A story doing the rounds in Colombo's legal fraternity speaks about the rapid increase in sweep ticket sellers in the city. Whether a joke or otherwise, that is where criminal elements or those suspected of such activity have found a new vocation to avoid the Police.
The most notorious among them are falling dead, one after another, as a major drive to crack down on crime has been launched. Weeks ago, rising trends in crime made Police Chief Jayantha Wickremaratne chair a top-level conference. Taking part were DIGs and SSPs. He asked them to crack down on criminals.
Some of the alleged criminals, Police say, have died in confrontations that ensued when they tried to arrest them. In the case of others, they say, rival groups got to them before the police. There were also handfuls that were lucky, for they had their patrons. One such case was a drug lord who was escorted by his political master to the stairway of an aircraft bound from Sri Lanka to a European capital. That drug lords receive VIP treatment at airports, perhaps one that qualifies for mention in the Guinness Book of Records, is one thing. Another is how he managed his visa when the pleas of hundreds of IDPs (Internally Displaced People) from the Wanni were turned down. They appealed on humanitarian grounds citing relatives in the same country.
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| The victory march continues: President Rajapaksa, flanked by his Tamil political suporters, at a campaign rally in Badulla |
Yet, Anura Senanayake, DIG (Crimes and Operations) was cautious in his response. "We have not arrested any criminals or confronted them in the recent weeks," he told the Sunday Times.
The official imprimatur to the crackdown on underworld elements came from none other than Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake. He told Parliament during the debate on the extension of the state of emergency by another month, that the Government would not allow any person to brandish weapons and wield powers, damaging the democratic rights of the ordinary people.
"Today, people walk about freely and live without fear. It is our responsibility to further consolidate national security enabling the people to live in a free and peaceful environment," he said.
"We must put an end to underworld activities as this is a democratic country which has been liberated by the heroic Armed Forces from LTTE clutches," he said making it patently clear that the war on the underworld was now an extension of the war on the LTTE.
The need for the extension of the emergency was squarely put on the need now to exterminate the underworld elements.
It fell on what has turned out to be the one-man Opposition to raise issue over the matter. Mangala Samaraweera, who is also the leader of the one-MP Sri Lanka Freedom Party (M), raised issue at a news conference on Thursday. He declared, "there is no doubt the underworld should be eliminated, but the people would not approve of the Government's way of eliminating it." According to him, 90 criminals have been killed so far in this purge.
Among the latest, Samaraweera said, was a person called 'Army Roshan'.
He alleged that Roshan had once made a statement to the Police implicating his late parliamentary and party colleague, Sripathi Sooriyaratchchi. The latter was about to be arrested when Sooriyaratchchi met with his untimely death in an accident. Though once a staunch figure in the SLFP and now a political loner, it is creditable Samaraweera's voice in the opposition has become loud and clear.
It is because of the stoic silence of the main Opposition United National Party (UNP) to raise any issue of public interest, be an issue related to the underworld or something closer to their hearts, their symbol, the elephant. Like allowing party members to part ways, even the issue of a separation of two baby pachyderms from their mother missed their attention. That a sizeable section of the populace viewed this dimly, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa was cocky enough to ignore public protests, voiced by the media was not for the UNP to seize the moment. Little wonder Samaraweera is drawing more Government attention than most others in the Opposition.
Last month, he was summoned to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters on the 4th floor of the New Secretariat in Fort. Detectives questioned him over a multitude of issues including a reported attempt on the life of a VIP politician.
This week, there was more attention after a party at his Moratuwa residence overlooking the placid waters of the Bolgoda Lake. A close relative of his had turned 21 and the birthday party last Sunday was to become a larger event. This was after Samaraweera chose to invite some of his own friends. Among them were former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe, his deputy Karu Jayasuriya, Ravi Karunanayake and Tissa Attanayake. The event was to trigger speculation in Government circles and websites backing them. Many were the stories. One spoke about the prospects of Kumaratunga returning to politics to lead the prospective Grand Alliance of Opposition political parties. But an opposition stalwart put up a bottle neck by saying that it would be better to leave the genie in the bottle.
Where politicians gather, it would be unusual if there was no talk on politics. This party was no exception. Some heard Kumaratunga wax eloquent on the Rajapaksas. She claimed several persons in the ruling party were in regular contact with her. They were bitterly critical of the way things were being done.
Kumaratunga complained that she was not being given the recognition that should be given to a former president like in other countries.
Known to be prone to exaggeration, she claimed some had even asked her to return to politics but she had replied there was no way. Then in a lighter vein, she had pointed in the direction of where Samaraweera stood (he was not part of the conversation) and declared "he is the one who is responsible for all this."
