-By Special Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -25.April.2025, 10.20 PM) In an extraordinary and deeply personal testimony, Kagusthan Ariaratnam — a former Tamil Tiger intelligence cadre turned Canadian citizen — has come forward to denounce Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan academic long considered one of the world’s foremost counter-terrorism experts. In a detailed affidavit now unclassified and publicly available, Ariaratnam, who currently lives in Ottawa, paints a harrowing picture of psychological coercion, academic fraud, and state-sponsored intimidation.
According to Ariaratnam, the man lionised in policy circles and courted by intelligence services worldwide is little more than a “bully in academic robes” — a “useless, third-class academic” who preyed on a vulnerable defector to build a career on deception and manipulation.
The two men first met under extraordinary circumstances in the war-torn Jaffna Peninsula in the summer of 1996. Ariaratnam, then a defector from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was being held by Sri Lankan forces. Gunaratna, then a Master’s student at Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, was collecting material for what would become his breakout book on Tamil insurgency.
Ariaratnam, known then by his nom de guerre Murali, says he was coerced into becoming an informant. What began as a few interviews soon spiraled into an exploitative arrangement that lasted over a decade, with Gunaratna allegedly using Ariaratnam as a ghostwriter, translator, analyst, and source.
“I was promised academic recognition. I was never even given a degree,” Ariaratnam states. “What I got was emotional blackmail and a ruined life.”
After Ariaratnam informed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) of Gunaratna’s operations in 2001, the academic’s response was swift and chilling. An email, seemingly banal, urged Ariaratnam to move his family into a specific house. To Ariaratnam, it was a coded message — comply, or your loved ones may suffer.
The fear was not unfounded. As a recent migrant, Ariaratnam’s legal status was tenuous. A whisper from Gunaratna to Canadian authorities, falsely branding him as an embedded terrorist, could have upended his life.
Worse still, Ariaratnam claims that his family in Sri Lanka was treated as collateral, used as leverage to extract intelligence. His cooperation, he says, was never voluntary — it was forced, under the psychological weight of familial safety.
The pressure took a severe toll. Diagnosed in 2001 with clinical depression and in 2003 with paranoid psychosis, Ariaratnam today lives on a cocktail of antipsychotics and antidepressants — fifteen pills a day. His conditions — extreme fatigue, memory loss, and social withdrawal — are the legacy, he claims, of Gunaratna’s psychological abuse.
“These are not scars of war,” he says. “They are scars of betrayal.”
Perhaps the most disturbing allegations stem from a 2003 meeting at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore. There, Gunaratna introduced Ariaratnam to Malinda Moragoda, then a rising political figure, later fonded doggy –“Pathfinder” thinktank and appointed by former President Ranil as a Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India.
The two men, according to the affidavit, told Ariaratnam that the Sri Lankan military was actively engineering a split within the LTTE and that he could play a role. His part? Provide personal profiles on key Tiger leaders, including Colonel Karuna — whose defection in 2004 shattered the rebel movement.
In exchange, Ariaratnam was promised a “Canadian-style federal solution” to the Tamil question — a promise that would, of course, never materialise.
“I was a chess piece in their war,” he writes. “But it was never a game to me. My moves were coerced, and every one of them haunts me.”
The final rupture came in 2009. A ship carrying 76 Tamil men landed off the coast of Vancouver. All were seeking asylum. The Conservative government of the day brought in none other than Rohan Gunaratna to testify — claiming with blanket confidence that every man aboard was an LTTE fighter. Rohan facbricated evidece againsts 76 Tamils men and provided Evidence againts Tamil refugees to USA, Canada, Australia , UK and European Union Governments to earn thousands of Dollars, which not declared as an income in Singapore or Sri Lanka, deceiving tax authorities of the both Countries.
Ariaratnam was stunned.
“Gunaratna himself facilitated my move to Canada. He knew my background. He blackmailed me into becoming an informant. And now he wanted to send others like me back to their deaths?”
Outraged, Ariaratnam filed an affidavit with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. In it, he laid bare Gunaratna’s history — the manipulation, the threats, the half-truths spun into ‘expert’ analysis.
The result? All 76 migrants were released. Gunaratna’s credibility took a blow. The man who had once told Ariaratnam, “When I say jump, you should ask how high,” was no longer treated as an unimpeachable voice.
Over the years, Gunaratna’s name became synonymous with counter-terror expertise. He authored books, advised governments, and appeared on global news networks as a “terrorism guru.” But his critics — and they are growing in number — question the academic rigor and ethical foundation of his work.
“He built his reputation off the trauma of people like me,” says Ariaratnam.
Indeed, many of Gunaratna’s published works cite anonymous sources, unverifiable interviews, and broad generalisations. Critics say his research lacks peer review, rigorous methodology, and ethical clearance — especially when it involves conflict zones like Sri Lanka.
His defenders claim he has access others do not, and in the post-9/11 world of pre-emptive counter-terrorism, intelligence often trumps precision. But Ariaratnam’s affidavit suggests a different reality: a man so intoxicated by access and power that he discarded ethics and ruined lives in the process.
For Ariaratnam, the battle is no longer about war or peace — it’s about accountability. He believes Gunaratna should be investigated by international academic bodies and that his work should be re-evaluated through the lens of exploitation.
“I’ve lived with the consequences of his manipulation for over twenty years,” he says. “Every pill I take, every night I can’t sleep, every flashback of war — that’s the cost of trusting him.”
Today, Ariaratnam remains in therapy. He continues to work with Canadian authorities to identify real threats to national security. But he is clear: “My past does not define me. My silence would.”
The case raises uncomfortable questions. How many other “informants” has Gunaratna used, coerced, or misled in his rise to fame? How did academic institutions fail to scrutinise his methods? And why were governments so willing to accept his word as gospel?
The Sri Lankan civil war, which ended in 2009, left deep wounds on all sides. But in the fog of war, truth becomes pliable. Narratives are weaponised. Ariaratnam’s affidavit is a jarring reminder that those who frame the stories of war — especially in policy and academia — must be held to the highest ethical standards.
It is also a warning. As universities, think tanks, and media platforms rush to fill expertise gaps in areas like counter-terrorism, there is an urgent need for transparency, peer review, and accountability.
Rohan Gunaratna continues to serve as the Director General of the Institute of National Security in Sri Lanka. He remains a sought-after speaker and policy advisor. But the cracks in his legacy are beginning to show.
If Ariaratnam’s allegations are to be believed — and they are backed by years of documentation, medical records, and court submissions — then Gunaratna’s legacy may be less that of a scholar and more that of a manipulator who wore the mask of expertise to serve a state agenda.
As Ariaratnam puts it, “He wasn’t chasing truth. He was chasing power.”
In the end, this is more than a personal story. It’s a tale about what happens when scholarship becomes a weapon, when lived experience is commodified, and when human lives are reduced to footnotes in a career.
And for Kagusthan Ariaratnam, it’s also about healing. About reclaiming dignity. About speaking truth, finally, to the bully who once told him to jump.
-By Special Correspondent
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by (2025-04-25 17:01:25)
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