Editorial

Absolute Power

Published

6 years ago

2020/08/9

John Dalberg-Acton, or Lord Acton, a British historian of the late 19th and early 20th century famously said that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…” Absolute power is what the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) of the Rajapaksas won last Wednesday and the biggest challenge for President Gotabaya and brother Mahinda, who will continue as prime minister, is to ensure that Acton’s words do not come true in Sri Lanka. Theirs was a stunning victory belying even the wildest expectations of their most optimistic supporters. Conventional wisdom that nobody can obtain a two thirds majority under proportional representation, as JR Jayewardene intended, went with the wind with the SLPP and its allies tantalizingly close to that mark. One hundred and forty five was the official tally, seats won in the electorates plus the national least places – just five short of the magic number. But one must add Douglas Devananda’s two seats in the north to that total, as he is very much a part of the SLPP, having served even in the caretaker cabinet, and the single seat the SLFP won. Even former President Sirisena chose to run under the purple banner as did many other blues who knew the coming colour. No doubt the SLFP will be offered to the Rajapaksas and the UNP will strive to re-unite.

Who would believe that the greens would fail to get even a single MP elected? Most expected the Sajith Premadasa faction, which is also UNP, to do better than Ranil’s team notwithstanding the possession of Siri Kotha and the recent court judgment. Both Wickremesinghe and Premadasa must take the blame for the debacle they have suffered. It is not rocket science that united you stand and divided you fall. That is what has happened to both sides of the UNP. Ranil loyalists say Sajith was too greedy, having been anointed as the presidential candidate last November and been appointed the chairman of the Nomination Board.. He demanded the party leadership as well although his Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) had the UNP’s imprimatur. Premadasa chose not to remember that he had agreed to let Wickremesinghe lead the party till 2025. But Ranil also was greedy, having attained the party leadership by “fortuitous circumstances” (we borrow the words from W. Dahanayaka who used them when he succeeded SWRD Bandaranaike as prime minister) and continued for 27 long years through thick and thin.

He became prime minister and party leader following the assassinations of both Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. two UNP stars of the JR era, eclipsed by Ranasinghe Premadasa who first became prime minister and then president. Wickremesinghe had four innings at the prime ministerial crease, though he didn’t serve a full term on any these occasions. He was unlucky to have lost the presidency to Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005 as the LTTE closed entry to the polling stations at that election and prevented voters living in areas they controlled from exercising their franchise. These were votes that Ranil would have polled. But that was not to be. He must also be given credit for subordinating his own interests in 2015 and throwing the UNP’s weight behind Maithripala Sirisena who the combined opposition fielded against Mahinda Rajapaksa as the common candidate. Siresena could and would not have won that election without UNP backing. Thereafter Wicremesinghe, whatever his own ambitions, conceded his party’s presidential ticket to Premadasa last November.

What the UNP would do with the solitary National List seat it has won has not been decided at the time of writing. A wag remarked that Wickremesinghe would appoint another one of those committees he’s famous for to decide who should take that place! A correspondent, in a letter we publish today quotes Mangala Samaraweera saying that Ranil was the best president we never had. Karu Jauyasuriya was also described as the best leader the UNP never had. That was Ranil’s doing. Despite his admiriation of Wickremesinghe, Samaraweera, notwithstanding his subsequent backdown, threw in his lot with Premadasa as did the vast majority of the UNP’s 106 MPs in the last Parliament. They eloquently expressed the overwhelming majority view within the party of who the better leader would be – at least to win the election. But Wickremesinghe chose not to listen. That he lost even his own seat at Colombo Central, one of the UNP’s strongest bastions, was the result.

What now? The leaders of the two main parties, the SLPP and both factions of the UNP, failed the people massively by nominating the vast majority of those who sat in the last Parliament for re-election. Most of them, certainly from the Pohottuwa, have been re-elected despite the questionable reputations of many. This is the nature of politics – especially landslides when herd instincts takeover. Will the Rajapaksas, faced with the stiffest possible economic challenge in the wake of the Covid pandemic and its aftermath, be willing to take the impossibly hard decisions that the situation demands? There is a strong conviction within knowledgeable circles that big business firmly believes that President Gotabaya is the country’s only hope. He has demonstrated ability to deliver not only as Defence Secretary during the war, but also as Secretary for Urban Development thereafter. There is optimism that he would do what is right leaving the politics to brothers Mahinda and Basil.

Constitutional change, or at least amendment by repealing 19A, was spoken of from most SLPP platforms during this campaign and the one before which propelled GR into office. This was despite a severely adverse minority vote. But the majority community ensured his comfortable election althopugh it did give the victory a racial tinge. Hopefully the baby will not be thrown with the bathwater and the two-term limit, the Constitutional Council, Right to Information, and the Independent Commissions will, with appropriate changes, remain in the statute. After all the Elections Commission ran a fine election, in the teeth of many difficulties, for which it must be congratulated. So also the different political parties and their hot blooded supporters for keeping this election violence free.

