The arson attack on Ranga Bandara’s house and office: Democracy under attack in Sri Lanka
The second burning of an opposition politician’s house took place within the last 48 hours (Sunday evening). However, the incident is being treated trivially by the government as well as society. A society so accustomed to lawlessness is treating this as just another incident. It seems to be of no more importance than a mosquito bite.
When in several articles, the Sri Lankan situation was compared to worst situations of abysmal lawlessness some were of the view that the situation within Sri Lanka was not that bad. In fact, the comparisons with situations such as the ones described in the Gulag Archipelago, 1918- 1956 by Solzhenitsyn were treated by some as exaggerations. There were even claims that such comparisons are inaccurate equations that are not justified, even remotely.
A member of parliament or even a candidate for parliament selected by a political party has a status to be recognised within a democracy. The whole system of the legislature will be run by persons who are elected from such candidates. The system recognises the importance of the legislature when giving protection to all those who are recognised by political parties as their candidates for such positions. It is the legislature that is being treated with so little respect when persons of this category can be subjected to lawlessness of the worse type with impunity.
What party such a person belongs to, or even what kind of a person the particular individual may be is irrelevant. In such matters it is not the United National Party or persons like John Pulle and Ranga Bandara that are being attacked. It is the very system of governance by people’s representatives which is what parliamentary democracy is all about, that is under attack. Thus the gravity of the problem is that it is as worse as it can be.
Responsibilities of some of the highest officers and institutions have been violated relating to a very serious matter. The trust placed on people who hold public office and institutions that are being given the task of protecting the parliamentary system has been violated. However, the whole issue is treated cynically and disregarded as a matter of no importance.
An attack on the parliamentary process should be treated as the worst act of terrorism. However, the country’s laws have not developed to treat such acts against the very system of the parliament as a matter of significance. For writing an article to a newspaper which is said to be provocative a person may be sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. But attacking the electoral process through a candidate or a member of parliament will at best be treated merely as an arson attack.
Even that depends on the investigators. Judging by the inquiry into the incidents relating to John Pulle there is nothing much to be expected in that area.
The issue however, is about the way the spokesmen for society, be they spokesmen for the government, opposition parties, academics and intellectuals and others in civil society organizations view this issue. When they are forced to defend the parliamentary process will they express their indignation for what has happened? Will they ensure that the legal process will function as it should?
When the systems have collapsed and abysmal lawlessness becomes the way of life in society none of these things will happen. Will those who deny that Sri Lanka is a gulag island demonstrate by their interventions that Sri Lanka still has a functioning system of law? Or will they by their own behavior, conditioned by the fear psychosis, demonstrate the mentalities that can be present only within a gulag while pretending that they are living within a rule of law system and a democracy.
20 Comments
Leave a Reply
Subscribe to Content Updates
iPhone app
If this is the way a Singhala politician is being treated, how about Tamil politicians and Muslim politicians who belongs to the minority? It must be tarrying to do anything on behalf of such minorities in Sri Lanka in terms of such terrible violence.
Zaman Ashraf and “Basil Fernando” must have never left Sri Lanka. These problems plague every developing nation.
Step 1. File a police report.
Step 2. Follow up with the Police, give them 30 days.
If nothing comes out of it.
Step 3. Contact a lawyer.
Thats what you need to do.
Hi Damilvany,
John Pulle waited after his house was burned, then he himself was killed. Janaka Perera is dead now for quite some time. So you want everybody in Sri Lanka to accept attacks and keep quiet. What a fine friend you are.
This basil fernando, an alleged Human Rights activists in sheeps clothing is infact a wolf. He has been purging Gulag Archipelago for sometime.
probably want to show off that he had read this book in question and want to impress upon the readers of his intellectual capacity.
It those empty vessels that makes this much noise in that he has hijacked lanka Guradian & now Ground Views just to make himself known.
Like the Rayappus & Northern cassoack clan who gave their heritage the preceedents over vocation to promote the ltte, this basil Fernando too used the cassoack to promote himself and got himself derobed.
Now wants to be a HR Diva with abuse and venom engrained in his head.
That is his way of HR. he can insult whom he wishes but Govts can not.
@Saman J
Are you seriously trying to say that such an incident, quite rightly pointed out as one that is quite “normal” in this nation, is something you have no reaction to? Do you not care, that innocent people are being attacked and threatened, or killed? Does it not matter how this nation conducts itself and treats its people?
