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It was general election day and I had gone down south to the most troubled part of the troubled island. At 7 a.m., when polling began, I turned up at the chief election official's office in the coastal town of Hambantota. All the streets were deserted as the inhabitants prepared for another day of violence.
Already, trees had been cut and were lying across the road as crude road blocks. In some places rudimentary land mines had blown deep craters and a couple of vehicles lay in the verge wrecked. The electricity lines and the telephones had been cut.
I gave the election officer my card. 'Ah, The Observer,' he exclaimed, 'we expected you last night. You have a very important job to do, making sure the election is fair. It would be very helpful if you were to agree to scrutinise our counting of the ballot papers to make sure we do everything right".
I was flattered, of course, but more than a little astonished at the task bestowed on me. Why me? And then, as the chief election officer hurried about, organising helicopters and escorts for me, the possible truth began to dawn. Sri Lanka had invited 20 international politicians, including five British MPs, to observe the elections. Hambantota expected two of these observers. My card described me as The Observer QED. I made my excuses and left.
Still, it is very appealing to be an observer rather than a spectator, so I thought I'd devote some time to doing the observer's job and seek out some dubious election practices. It wasn't long before I found a very dubious example indeed.
A convoy of eight cars and vans turned up at one remote polling station. About 60 people got out, led by a man who turned out to be the local MP. As I watched from a side road, the group, minus the MP, went into the polling station to vote. They came out and instead of moving off, suddenly began to swap shirts and sarongs and then went back into the polling station. Out they came and began the process of exchanging clothes once more before trooping back in. This bizarre pyjama party was repeated 10 times in all before the convoy moved off (in the Sri Lankan election, you didn't need a polling card or an identity card to vote, just a name).
Before the cars had arrived, only 40 people had braved death threats and voted. The polling station had now 'recorded more than 640 voters. I later went to the MP's house, but nobody was in. But one of the vans was outside. When I got back to Colombo, I reported this incident to the real observers, but nobody seemed interested. The international group's interim report on the election was carefully anodyne, but one of the group, Tory MP Michael Clark told me he was 'very angry' about the amount of' ‘cheating' he saw, with ballot boxes crammed with identical votes.
I continued my temporary role as observer by going to check up on the army. At one point, I saw three youths running into the jungle and could only assume they were JVP (People's Liberation Front) militants who had threatened to kill anybody on the road on election day. Then my car rounded a corner to be confronted by three vehicles stopped in the middle of the road. They all had no number plates and armed men were in each of them, and two men lay in a ditch, their automatic rifles pointing at a house. Our surprise was mutual -- and so, strangely, was our fear. The men suddenly took on schoolboy expressions of guilt as they waved my car past. My driver was in no doubt --'an army death squad'.
Perhaps that was what the army officer meant when he told me his troops needed 'to be let off the leash'. He complained of Colombo's lack of understanding: when he asked for mortars, Colombo sent grenades; when he ordered more bullets he was asked why his men used so many. He didn't have enough vehicles and was reduced to hiring vans from transport companies-- the van full of soldiers that escorted me back to the main road, looking out for mines, was plastered in stickers for holiday companies like Horizon and Kuoni.
One of the army's main functions on election day was to go into the villages to encourage people to vote, promising to protect them from the JVP.
But not all the violence can be blamed directly on the JVP. The day before the election a notice in Sinhalese went up near one polling station: 'Do not vote tomorrow or you will die,' signed the JVP. On election morning another notice appeared beneath it, 'We are not responsible for this notice,' signed the JVP.
One villager asked an officer: 'You will protect me today, but where will you be next week?' The officer turned to me: 'How the hell do I answer that?' I couldn't reply; I was only there as an observer.
Source: The Observer England
The Guardian England Friday February 23 1990
The allegation is being viewed as a smear by the government following Britain's criticism of its human rights record.
An MP of the ruling United National Party Mr. H. R. Piyasiri, said in parliament that the British High Commissioner, Mr. David Gladstont. the grand-nephew of William Gladstone was "giving patronage to drug peddlers and those who promote the use of dangerous drugs".
Mr. Piyasiri named two well known Sri Lankans who he Said were frequent visitors to the High Commissioner’s residence. Mr. Piyasiri said one of the men had jumped bail in England after being arrested on charges of possessing cannabis. The other had been sentenced in Australia to four years' hard labour for Possessing hashish.
Mr. Piyasiri said that the government's anti-drugs campaign was facing difficulties because of patronage of the drug trade at the highest level of Sri Lanka's diplomatic community.