She was alluding to Samaraweera's role in bringing the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party together. It was with the JVP support that Rajapaksa was voted to power during the 2005 presidential elections. Samaraweera was in fact Rajapaksa's campaign manager and was later sworn in as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
A few of the invitees grouped in another area took up the subject thereafter. One of them described the present administration as a "contraceptive government." The word used was just two letters which remain the acronym for condoms and highlighted the fact that people were picked, used and then thrown away. Samaraweera was identified as one of them. In fact, the first 'throw away'. There were many others mentioned including General Sarath Fonseka, Ambassadors Dayan Jayatilleke (Geneva), H.M.G.S. Palihakkara (at the UN in New York) and Daya Perera (Canada).
Jayatilleke has already been re-called. Palihakkara, who was on a two-year contract, is cutting short his stint by one to return to Colombo. Perera, his close associates say, will quit in December and revert to the unofficial bar in Colombo. There were names in every sphere of activity including the media, said another.
The issue Samaraweera raised about the crackdown on criminals, however, has had a mixed reaction. Some political leaders, both in Government and the Opposition, seemed relieved that the Police have been asked to make a concerted attempt to combat crime and criminals. A Government politician who did not wish to be named declared, "you have a criminal in your village who is terrorising the area. He is arrested, remanded and returns to resume his activity.
"What do you do when such a process continues and you are helpless?" He says that is why the Police have been asked to get tough. UNP Kotte district Parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayake agreed but had reservations on the way it is being done. "Certainly, it is a very good thing to deal with the criminal elements. However, it has to be done in a proper way. What we see now is the targeting of persons who are perceived as political opponents," he said. He feels the Government should have consulted all political parties and obtained their consensus on the approach to tackling crime "in a proper and legal way."
In the recent years, the underworld has become even a stronger appendage of politicians. Rival sides use their services during elections to counter each other's activities. That is not only to paste posters but also to play combat roles that end up in violent incidents. With the ongoing crackdown, the upcoming Southern Provincial Council elections will be the first where there is the likelihood of lesser underworld groups operating.
A crime free society is not the only thing that the Government is aiming at. The recent ban on 'adults only' films appears to harmonise with this move to what many fear is a state-backed exercise to create a puritan State of Sri Lanka. Early this month, Jayantha Dharmadasa, Chairman of the State Film Corporation, was chairing his monthly meeting with film exhibitors (or cinema owners and their representatives).
He said he was shocked to hear a news report on Rupavahini that the Government had banned all 'adults only' films. He had not been consulted and that was the first time he had learnt of the move. Thereafter, he had despatched a strong letter of protest to his Ministry.
One exhibitor said there were at least six city cinemas which exhibited 'adults only' films and they would be forced to shut down. "We break makulu del (cob webs) only with the income we derive out of these films," complained another exhibitor. The move came as the Corporation planned to give concessions on electricity tariff and entertainment tax to exhibitors who say they are on the verge of closure.
By today the verdict of the people at elections for the Uva Provincial Council and Vavuniya and Jaffna local council will be known. The results are foregone conclusions.
President Rajapaksa made more than the usual quota of visits by a Head of Government (and Head of State) for a Provincial election in Uva where his nephew is the Chief Ministerial candidate. He played the nationalist card - and played it hard. He traced the bloody history of Uva when the colonial British turned rice fields into bloody fields, and opened the Uva-Wellassa University, which he dedicated to the heroic ancestors of the people of the area "who battled to safeguard the sovereignty of this land of ours", he said stirring emotion of the voters.
He warmed the cockles of their heart with a stinging attack on the Opposition UNP saying that that party's policy has been to first develop Colombo and the Western Province, and then the periphery, but that his policy is absolutely the reverse.
UNP Leader Wickremesinghe dismissed the President's appeals to the people of Uva by saying that the Government was merely building castles in the air and critiqued the Rajapaksa administration for diverting the waters of the Uma Oya to Hambantota and shifting the second international airport ear-marked by the then UNP Government in Moneragala to Hambantota as well. He asked how the people were going to benefit when the Government was criticising foreign Governments that have all along been funding development projects in Sri Lanka for the ordinary people.
But it was clear that while the Uva election campaign was tapering off, the Government, confident of victory, had already set its sights on the Southern Provincial Council election that is due next on the election calendar for 2009. The UNP suffered a big blow when Justin Galapatti, one of its stalwarts in Matara, defected to the Rajapaksa team. His complaint was that he had been sidelined by Wickremesinghe for a much junior politician, Sagala Ratnayake as the chief organiser for Matara.
In the North, once again all reports indicated a triumph for the pro-Rajapaksa candidates amidst various reports of irregularities ranging from bribery and inducement to the availability of polling cards in the hands of the wrong people. To add to the suspicion that the elections were not quite the free and fair election expected were the restrictions placed on the media covering the polls.
It seemed that the Government was not banking on its own popularity to win elections. It was going to leave nothing to chance. |
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