By Gandara John

Speaking emotionally the other day on the massive fraud Arjuna Mahendran and others stand accused of, Sirisena declared that he would leave no stone unturned to indict and bring to justice all those involved in the Central Bank bond scam.

Amongst those accused of  benefiting from the massive fraud are Ranil Wickramasinghe and Malik Samarawickrema, two prominent Ministers in the Sirisena cabinet.

Mahendran was appointed Governor of the Central Bank by Sirisena in January 2016 on the recommendation of Wickramasinghe holding, albeit unconstitutionally at the time, the post of Prime Minister.

Sirisena went on to say that to bring the criminals to book he had appointed a Presidential Commission of Inquiry, the highest level of Inquiry in the country. This was on top of the Parliamentary inquiry (COPE) report, the incriminating findings of which had already been submitted to the executors of the criminal justice system for punitive action.

It is evident that in Sirisena’s mind, an inquiry under the President’s Seal is the credible preliminary step prior to taking criminal action in a court of law against Mahendran and the others.

In the period 1988 to 1990, during the reign of terror of Ranasinghe Premadasa (father of the present Cabinet Minister Sajith Premadasa) thousands of Sri Lankan youth were abducted, incarcerated, tortured and killed; many went missing.

And grieving family members have grown old or gone to the beyond, waiting in vain for their loved ones to return or to be accounted for.

These youth were snatched, from their homes, work places and streets by hooded death squads prowling in unnumbered vehicles. These death squads spread fear amongst the people who could not sleep at night, in dread of hearing that knock on their doors in the middle of the night by Premadasa goons.

Many of these youth thus snatched were incarcerated in secret detention centres where they were tortured, humiliated and abused before being disposed of, many without a trace.

Of the hundreds of illegal detention centres, where murder, torture and abuse had taken place, Batalanda was identified as the most notorious of them all.

This torture chamber, comprising a few houses, was located in the Batalanda Housing Scheme in Biyagama, in the electorate of Ranil Wickramasinghe, a senior member of the Premadasa Cabinet. The ‘secret’ illegal detention centre was occupied by police officers and overlooked by Douglas Peiris and Nalin Delgoda.

These houses were given to the Police, to conduct their illegal operations, by Wickramasinghe.

Wickramasinghe, allegedly tormented by some traumatic childhood experience and driven by a pathological urge, visited the ‘facility’ often, at various times of the day and night without restriction. The aspiring Police officers therein humoured the pathetic politician who advised and gave directions in the running of the operation.

In 1995 a Presidential Commission of Inquiry was appointed to inquire into the horrendous atrocities committed at Batalanda. The Commission comprised Supreme Court Judges Justice Jayawickrema and Justice Dissanayake.

These eminent judges, after hearing evidence for over two years, in their near 7000 page ‘Commission  Report’  found Ranil Wickramasinghe along with some named Police officers culpable for the murder, torture, abuse and disappearance of an estimated Ten Thousand persons at Batalanda.

Ranil Wickramasinghe additionally had given political direction to this State terror apparatus.

Established in the mould of the Presidential Commission convened by Sirisena to investigate the Central Bank bond scam, the Batalanda Presidential Commission too had no powers to award punishment or to initiate judicial action against those found culpable.

In these circumstances the eminent judges of the ‘Batalanda’ Commission, at the end of their hearings, strongly recommended that Ranil Wickramasinghe (along with the named Police officers) be arraigned in a Court of law, for offences that included murder, torture, abuse and disappearance of approximately 10,000 persons in the unauthorised detention centre at Batalanda.

The report was handed over to then President Chandrika Kumaranatunge an old friend of the Wickramasinghe family and a fellow lickspittle of the Clinton Neoliberals in the US.

Kumaranatunge, herself a pathetic figure of Sri Lankan politics, considered it prudent to sweep the Batalanda Report under the carpet and refrain from implementing the much vaunted ‘Rule of Law’ on a man against whom the Judges of the Supreme Court had found credible evidence of being complicit in mass murder like Prabhakaran.

By taking this course of partial action, Kumaranatunge stands accused of ‘gross abuse of her authority’ and the ‘willful waste of public money’, the precious money of the people of Sri Lanka which had funded all the expenses of the Commission.

Kumaranatunge’s crime of Commission (or was it Omission) denied the people of this country the justice they had long waited for and the consolation the loved ones of the victims had been yearning for.

