Features
HOSTAGE DRAMA AT ANSELL LANKA, BIYAGAMA IN 1994

AUSTRALIAN NATIONALS HELD CAPTIVE
EXCERPTED FROM SENIOR DIG (RETD) MERRIL GUNARATNE’S “COP IN THE CROSSFIRE”
Ansell Lanka was a Board of Investment (BOI) approved company established around 1989 in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Biyagama. The factory had been set up within a 25 acre site to manufacture surgical gloves. Approximately 3,000 Sri Lankans had been employed there. The managerial staff in 1994 comprised five Australians and 35 Sri Lankans.
In the second quarter of 1994, the management of the factory had been restructured to ensure greater output and better supervision of the workers. This triggered considerable worker unrest and a 30% wage increase sought. The hostage drama which began on July 30, 1994 was over this issue. The authorities refused to yield considering the demands totally unreasonable. Incensed, the workers led by about 12 ring leaders had decided to take the law into their own hands.
On July 30, 1994 the work on the second shift was scheduled to commence at 1.30 pm. This was the time for the first shift comprising of about 1,000 workers to cease work and leave the factory premises. When the second shift began, 12 ring leaders from the first shift had coerced several workers on the second shift to take members of the managerial staff including five Australians captive and confine them to the administration block within the factory premises. They had thereafter surrounded the administration block with drums of Isopropyl Alcohol, an extremely combustible and lethal spirit capable of causing instant death and destruction. Ten such drums had been placed in and around the administration block where the hostages were held captive. Large numbers from the concluded first shift had been forced to remain within the premises as well, the object being to demonstrate that the acts of the captors had overwhelming support among workers.
The hostage takers had laid down conditions for the release of the hostages; that their demand for a salary increase be met, and that police should not enter the factory premises. They had in fact informed the police through members of the private security agency hired by the company for the security of the premises that drums of lethal alcohol would be employed to kill the hostages, and that the factory would be set on fire, if any attempt was made by the police to enter the premises. The captors had mounted sentries at vantage points including the water tank, to watch vehicles advancing towards the factory. From subsequent accounts given by the hostages, the situation had been extremely tense, with most captives believing that the captors were determined to execute their threats if their demands were not met.
At about 3.00 pm. on the following day, I received a telephone call from Rohitha Bogollagama, Director General of the Board of Investment (BOI), when I was in my office in police headquarters. I was then Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (Ranges), and therefore had jurisdiction over all territorial police ranges of DIGs in the country, including the Kelaniya Police Division where Ansell Lanka was located. Bogollagama said that the President and the Prime Minister had directed me to visit Biyagama and explore whether it would be possible to take appropriate steps to overcome the impasse and secure the release of the hostages.
I immediately telephoned Edmund Karunanayake, DIG (Western Province, North) who had authority over Biyagama. I also spoke to Ananda Jayasekera, Senior Superintendent of Police Kelaniya (SSP) to ascertain facts connected with developments. Having been associated for a long time with work connected with intelligence and terrorism, I was convinced that only terrorists with political motives who had undergone training could be that fanatical. The narration of developments by the DIG and SSP Kelaniya gave me the impression that in this instance, the hostage situation had been triggered by novices masquerading as terrorists. Nonetheless the Kelaniya police officers had taken the threats of the hostage takers seriously.
Before leaving for Biyagama to take command of the situation, I informed DIG (Western Province, North) to establish a Command Post within Biyagama Free Trade Zone (FTZ) with radio and telephone facilities. I directed the DIG and the SSP to await me at the post. I thereafter telephoned the office of DIG of the Special Task Force (STF) in order to communicate with Lionel Karunasena, the commandant, to see whether it was possible for them to despatch an elite unit capable of mounting a rescue operation if necessary. Lionel Karunasena (who unfortunately died later) was not at his desk, having flown to Batticaloa – Ampara for operations against the militants. I thereupon spoke to his deputy, Upali Sahabandu, and requested his assistance.
