Monday 17th March, 2025

Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Ratnayake, tabling the Batalanda Commission report in Parliament on Friday, mourned for the thousands of youth killed during the second JVP uprising in the late 1980s. Media reports have said that on listening to Ratnayake, Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickremaratne became choked with emotion and could hardly speak. It is only natural for anyone to be overwhelmed by such a moving narrative. Ratnayake’s speech reminded us of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. Although this poetic elegy is about the horrors of World War I, it has relevance to other conflicts characterised by brutality and senselessness, especially the ones Sri Lanka has experienced. The first stanza of the poem comes to mind:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

The JVP drove tens of thousands of youth to suicide in an abortive bid to capture state power and implement its socialist agenda. It also sought to scuttle the Indo-Lanka Accord, the 13th Amendment, the Provincial Councils and defeat what it called Indian expansionism. The JVP claimed to be using violence as a means to an end, but in reality its savage terror became the means and the end both and eventually proved to be its undoing.

Today, the JVP is ensconced in power, having secured the coveted Executive Presidency and obtained a supermajority in Parliament. But its current agenda is antithetical to its much-avowed goal, which it led thousands of youth to lay down their lives for, in 1971 and during the 1987-89 period. What this glaring contradiction signifies is that the JVP has deep-sixed what those youth strove for. They died in vain. Were they taken for a ride?

The JVP, as the main constituent of the ruling NPP, has embraced the very economic policies it once condemned as neo-imperialist, accepted the 13th Amendment and devolution it went all out to sabotage albeit in vain, mended fences with India, which it likened to an octopus with tentacles spread all over Sri Lanka, opted for a honeymoon with the US, and above all, chose to follow the IMF dictates. It is also enjoying numerous benefits accruing from the Executive Presidency, which it would condemn as a source of evil.

It takes two to tango. The extrajudicial executions at issue must be condemned unreservedly, but they would not have taken place if the JVP had not taken up arms and incited the youth to violence. So, the blame for the savage killings in the late 1980s should be apportioned equally to the UNP and the JVP, which also killed countless dissenters and even traders who sold Indian goods including Bombay onions, which had to be renamed ‘Lanka loku lunu’ to save lives. Besides, it strove to sabotage elections and destroy the economy, seized thousands of firearms and committed many armed robberies in the name of its supposedly socialist cause.

The incumbent NPP government, especially the JVP, which is trying to make itself out to be a paragon of virtue and victim of the UNP’s violence, has done the right thing by tabling the Batalanda Commission report in Parliament. However, a discussion on a spree of counterterror which led to grave violations of human rights cannot be held in isolation of its cause––terror. Therefore, there is a pressing need to probe the JVP’s reign of terror and its heinous crimes as well. That will help make the narrative about the extrajudicial killings in the late 1980s complete. The Batalanda Commission report also sheds light on the JVP’s terrorism. This fact is sure to be highlighted when a parliamentary debate on the report gets underway. The JVP is opening a can or worms.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Frontline Socialist Party, an offshoot of the JVP, have taken moral high ground, calling upon the government to take action fast in keeping with the recommendations of the Batalanda Commission report. These holier-than-thou characters were also in the JVP when it perpetrated barbaric violence in the late 1980s. They cannot therefore be considered less culpable than the leaders of the UNP and the JVP, where the 1987-89 bloodbath is concerned.

Saturday 15th March, 2025

There seems to be no end in sight to the ongoing crime wave. Hardly a day passes without an underworld shooting incident reported from some part of the country. The government and the police boast of special operations to neutralize organized criminal groups, but underworld hitmen continue to strike at will.

The latest victim of gun violence is a former prison officer. He was shot dead at his home on Poya Day (13 March). Sridath Dhammika, 61, had served as a Superintendent at the Boossa high security prison before retiring last year.

Dhammika’s killer had not been arrested at the time of writing, and therefore his motive was not known. However, there is reason to believe that the shooter or the person who ordered the killing settled an old score. Underworld characters never forget or forgive their enemies or even those who defy their orders. Prison officers are an endangered breed, especially those who serve in high security jails. In February 2017, an underworld attack on a prison bus left five inmates and two jailers dead in Kalutara.

A large number of powerful crime czars have been held in the Boosa prison over the years. Although these criminals are behind bars, their crime syndicates continue to operate and silence witnesses. Their power is such that in 2020, while being detained in the Boossa Prison, a much-feared underworld figure named Arumahandi Janith Madushanka Silva alias Podi Lassi, and two other underworld characters known as Kosgoda Tharaka and Pitigala Keuma threatened to harm the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne, and some senior prison officers. They had the audacity to claim that although they were in jail, their hit squads were active and capable of eliminating anyone.