@Basil F – well sadly what you say is true. We read/ hear of things like this, feel quite “detached” because “what can we do”…and try to tell ourselves that the democracy is well and thriving. Well actually the debate on what democracy is the point here – what do you call a “Gulag” dynamic within a democratically sustained one?
Saman J,
After 1970, successive Sri Lankan governments paid too little attention to true democracy and human rights. I was just 13 years old when first JVP insurgency occurred. I have witnessed to the brutal killings of captured and surrendered rebels. Then came the 1988 – 1989 dark period, second JVP insurgency. It was so brutal and I had to hide myself because I was associated with the Sri Lankan university system. I have just mentioned only two JVP insurgencies here. How about the arrogance and highhandedness of Mrs B’s government during 1970-1977? How about the JR’s “Uthumaneni” mentality and his stupid arrogance? I do not see any difference in the present Sri Lankan government. Governments formed by both the UNP and SLFP were rough governments and paid no attention to human rights. Saman J you are either a hypocrite or living in a dream world.
South PC Election: UNP ‘Ranaviru’ candidate assaulted
(Lanka-e-News 07.Oct.2009 8.40AM) The UNP candidate contesting the Southern Provincial Council election from the Matara District Retd. Captain of the Sri Lanka Army Udaya Dissanayake came under attack by an unidentified gang that came in two vehicles in the early hours of yesterday said CAFFE media spokesman Mr. Keerthi Thennakoon to ‘LeN’
…to read more click the link
http://www.lankaenews.com/English/news.php?id=8447
Why is this nation so happy to live and breathe in violence? Is this how the “rana viruvan” are rewarded? Charming.
This post coming soon after Baekero’s merely demonstrates the affinity that the Lion has to the Tiger.
Both
attack their own people
thrive on terror
regenerate themselves through intimidation and threats
reward violence
silence dissent
murder the voices that expose them
do not hesitate to destroy those who have served them
AND have a level of decency and integrity that would make a rat blush!
Here is Ranga Bandara, MP, himself is speaking. This is from a published interview from Asian Human Rights Commission. What will Saman J. say to this. Perhaps nothing.
Following is a summary of the recorded interview:
A group of people entered my premises on Sunday night, the 4th October after breaking the decorations outside. They arrived in two vans. After entering my premises they spread highly inflammable liquid throughout the premises and set the premises on fire. The spread of the liquid had been done very carefully to ensure that they could raze the premises to the ground in the shortest possible time. Then they left the premises.
I was away attending to election work on behalf of my party at the time. I learned that the neighbors gathered immediately but were afraid to go in because they were aware of recent experiences where bombs were placed inside when this type of attack is done. The people tried to throw water from outside to stop the fire. It was only after one of my employees, a lady, rushed to the place and entered the premises that others also entered and tried to put out the fire. However, they could not do much to stop everything from being destroyed.
My house and office is situation next door to each other. All the documents relating to my work as a member of parliament was inside both premises. I also had five computers for the purposes of my work. There were many other pieces of equipment which were also used for communications. And there were also the household goods. All has been burned down and the total damage in monitory terms is about Rs. 11,000,000/=.
Immediately when the news about the fire had been spread the police were informed and they in turn informed the fire department of the Negombo area. The head of the fire department and the chairman of the provincial council were also informed. Initially, the fire department asked for Rs 15,000/= as costs for putting out the fire. The police informed that they will pay the money but the order had not been given for the fire department to move. So, they did not come at any time to deal with the fire. In fact, during this same time the vehicles used by the fire department were seen in the roads in Negombo being used for putting up flags for the ruling party.
The police in the area of Negombo also has water bowsers but none of these were sent despite of the information that they had to help in putting out the fire.
After I arrived at the place with several others I received a lot of detailed information about who was involved. It is a member of the provincial council who had given orders to the group of people who attacked my house. According to the information I received they will be protected because he, the provincial council member, received these orders from high above. I have also been told about the names of several of the persons who participated in this attack. I have also got to know the number of one of the vehicles which was used for this attack.
However, there is a big problem. The people who confided in me and gave me this information are mortally scared. They don’t want to take the risk of coming forward to give evidence in these matters because it means very serious trouble for them. Of course they fear is real and everybody in the country would understand that kind of fear.