He was most enthusiastic to participate in what would be a novel challenge, but said that he would first speak to his DIG for permission and telephone me. Within five minutes he telephoned and said that he had obtained the required approval. I directed him to arrive at Biyagama as early as possible. When I reached the Command Post at about 4.30 pm, Upali had already arrived there. He had brought with him an array of sophisticated weapons, body armour, stun grenades, the best sharp shooters and equipment to cut through physical barriers.
I sat down to a discussion with DIG Karunanayake, SSP Ananda Jayasekera, Deputy Commandant of the STF Upali Sahabandu and other senior officers of Kelaniya Police Division and the STF. After listening to them, I was surprised that the captors had been allowed to enjoy certain vital facilities without restriction.
HOSTAGE…
They had been permitted the use of telephone facilities with the outside world. They had also enjoyed the luxury of obtaining crucial information through officers of the private security agency (attached to the Company) who had been allowed to move to and from the factory premises. As a result, the “hostage takers” were able to gauge the state of mind of the police and the FTZ authorities, and also to gain psychological dominance over the latter. The general view of those at the conference was that the hostage takers were serious in their threat to execute the hostages if their demands were not met. The point that the suspects had threatened death to the hostages if police were seen outside the factory was repeatedly emphasized by senior police officers of Kelaniya.
Having assessed the overall situation, I came to the conclusion that the hostage takers had gained ascendancy over the management of the FTZ in Biyagama and the police through deception and bluff. The police had been demoralized to a point where they had thought it appropriate to compromise rather than adopt decisive steps. What raced through my mind at the time was that I was encountering a dilemma of unusual proportions. On the one hand, there was no room for negotiations since the hostage takers were not only irrational, but were also some distance away from the gate of the factory, thus denying scope for discussion and negotiation. They had also assumed a state of dominance over the police. I realized that the strongest option available was to storm the factory in order to rescue the hostages. Before making such a choice fraught with the possibility of death and injury to hostages, and accompanying consequences to the government and myself, I considered it appropriate to address and drive sense into them, by speaking to them over a loud hailer from the factory gate.
Before exercising the chosen option, I ordered Upali Sahabandu to conduct a survey and indicate whether the STF could penetrate the perimeter fence, reach the administration block quickly, confront the miscreants and rescue the hostages. I felt that the captors may be confused and demoralized on seeing the STF troops doing a recce, a development they would not have expected.
At about 6.00 p.m, Upali Sahabandu, Deputy Commandant of the STF, returned after the recce and informed me that his men could successfully storm the administration block within the factory and rescue the hostages. Having received a brief report about his plan of action, I asked him how long it would take to complete the entire operation and also the possibility of casualties. He said that there were risks involved, but that casualties could be minimized, and that the entire operation including the successful rescue of the hostages would not exceed more than about 10 minutes. He further stated that the STF may have no option but to shoot at the captors at time of entry. I then took the decision that if my addressing the captors did not yield results, I would storm the premises. I still remember the surprise and consternation on the faces of Director General of the BOI, Rohitha Bogollagama and the Australian High Commissioner who had by now arrived at the Command Post and were privy to our discussions.
I decided as a first step to address the hostage takers from the entrance gate of the factory. DIG (W.P North) and SSP Kelaniya were vehemently opposed to my decision. Before speaking to them, steps were taken to disrupt telephone facilities and electricity within the factory premises. This unexpected step caused panic amongst the captors. Thereafter, officers of the private security agency who so far had unfettered movement to and from the factory, were barred further entry. The captors were thus denied a valuable source of information. At 7.30 pm, I addressed the hostage takers and told them through a loud hailer from the entrance gate that they should walk out with the hostages unharmed within half an hour or I would not be able to guarantee their safety. A misleading assurance was also communicated to them that their demand for a salary increase would be met if they obliged. This conciliatory step was adopted as bait as well as a face saving formula to enable them to comply with the ultimatum.
The captors, rather than confront the STF troops, decided to surrender. At about 8.00 pm. they walked out of the factory premises with the hostages unharmed. The 12 ring leaders were taken into custody. Rohitha Bogollagama and the Australian envoy were profuse in their thanks. After the successful conclusion of the mission, General Hamilton Wanasinghe, Secretary of Defence at the time, whilst extending congratulations, cautioned against summoning the STF without his sanction (the STF at that time was administered by the Ministry of Defence).
