During the JVP-led insurgency, MP Keerthi Abeywickrema and actor Vijaya Kumaratunga were killed. Abeywickrema died in a grenade attack, while Kumaratunga was shot outside his home. The attack on the UNP parliamentary group could have been catastrophic, as key figures like President Jayewardene and Prime Minister Premadasa were present. The 1987-1990 elections were marred by JVP violence against voters.
by Shamindra Ferdinando
President Ranil Wickremesinghe expressed shock at the failed assassination bid on former US President Donald Trump, 78, during a campaign event at Butler, Pennsylvania.
Declaring that he was relieved to learn that Trump survived the July 13 attempt, Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lankans had been victims of such violence in politics. Trump was wounded in his right ear.
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| President Chandrika Kumaratunga describes to cabinet ministers her injuries and the blast that almost killed her, as she poses outside her residence for a group photo after she was sworn into office for a second term, 22 December 1999 in Colombo. Kumaratunga pledged to bring peace with a warning to the members and supporters of the Tamil separatist movement. (Photo by JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP) |
The ex-President’s would-be-assassin 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds after he fired the first of eight shots. Crooks used a semi-automatic AR rifle owned by many gun enthusiasts in a country obsessed with being gun owners as a right.
So far, the US media haven’t been able to at least speculate on Crooks motive. What really triggered a young man who had been living with his parents about an hour away from the scene to attempt to assassinate such a high profile target? Crooks appeared to have acted alone but the possibility of him being influenced by terrorism elsewhere cannot be ruled out. The young man could have been influenced even by US actions abroad over the years.
We are, however, not one bit surprised as the USA is the country where the so-called independent mainstream media helped to mislead its masses about the assassination of its 35th President John Fitzgerald Kennedy by its entrenched deep state to this day. And, according to his nephew Robert Kennedy Jr, who is an independent Presidential candidate now running for President, even his own father was assassinated by the deep state in 1968 as he campaigned to be President. In both instances apparent patsies were blamed for the dastardly crimes.
[In July, 2011 Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Brevik killed 77 people, many of them teenagers, in a bomb attack and gun rampage. Breivik made references to the LTTE’s eviction of Muslims from the North in 1990 in his so-called ‘manifesto.’ There had been two references (i) Pro-Sri Lanka (supports the deportation of all Muslims from Sri Lanka) on page 1235 (ii) Fourth Generation War is normally characterised by a “stateless” entity fighting a state or regime. Fighting can be physically such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to use a modern example (Page 1479)]
A person seated behind Trump died. Two more persons also received gunshot injuries.
One thing is clear. Regardless of the outcome of the attempt, Crooks, who had graduated from a high school two years ago, was definitely on a suicide mission. The young man couldn’t have expected, under any circumstances, to give the slip to Secret Service snipers positioned therein, once he opened fire.
Whatever his motive, Crooks had been absolutely ready to sacrifice his life to take out his target, Republican presidential candidate Trump. That is the truth the US appeared to have conveniently ignored. The bottom line is that Crooks would have ended up in a morgue whether he succeeded or failed in his attempt.
As President Wickremesinghe recalled, Sri Lankans had been victims of political violence. Subsequently, the President proposed enhanced security measures for candidates at the forthcoming presidential election, as well as former presidents.
Let me examine political assassinations during the northern and southern terrorism campaigns (the terrorist threat on the executive and legislature as well as lower level of political representation at Local Government and Provincial Councils level) before the successful conclusion of the anti-JVP campaign and war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by January 1990 and May 2009, respectively.
In addition to the LTTE, the other Tamil terrorist groups carried out attacks. Of them, the TELO (currently represented in Parliament through the TNA) was definitely responsible for killing two Jaffna District ex-lawmakers V. Dharmalingam and M. Alalasundaram in early Sept. 1985. Dharmalingam’s son, Dharmalingham Siddharathan, MP, has accused the TELO of carrying out the twin assassinations at the behest of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India.
India ended its military mission in late March 1990 (July 1987 to March 1990).
Two CFA-time assassinations
During the war in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, snipers took many targets, almost all in those areas. There had been only one victim of a sniper outside the war-torn regions during that entire conflict. That was Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar assassinated at his No 36, Bullers Lane residence on the night of August 12, 2005. The other high profile victim had been de-facto leader of EPRLF Thambirajah Subathiran aka Robert.
Both assassinations, carried out during the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) that had been spearheaded by Norway with the backing of the US, Japan and EU, underscored the vulnerability of the Sri Lankan State. By 2003, the EPRLF had been divided into two groups – one led by Arumugam Kandaiah Premachandran, better known as Suresh Premachandran, and Annamalai Varatharaja Perumal, the first and the only Chief Minister of the North East Provincial Council.
