Editorial

Token cuts no more than a sick joke

Published

5 years ago

2022/01/2

Our regular contributor, Sanjeewa Jayaweera who’s written another article on economizing on our overseas missions in this issue of our newspaper has picked exactly the right word, “tokenism,” to describe what the government has done a few days ago to reduce Sri Lanka’s 67-strong overseas missions by three by closing the high commission in Nairobi and two consulates in Frankfurt and Cyprus. He had previously made the point that about half our embassies, high commissions and consulates must be closed, making a logical case for doing so in the context of the foreign exchange crunch and the consequent hardship Lankans are facing today. Diplomatic representation overseas is an expensive business and Jayaweera has dug out a number, an estimated USD 58 million, the country spends annually in maintaining this expensive luxury. How correct this is we do not know but it would be interesting to find out what this token saving after much huffing and puffing actually is.

It has frequently and correctly been said that we are a developing third world country with champagne tastes and a toddy income. There is no doubt that in the modern world all countries must have diplomatic representation where their interests so demand. That does not mean that missions must be established any and everywhere; wherever set up, they must meet realistic cost-benefit criteria. Given our economic circumstances particularly at present, the number of resident overseas missions we support is much more than sheer profligacy or extravagance. It is no less than an abomination. Singapore, for example, maintains 36 resident overseas missions against our 67, Jayaweera has said. This admirably led small city state is geographically much smaller than us, with a smaller population and with hardly any natural resources. But thanks to late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and, to a lesser extent, his successors, it has achieved its current prosperity wielding influence disproportionate to its size. None of our foreign ministers, with the exception of the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, has demonstrated the intellectual brilliance and effectiveness of the various foreign ministers of Singapore. The name of S. Rajaratnam, a Singaporean of Lanka descent, who was his country’s foreign minister from 1965 and 1980 comes readily to mind.

But we stray from the point we wish to make here – that we can’t afford the number of overseas missions our taxpayers are made to fund despite limited resources in Treasury coffers and a foreign exchange strapped economy unable to pay even for essential imports like food, medicine and fuel. Apart from the wasteful expenditure incurred funding several unnecessary overseas missions, particularly during the more recent post-Independence years, our rulers have made a pork barrel of positions in such missions making patronage appointments from top down at all levels. Successive governments are guilty of this sin. It will be a useful exercise to add up the number of progeny and spouses as well as relatives of various ministers, politicians and holders of influential positions in the government who have benefited from such postings. Some of them have behaved disgracefully and at least one is facing the music abroad at present.

Family members of powerful politicians and others able to influence them have been found sinecures in our overseas missions for different reasons – all of them bad and at taxpayer expense. In some instances it was for purposes of educating children abroad and sometimes to even look after political brats studying in foreign universities. As Jayaweera has said today, even the professional foreign service is doing little to make effective cuts on expenditure on overseas missions by limiting their presence to only places where they are absolutely essential. He has admitted that this may well be for reasons of self-interest. Professional diplomats too would not want to reduce the number of countries where they may be posted. It is already very late to effect the necessary economies and it is high time that a government, blaming everything on Covid, makes a serious effort to make essential economies not only in the number of our overseas missions but also in other areas of public expenditure. Cutting a few litres of fuel from what is allowed to ministers and adding five years to the period an MP must serve to qualify for a pension is laughable.

While cutting down on our overseas diplomatic presence, we have to maximize the potential of those we retain by staffing and funding them adequately to enable them to cover a broader compass. It is essential that we get the maximum mileage from what we have. A single mission in a region can adequately represent us in many countries if their resources are effectively deployed. Better use can also be made of honorary consuls but the right appointments must be made. We’re told that various economies are being made within our overseas missions including limiting funds permitted for representation. It is no secret that some diplomats spend allowances paid to them to entertain their own friends and relatives rather than those in the countries to which they are accredited who can be of assistance to us.

Given the necessary will, much can be done to limit public expenditure. How serious our rulers are in effecting economies can be seen in the various year-end bashes hosted at public expense, greeting cards flying like confetti from political office holders and complementaries not paid out of their own pockets that are as widely distributed now as in better years. The private sector has made many visible economies in these areas. But not the government. The band will continue to play while the ship sinks – nava gilunath band chune as the local idiom has it.

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Editorial

Colombo Port drug bust: The plot thickens

Published

23 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

2 days 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

3 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.