By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

The Sunday Island in its editorial said that it is now abundantly clear that neither Switzerland nor Sri Lanka want to escalate what followed the alleged abduction of a local employee of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa went on public record saying that Switzerland did its duty by standing up for its employee while Sri Lanka did its duty by thoroughly investigating the complaint. But he was clear that there was no abduction according to the physical and technical evidence examined. In effect he was saying that the alleged victim’s story is untrue and she has been arrested and remanded and due process in the court will now follow. The embassy employee, on a court order, has been produced before a panel of specialist psychiatrists. Its finding has not yet been made public. This would, no doubt, be conveyed to the court which directed the examination possibly in the course of this week.

Developments both in Bern and in Colombo and public statements from their respective capitals indicates that neither party wishes to endanger hitherto cordial relations between the two countries. The editorial said that Switzerland has beefed up its diplomatic presence in Colombo by sending an experienced ambassador who was previously posted here to explore the possibilities of “clarifying” the incident. This can be interpreted as a perception by Bern that the matter, from their end, may not have been properly handled.

Extracts from the said editorial are given below in point form:

• Clearly the embassy totally believed the version of the alleged ‘victim’ and acted accordingly with complaints lodged with the Prime Minister and elsewhere. That was why the woman concerned and her family were given refuge in the ambassador’s residence.

• Other actions on the Swiss side included broaching the possibility of using an air ambulance to take her out of the country and skyped consultations with Swiss doctors. These are understandable in terms of the severity of the complaint which includes poking a barrel of a firearm into her mouth, opening her mobile phone and sexual molestation.

• The question in everybody’s mind is that if a false complaint had been lodged, what was the motive of the person making such a complaint? Most people believe that possible asylum in Switzerland may be the intent. Given that Switzerland had recently granted asylum (or is looking at the possibility of doing so) to Chief Inspector Nishantha Silva, Head of the Organized Crime Division of the CID, who recently left the country ballasts this view.

• The various Independent Commissions were appointed under the constitution to ensure proper merit based appointments, promotions etc. and obviously prevent victimisation. But there had been criticism that the Constitutional Council, headed by the Speaker, is skewed in favour of politicians.

• Hopefully whatever differences there may be over the alleged abduction of the Swiss Embassy employee will be quickly sorted out in an absolutely transparent manner. President Rajapaksa says he’s the “victim” in this case due to the reference to a white van (actually a white car). But he has not compromised his independent stance on this matter with wild rhetoric.

The shameless prat fallen JVP (spoken in defense of the Swiss the Janatha Viparyasa Peramuna) has spoken in support of the Swiss allegations and Lal Kantha the booser who has been secluded by the people has justified the Swiss allegations.  Perhaps it may bner the story of a crab in a boiling water!

In the course of all these matters it has come to light that a son of notorious Nimalka Fernando functions as the political advisor to the Swiss Embassy in Colombo.  Nimalka is one of the pseudo Sri Lankan who is a staunch western, tiger terrorist and UNP servile foreign sustained NGO activist who had participated in several UNHRC sessions to promote and defend the LTTE terrorists.  She also made a concerted effort during the Mahinda Rajapaksa era, in association with the infamous Channel 4 to get Sri Lanka declared as a Failed State” by the Tyrant Western Nations (TWNs).  The UNP/TNA government of Ranil Wickrermasinghe rewarded her appointing her as a member of the Committee appointed to investigate the alleged grievances of the so-called missing persons, most of whom are in fact living in foreign countries.  With the son working as the political advisor to the Swiss Embassy it is obviously understandable that these anti-Sri Lankans frustrated and annoyed by the GR victory would obviously have been behind and steered the Swiss Hoax drama to defame and vilify the image of Sri Lanka. 

Many patriot minded Sri Lankans living in the country have urged the President through social media and media conferences not to take this Swiss Hoax lightly as it is the tip of an impending western, terrorist and reactionary plot to obstruct the government to implement its populist programmes, create religious and ethnic disharmony in the country and ultimately to topple the government and implant one of their stooges.  They have urged President Gotabhaya to familiarise with what had happened to Mohammed Mossadeg of Iran, Salvador Allende of Chile in the past and to Saddam Hussain of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya recently and several other leaders. 