Features
USAID and NGOS under siege

by Jehan Perera
The virtually overnight suspension of the U.S. government’s multibillion dollar foreign aid programme channeled through USAID has been headline news in the U.S. and in other parts of the world where this aid has been very important. In the U.S. itself the suspension of USAID programmes has been accompanied by large scale loss of jobs in the aid sector without due notice. In areas of the world where U.S. aid was playing an important role, such as in mitigating conditions of famine or war, the impact is life threatening to large numbers of hapless people. In Sri Lanka, however, the suspension of U.S. aid has made the headlines for an entirely different reason.
U.S. government authorities have been asserting that the reason for the suspension of the foreign aid programme is due to various reasons, including inefficiency and misuse that goes against the present government’s policy and is not in the U.S. national interest. This has enabled politicians in Sri Lanka who played leading roles in previous governments, but are now under investigation for misdeeds associated with their periods of governance, to divert attention from themselves. These former leaders of government are alleging that they were forced out of office prematurely due to the machination of NGOs that had been funded by USAID and not because of the misgovernance and corruption they were accused of.
In the early months of 2022, hundreds of thousands of people poured out onto the streets of Sri Lanka in all parts of the country demanding the exit of the then government. The Aragalaya protests became an unstoppable movement due the unprecedented economic hardships that the general population was being subjected to at that time. The protestors believed that those in the government had stolen the country’s wealth. The onset of economic bankruptcy meant that the government did not have foreign exchange (dollars) to pay for essential imports, including fuel, food and medicine. People died of exhaustion after waiting hours and even days in queues for petrol and in hospitals due to lack of medicine.
PROBING NGOS
There have been demands by some of the former government leaders who are currently under investigation that USAID funding to Sri Lanka should be probed. The new NPP government has responded to this demand by delegating the task to the government’s National NGO Secretariat. This is the state institution that is tasked with collecting information from the NGOs registered with it about their quantum and sources of funding and what they do with it for the betterment of the people. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala has said he would deal with allegations over USAID funding in Sri Lanka, and for that he had sought a report from the NGO Secretariat which is operating under his Ministry.
Most donor agencies operating in Sri Lanka, including USAID, have rigorous processes which they follow in disbursing funds to NGOs. Usually, the donor agency will issue a call for proposals which specify their areas of interest. NGOs have to compete to obtain these funds, stating what they will do with it in considerable detail, and the impact it will have. Once the grant is awarded, the NGOs are required to submit regular reports of work they have done. The donor agencies generally insist that reputed audit firms, preferably with international reputations, perform regular annual or even six-monthly audits of funds provided. They may even send independent external monitors to evaluate the impact of the projects they have supported.
The value of work done by NGOs is that they often take on unpopular and difficult tasks that do not have mass appeal but are essential for a more just and inclusive society. Mahatma Gandhi who started the Sarvodaya (meaning, the wellbeing of all) Movement in India was inspired by the English philosopher John Ruskin who wrote in 1860 that a good society was one that would care for the very last member in it. The ideal that many NGOs strive for, whether in child care, sanitation, economic development or peacebuilding is that everyone is included and no one is excluded from society’s protection, in which the government necessarily plays a lead role.
SELF-INTEREST
Ironically, those who now demand that USAID funds and those organisations that obtained such funds be investigated were themselves in government when USAID was providing such funds. The National NGO Secretariat was in existence doing its work of monitoring the activities of NGOs then. Donor agencies, such as USAID, have stringent policies that prevent funds they provide being used for partisan political purposes. This accounts for the fact that when NGOs invite politicians to attend their events, they make it a point to invite those from both the government and opposition, so that their work is not seen as being narrowly politically partisan.
The present situation is a very difficult one for NGOs in Sri Lanka and worldwide. USAID was the biggest donor agency by far, and the sudden suspension of its funds has meant that many NGOs have had to retrench staff, stop much of their work and some have even closed down. It appears that the international world order is becoming more openly based on self-interest, where national interests take precedence over global interests, and the interests of the wealthy segments of society take precedence over the interests of the people in general. This is not a healthy situation for human beings or for civilisation as the founders of the world religions knew with their consistent message that the interests of others, of the neighbour, of all living beings be prioritised.