He asked whether the Foreign Minister, Mr Ranjan Wijeratne, would "speak to the High Commissioner for the UK and request him to refrain from associating with drug peddlers and drug users".
Mr Wijeratne said he would "deal with this in the manner in which I should deal with the diplomatic community" Opposition politicians said the MP had been instructed to make the Speech and that the government was trying to smear Mr Gladstone because he and his government had been critical of human rights abuses. Britain is among those critical of the ruthless crack down against the JVP in which many innocent civilians are thought to have been killed by the security forces. Mr. Gladstone said he knew the people named. but added: "A great variety of Sri Lankans attend functions at my residence. I do not make a practice of asking them about their past lives before inviting them."
Source: The Guardian England
Lankaweb- Padmasiri de Silva reports from Colombo
I am a lawyer from Teldeniya in the Kandy District of Sri Lanka presently living in England as a political refugee. I was the president of the Teldeniya Human Rights Organisation (THRO) which was initially organised to monitor and prevent human rights abuses in the local area either by subversive organisations or by the Sri Lankan Government security forces and also to provide legal assistance to those detained under the emergency regulations. I was also a member of the executive committee of the Kandy Citizens Committee.
In June 1989, during a protest demonstration which was organised by the students of the Teldeniya Maha Vidyalaya (Teldeniya Senior School) to protest against the arrest and detention of one of their schoolmates, the police entered the school premises forcefully and opened fire killing one student ( A.W.M.Jayantha Bandara aged 16) and injuring nine others.
On behalf of the victim's family I appeared at the inquest held before the Teldeniya Magistrate's Court. Mr. Parakrama Ranasinghe appeared as the senior counsel and Mr. Sanath Karalliyadda, I and a few others appeared as Junior counsels. Subsequently the inquest reached a verdict of unlawful killing and named seven police officers from Teldeniya Police station as responsible for the shootings and unlawful killing. The verdict was sent to the Attorney General's Office with a view to bringing criminal charges against those police officers found responsible. My legal clerk Miss. Kalyani Sahabandu, had witnessed the incident and gave evidence in the inquest. She had identified positively those involved in the shootings as she knew those police officers from the time she was working for them as a typist at the Teldeniya police station.
On 2nd August 1989 I appeared on behalf of another aggrieved family of Tilak Abeykoon, one of my neighbours at Poddalgoda, Udispattuwa, a GCE (A.L.)student of the Walala Central College. He was abducted by the security forces on 29th July 1989 when soldiers came in search of his elder brother who was supposed to be an army deserter. On the same night Tilak Abeyakoon was killed by the security forces and his body was found on 1st August 1989. I helped his family to get the victim's body released from police custody. In the course of a private conversation with a magistrate I was instructed to leave the area as it was the time when human right lawyers were threatened and I might be the next target of the security forces. From then onwards I was in hiding at the home of my wife's parents.
On 25th of August 1989, on the day on which formal charges were to be brought against the seven police officers by the Attorney General before the Teldeniya Magistrate's Court, my legal clerk was abducted by unidentified armed men later found to be the members of the security forces. She was later found raped and tortured by them. On the same day a group of about 50 soldiers came in search of me, ransacked the home of my brother and most of his valuables were stolen. As my life was threatened I immediately moved to Colombo.
Meanwhile the seven police officers had been formally charged with murder and their trial was transferred to Kandy Magistrate's Court. In October 1989 two witnesses of the above case, Mr.Sena Rankothge and Mr. Edward Kulathunga, both legal clerks, were abducted by the security forces and killed. Another witness, a trader from Teldeniya was also abducted and killed by the security forces.
On 26th October 1989, Mr. Sanath Karalliyadda, one of my colleagues who appeared with me in the above case and the Vice President of the Teldeniya Human Rights Organisation was abducted by the security forces and later his body was found together with five other dead bodies which were also alleged to be victims of the brutality of the security forces. A vicious campaign was organised by the security forces to prevent a respectable funeral for these victims being held.
Under these circumstances I was forced to flee for my life and left Sri Lanka. I entered Britain as a political refugee and forwarded the story to the human rights organisations throughout the world.
Now I understand through reliable sources that my residence at Iskolamuduna , Udispattuwa has been broken into by the security forces and ransacked and robbed of all the valuables that they could get hold of, burned down with my library which had a life-long collection of valuable and rare books.
Source: Lankaweb
Copyright © 1997 LankaWeb News
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