Among those who talked to me were two police officers. They gave me a lot of information about whom and how this attack was carried out. However, the also told me that they simply have to keep quiet because if they try to do their duty in terms of the information they have received, they will lose their jobs. Once again this is not a surprising revelation.
A complaint about the incident has been made to the police and three witnesses have given statements regarding what they have seen at the initial stages of this incident. The police have said that they will also record a statement from me. I will make that statement. However, I do not have the least amount of faith that there will be any sort of credible inquiry. It is not simply possible for the police to do that kind of inquiry in Sri Lanka now because of the political directions that they have to work under.
So here we have evidence about who did this act and how. But what is the use of that information? The police are not going to do what they are expected to do under the law on the basis of such information. On the other hand these people who come forward to give information would be put at very great and real risk. That is the situation that I am facing about the investigations into this system and regarding that I do not know what to do.
I have no doubt at all that this is a completely political attack directed to ruin me completely politically and otherwise. Now all that I had is lost. Even the basic equipment I used for my work has been burned down. I do not have any money at all to buy any of these things back.
Now I have been reduced to a position below zero.
The political environment of today is such that opposition politicians are first exposed to such attacks to ruin them from engaging in their political activity. On the other hand there are constant death threats. My possible assassination by this regime is a very real threat. I have been under threat all the time. Earlier there were two occasions on which bombs were planted at my political offices in my electorate. On one occasion as I received information earlier I was able to get the bomb squad to disarm the bomb. However, the second one exploded on the same day.
While such attempts are made to intimate me as a member of the opposition there have also been constant attempts to buy me over. This has happened at the very inception of my political career nine years back and it has continued until now. Persons coming on behalf of the present regime have offered me huge sums of money and positions if I join the government. A deputy minister approached me and offered me up to Rs. 20 -50 million if I joined the government and also offered a deputy minister’s post. Then another politician close to the president approached me with similar terms. Then there is a family known to me in Colombo. The lady who had connections approached me and offered me the same terms. I have informed all this to the leader of the opposition. I have also mentioned these things to some newspapers in the past.
Today, the existing political environment is a very dangerous one. The opposition political party members are not only prevented from doing their jobs but even the media is afraid to give us any space. Several media channels which earlier invited me to attend various public broadcasts no longer invite me. The media does not report what we say properly. Sometimes when the media try to do their jobs properly I was told they are called by someone from the top and severely warned to desist from giving such publicity.
I have a wife and three children. My son is 16-years-old and my daughter 14-years-old and they are both at school. The youngest child is very small. It is the political culture today to assassinate the wife and children if you cannot destroy the person who is your target. I am afraid that my family will be exposed to serious threats to their lives merely to teach me a lesson. That is how bad things are.
For years I have been writing to the international bodies of parliamentarians and the international bodies of the UN complaining about the threats I have been facing. I have copies of all the letters written to them. The file containing all these letters is now about one and a half kilos in weight. Despite of all such threats I had to face this arson attack and the threats to me, my family and my supporters.
I can do nothing but to appeal to all those people in the international community to come to my assistance and ensure protection to me and my family. There is no one else to appeal to. So I appeal to all persons with good hearts in the international community on this occasion for understanding of this situation and also to take steps for protection.
smoulderingjin…don’t insult rats. Rats with four legs do blush…but the rats on two legs who wear full white cant.
See this interview, where you can listen to Ranga Bandara telling about his ordeal.
The arson attack on Ranga Bandara’s house and office can be easily explained!
It is an “INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRACY” to tarnish the image of the Government!
Duh!
Remember the killing of Lasantha and the burning of the MTV/MBC TV station were also the work of these “INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRATORS.”
Down with Miliband! Down with Hillary! Long live Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi!
@President Bean
Oh dear. Do rats blush? My apologies to the four legged furry creatures!
Two legged rats- oh they *have* to be creatures from Animal Farm. Wearing white…I am sure they must be Pig Rats then. Only the Pigs wore clothes if I remember right
Yeah well what to do, these days the international conspiracy to burn down opposition member’s houses in Negombo is very active.
Down with them all.
Up with the two legged white wearing rats. And the fire setters and drug addict murderer jet setters. And all that sort of thing!
Diseased nation this is becoming. Where death is laughed at by the public and murderers are defended. But then as Basil Fernando rightly points out, the nation’s disease is a chronic one, one can only hope that it is terminal.