All News Advertisement

Editorial

Colombo Port drug bust: The plot thickens

Published

8 hours ago

2026/10/2

Thilina Walpola

Friday 2nd October, 2026

An inquiry conducted by the Police Special Investigation Unit (SIU) into some allegations concerning the circumstances that surrounded the 31 August drug detection at the Colombo Port has revealed that there may have been dereliction of duty on the part of Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Ranmal Kodituwakku and several other officers, according to media reports. The plot thickens.

Acting on information reportedly received from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Central Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) searched a shipping container, bound for Cameroon, at the Colombo Port, and detected a large quantity of crystal methamphetamine weighing about 471 kg. The intelligence that led to the drug detection had been conveyed to SDIG Kodithuwakku, who was overseeing the CCIB. It was reported that the officers of the CCIB had obtained a search warrant from a Magistrate before opening the container, with the help of some personnel from the Police Narcotics Bureau and Sri Lanka Customs. Now, there is another version of how the drug detection was made.

SIU is reported to have found that both SDIG Kodithuwakku and the Police Narcotics Bureau received information about the drug consignment, on 14 August, but no action was taken immediately. On 22 August, a sub Inspector of the CCIB also received the same information. He subsequently took action and on 31 August, the container was opened in the presence of the Customs officers. The SIU investigators are reported to have found that some officers of the Police Narcotics Bureau were also present at the scene, but the initial detection of the drug consignment was carried out primarily by officers of the CCIB. SIU has recommended that in addition to the internal inquiry a criminal investigation should be conducted, according to media reports. But was the opening of the container strategically delayed, as has been claimed in some quarters? There have been numerous such instances around the world. The SIU investigators therefore ought not to rush to conclusions before establishing whether the delay, if any, formed part of a deliberate investigative strategy.

It has been reported that French Customs found 139 kg of cocaine in a shipping container at Marseille last year but instead of seizing the drug consignment immediately, it resorted to a controlled delivery of the big box to Barcelona, where a stevedore, two recipients and a transporter were arrested.

In 2023, after detecting 240 kg of methamphetamine in a 40-foot-container, Hong Kong Customs arranged for an international controlled delivery to Australia, where the box was bound for, and several arrests were made there. In May 1985, U.S. Customs allowed a drug-laden shipping container arriving at Port Newark to proceed under surveillance in a controlled-delivery operation in order to identify the people who would take delivery of it.

Police investigations have not always inspired public confidence in this country. There have been many instances where they conducted investigations hurriedly and arrived at the wrong conclusions. In 2015, the CID arrested two suspects, including a schoolboy, over the abduction, rape and murder of a little girl in Kotadeniyawa. It was later found that the perpetrator was someone else. Another striking example is the arrest of two former LTTE cadres after the execution-style killing of two policemen in Vavunathivu in 2018. But after the Easter Sunday terror attacks the following year, the CID found that the two policemen had been murdered by the National Thowheed Jamaath, which carried out the 2019 carnage.

So, one can argue that there is nothing inherently implausible about the claim that the opening of the container carrying narcotics at the Colombo Port was postponed in a bid to catch all those responsible for the illegal operation. Only a thorough probe will reveal whether this method was actually adopted in the case of the port drug bust.

Editorial

Drug busting, transfers and trust deficit

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 1st Octobber, 2026

Media reports about a Police Headquarters decision to transfer Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Ranmal Kodithuwakku, who oversees the Central Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), and several other senior police officers involved in uncovering a massive drug haul recently have raised many an eyebrow. The Police Department is reported to have sought the National Police Commission’s approval for their transfers, citing organisational/service requirements. The news about the proposed transfers has come while an inquiry is underway into the recent seizure of a large quantity of crystal methamphetamine (Ice) at the Colombo Port. Kodithuwakku has already made a statement to the Criminal Investigation Department in connection with that inquiry. The sequence of events is noteworthy.

On 31 August 2026, the police, acting on intelligence passed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, searched a shipping container at the Colombo Port and seized a large quantity of crystal methamphetamine weighing about 471 kg. The intelligence had been received by SDIG Kodithuwakku. Officers of the CCIB had obtained a search warrant from a Magistrate before opening the container, together with some officers of the Police Narcotics Bureau and Sri Lanka Customs. The drugs were concealed among towels or body wipes.

The Police Special Investigation Unit lost no time in commencing the inquiry under discussion into alleged shortcomings, omissions and possible lapses in the handling of the drug investigation. However, it is generally believed that those who carry out successful operations of this nature deserve praise and rewards. The challenge for the police therefore is to prove that the ongoing inquiry and controversial transfers are not aimed at taking the gloss off the successful anti-narcotics operation.

Police have also claimed that the internal inquiry will not interfere with the main criminal investigation being conducted by the CCIB. However, it may be recalled that the leaders of the incumbent administration accused the SLPP government of having disrupted investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks and other major cases by transferring the then CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera in late 2019. So, how can the police top brass convince the public that the transfers of SDIG Kodituwakku and others will not adversely impact the ongoing probe into the port drug haul?

