{"id":109505,"date":"2020-12-08T17:01:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T00:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109505"},"modified":"2020-12-08T17:01:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T00:01:38","slug":"was-senaka-bibile-murdered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/08\/was-senaka-bibile-murdered\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Senaka Bibile Murdered?"},"content":{"rendered":"

W. Panditaratna Courtesy The Island<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"WikiLeaks:<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The article of Vimal Dias which\nappeared in the Sunday Island of February 24th, while recalling the enormous\ncontribution made by the late Senaka Bibile, as the Chairman of the State\nPharmaceutical Corporation (SPC), bemoans the fact that while on an UNCTAD assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He was also working on the\nfeasibility of establishing a pool procurement agency for small Caribbean\nislands to lower drug prices and improve availability. Unfortunately he\ncouldn\u2019t complete his assignment as he died suddenly and some say mysteriously,\nin British Guyana of a severe heart attack”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was followed by another\nfrom Raj Gonsalkorale, which appeared in The Island newspaper of Wednesday 6th,\nMarch wherein he states that –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is no secret that the\nPharmaceutical Industry is next only to the Arms Industry in the world, and\nthey are known to resist any incursions into their empires by whatever means,\nincluding unethical means. The suspicion that Professor Bibile\u2019s death in 1976\nwhile working for UNCTAD in the Caribbean, extending and helping to implement\nhis policies which by now had gained international recognition and acceptance,\nwas not due to natural causes and that external forces had a hand in it,\nlingers amongst some even to date.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpts from a few pages of the book\n“Memoirs of Osmund Jayaratne” Professor of Physics of University of\nColombo which are appended below, gives details of Senaka Bibile\u2019s life, work\nand death in Georgetown.The details of his last rites in British Guyana had\nbeen provided by Dr. R.O.B. Wijesekara, another Sri Lankan scientist who had\nthen being living in British Guyana and had been present at the cremation and\nhad even lit the funeral pyre of Senaka Bibile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dr Senaka Bibile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Bibile\u2019s policy of\nrationalizing drug imports was welcomed by the World Health Organization (WHO),\nand adopted by several Third World countries like Bangladesh and some countries\nin the Caribbean region. It was at this point that the WHO, together with the\nUNDP, invited Senaka to proceed abroad, firstly to Geneva and later to some of\nthe Caribbean countries. He accepted their invitation, the purpose of which was\nthat he should explain his policies to other countries of the Third World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Caribbean region, he made\nGuyana his headquarters. In the same hotel in which he lived, along with his\nwife Leela, there also stayed a prominent “person who was a Professor of\nMedicine in the University of the West Indies. One night Senaka, his wife and\nthis professor were invited out to dinner at a certain hotel. They were\nnaturally served with drinks. Now Senaka had been for some time ailing from a\nheart condition, and occasionally used to get a very fast heartbeat known as\nTachycardia. Soon after he and his wife returned after dinner to their room in\nthe hotel, he developed a very serious attack of Tachycardia. Normally he used\nto control this by pressing an artery leading to his heart. However, this time,\nalthough he adopted this method, the Tachycardia did not cease for several\nhours. In spite of his protests, his wife Leela rushed to the Professor of\nMedicine, who lived in the same hotel, and asked him to come and examine\nSenaka. After doing so, he had a hearty laugh and said that the problem was not\nwith Senaka but with his wife, who was unnecessarily excitable. The Professor\nreturned to his room, but Senaka\u2019s condition became worse from hour to hour. In\ndesperation, Leela summoned an ambulance, and took him promptly to a general\nhospital in Guyana. In the ambulance, looking up at his wife, Senaka, realizing\nthe condition he was in, whispered to his wife, “I am sorry Leela, but\nthis time I do not think I will live.” To admit Senaka to the hospital, so\nmuch red tape had to be undergone. The result was that before he could be\nadmitted to a ward Senaka passed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was later discovered that the\nProfessor who had examined him first had close links with many multinational\npharmaceutical companies. It was also so surmised after his death, by other\nfriendly doctors in the region, that a couple of drops of digitalis, dropped\ninto a glass of liquor could have easily produced the symptoms that Senaka had\nsuffered from.A close friend and colleague, Dr R.O.B. Wijesekara, another\nbrilliant scientist unrecognized in his own country and then living in\nGeorgetown, Guyana, wrote thus of the last rites accorded to Senaka Bibile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove with another young Sri\nLankan University lecturer to the cremation. It was 15 miles from Georgetown,\non a beach, that the remains of this loveable fellow became, as he would have\nliked to say: CO2 + H2O and CaCO2 and K2CO3, etc. It was a home-built pyre \u2014\nall logs. On one side was the concrete sea wall, which stretches along the\nentire coast from Georgetown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were thick South American\nwoods, and the roots of trees were washed away by the oscillating tide while\nthe massive trees stood their ground. A Hindu `cremator\u2019 chanted \u2018Shanthi\u2019 a\nfew times, and the pyre was lit by one of the Guyanese colleagues of \u2018Bibs\u2019 and\nmyself. The camphor erupted in flames. Instead of the petroleum used in Sri\nLanka, the Guyanese used ghee. In a few hours it was a flaming memory, and I\nhave not yet overcome the daze which began with a telephone call from Gus Lee\n(one of Senaka\u2019s Guyanese colleagues), and which still lingers painfully as I\nwrite at home.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The readers could judge for\nthemselves the cause of the death of the late Senaka Bibile in British Guyana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WikiLeaks: Americans Sabotage Senaka\nBibile\u2019s Pharmaceutical Policy\u201d –<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W. Panditaratna Courtesy The Island The article of Vimal Dias which appeared in the Sunday Island of February 24th, while recalling the enormous contribution made by the late Senaka Bibile, as the Chairman of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC), bemoans the fact that while on an UNCTAD assignment. “He was also working on the feasibility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}