In the absence of Perumal, who resided in India under their protection, Robert led the EPRLF here. An LTTEer sniped Robert as he was doing physical exercises on top of the two storeyed EPELF party office on the Jaffna Hospital road. The sniper had fired from an unused classroom of a three-storeyed building in the southern area of Vembadi Girl’s High School.
The government conveniently failed to properly probe the Jaffna assassination. The LTTE obviously exploited lowering of overall security measures in the wake of the CFA signed on February 21, 2002, to assassinate the de facto EPRLF leader on the morning of June 14, 2003. By then the LTTE had quit the negotiating table and was increasingly acting in an extremely aggressive manner.
Then Major General Sarath Fonseka had been the Security Forces Commander, Jaffna (March 09, 2002 to Dec 15, 2003). That was his second stint at that particular position. Fonseka first served there from April 21, 2000 to August 3, 2000 during the Jaffna crisis.
The man who sniped Robert from a distance of about 200 metres, was never caught though he may have died subsequently during the conflict.
Hours after the assassination carried out at 6.15 am, the writer contacted the then Army Commander Lt. Gen. Lionel Balagalle, and military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne, as well as EPRLF contacts at that time (Tiger sniper kills senior EPRLF politician, The Sunday Island, June 15, 2003).
The police, military and the EPRLF didn’t rule out the possibility of Vembadi Girl’s school authorities being aware of the assassination plot. Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, at that time bending backwards to appease the LTTE regardless of consequences, and President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, failed to reach consensus on a tangible course of action to meet the terrorist threat.
The assassination of Kadirgamar, in Colombo, two months short of two years of signing the literally one sided ceasefire agreement, proved the assumption the group was ready to execute all-out war.
Kadirgamar was sniped around 10.30 p.m. as he stepped out of his swimming pool and went to look at his garden in the backyard, wearing slippers. The gunman fired at him from the window of a bathroom located on the top floor of house number 42, on Buller’s Lane, owned by Lakshman Thalayasingam, the son of a senior retired police officer. Thalayasingam told the police that he and his wife used only the ground floor of their house and that they weren’t aware of what was going on the top floor.
Later, it was revealed that those responsible for Kadirgamar’s security never subjected Thalayasingam’s residence on a directive of the Foreign Minister.
How Lankans perpetrated political violence abroad
No one else could have written about the assassination of former Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi, as well as the President of the Congress Party (I), better than D.P. Kaarthikeyan and Radhavinod Raju, head of the Special Investigation Team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBO) and key investigator, respectively.
Triumph of Truth: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination – The Investigation first released in 2004 methodically dealt with the high profile overseas operation carried out by the LTTE. Gandhi, who was on the last leg of the parliamentary election campaign in 1991, when the LTTE struck at Sriperumbudur, a little village about 50 kms south-west of Chennai. At the time the LTTE mounted the attack, Gandhi had been under the protection of the Special Branch of the Tamil Nadu State Police. The authors explained the extremely poor security environment; those who had been assigned to guard Gandhi were compelled to work particularly due to lack of security equipment and Congress supporters responsible for causing chaos.
But what really impressed the reader regarding meticulous planning carried out by the LTTE, as revealed by former Indian investigators, was how the group tasked with the assassination conducted a ‘dry run’ for the Gandhi assassination.
The group had rehearsed at a political meeting addressed by V. P. Singh at Nandanam in Chennai on May 7, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was killed on May 21, 1991. The girls, known as Subha and Dhanu, who had been assigned for Gandhi assassination, managed to get close enough to Singh to garland him. Singh took the garland from Dhanu at the last moment and the person (Nalini Sriharan – one of the six convicts in the Gandhi assassination case she was released by the Supreme Court of India in Nov 2022) tasked to photograph the operation failed in her effort.
As the LTTE rehearsed before the assassination of Gandhi in Sriperumbudur, Robert in Jaffna and Kadirgamar in Colombo were finished off by it using snipers. Crooks, too, was certain to have previously visited the Agr International Building from where he took aim at the former President. US authorities haven’t so far explained why Crooks, who had been detected over an hour before the incident with a rangefinder – an instrument used to measure the distance to a target – was not detained.
Some Republican Senators demanded the immediate resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Perusal of US media reports indicated that law enforcement personnel at the scene had been fully aware of the threat and one unarmed local officer saw Crooks on top of the Agr International Building aiming a weapon, moments before he opened fire.
Political killings in the 90s
President Ranasinghe Premadasa was blasted on May Day, 1993 by an LTTE suicide cadre who had infiltrated the UNP leader’s inner security cordon two years before. That assassination, near the Armour Street Police Station, soon after the writer returned to The Island editorial from a five minutes walking distance away, increased the threat of terrorism to a new level.
