By Gandara John

It was 1987 and the spectre of naked terror stalked the island; to counter the JVP that had brought Colombo to a standstill, the UNP let loose their pack of lumpen killers on the people

Hoodlums wearing balaclavas knocked on the front doors of houses in the wee hours of the morning; petrified young men and women, clinging on to their mothers like little children, were ripped away and bundled into vehicles never to be seen again; crematoriums working feverishly overtime, billowed plumes of thick black smoke into the night sky; gangs prowling the streets in unregistered vans snatched people off the road on the nod of hooded individuals inside these vehicles; the incoming surf kept washing up dead bodies on the beach with monotonous regularity; men and women were kept hanging from the roofs of secret detention centres upside down and beaten up with poles before being tortured with chilly powder in their eyes and needles under their finger nails; thousands of nameless men and women were incarcerated in secret unauthorised prisons; people wending their way to work in the morning were numbed by the terrifying sight of dead bodies littering the roads.

This was some of the evidence that was led before the Commission of Judges inquiring into Sri Lanka’s deadly ‘Reign of Terror’.

The country froze with fear and all that the people prayed and asked for, was an end to this terror.

The prayers of the people were answered when Premadasa was killed.

Observers estimate that over fifty thousand people went missing during this period.

Thirty years have gone by but the people remain angry and bitter; Ministers of the Premadasa regime, reportedly involved in crimes against humanity, were not brought to justice.

Those marshaling the killer gangs included dentists, lawyers and politicians.

In the township of Batalanda in the Kelaniya electorate was located the most notorious and dreaded of such secret unauthorised detention centres.

A Commission of eminent judges sat to inquire into alleged crimes of abduction, detention, torture and murder that had taken place during the ‘Reign of Terror’.

Sifting through copious volumes of evidence that was presented before them, the erudite Commission determined that there was evidence to substantiate the accusations made that ‘Crimes against Humanity’ had been committed in the bowels of the Batalanda torture chambers.

After much deliberation the Commission of Judges came to a studied determination that there was indeed a prima facie case against RW – a senior Minister in the Premadasa Cabinet of Terror –  and that he could be held culpable for ‘Crimes against Humanity’.

The judges of the Commission recommended that in the name of justice, reconcilliation and truth RW be indicted in a Court of Law to try him for ‘Crimes against Humanity’.

That was not to be. Twenty years have gone by but criminal cases have yet to be filed against RW.

Justice meanwhile eludes those thousands who were tortured and murdered in Batalanda.

In the year 20oo Gonawela Sunil, by then a liability, was gunned down at home by hatchet men armed with automatic weapons. Sunil took with him to his grave many secrets of that dark period. His death remains yet another of the unresolved murders of our time.

Another major player at Batalanda, Douglas Pieris a close confidante of RW and who carries with him the dire secrets of the torture chambers, went missing. Some reports indicated that he too had been killed while some other reports suggested that he  had fled the country and had been granted asylum in a White Western Country.

It is impossible to determine whether Peiris or for that matter the thousands of terrorists allegedly killed in the 30 year war, are really dead because the White Western Countries refuse to give the names and details of all those Sri Lankans who had ‘fled’ the country and to whom the White Western Countries have given  asylum or accepted as refugees.

There are many, reportedly claimed by the Tamil terrorists to be dead or missing, who are actually living in those White Western Countries.

By the White Western Countries obstinately refusing to provide Sri Lanka the names of their so called ‘Diaspora’, the White Western Countries are actively encouraging criminal election malpractices in Sri Lanka; these ‘diasporans’, while domiciled in those White Western countries, continue to have their names in the electoral registers of Sri Lanka. These diasporan votes added upto the ‘90%’ voter fraud, that took place in the North and the East of the country at the bygone Presidential and General election.

In the case of Douglas Peiris, if he were alive, he could be extradited to Sri Lanka.

It is indeed surprising that these Batalanda type crimes, for which there is no time prescription, have escaped the radar of the White Western Countries and the local WWCFOs (White Western Country Funded Organisations) also known as NGOs.

Political observers strongly opine that only a judicial trial would clear the air and serve the cause of justice.