On Wednesday, October 23, barely a month after Sri Lanka elected a new president, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo issued a travel advisory warning U.S. citizens to “avoid” Arugam Bay, a tourist hotspot located in the southeastern coast of the island. The advisory noted a “credible” threat of “an attack targeting popular tourist locations” and directed people to report any suspicious activity to the local emergency hotline.
The advisory sent shockwaves immediately. Within hours, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia issued similar warnings to their citizens in the country.
Sri Lanka Police Spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa, convening a press conference, said that security had been beefed up in the region and other tourist hotspots. The police clarified that two arrests had been made – with several others made over the next few weeks – and that the detained were being questioned. Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) reassured tourists that all necessary steps were being taken.
While the warnings came as a shock to most Sri Lankans, many suspected the reason almost immediately. Officials confirmed that these terror threats had involved a confrontation with Israeli tourists that had been brewing for some time. The threats had centered on a building that had been turned into a Jewish community center.
Not long after the initial warnings, the Israeli National Security Council (NSC) called on citizens to leave Sri Lanka’s select coastal areas. Subsequent reports noted that Indian intelligence had supplied information to the government, though this was later denied by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath.
For many Sri Lankans, the incident raked up painful memories of the 2019 Easter bombings. Hours after the advisory, social media was abuzz with speculation about a security lapse in the country, especially after the government dismissed Sri Lanka’s intelligence chief Suresh Sally, a close ally of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa had announced his presidential candidacy days after the bombings on April 21, 2019.
The then-administration had been given warnings about a possible terrorist threat in the months prior to the Easter attacks, but these had been ignored largely due to political developments in the country. Now, with another intel report on a terror attack, Sri Lankans were wondering why it took a foreign embassy advisory to get the Sri Lankan security forces to wake up – even though social media users had noted a noticeable beefing up of security forces at Arugam Bay a day before the advisory.
Complicating matters further, a newspaper reported that no firearms or explosives had been found on the three suspects.
In a press conference, Herath, who is also in charge of the country’s Public Security Ministry, noted that the government needed time to verify information on the terror threat, and added that precautionary measures had been swiftly taken in light of the ongoing situation in Gaza and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Julie Chung stated that a travel advisory did not mean a travel ban, adding that similar advisories are imposed on other popular destinations such as Italy and France, before praising Sri Lankan authorities for acting swiftly.
Tourism in Sri Lanka
In a way, the confusion surrounding the Arugam Bay incident underscores the complexities of Sri Lanka’s tourism industry and the geopolitics that have engulfed the island in recent years. While it is easy to fault the government for not acting promptly, there is a lack of clarity on whether the U.S. advisory was issued arbitrarily, without prior consultation with Sri Lankan authorities – especially since the U.S. embassy, as Chung reiterated, acts on a “Duty to Warn” principle regarding potential attacks.
That local authorities were taken by surprise has raised more questions than answers. According to one report, officials had already been aware of the threat. Moreover, the reporting on the targets of these attacks – Israeli tourists – overlooks how tourism has affected local communities and how successive governments have turned a blind eye to such developments.
Along with foreign remittances and commodity exports, tourism is a big foreign exchange earner in Sri Lanka. Prior to 2019, the sector earned more than $3 billion annually. The Easter attacks placed it on a downward trajectory, while the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis only worsened matters.
Since 2022, the government’s aim has been to restore tourism to what it was before 2019. Its response to the advisory revealed how crucial the sector has become for the country’s recovery efforts. Moreover, Sri Lanka is approaching its peak holiday season. Last December, for instance, 65 percent of all visits to the island were for vacation and leisure purposes.
On the face of it, the latest incident reveals how tourism has gotten entangled in geopolitics in the country. Sri Lanka has a significant Muslim population, at almost 10 percent. For the most part, they have been vocal about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Palestine, an issue that has, over the years, gained bipartisan support in the island: Both the governing party, the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, and the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), have expressed support for Palestine. This has been in addition to other communities, including local Christians, displaying solidarity with Gaza.
Unsurprisingly, the activities of tourists in areas like Arugam Bay have led to confrontations with locals, some of whom accuse them of “occupying” their areas. Complicating matters further, many have overstayed their visas, contravening local laws.