There hadn’t been such an attack on a high-profile political target before here though the LTTE also killed Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb blast. The LTTE infiltrated the President’s security contingent. This wouldn’t have been possible if not for the President’s valet, Mohideen’s weakness for women and liquor. The relationship with Mohideen and the LTTE cadre (Kulaweerasingham Weerakumar alias Babu) who had been tasked for the mission was so close he even had access to the President’s bedroom at his private residence, Sucharitha.
It was pertinent to mention that Premadasa was assassinated three years after the eruption of Eelam War II in June 1990. The President’s security had been weakened to such an extent, the killer could even have planted a bomb inside the President’s bedroom or cause an explosion in a SLAF helicopter carrying him to his estate.
The assassination took place at a time of great political upheaval against the backdrop of the assassination of one-time colleague and political rival Lalith Athulathmudali on April 23, 1993 at a political rally at Kirulapone. Having overcome a bid to impeach him in 1991 amidst catastrophic battlefield losses, President Premadasa seemed to have engaged in a process of consolidation when the LTTE removed him.
Like the Gandhi assassination, Premadasa’s killing altered Sri Lanka’s political direction.
The killing of State Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne in March 1992, UNP presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake in Oct 1994 and the failed bid on President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s life in Dec 1999 underscored the overwhelming threat posed by the LTTE that received financial backing from the Tamil Diaspora based in the West.
Dissanayake was killed while campaigning for the 1994 presidential election whereas Kumaratunga survived the blast directed at her as she was campaigning for her second term. Had the LTTE succeeded, perhaps UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe could have won the contest. The killing of Dissanayake helped Kumaratunga to win the 1994 election. The LTTE obviously worked in mysterious ways.
The global community turned a blind eye to LTTE efforts to destroy the political party system here, while outwardly singing hosannas for democratic values world over. The group targeted both the executive and legislature. Former Army Commander General C.S. Weerasooriya in his recently launched autobiography ‘Duty & Devotion’ dealt with how systematic elimination of key political party men undermined the country.
The LTTE killed quite a number of Tamil parliamentarians, including Appapillai Amirthalingam and Vettuvelu Yogeswaran. Like the assassination of Robert and Kadirgamar during the CFA arranged by Norway, the LTTE eliminated Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran as it was engaged in negotiations with President Premadasa (1989 May-June 1990).
Western powers reiterated their lenient attitude towards separatist terrorism here in the wake of Kadirgamar’s assassination. Instead of immediate retaliatory measures against the LTTE, they demanded Sri Lanka’s commitment to a much flawed peace process.
The US statement exposed the duplicity in their stand. The then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued on August 12, 2005 declared: “I am shocked and saddened by the assassination of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. This senseless murder was a vicious act of terror, which the United States strongly condemns. Those responsible must be brought to justice.
I offer my deepest sympathies and condolences to Mr. Kadirgamar’s family and to his friends and colleagues in Sri Lanka who will miss him greatly.
I last met Foreign Minister Kadirgamar this June. He was a man of dignity, honour and integrity, who devoted his life to bringing peace to Sri Lanka. Together, we must honour his memory by re-dedicating ourselves to peace and ensuring that the Cease-Fire remains in force.”
How could Sri Lanka bring those responsible for the Kadirgamar assassination to justice while ensuring that the highly flawed Norwegian arranged CFA remained in force?
In spite of on and off statements issued following high profile attacks, Western powers accepted violence perpetrated by the LTTE as part of their strategy.
Minister Douglas Devananda is one of the luckiest to escape LTTE operations to kill him. Of the many LTTE attempts, the deadliest was the bid made in late Nov 2007 to introduce a disabled woman with explosives hidden in her brassiere into Devananda’s office at Isipathana road, Narahenpita. Suspicious security staff thwarted her attempt. She triggered a blast killing several on the spot. Devananda, who was in his office, escaped.
Two other high profile assassinations were that of Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle in the Katana police area on April 6, 2008 and Puttalam District MP D.M. Dassanayake on January 08, 2008 at Ja-Ela.
The combined forces eradicated the LTTE less than two years later.
Over 15 years after the conclusion of the war, a lawmaker was killed in broad light at Nittambuwa by people influenced by Aragalaya. The Speaker himself claimed that he was also threatened by those behind Aragalaya. The ousted President, too, claimed the conspiracy also targeted him. There hadn’t been proper investigation to date as to what happened during the March 31-July 14, 2022 period that changed the course of Sri Lanka’s history. The common thread in all that was outgoing US Ambassador Julie Chung as she defended it as a peaceful protest movement and insisted that security forces and police should not lay a hand on them.
Shamindra Ferdinando is a Deputy Editor of a Colombo-based daily newspaper, The Island.
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