Podi Lassi, charged with possession of narcotics, was released on bail in December 2024. Lawyers who appeared for him told reporters, after his release, that he needed protection because the STF had threatened him with death. We pointed out in an editorial comment that they had craftily left unsaid that their client issued threats to a Head of State and a Defence Secretary. Everybody knew Podi Lassie would flee the country after being bailed out, and he did. Thankfully, he was arrested in India. This is what happens when criminals are granted bail. The Army deserter who sexually assaulted a doctor at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital on Tuesday had been granted bail earlier in the day.

Dhammika’s killing is sure to send a chilling message to the prison officer fraternity unless it is found to have nothing to do with the victim’s former job. It is hoped that the police will be able to arrest the killer and establish the motive for the crime fast while leaving no stones unturned in their efforts to track down their missing ‘head’.

It behoves the government to stop concocting conspiracy theories about the rising crime wave and concentrate on devising ways and means of neutralising the netherworld of crime and ensuring public security. Gunmen come, they shoot, and they vanish.

Friday 14th March, 2025

We have heard of power stations being retired when they outlive their efficiency and usefulness and/or become redundant or potentially dangerous. But Sri Lanka is planning to make some power plants take a break, as it were, during the weekends. It has been alleged that a plan is underway to curtail renewable power generation during the weekends because the grid infrastructure cannot handle excess power, especially on Sundays, when there is a lower demand for electricity.

Earlier, the CEB was complaining of a shortfall in power supply, and now it is grumbling about excess power generation.

The National Electricity Consumers’ Association has written to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), seeking the latter’s intervention to prevent the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) from causing a grave injustice to the producers of renewable power. It has alleged a sinister plan to boost thermal power generation, which is not only more expensive but also highly injurious to people’s health. It has called for a probe into the alleged move, which, it says, will be a body blow for renewable power generation—the cornerstone of the future power and energy landscape. The power sector is in the clutches of several Mafias, which are not well-disposed towards renewable power generation for obvious reasons. The NPP government was expected to clean up the power and energy sectors, but it, too, is moving along the same rut as its predecessors, whose leaders were accused of lining their pockets at the expense of the public.

Last month’s nationwide power outage, which left the government and the CEB groping in the dark, was first blamed on a monkey and subsequently on excess solar power generation on Sundays. The poor monkey which came into contact with a transformer at a CEB substation in Panadura and perished became internationally known posthumously thanks to the government’s absurd claim!

Now, there is an alleged move to discourage solar and hydro power generation during the weekends. The NPP came to power, pledging to end what it called a 76-year curse that had troubled the country since Independence. Has the so-called curse been renewed under the current administration?

The government and the CEB have not responded to the aforesaid allegation, and their side of the story should be heard. It is hoped that they will provide a clarification without further delay. Their silence will only lend credence to their critics’ claims. The alleged move to reduce renewable power generation during the weekends, in our book, is a solution like the harebrained ones legendary Mahadenamutta (a nitwit posing as a pundit) offered to the problems he was requested to solve.

When a goat had its head stuck in a pot, Mahadenamutta got the animal beheaded first in a bid to save the clay vessel, which was then smashed, at his behest, to extricate the caprine head! One can only hope that Sri Lanka’s power sector will not suffer the same fate as the proverbial goat. Successive governments have had in their ranks many Mahadenamuttas. The current dispensation is no exception; some of its members are at the butt end of social media jokes, having measured power output in ‘tons’ and speed ‘in light years’!

Curiously, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a solar power plant in Sampur, during his Sri Lanka visit, early next month. A layman is at a loss to understand why any more solar power projects should be launched if the national grid cannot cope with an increase in renewable power. Will the new power plant to be built also have to idle during the weekends? The government owes an explanation.

There has been a proposal for introducing lower tariffs for power consumed during the weekends to encourage factories, etc., to operate on Saturdays and Sunday, thereby reducing the country’s demand for electricity on other days and helping curtail the expensive thermal power generation. The government should give serious thought to implementing this proposal.

Power corrupts, whether political or otherwise. The PUCSL should launch a stakeholder feedback initiative to consult all those engaged in the power sector, as well as independent experts, on how to increase the renewable power generation and upgrade the grid. The NPP government should launch a power sector clean-up under its Clean Sri Lanka initiative if it is not to be bracketed with its corrupt predecessors.