A Complex Relationship
In a way, this dovetails into the complex history of the country’s relations with Israel. While certain accounts hold that Jewish engagements on the island date back to Biblical times, scholars agree that by the turn of the 20th century, there was only a sparse Jewish presence in Sri Lanka. After gaining independence in 1948, Sri Lanka became one of few postcolonial societies to recognize Israel as an independent state
According to Punsara Amarasinghe, a security and foreign policy scholar, it was at this point that Israel’s military ties with Sri Lanka began, when the government purchased a gunship from Israel and obtained Israeli technical assistance in the digging of tube wells in the island’s north.
As Sri Lanka entered and became a leading face of the Non-Aligned Movement, however, these engagements broke off. In 1956, then-Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike stated that while Sri Lanka essentially respected Israel’s claims to statehood, this should not be at the expense of the rights and security concerns of its Arab neighbors. Nevertheless, he said that the island’s ties with Israel would remain.
His widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, cut those ties in the 1970s, on the grounds that the Israeli government had refused to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as “the authentic representative of the Palestinian people.” By now, as a key member of the Non-Aligned Movement, Sri Lanka had solidified relations with the Arab world.
In the 1980s, a new government, led by the pro-Western United National Party (UNP) under the hawkish and right-wing President J. R. Jayewardene, restored relations with Israel by allowing the U.S. Embassy to set up an Israeli Special Interests Section. After disclosures were made about Mossad’s links with the island’s military, however, Jayewardene’s successor, Ranasinghe Premadasa, shut the door on the agency.
According to Jayewardene’s biographers K. M. de Silva and Howard Wriggins, Jayewardene disapproved of Premadasa’s decision, largely since Israel had assisted in the country’s military buildup against separatist Tamil movements in the 1980s. Nevertheless, when a prominent U.S. congressman, Stephen Solarz, threatened Premadasa that there would be consequences for his actions, Premadasa stood his ground and icily replied that Sri Lanka was not unaware that actions had consequences.
After Premadasa’s assassination in 1993, the country began yet again normalizing relations with Israel. Under President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Israel set up an Embassy in Colombo. In 2000, Sri Lanka opened an Embassy in Tel Aviv. As of today, bilateral engagements have centered on areas like immigrant labor and technical support in agriculture. Clearly, these have taken on a new dimension in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent razing of Gaza and Lebanon.
A Geopolitical Confrontation
At one level, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2019-2022) and Ranil Wickremesinghe (2022-2024) administrations pushed Sri Lanka into the center of these tensions. In February 2020, for instance, the two countries signed an agreement in Jerusalem on the employment of Sri Lankan workers. The deal streamlined the selection and recruitment of Sri Lankan caregivers in Israel. In 2023, the Ministry of Labor expedited the expatriation of 10,000 Sri Lankan workers to Israel to fill construction sector jobs previously held by Palestinians.
The latter move came under criticism, but was defended by the government as necessary. Sri Lankan workers continue to migrate to Israel. This may be one reason why the government, regardless of the party in power, has avoided explicitly condemning the country.
Then, earlier in 2024, Wickremesinghe announced that a Sri Lankan vessel would be dispatched to the Red Sea to help U.S. naval forces ensure “freedom of navigation” from Houthi rebels. The decision was questioned by those who felt it would endanger Sri Lanka and strain the country’s already meager finances.
It would be tempting to draw a line from these developments to the incident in Arugam Bay. Yet it must also be acknowledged that the previous government did not go all the way to appease Israel or appear as an ally. The Wickremesinghe administration did make gestures on behalf of Palestine, including donating funds to orphans in Gaza and voting in support of the country at U.N. resolutions.
By contrast, the present administration, led by a party that mobilized widespread disaffection against Wickremesinghe, delayed issuing a response to the Israeli government’s declaration of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “persona non grata,” even though it has elsewhere expressed support for Palestine.
Tourist Traps
Several analyses, including by Western media outlets, have turned the Arugam Bay incident into another example of the Middle East crisis expanding into other regions. While this in itself is obviously true, it tends to overlook the complexities of Sri Lanka’s situation, including its reliance on tourism and the many contradictions this has propped up.