One can argue that the reasons given by the police for the inquiry and the transfers in question are not plausible, for it is widely believed that whenever senior officers conduct investigations or operations that are not to the liking of their superiors or politicians in power, they face inquiries and transfers. The National Police Commission is also widely perceived as a rubber stamp for the Executive. It is therefore hardly surprising that the media and the discerning public do not readily accept the explanations offered by the Police Spokesman and his superiors about internal inquiries and lightning transfers. There is a huge trust deficit.

Meanwhile, one may recall that nobody was transferred over the Colombo Port container scandal. As many as 323 red-flagged freight containers were released from the Colombo Port without mandatory Customs inspections, in January 2025, and what those big boxes carried is anybody’s guess. The Customs made a shameful attempt to defend the indefensible, and its Spokesman who trotted out lame excuses in a bid to mislead the media and the public became the Customs Chief and received a top position at the Presidential Secretariat after his retirement.

Sri Lankans are familiar with the local folk-story character, King Kekille, who invariably let wrongdoers off and punished the innocent in cases brought before him. Going by the way Sri Lankan politicians have been handling crucial issues under successive governments, one wonders whether King Kekille actually lived in this country and whether the present-day rulers are his descendants. Kekille once punished a goldsmith over a defect in a newly built wall around his palace. When questioned by the king, the mason who built the wall claimed that he had been distracted, during construction work, by a good-looking woman, who passed the worksite several times a day. The woman, summoned by the king, said she had been forced to visit the goldsmith frequently as he had not finished making her jewellery. So, the king shifted the blame to the goldsmith and punished him.

One need hardly be surprised even if those who smuggled drugs into the country through the Colombo Port walk free while the police officers who conducted the successful operation find themselves in the dock. Anything is possible in this country. The onus is on the police top brass to provide a credible justification for the controversial internal inquiry and transfers ordered by them.

Editorial

When crime bosses rise above law and shrines

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wednesday 30th September, 2026

Underworld death squads are in overdrive, eliminating their rivals. On Sunday, a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire on a trishaw, killing its driver and a woman in Baddegama. Another woman, injured in the attack, died in hospital. A video of the attack shows the assassin, who arrives in a car, using controlled, individual shots rather than a burst. Such killings carried out by professional hitmen remind us of Hollywood blockbusters depicting street violence in Chicago of the 1920s. Close on the heels of Sunday’s killings, a man suffered serious injury in a shooting incident at Rathgama. The police have attributed these attacks to underworld rivalries.

About 25 people have perished in 35 shooting incidents so far this year. Two children were killed in a grenade attack in Dehiwala about three weeks ago. The increasing number of underworld attacks shows that criminal gangs remain strong despite the ongoing operations against the underworld. Several hardcore criminals have been arrested and remanded, but their gangs are still operating, making one doubt the effectiveness of the much-advertised offensives against the netherworld of crime and drugs.

Crime syndicates have emerged so powerful that they do not spare even holy shrines. One of the women killed in Baddegama on Sunday is believed to have aided and abetted the killing of a trustee of a famous devale in the Ambalangoda area, where another shrine reportedly cannot hold its annual procession due to underworld threats.

In July, Kanjipani Imran, a drug dealer operating from overseas, threated to attack the historic Devinuwara Devale perahera unless the shrine lifted a ban on a kavadi dance group sponsored by him. The police asked the shrine to hold the procession without the kavadi segment, accusing kavadi dancers of improper conduct. But the government intervened, directing the shrine to allow all kavadi groups, (including the one supported by Kanjipani Imran), to participate in the perahera. Thus, the political authority, devale officials and the police danced to Kanjipani Imran’s tune, as it were.

The underworld is often described as a criminal subculture separated from mainstream society, but criminologists point out that criminal networks are rooted in mainstream society and can have links with business and political elites. This may explain why the underworld has become so powerful in this country.

When Kanjipani Imran was arrested in Dubai and brought back in 2019, it was widely thought that he would not be able to secure bail because Sri Lanka police and their UAE counterparts had worked tirelessly for months to arrest him and Makandure Madush, another notorious criminal, who was also extradited. Madush was shot dead while in police custody, and the then government claimed that he had been caught in the crossfire between police and an underworld gang while being taken to a place where a haul of narcotics was believed to have been buried. But Kanjipani Imran obtained bail in 2024 and fled the country. Janith Madushanka de Silva (Podi Lasi), another drug dealer, also escaped to India after being released on bail in 2024.

Kavadi

dancers are not the only ones who have benefited from the largesse of drug dealers and other criminals. Following the assassination of High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya, this newspaper revealed that Kudu Nauffer, the drug dealer who ordered the killing, had sponsored food and beverages at a judicial officers’ function through a front. The police could not arrest Kudu Lal, the main supplier of heroin in Colombo, because of his political connections. In 2010, he left for London, with the help of a Cabinet minister in the UPFA government. Strangely, this incident has gone uninvestigated. There is a pressing need to monitor campaign funds of politicians and political parties closely.

It is hoped that the government and the police will stop bellowing rhetoric and step up their crime-busting operations to neutralise the underworld once and for all. Otherwise, the day may not be far off when powerful criminal gangs run a parallel government.