by Jolly Somasundram Courtesy The Island

December 31, 2019, 7:08 pm

“Oh! what a tangle we weave when we first practice to deceive!”- Sir Walter Scott

That was the week that was!

Built on an abduction, an exfiltration out of the country by air was planned through voluntary rendition. This sophisticated people smuggling effort was worthy of the Le Carre thriller, “The spy who came in from the cold.” The effort metastasized, though not by the smuggling face launching a thousand gun-boats but by frenzied diplomatic sound bites getting issued. In a world embroiled in moral relativism, all that is fair is foul, and, all that is foul is fair. What is, is what is not! In this dystopic environment, the hoaxed is the victim and the victim is condemned for not following due process.

She was a housewife with a desperate yearning to savour diaspora warmth but having no legal means to obtain it. The best plan B alternative was for her to lever her influential job position – of one working in a diplomatic institution as a local employee but passing off as a diplomat, to claim diplomatic privileges – to induce voluntary rendition to get out of the country. Rendition is the noun where a foreign country hustles a local into its sovereign orbit, foreswearing legal, internationally laid down modes of conduct, and undermining the host country’s sovereign rights. There are two types of rendition, one voluntary, the other involuntary. In both cases, the collusion of the receiving country is a necessary condition. This housewife’s strategy was cry rape, create an international rumpus and ask asylum from berserk sex maniacs. How many hapless males must now be languishing in jail for such frame-ups? It was a board of conspiring nights and scheming days, where, the conspirator’s consulate with men for pieces played, hither and thither them moving, conflating local law with international diplomacy and, once the mission of obfuscation was complete, in the consulate quietly laying. If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck. If the attempt was to leave the country surreptitiously without the appropriate documentation and adopting innovative extra-legal travel methods to do so, then, it is people smuggling.

Philosopher George Berkeley, raising an observation on perception, asked, what, on the surface appeared to be a silly question, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The issue pertains to illusion and reality. The support argument trotted out in its favour is that truth is tied solely to reportage. In keeping with this logic, if an abduction has not been reported, then it did not occur.

On the fateful Friday afternoon with heavy home-moving and week-ending traffic gridlocking the environment, a mini-drama was alleged to have been enacted. A woman, a local employee of the non-diplomatic staff of a consulate, claimed to have been abducted, sexually molested, threatened by poking a pistol into her mouth, her phones hacked for information. She was released after two hours of torment. This happened on a major road where the traffic was denser than on Main Street, Pettah, with traffic to the right of her and traffic to the left of her, honking and tooting while tuk-tuks were brazenly cutting in and out. In this melee, the abducted woman was driven to the mouth of hell. The victim, after the deed was done, pushed the mute button. She made no complaint to the police. A woman in Sri Lanka- though it is her absolute right to do so- would find it extremely embarrassing to file such a complaint. As no complaint was made, following the Berkeley dialectic, this event did not occur. Not only did she go mute, but also appeared to have gone off screen, donning H G Wells’ robe, making her invisible.

Next day after the abduction of the desperate housewife, the next step in the plan unspooled. A deus ex machina literally occurred, a bird came from the skies as an air ambulance. An urgent application was made by the consulate to airport authorities, to immediately permit the landing of this stacked air ambulance, to allow a sickly (they said) consulate staff member to be ferried abroad for medical treatment. She had no exit documentation as required from any Sri Lankan nor any indications of her medical condition. The authorities smelt a rat and suspecting that an exquisite, fool-proof people smuggling operation was on line, refused approval for the uplift. The thwarted air ambulance had to return without the cargo indicated on its manifest. The best planned schemes of mice and men tend to go awry, since every eventuality that would negative the plan, cannot be foreseen. In management literature it is called a Black Swan, a singular presence amongst a bevy of normal white swans. The departure of the air ambulance, empty of any one stricken, vindicated the Black Swan proposition.

It is sad but true that a wronged husband is the last to know about his wife’s flighty adventures. So with this story of the abduction. Her abduction story was commonplace by then. The international newspaper, The New York Times had the details by next day but Sri Lankan authorities were in the dark. Now that the authorities were aware, they searched and searched, they searched for her, here, they searched for her, there, they searched for her everywhere and, in all places to which they had legal access. No success. As a last resort, they sought judicial intervention.

In response to the judicial notice she did turn herself over to the authorities. She was interrogated in the presence of her Attorney. What the authorities reported was another story. She was nowhere at the scene of the abduction and rape. The authorities had checked with Uber records and GPS data and none showed her presence. She had not undergone any medical attention either, in the period she was absconding. There is a principle of logic- Occam’s Razor- which says, if there are many alternatives, choose the simplest. The simplest conclusion in this case would be that the frame-up had failed.

The central figure in this drama was a Sri Lankan citizen, employed by a consulate, as a local staffer. As a local staffer she was no Prima Donna, she has no diplomatic rights, she had to conform to all civil, criminal and other laws of Sri Lanka like any other citizen. She cannot even be represented by the Consul though the consulate may look after her interests. If she needs representation, she will have to retain an Attorney-at-Law. She is presently in custody on a reasonable suspicion of committing offences under Sec 120 of the penal code that could justify criminal charges of disaffection against government and fabricating false evidence for the purpose of being used in any stage in her abduction claim. But the authorities should prove their case before a Judge.

Humpty Dumpty was seated on the Consular wall,
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall,
All the Consular dupes
Could not put Humpty-Dumpty up again.