The economic crisis of 2022 has made the country more vulnerable, and in light of a debt restructuring deal, it sees tourism, and foreign remittances, as pathways to recovery. However, while the previous administration pursued these avenues at full speed, little to no attention seems to have been paid to the tensions they have generated in Sri Lankan society.
It is undeniable that geopolitics has impacted the country’s tourist trade. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, for instance, the country witnessed a series of incidents involving Russians and Ukrainians, both of whom hold a significant presence in the tourism sector. Last year the country made headlines when complaints were made about a “whites-only” party, organized by a group of Russian tourists in a coastal area in the Southern Province. The situation got so serious that the Russian Embassy had to issue a statement condemning “all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism.”
Similar stories have been reported of other nationalities clashing with locals. Tourists in turn often complain of being hoodwinked, if not robbed, by locals disguised as guides. Complicating matters further, reports have emerged of foreign nationals passing off as unofficial tour operators in Sri Lanka.
Side effects are felt in other ways as well. For instance, in the days following the advisory, Sri Lankans on social media dug up reports on an Israeli film that had been shot in the region. Literally titled “Arugam Bay,” the plot focuses on three Israeli surfers and former Israeli Defense Force members who travel to the island after losing a friend during a mission in Beirut. The film, which features a popular Sri Lankan actor as well, came under much censure, with some wondering why the government had granted the cast and crew permission when Israel has been accused of causing a humanitarian crisis in the region.
The Arugam Bay incident itself had been brewing for over a year. Sri Lankans had, for a long time, been taking to social media to comment on Israeli tourists intruding on local communities. While Israelis themselves have written about Sri Lanka in glowing terms, some of the tourists appear to have touched more than a nerve. Following the advisory, several Sri Lankans critical of Israel’s activities in Gaza questioned why authorities had allowed a Jewish cultural center to be set up in a discernibly Muslim-populated site. While the present government has taken steps to ramp up security, it is clear that the previous administration had turned a blind eye to these developments.
The incident also underscored the disproportionate impact of foreign travel advisories on countries in the Global South, in particular those reliant on tourism. Hours after the U.S. Embassy advisory, a senior official connected to the country’s tourism industry released a statement on social media criticizing Western countries for ignoring the effects of negative advisories on developing economies. The statement observed that with the sector reaching peak season in December, such warnings can discourage travelers. It added that while powerful countries can afford advisories on their territories, Sri Lanka is at a point where the slightest hint of bad news can cripple its recovery.
This raises another issue: Given that tourism is affected by external shocks, is it a viable economic pillar for vulnerable countries like Sri Lanka? Shiran Illanperuma, a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, argued that it is not.
“We have peak and off-peak seasons. What happens is that we have huge amounts of land, labor, and capital utilized in peak season but underutilized in the rest of the year,” Illanperuma wrote. “For countries like ours, those resources would be better used in sectors like manufacturing.”
He added that tourism constitutes 25 percent of the country’s exports, “an unhealthy figure,” and observed that even popular destinations like Thailand “are not as dependent on tourism as we” are.
On the other hand, Rathindra Kuruwita, an international relations analyst, said the advisory has less to do with tourism or security threats than with the government in power. “The NPP has never been a governing party before. Foreign embassies and governments are now getting used to interacting with them,” he pointed out.
“In that sense, I see the advisory as a thinly veiled threat, the message being that powerful countries can cripple us at any time, and that we must expect to stick to their narratives, scripts, and agenda.”
Whatever the causes of and solutions for these issues may be, it is clear that the Arugam Bay incident shows how fragile countries like Sri Lanka are in the face of external shocks vis-à-vis sectors like tourism – regardless of the party in power. With the Middle East and Eurasia embroiled in conflict, even the NPP seems eager to maintain security and stability.
Barely a week after the travel advisory, the Sri Lanka Police announced it would prioritize protecting foreign nationals over cracking down on overstays. Yet firm action from the Sri Lankan government is needed if it is to prevent future problems – a point relevant not just to Israelis but to other nationalities arriving and staying in the country.