Abstract:
The explosion of foreign funded NGOs is a result of the New Policy Agenda in the
Western world undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In countries such as India,
Malaysia, Singapore with their strong defence and sovereignty oriented posture foreign
funded NGOs have been largely limited to welfare work or to support of broad social
causes. In none of these countries are foreign funded NGOs allowed to impinge on
defence and sovereignty. In Sri Lanka, foreign funded NGOs have advocated erosion of
sovereignty and have often acted as ideological proxies for the LTTE. The paper
discusses the actions of several foreign funded NGOs such as the National Peace
Council, International Alert, Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Berghof Foundation in
eroding sovereignty, calling for two near states, promoting demilitarisation of the armed
forces, and inciting the armed forces to go against the country’s unitary constitution.
Outside those foreign funded NGOs directly promoting a pro LTTE agenda are some
organisations purportedly studying Sri Lanka from a social science perspective. These
organisations include the ICES (Colombo) and SSA both of which have acted as major
clearing houses for much of the anti Sri Lanka, and specifically anti Buddhist
propaganda couched in an academic garb. Those associated with ICES Colombo have
written a variety of fiction masquerading as social science whose implied messages
have been against the nationalist renaissance in Sri Lanka. Some in the SSA have
explicitly called for the unmaking of the Sri Lankan nation.
The paper examines in general terms the activities of these organisations as ideological
warfare conducted against Sri Lanka and its people and as proxies acting for foreign
interests bent on recolonization. The paper examines in greater detail activities of
International Alert, the National Peace Council, and the Berghof Foundation as particular
obnoxious examples. It also gives evidence that many of these organisations are run by
a small coterie of persons who hold several interlocking positions in the different
organisations. It is posited that the Sri Lanka's situation is a unique example of the
reassertion of global Western power at a time when Asian states are getting stronger. It
fits into an attempted recolonisation agenda.
