Batalanda and complexities of paramilitary operations

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe's recent combative ‘Head-to-Head’ interview with British-American Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera has opened a can of worms. As to why Hasan raised the Batalanda Presidential Commission report, during a 49-minute interview conducted at the London’s Conway Hall, with a clearly pro LTTE audience, remains a mystery. This must be yet another notorious way to show how even-handed they are as in the case of its coverage of Russia, China, Palestine or Ukraine for their gullible viewers.

- SHAMINDRA FERDINANDO

Recorded in February and aired in March 2025, the interview is definitely the most controversial the UNP leader, who is also an Attorney-at-Law, ever faced during his political career; always used to getting kid glove treatment, espe-cially after taking over the party in 1994.

The continuing public discourse on Batalanda should provoke a wider discus-sion on Sri Lanka’s response to sepa-ratist Tamil terrorism, since the cold blooded murder of Jaffna SLFP Mayor Alfred Duriappah, which signalled the beginning of the LTTE terror campaign that ended in May 2009 with the crushing military defeat of the Tigers on the banks of the Nathikadal lagoon, as well as two southern insurgencies in 1971 and 1987-1990.

As Nandana Gunatilleke (one time JVP General Secretary and ex-MP), Dr. Wasantha Bandara (ex-JVPer and close associate of the slain JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera), Indrananda de Silva (ex-JVPer, incumbent Central Committee member of Frontline Socialist Party [FSP] and ex-military photographer) and Uvindu Wijeweera (Rohana Wijeweera’s son and leader of Dewana Parapura) agreed during the recent Hiru ‘Balaya’ discussion, conducted by Madushan de Silva, the Batalanda operation was in line with the overall counter-terrorist/insurgency strategy of the then government.