Kumaranatunge by her actions conveyed the impression that she considered herself sovereign, an impression repudiated nicely by an erudite politician who recently said that it is the people who are Sovereign and not the politician.

For criminal offences like murder, torture etc there is no time bar or prescription, which simply means that the accused can be made to stand trial at any time; this is like in the case of the 94 year old Auschwitz guard, Reinhold Hanning, who was tried and convicted in 2016 for being an accessory to the atrocities at the death camp during WW2, simply by being aware of what was going on at the camp.

Was it stark fear of having to face trial or was it a guilty id that prompted Wickramasinghe’s keeper to attempt sneaking in surreptitiously an ‘Immunity from Prosecution’ clause for the ‘super’ Ministers?

All this begs the question, Does the rule of law not apply to Ranil Wickramasinghe?” (or Is Ranil Wickramasinghe above the law?”)

The sound of silence on the issue of prosecuting Ranil Wickramasinghe for the murder of 10000 persons is deafening.

Pray did we hear even a whimper from the self righteous European Union, which pontificates regularly on the ‘rule of law’ and slaps this principle as one of the prerequisites, to lifting their criminal siege – the GSP – on Sri Lanka?

Have we heard a murmur on this matter from the US ambassador who, like Sally Yates, disrespectfully challenged Trump’s authority, publicly?

Have we heard anything on this issue from the usually vociferous Neoliberal lickspittles manning the NGOs, the UN and other like organisations who sing deafeningly for their supper?

The opposition too are not without blame on this matter. Although they have conducted well- intentioned and well organised campaigns on many issues, the opposition creates the impression of having broad – spectrum focus; this has resulted in clouding, in the public mind, the opposition mission statement which should clearly reveal the strategic objective of the opposition.

Some critics argue that the joint opposition are haring after every issue thrown – sometimes deliberately – at them, thereby losing focus of their strategic objective and dissipating the groundswell of antigovernment anger and support that has been reposed in them.

These well meaning critics have advised the opposition to be more coordinated and focused in their efforts and arrive at a single pointed ‘Mission’ that could be decisively accomplished; it is worth repetition that ‘politics is the art of the possible’

Most, if not all of the issues adversely affecting Sri Lanka pivot on Ranil Wickramasinghe, senselessly driven by the American Neoliberal agenda of the Clintons and their cohorts and of course, his personal demons.

In any military campaign, picking the ‘pivotal’ objective from a number of other attractive and competing objectives is the most difficult part of the campaign as was the case in Sri Lanka’s anti terrorist campaign.

It was only in the last three years of the 30 year war, that the military precisely identified their ‘pivotal’ objective. The other objectives balanced on this crucial pivot.

It may be asked ‘how the picking of the ‘pivotal’ objective could be so crucial to a political campaign’; to respond simply ‘all the other alternative objectives balance on this pivot’.

Once that pivotal ‘objective’ had been identified in the political campaign, all effort needs to be focused on dislodging or demolishing that vital ‘pivot’; the other objectives that are balancing on this crucial pivot will collapse like a pack of cards.

If Sirisena is sincere in his proclamations of bringing the Central Bank fraudsters to book and if Sirisena sincerely believes that a Presidential Commission is a mandatory step to take before arraigning the fraudsters in a court of law, he must prove his sincerity in his beliefs by instituting criminal action against Ranil Wickramasinghe who has been found culpable of mass murder by a Presidential Commission comprising Supreme Court Judges.

On this 69^th anniversary of our Independence we need to reflect why Justice has not been served to those ten thousand persons who were murdered at Batalanda. Is it because they are poor and the poor do not count in Sri Lanka?

Or is it because the alleged murderer found culpable comes from a wealthy class and he is above the law?

Sri Lanka needs to apply the ‘Rule of Law’ on Ranil Wickramasinghe.

It is preposterous to think that we Sri Lankans find it comfortable to have as Prime Minister a man found complicit in mass murder and untouched by law. We might as well have settled for terrorist Prabhakaran, a pathological killer accused of mass murder.

It is hoped that Sirisena will act on the faith that he has on Presidential Commissions and bring Ranil Wickramasinghe immediately to book.

If not let all the people of Sri Lanka rally round and give impetus to the opposition politicians on this 69^th year of Independence to begin a campaign that will not see the end till justice is served for all those murdered at Batalanda.