Eye Diplomacy: How Sri Lanka Helped Pakistan See

I was appointed as the Managing Director of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Chairman of Trincomalee Petroleum Terminals Ltd. (TPTL – Indian Oil Company/Petroleum Corporation of Sri Lanka joint venture) in February 2023 by President Ranil Wickramasinghe. The chairmanship of TPTL was done by me without taking any pay, allowances, or benefits. TPTL controls the famous Oil Tank Farm in Trincomalee, abandoned after the 2nd World War. Several actions were initiated to repair tanks and buildings there. I enjoyed travelling to Trincomalee, staying at Navy House, and monitoring the progress. Trincomalee is a beautiful place where I spent most of the time in my Navy career.

My main task as MD of CPC was to provide the public with an uninterrupted supply of petroleum products. With the great initiative of the then CPC Chairman, young and energetic Mr. Uvis Mohammed, and the extremely capable CPC staff, we were able to do our job diligently, and all problems related to petroleum products diminished. I ensured enough stocks were always available for any contingency.

CPC made huge profits when we imported crude oil and processed it through the only refinery we have at Sapugaskanda, where this efficient processing unit can produce more than 50,000 barrels of finished products in one stream working day! (One barrel equals 210 liters.) This huge facility, spread over 65 acres, has more than 1,200 employees and 65 storage tanks.

The great loss CPC was incurring due to the wrong calculation of “out turn loss” when importing crude oil by ships and pumping through the Single Point Mooring Buoy (SPMB) at sea, and transferring through underwater fuel transfer lines to service tanks, was also detected and corrected immediately. This correction was hugely profitable to CPC.

By August 2023, CPC made a net profit of 74,000 million rupees (74 billion rupees)! H.E. the President was happy, the Government was happy, CPC Management was happy, and the hard-working CPC staff were happy. I became the Managing Director of a very happy and successful State-Owned Enterprise (SOE). This was my first experience working outside the military/Foreign Service.

I would be failing in my duty if I did not mention Hon. Sagala Rathnayake, then Chief of Staff to H.E. the President, for recommending my name to H.E. the President for appointment as MD of CPC. Thank you, Sir!

CPC started doing well. The systems in place and staff members were happy. The only grievance they had was that we were not able to pay their 2023 Sinhala/Tamil New Year bonus due to a government circular. After working at CPC for six months and getting CPC out of trouble, I was ready to move out of CPC.

I was offered a new job as Sri Lanka High Commissioner to Pakistan. I was delighted, and my wife and son were happy. Our association with Pakistan, especially with the Pakistan Military, is very long. My son started schooling in Karachi in 1995 when I was doing the Naval War Course there. My wife Yamuna has so many good friends. I am the first military officer to graduate from Karachi University in 1996 (BSc Honours in War Studies) and have a long association with the Pakistan Navy and their Special Forces. I was awarded the Nishan-e-Imitiyaz (Military) medal, the highest national award, by the Pakistan President in 2019 when I was Chief of Defense Staff—the only Sri Lankan so far to be awarded this prestigious medal. I knew my son and I would be able to play quite a game of golf every morning at the picturesque Margalla Golf Club at the foot of the Margalla Hills in Islamabad, owned by the Pakistan Navy. The golf club is just walking distance from the High Commissioner’s residence.

When I took over as Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Islamabad on 6th December 2023, I realized that a number of former Service Commanders had been in this position earlier.

The first Ceylonese High Commissioner to Pakistan with a military background was General Anton Muthukumaru, the first Ceylonese Army Commander. He was concurrently Ambassador to Iran as well. Then distinguished Service Commanders like General H. W. G. Wijayakoon, General Gerry Silva, General Srilal Weerasooriya, and Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody have been appointed as High Commissioners to Islamabad. I took over from Vice Admiral Mohan Wijewickrma (former Chief of Staff of the Navy and Governor of the Eastern Province).

One of the first visitors who came to meet me was Mr. Kawaja Hamzaa, a prominent Defense Correspondent in Islamabad. His request had nothing to do with defense matters. He wanted to bring his 84-year-old father to meet me because his father had eye surgery to repair damaged eye corneas with corneas donated by a Sri Lankan donor in 1972! His eyesight is still good, but he does not know the Sri Lankan donor who gave him this most precious gift. He wanted to pay gratitude to the new Sri Lankan High Commissioner and to tell him that, as a devoted Muslim, he prays for this unknown donor every day!

This incident reminded me of what my guru in the Foreign Service, more than two decades ago, the late Hon. Luxman Kadiragamar, told me when I was First Secretary/Defence Advisor at the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, India. That is, “Best diplomacy is people-to-people contacts.” This incident prompted me to research more into “Pakistan–Sri Lanka Eye Diplomacy,” and what I learned was fascinating!

Do you know the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society has provided more than 26,000 eye corneas to Pakistan from 1964 to date? That means more than 26,000 Pakistani people see the world with Sri Lankan eyes!

You may have read a small news item a few days ago—Eye Donation Society provided the 100,000th eye cornea to foreign countries free! To be exact, 101,483 eye corneas during the last 65 years, with more than one fourth of these donations going to one single country—Pakistan.

Deshabandu Dr. F. G. Hudson Silva, a distinguished student of Nalanda College, Colombo, started collecting eye corneas as a medical student in 1958. His first set of corneas was collected from a deceased person and stored in his home refrigerator at Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7. With his wife Iranganie De Silva (née Kularatne), he started the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society in 1961. They persuaded the Buddhist majority to donate their eyes upon death as a meritorious act. This drive was hugely successful.

It was fortunate that their son (now in Boston, USA) was a contemporary student at Royal College with me. I pledged to donate (of course with my parents’ permission) my eyes upon my death when I was a student at Royal College in 1972 on our Poson Full Moon Poya Day. Thousands like me signed their willingness to donate their eyes upon their death, and the campaign gathered real momentum!

On 25th May 1964, Wesak Full Moon Poya Day, the first eye corneas were hand-carried in a thermos flask filled with ice to Singapore by Dr. and Mrs. Hudson Silva, and successful transplant surgery was performed. From that day, our eye corneas were sent to 62 different countries, the majority to our brothers and sisters in Pakistan!

The Pakistan Lions Club, which supported this noble gesture, built a beautiful eye hospital for humble people at Gulberg, Lahore, where eye surgeries are done free, and named it Dr. Hudson Silva Lions Eye Hospital.

The good work continues even after the demise of Dr. Hudson Silva in 1999.

So many people donated their eyes upon their death, including President J. R. Jayawardena, whose eye corneas—one sent to Japan and one kept in Sri Lanka—were both used in surgeries done successfully to restore eyesight for one Japanese and one Sri Lankan. Dr. Hudson Silva became a great hero in Pakistan, and he was treated with dignity and respect whenever he visited Pakistan. My friend, Brigadier (Dr.) Waquar Muzaffar, the Commandant of AFIO, was able to dig into his old photographs and send me a precious photo taken in 1980, 46 years ago (when he was a medical student), with Dr. Hudson Silva.