Editorial

Police bashing

Published

6 years ago

2020/07/26

We publish in today’s issue of this newspaper two short contributions by retired policemen, one a letter to the editor and the other an article related to the department they had both long served. The matters they have focused on deserves both public reflection and governmental action. There is no doubt that corruption is deep-rooted in the police. This applies not only to our police force but also to forces elsewhere in the world. Denying this would be a blatant example of closing your eyes to reality. The article by retired Senior Superintendent Tassie Seneviratne, who began his career as a sub-inspector and retired from a senior gazetted rank, freely admits corruption in the force; nobody can deny that and denial has not been attempted. What is important is what is to be done about this problem that has long existed and grown exponentially as the years passed and both the population and size of the police grew.

Seneviratne says that there is no doubt that that the police has degenerated to abysmal depths and the reasons are not hard to find. It is not the police alone that is corrupt in our society. The disease is endemic throughout the government service and is worse in some departments than others; everybody knows this by personal experience. We are a majority Buddhist country and most of us parrot the five precepts – but how many of us truly observe them? This is also true of the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Both religions, and surely others as well, exhort their followers not to steal – do not take what is not given, Buddhism tells us, and ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ is a Christian commandment familiar to all whatever their religion.

The writer has headlined his contribution, which he says had input from a named retired DIG and we know from a former IGP, describing his former service as an institution that is most wanted and most despised by the people. Law and order is an essential requirement of life and the police is the enforcement agency. A major reason attributed to what the writer has called the “miserable lot of the police” today is the indiscriminate recruitment into the Police Reserve compelled by the war. As in the case of the military, the terrorism unleashed on this country by Prabhakaran – which rapidly deteriorated into a civil war – triggered heavy recruitment. This was done without due care and with little or no regard to qualifications and suitability mainly on political considerations. It wasn’t long before the Reserve, in terms of manpower, became as big as the regular force. Recruits without training received promotions “on their own standards,” Seneviratne says.

Then came the deluge. In 2006, the Special Police Reserve on the orders of the then President, was absorbed into the regular force in the ranks its members then held in the Reserve. This naturally created deep frustration in the regular police, especially in regard to seniority, which is the major consideration for promotion. Seneviratne says that the Reservists were not only totally unfit for the police but without proper training. They were untrained and undisciplined and some of them have risen to the ranks of ASP and SP. Even if absorbing of the Reservists to the regular force was a mistake, the bigger mistake was not giving them the required training even after induction. Today senior officials including the Defence Secretary, the Attorney General and cabinet ministers are heard berating the police for corruption and inefficiency. “Surely policemen are also human beings,” says Seneviratne, and there is no magic wand to wave and transform them into ideal police officers.

The question now is what senior officials, or for that matter the elected establishment and the National Police Commission created with great expectations, done to rectify the situation? Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who, as the then president was responsible for the absorbing of the Special Police Reserve into the regular force, went on record recently saying at a public meeting that there was not enough recognition of politicians by the police. Seneviratne has interpreted this remark to mean that requests, sometimes orders, from politicians must be acted upon. He says that it is anybody’s guess whether such requests are lawful or not. As for the National Police Commission, the less said the better. It irretrievably recently tainted itself by backing special security measures including assignments of guards and drivers to retired IGPs and Senior DIG’s to keep in step with perks granted on retirement to senior military officers.

The letter to the editor from an officer who retired from the inspectorate takes umbrage at the likes of Karuna, once Eastern commander of the LTTE who defected, and KP who was a major fundraiser and custodian of Tiger loot, being allowed total freedom and high class lifestyles in post-war Sri Lanka; and there is barely a squeak about this from quarters that matter. Karuna, who recently set a cat among the canaries by claiming that he was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand soldiers at Elephant Pass, served as a deputy minister and was even a vice-president of the SLFP, is running for Parliament at the forthcoming election. The defense of those responsible for the special positions he enjoys today is that his defection from the LTTE was a major contribution for the defeat of the Tigers. Unsurprisingly, the requirement (or obligation) for policemen to salute him has turned many police stomachs.

Senior policemen, now retired, believe that overdue police reforms must be community driven. They cannot come from the government, the courts, the Attorney General or the National Police Commission. Public opinion, neither strident nor vocal, for change does exist. But who is going to bell the cat? The answer to that question does not appear to be forthcoming. Meanwhile the deterioration persists.