In 1968, when the liberal ideas of universal rights were more dominant in the international system, Garrett Hardin, an evolutionary biologist, wrote a paper called “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Hardin used an example of sheep grazing land when describing the adverse effects of overpopulation. He referred to a situation where individuals, acting in their own self-interest, overexploit a shared resource, like a pasture or fishery, leading to its depletion and eventual destruction, even though it is detrimental to everyone in the long run; essentially, the freedom to use a common resource without regulation can lead to its ruin for all users. The world appears to be heading in that direction. In these circumstances, the work of those, who seek the wellbeing of all, needs to be strengthened and not undermined.
Features
Dealing with sexual-and gender-based violence in universities

Out of the Shadows:
By Nicola Perera
Despite policy interventions at the University Grants Commission (UGC), university, and faculty levels, sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) is so entrenched in the system that victim-survivors seeking justice are more likely to experience concerted pushback than the empathetic solidarity of their peers. Colleagues and friends will often close ranks, rallying to protect the accused under misguided notions of safeguarding the reputation of, not merely the assumed perpetrator, but the institution. While gender and sexual inequalities, inflected by class, ethnicity, religion, region, and other characteristics, shape the identities of the perpetrator and victim and the situation of abuse, the hyper-hierarchised nature of the university space itself enables and conceals such violence. It’s also important to note that women are not the exclusive victims of violence; boys and men are caught in violent dynamics, too.
Similar to intimate partner violence in the private confines of home and family, violence attributed to the sex and gender of abusers and victims in our universities goes heavily underreported. The numerous power imbalances structuring the university – between staff and students; academic staff versus non-academic staff; senior academic professionals as opposed to junior academics; or, senior students in contrast to younger students – also prevent survivors from seeking redress for fear of professional and personal repercussions. Research by the UGC in 2015 in collaboration with the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) and CARE International Sri Lanka, and more recently with UNICEF in 2021, revealed discomfiting truths about the university as places of work and education. In naming oneself as a survivor-victim, even within whatever degree of confidentiality that current grievance mechanisms offer, the individual may also represent (to some members of the university community, if not to the establishment itself) a threat to the system.
Conversely, an accused is liable to not just disciplinary action by their university-employer, but to criminal prosecution by the state. Via the Penal Code, the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (2005), etc., the law recognises SGBV as an offence that can take place across many contexts in the private and public spheres. (The criminalisation of SGBV is in line with state commitments to ensuring the existence, safety, and dignity of women and girls under a host of international agreements, such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Vienna Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Sustainable Development Goals, International Labour Organisation conventions regarding non-discrimination in employment, etc.). Specific to the university, the so-called anti-ragging act (the Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence in Education Institutes Act of 1998, in addition to UGC circular no. 919 of 2010, etc.) deems SGBV as a punishable offence. The rag is one site where SGBV often finds fluent articulation, but it is hardly the only one: this is not a problem with just our students.
As the apex body governing higher education in the country, the UGC has not remained insensible to the fact that SGBV harms the lives, rights, and work of students, staff, (and other parties) in university spaces. The Centre for Gender Equity/Equality sits at the UGC level, along with gender cells/committees in individual universities. Universities and faculties have elaborated their own policies and bylaws to address sexual- or gender-based harassment and sexual violence. Although variously articulated, these policies touch on issues of consent; discrimination against a person, or creation of a hostile environment, on the basis of their gender or sexuality; the spectrum of actions that may constitute harassment/violence (including through the use of technology); coerced or voluntary sexual favours as a quid-pro-quo for academic or professional benefits; procedures for making and investigating SGBV complaints; protection of witnesses to an investigation; the irrelevance of the complainant’s sexual history to the complaint at hand. And here begins the inevitable tale of distance between policy, practice, and effect.
Different faculties of the same university may or may not include SGBV awareness/ training in the annual orientation for new students. The faculty’s SGBV policy may or may not appear in all three languages and Braille in student handbooks. Staff Development Centres training new recruits in outcome-based education and intended learning outcomes may or may not look at (or even realise) the politics of education, nor include an SGBV component in its Human Resources modules. Universities may or may not dedicate increasingly stretched resources to training workshops on SGBV for staff, or cover everyone from academics, to administrative staff, to the marshals, to maintenance staff, to hostel wardens.