Although I suppose that if the disease is not terminal, the nation will be!!!
Saman J. don’t you think that it is unfair of you to say that I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing? To the best of my ability, I try to say only things that I honestly believe and what I have thought about critically for a long time. What I say about our gulag is on that basis. My primary experience about Sri Lanka is in the south and how repression has happened there. (Naturally, given the everything that we have heard, I presume that the situation of the north and east in recent times must have been much worse.) But what I have myself directly observed in the south is a sufficient enough basis to form a critical opinion on the type of repression we have in the country.
Anyway, the point I wish to talk about here is a little different. The problem of us Sri Lankans, sharing with other South Asians, is not being wolves in sheep’s clothing but being the other way around. We are in fact sheep in wolves’ (lions and tigers’) clothing. We are victims of repression who are afraid to fight against it, but externally talk very big about being big warriors. Despite claims of being big warriers, our wretched condition continues and we are condemned to poverty and deprivation of all our freedoms.
A good book that captures our real situation is The White Tiger by Aravid Adiga. The following quote captures our essential condition, which he describes as the condition of Indians (why don’t we too talk honestly, like Aravind Adiga does about his people in India, about ourselves?):
“The greatest thing to come out of this country in the ten thousand years of its history is the Rooster Coop.
Go to Old Delhi, behind the Jama Masjid, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench — the stench of terrified, feathered flesh. On the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop.
The very same thing is done with human beings in this country.
Watch the roads in the evenings in Delhi; sooner or later you will see a man on a cycle-rickshaw, pedaling down the road, with a giant bed, or a table, tied to the cart that is attached to his cycle. Every day furniture is delivered to people’s homes by this man — the delivery- man. A bed costs five thousand rupees, maybe six thousand. Add the chairs, and a coffee table, and it’s ten or fifteen thousand. A man comes on a cycle-cart, bringing you this bed, table, and chairs, a poor man who may make five hundred rupees a month. He unloads all this furniture for you, and you give him the money in cash — a fat wad of cash the size of a brick. He puts it into his pocket, or into his shirt, or into his underwear, and cycles back to his boss and hands it over without touching a single rupee of it! A year’s salary, two years’ salary, in his hands, and he never takes a rupee of it.
Every day, on the roads of Delhi, some chauffeur is driving an empty car with a black suitcase sitting on the backseat. Inside that suitcase is a million, two million rupees; more money than that chauffeur will see in his lifetime. If he took the money he could go to America, Australia, anywhere, and start a new life. He could go inside the five-star hotels he has dreamed about all his life and only seen from the outside. He could take his family to Goa, to England. Yet he takes that black suitcase where his master wants. He puts it down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why?
Because Indians are the world’s most honest people, like the prime minister’s booklet will inform you?
No. It’s because per cent of us are-caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market.
The Rooster Coop doesn’t always work with minuscule sums of money. Don’t test your chauffeur with a rupee coin or two — he may well steal that much. But leave a million dollars in front of a servant and he won’t touch a penny. Try it: leave a black bag with a million dollars in a Mumbai taxi. The taxi driver will call the police and return the money by the day’s end. I guarantee it. (Whether the police will give it to you or not is another story, sir!) Masters trust their servants with diamonds in this country! It’s true. Every evening on the train out of Surat, where they run the world’s biggest diamond- cutting and polishing business, the servants of diamond merchants are carrying suitcases full of cut diamonds that they have to give to someone in Mumbai. Why doesn’t that servant take the suitcase full of diamonds? He’s no Gandhi, he’s human, he’s you and me. But he’s in the Rooster Coop. The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy.
The Great Indian Rooster Coop. Do you have something like it in China too? I doubt it, Mr Jiabao. Or you wouldn’t need the Communist Party to shoot people and a secret police to raid their houses at night and put them in jail like I’ve heard you have over there. Here in India we have no dictatorship. No secret police.
That’s because we have the coop.
Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many, Mr Jiabao. A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 per cent — as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way — to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse.
You’ll have to come here and see it, for yourself to believe it. Every day millions wake up at dawn — stand in dirty, crowded buses — get off at their masters’ posh houses — and then clean the floors, wash the dishes, weed the garden, feed their children, press their feet — all for a pittance. I will never envy the rich of America or England, Mr Jiabao: they have no servants there. They cannot even begin to understand what a good life is.