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Editorial

Aragalaya funds and Namal’s demand

Published

10 hours ago

2026/02/16

Thilina Walpola

Monday 16th February, 2026

SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa has called for a special presidential commission to investigate undisclosed funds received by various individuals and organisations linked to Aragalaya. One may recall that Aragalaya ceased to be a genuine, leaderless people’s protest campaign after being hijacked by some political forces with hidden agendas. Now that a sinister move to pressure the then Speaker of Parliament to violate the Constitution at the height of Aragalaya has come to light, one cannot but endorse the demand for an investigation into the so-called money trail.

However, Namal may go on shouting until he is blue in the face, but his call for an investigation into the Aragalaya funds will go unheeded for obvious reasons. The JVP-led NPP owes its meteoric rise to power mostly to Aragalaya, which was born out of a tsunami-like surge of public resentment at the mainstream political parties that had been in power since Independence. Therefore, the JVP-NPP government will not do anything that may help bolster the SLPP’s efforts to portray Aragalaya as a conspiracy against the Rajapaksa rule and the country. The Gampaha High Court judgement in the MP Amarakeerthi Athukorale murder case has already shed light on the seamy side of Aragalaya. Twelve persons have been condemned to death for murdering Athukorale and his security officer during the violent phase of Aragalaya in 2022.

The SLPP managed to retain its hold on power by craftily elevating Ranil Wickremesinghe to the presidency amidst political upheavals in 2022, and therefore it had two years to investigate and find out where the money for Aragalaya had come from and who the beneficiaries of those undisclosed funds were. Why didn’t Namal call for a presidential commission to probe the Aragalaya funds then?

A probe into Aragalaya must not be limited to the money trail. A high-level investigation must be conducted into former Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena’s claim that he came under pressure during Aragalaya to act in violation of the Constitution over the appointment of the Acting President.

Professor Sunanda Maddumabandara, who was Senior Advisor (Media) to President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has disclosed in his book, ‘Aragalaye Balaya’ (‘Power of Aragalaya’), that on 13 July 2022, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay visited Abeywardena and asked him to take over as president, but the latter said in no uncertain terms that he would never violate the Constitution. Abeywardena has revealed that soon after Baglay’s departure, a group of Sri Lankans led by Ven. Omalpe Sobitha, arrived at the Speaker’s official residence and asked him to take over the presidency. When he repeated what he had told the Indian envoy, Sobitha Thera sought to intimidate him into doing their bidding. The group consisted of another Buddhist monk, some Catholic priests, and a trade unionist, according to Abeywardena.

According to Prof. Maddumabandara, Baglay told Abeywardena that if the latter took over the presidency, protests could be brought under control within 45 minutes. Prof. Maddumabandara has told this newspaper in a brief interview that only a person who had control over the protesters could give such an assurance. One may recall that it was the JVP that led the protesters who surrounded Parliament in July 2022. Minister K. D. Lal Kantha himself has admitted that the JVP tried to lead the Aragalaya protesters to capture Parliament, but without success.

Why hasn’t Namal called for a probe into Abeywardena’s damning allegation? Will he pledge to order an investigation into the alleged move to plunge the country into anarchy if the SLPP forms a government? He has his work cut out to convince the discerning people that his call for an investigation into the Aragalaya funds, at this juncture, is not aimed at diverting public attention from the ongoing probes against him and his family members.

Editorial

Big Brother coming?

Published

1 day ago

2026/02/15

Thilina Walpola

There is already a substantial and growing corpus of analytical work criticising the proposed anti-terror laws, which are no less draconian than the PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) they are expected to replace. What the campaigners for democracy and good governance expected of the JVP-led NPP was the abolition of the PTA and not another set of bad laws in its place.

Unsurprisingly, many legal experts have voiced serious concern over the proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA). Prominent among them is former Minister of Justice, Constitutional Affairs, and Foreign Affairs Prof. G. L. Peiris, who presented a well-argued critique of the proposed anti-terror legislation, at a media briefing on Thursday. He and some other senior Opposition politicians called the PSTA a grave danger to democracy. Anyone who has studied the proposed anti-terror laws will have no difficulty in agreeing with him and other critics of the PSTA.

