And had to be killed.

JR bragged a Dharmishta society. But it had no ahimsa, only ‘himsa’; injury.

Colombo lit up in flames because government goons and thugs were brought into the trading Capital of Colombo in Sri Lanka National Transport Board buses. They looted and burned the city with election lists in their hands. Information that could be received, only by the government. They knew which homes, shops, factories, stores and eateries were Tamil owned and which were not. They burned, only those that were Tamil.

Our civil war no accident. It was not because 13 soldiers had been killed. It was planned.

When a friend questioned the director of the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) as to why India supported Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka. His answer was, ‘Because your President aligned himself to the USA.’

When JR betrayed non-alignment, he created a volcano which has been erupting since fifty years. And our religion, born from the compassion of Mahavira and the Buddha, lost ahimsa.

By the time his war ended 100,000 civilians, 50 thousand fighters, 27,000 thousand cadres, 28,000 army personnel, 1000 policemen, and 60,000 suspected subverts captured, killed and disappeared. Satya; truth, was elusive, for the PTA act had no transparency, no justice and no law.

To be continued ..