Sri Lanka’s Information War: Part III

Sri Lanka’s Information War: Part III

Third of a three-part series. Click here to read Part I, and here to read Part II.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- In a career spent fighting the Tamil Tigers, Gen. Gerry de Silva (ret.), a former commander of the Sri Lankan army, learned a thing or two about information warfare. In campaigns in the north of the island, time and again he found himself confronting disinformation among the Tamil population.

"It's a disinformation program even to their own people, to their own cadre," he told World Politics Review in an interview at his family's home in the Cinnamon Gardens neighborhood of Colombo. The message was simple, urgent: "My god, the army is coming, don't wait, for God's sake go."

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