Now, a thinking man like you, Mr Premier, must ask two questions.
Why does the Rooster Coop work? How does it trap so many millions of men and women so effectively?
Secondly, can a man break out of the coop? What if one day, for instance, a driver took his employer’s money and ran? What would his life be like?
I will answer both for you, sir.
The answer to the first question is that the pride and glory of our nation, the repository of all our love and sacrifice, the subject of no doubt considerable space in the pamphlet that the prime minister will hand over to you, the Indian family, is the reason we are trapped and fled to the coop.”
Saman J. why don’t you think about it – sheep in wolves clothing (tigers and lions’)?
The following quote from Aravind Adiga will also be useful to Saman J.
“At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society (Indian). That’s what I’m trying to do — it is not an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self-examination.”
There is no hope of having investigations to these kinds of matters in Sri Lanka now. Ranga Bandara as a MP should have taken more trouble to fight to ensure the right of all the people to have inquiries into crimes done against them. I can give hundreds of examples to demonstrate that we cannot take for granted that investigations will be conducted in to serious crimes, form actual cases known to me. Let me give one example.
There was a man call Sugath in Negombo. He was a complainant in a corruption case against a police inspector. His whole family was severely assaulted to force him not to go to court to give evidence. He filed further case, a fundamental rights application against 12 polices in Negombo area. Then he was threatened with the death of his entire family if the FR case is not withdrawn. On 21st September 2008 he was shot at by two “unknown gunman”, and he died.
Now it is more that one year after the incident. There was no inquiry and no one was arrested. Instead his family was threatened with death many times.
This man while alive wrote the following letter to IGP, Human Rights Commission, Police Commission and Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights asking for protection but no one did anything.
“On 23.6.2008 at about 11 in the morning, myself and my wife were going towards the Negombo hospital in our three-wheeler bearing number 205/8052 in order to get treatment for my wife. While we were traveling in Chilaw, Colombo Road, near Dalupatha Bridge, there was a heavy goods vehicle bearing number WP-L (DOG) 5347 and the persons named Niroshan and Nimal and some others unknown to the family were there. Niroshan and Nimal signaled us to stop the three-wheeler with their arms. The driver our other three-wheeler was one Ajith and he stopped. Niroshan and Ajith put their heads into the three-wheeler and told us threateningly if you do not withdraw the human rights petition filed against the Negombo police by tomorrow morning we will kill all of you by tomorrow afternoon. The Negombo police have given us permission to kill you all.
We were frightened by this threat, turned our vehicle and returned home. Shortly after our return we heard some people banging our gate and two people shouting, “open the gate. If you do not withdraw the petition by tomorrow evening we will kill you all, the police have given us permission for that, open the doors.?” Due to fear we did not open the gate but when we looked over the gate we saw Niroshan and Nimal with some others whose names we do not know, hitting the gate. We clearly identified Niroshan and Nimal. A little later this group left in their vehicle. We have heard that this Niroshan is an army deserter.
These threats have been made against us to force us to withdraw the fundamental rights petition we have filed at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. We made a complaint at the office of the DIG crimes at Peliyagoda and the complaint bears number SIIV 345/266.
As they have threatened to kill us we are afraid to live in our house and we request that protection for our lives be provided and the conditions for the carrying out of our ordinary business be restored to us”.
This is our country today. Have no illusions.
Lawlessness,Oh, yes. Just today cheating the elections laws. Having political gatherings when after the cut of time for meetings. Age of irrationality under Maha Rajano. In the paradise of the fools, there is no place for law or reason.
Shall we first try to expedite the case against Ranga Bandara? He’s no saint himself. People who plant violence, will grow violence. I am having no sympathy about him at all.
Has anyone read this statement issued by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights on caste based discrimination titled ‘Time to tear down the wall of caste’? The statement is available at http://idsn.org/news-resources/idsn-news/read/article/press-release-time-to-tear-down-the-wall-of-caste/128/
Now, to the point. I think the mentality of the upper caste is what that rules the ‘privileged’ South Asian mind. The influence of this mentality makes the following things possible: violence is justified; might is right; some people ‘deserve to be treated bad’; ask no questions & make no adverse comments; silence is intelligence. In reality, Sri Lanka alone is not a Gulag Island, the entire region is so.
Thanks