One of the main campaign promises of the JVP-led NPP was to abolish the executive presidency. During their opposition days, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and other JVP/NPP seniors were instrumental in having the powers of the Executive President reduced through the 17th, 19th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution. They also vehemently condemned the PTA, demanding its abolition. Now, an opportunity has presented itself for the JVP/NPP leaders to carry out what they wanted their predecessors to do—abolition of the executive presidency and the PTA. But they are soft-pedalling the dictatorial powers vested in the executive presidency and trying every trick in the book to retain the PTA in the form of the PSTA. If the proposed anti-terror laws are ratified—perish the thought—President Dissanayake will have more dictatorial powers including the one to ban any organisation simply by issuing a gazette notification to that effect. What guarantee is there that the government will not abuse that power to ban political parties the way President J. R. Jayewardene did; he proscribed the JVP in the early 1980s by falsely accusing it of being involved in anti-Tamil violence. The JVP stands accused of working towards the establishment of a one-party system. There is hardly anything an outfit like the JVP will not do to retain its hold on power.

Another serious issue Prof. Peiris has rightly flagged is that the PSTA seeks to empower the Defence Secretary to issue detention orders to have suspects in judicial custody transferred to police custody. Thus, the JVP, whose leader—President Dissanayake—appoints the Defence Secretary and has the police under its thumb, will be in a position to circumvent the judicial process and have anyone detained for a maximum of one year.

Pointing out that the proposed PSTA has categorised 13 offences as acts of terrorism although they can be dealt with under other laws, Prof. Peiris has argued that the PSTA is riddled with ambiguities. This, he has said, blurs the critical distinction between ordinary criminal offences and acts of terrorism, which require “clear and unambiguous definition with no scope for elasticity of interpretation.” Grey areas in any legislation are minefields; they lend themselves to misuse, if not abuse, and therefore must be eliminated in the name of democracy and the people’s rights and liberties.

Another danger in the proposed PSTA is the sweeping powers to be vested in the Defence Secretary, a political appointee, including the one to designate ‘prohibited areas’, Prof. Peiris has revealed. Entering such places will constitute an offence punishable by imprisonment up to three years and a fine of up to Rs. 3 million. One cannot but agree that such provision will have a chilling effect on media personnel as they will be prohibited from photographing, video recording and sketching or drawing them.

The deplorable manner in which the JVP/NPP is trying to safeguard the interests of the incumbent dispensation on the pretext of protecting the state against terror makes one hope and pray that Sri Lanka will not end up being like Oceania in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with Big Brother watching every citizen menacingly. Pressure must be brought to bear on the government to deep-six its PSTA forthwith.

Editorial

When Prez has to do others’ work

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/14

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 14th February, 2026

A nine-day protest by beach seine fishers against a ban on the use of tractor-mounted winches to haul their nets was called off yesterday following a discussion with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The protesting fisherfolk had been demanding a meeting with the President, but in vain. Why did the President wait for nine days to invite them to a discussion? He could have stepped in to have the fishers’ protest called off on the first day of agitation itself.

Governments usually do not agree to negotiate with any protesters immediately after the launch of their agitations lest others should be encouraged to do likewise. Politicians in power seek to wear down protesters by resorting to brinkmanship. They consider it infra dig to blink first, so to speak. This is the name of the game, but governments and the public stand to gain when the issues that lead to protests and strikes are resolved promptly.

Minister of Fisheries Ramalingam Chandrasekar and his deputy Ratna Gamage opted to play a game of chicken with the protesting fishers, refusing to soften their position that the ban on ‘mechanised’ beach seine fishing must continue. They declared that the ban at issue was non-negotiable, provoking the fishermen into intensifying their protest. They should have invited the protesters to the negotiating table.

There are two schools of thought about the use of tractors fitted with winches to drag fishing nets. Environmentalists are of the view that the use of winches to haul nets causes serious environmental issues, such as the destruction of coral reefs. Those who practise this fishing method argue that there are no corals in the areas where they practise beach seine fishing, and they avoid reefs, which damage their nets. Tractors do not cause sea erosion, they insist. Daring the government to prove scientifically that the homegrown method of hauling nets causes environmental damage, they demanded that they be allowed to use tractors and winches pending an investigation. Why the government did not adopt the proposed course of action is the question. It should have taken up the fishermen’s challenge.

Cabinet Ministers and top bureaucrats rarely succeed in resolving labour disputes under their own steam. They only confront strikers or protesters, provoking the latter into escalating their trade union action, much to the inconvenience of the public. The President has to intervene to do the work of ministers and ministry secretaries and resolve labour issues. This has been the situation under successive governments.

One of the main arguments against the executive presidency is that the President tends to run a one man/woman show, undermining the Cabinet and the state service. Unbridled powers vested in the President have been blamed for this situation, which however is also due to the failure of Cabinet Ministers and top bureaucrats to carry out their duties and functions effectively.

If ministers cannot tackle serious issues without presidential interventions, which are frequent, why should the public pay through the nose to maintain a Cabinet of Ministers?