Workshops may in any case only draw a core of participants, mostly young, mostly women. Instead, groups of male academics (aided sometimes by women colleagues) will actively organise against any gender policy which they construe as a personal affront to their professional stature. Instead, the outspoken women academic is painted as a troublemaker. Existing policy fails to address such discourse, and other normalised microaggressions and subtle harassment which create a difficult environment for gender and sexual minorities. In fact, the implementation of gender policy at all may rest on the critical presence of an individual (inevitably a woman) in a position of power. Gender equality in the university at any point appears to rest on the convictions and labour of a handful of (mostly women) staff or officials.
The effect is the tediously heteropatriarchal spaces that staff and students inhabit, spaces which whether we acknowledge them as such or not, are imbued with the potential, the threat of violence for those on the margins. The effect, as Ramya Kumar writing earlier in this column states, is the inability of our LGBTQI students and staff to be their authentic selves, except to a few confidantes. Since the absence/rarity of SGBV complaints is no evidence that the phenomenon does not exist, perhaps a truer indication of how gender-sensitised our institutions and personnel are, comes back again to the reception of such complaints. Thus, a woman accuser is frequently portrayed as the archetypal scorned woman: abuse is rewritten not just as consent, but a premeditated transaction of sexual relations in exchange for better grades, a secured promotion, and so on. A situation of abuse becomes inscribed as one of seduction, where the accuser basically changes their tune and cries harassment or rape when the expected gains fail to materialise. Especially with the global backlash to MeToo, society is preoccupied with the ‘false accusation,’ even though there is plenty of evidence that few incidents of SGBV are reported, and fewer still are successfully prosecuted. These misogynist tropes of women and women’s sexuality matter in relation to SGBV in university, because Faculty Boards, investigative committees, Senates, and Councils will be as equally susceptible to them as any citizen or juror in a court of law. They matter in placing the burden of documenting abuse/harassment as it takes place on the victim-survivor, to accumulate evidence that will pass muster before a ‘neutral,’ ‘objective’ observer.
At the end of the day, when appointments to gender committees may be handpicked to not rock the boat, or any university Council may dismiss a proven case of SGBV on a technicality, the strongest policies, the most robust mechanisms and procedures are rendered ineffective, unless those who hold power in everyday dealings with students and persons in subordinate positions at the university also change.
(Nicola Perera teaches English as a second language at the University of Colombo.)
Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.
Features
4th Feb. celebrations…with Mirage in the scene

There were celebrations everywhere, connected with our 77th Independence Day, and in the Seychelles, too, it was a special happening.
Perhaps, it was also the very first occasion where the group Mirage found themselves in the spotlight, at an Independence Day event, and singing the National Anthem, as well.
It all happened on Tuesday, 4th February, in Silhouette Island, in the Seychelles.
Sri Lankans, plus the locals, joined in the celebrations, which included the hoisting of the National Flag, by the General Manager of the Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort & Spa, Marc Schumacher, the singing of the National Anthem, and the usual Sri Lankan delicacies, connected with such special occasions.
The National Anthem, led by Mirage, was sung with enthusiasm, and pride, by the crowd present, waving the National Flag.

Hoisting of the National Flag (L) / General Manager of the Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort & Spa (R)
Mirage also did the Valentine’s Day scene, on 14th February, at the Labriz Lounge.
The group has turned out to be a favourite with the folks in the Seychelles. and the management at the Lo Brizan restaurant and pub, where the group performs six nights a week, is keen for the band to return, in December, for another stint at Lo Brizan.
This is the group’s second visit to the Seychelles and they are now due home on the 19th of this month.
They have already got a big assignment on the cards, in Colombo, where they would be seen in action at ‘Legends of Ceylon,’ scheduled for 19th March, doing the needful for some of the legends in the local music scene – Joey Lewis, Dalrene, Manilal, Gefforey Fernando, Mignonne and Sohan.
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