Sri Lankan Critics Fear a Crackdown Is Underway, and Some Flee

The above referenced New York Times article written by Maria Abi-Habib and Sameer Yasir and published on Nov. 27, 2019 and updated on Nov. 29, 2019 is purely based on hearsay accounts and devoid of true facts.  It says a Swiss Embassy employee was abducted and asked about asylum applications and investigators were banned from leaving just days after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected. Extracts from the lengthy article and comments appropriately in bold letters are presented below:

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, center, greeting supporters after his swearing-in ceremony in Anuradhapura

Fears of a potential crackdown on critics of the newly returned Rajapaksa political dynasty in Sri Lanka are rising just days after the election, as officials and journalists who investigated the Rajapaksas for human rights abuses and corruption began trying to flee the country.

In a case that raised particular alarm, a Sri Lankan employee of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo was reportedly abducted on Monday by unidentified men and forced to hand over sensitive embassy information. Officials in Colombo said the men forced her to unlock her cellphone data, which contained information about Sri Lankans who have recently sought asylum in Switzerland, and the names of Sri Lankans who aided them as they fled the country because they feared for their safety after Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidency in elections this month.

On the same day, Mr. Rajapaksa imposed a blanket travel ban on more than 700 members of the Sri Lankan police unit that had been investigating the family. And other police officers raided a news outlet critical of the Rajapaksas and forced several journalists to hand their computers over for analysis, in what the police said was an investigation into accusations of hate speech. The news outlet referred was News Hub” a New Zealand website which seldom news about Sri Lanka.

In the abduction case, the diplomatic officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the men held the embassy employee for several hours and then, before releasing her, threatened to kill her if she told anyone. The political columnists of the Island” and Sunday Times” have given detailed accounts of this hoax and these accounts are mentioned above.

It was not clear whether the men were connected to Mr. Rajapaksa or were acting of their own accord as supporters of the popular leader and his political dynasty.

A spokesman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry, Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, told The New York Times, We can confirm that a local employee of the embassy was detained against her will on the street and threatened at length by unidentified men in order to force her to disclose embassy-related information.”

Switzerland regards this incident as a very serious and unacceptable attack,” he said, adding that the Swiss government was demanding an immediate and complete investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

The Rajapaksa family had held power for a decade until 2015, when they were voted out of office. Their last few years in government were marked by frequent abductions of opponents, who were often bundled away into vans by men in civilian clothing, never to be seen again. This was a concocted allegation invented by the former Minister and LTTE megalomaniac leader Prabhakaran’s close ally Mano Ganeshan and this allegation was refuted as a false allegation by the government’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Gayantha Karunatilleke in the Parliament. 

Sandhya Eknaligoda, the wife of Prageeth Eknaligoda, a missing Sri Lankan journalist, outside the United Nations offices in Colombo in 2013.

There is a complaint filed with the CID by a retired General named Ajith Prasanna saying that the journalist was abducted and killed by the former Minister Patali Champika Ranawake for divulging in an article written by him to Lanka E News website detailing the horrendous sex tortures the former Minister had been carrying out against his wife Nirmala.

After a devastating terrorist attack by Islamist extremists killed hundreds of people in April, security concerns were thrust to the forefront of public consciousness, creating an opening for Mr. Rajapaksa and his family to gain in the elections.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defense secretary and his brother Mahinda was president during the crucial final phase of Sri Lanka’s long and deadly civil war. The Rajapaksas received wide credit within Sri Lanka for bringing the war to close..

Shortly after his election victory, President Rajapaksa appointed Mahinda as prime minister, keeping the country’s two most powerful political posts within the family. This is a calculated attempt to misguide the readers.  The election campaign of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP – an alliance of 17 political groups) was carried out promising that Gotabhaya will be President and Mahinda will be the Prime Minister and the voters fully mandated a rule by this combination.

Many diplomats had thought that Mr. Rajapaksa, who had handily won at the polls, would try to reconcile with his opponents. In a statement shortly after his victory, Mr. Rajapaksa had urged peace and unity.

We thought there would be a period of demonstrating benign intent,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the executive director of the Colombo-based advocacy group, the Centre for Policy Alternatives. But this is a situation in which anyone who stands in their way, anyone who is critical of the government or the president, will be seen as the enemy. We are in slow descent into something very frightening.” This person who is a Tamil, and a staunch racist is a leading pro-Western and UNP activist sustained from western funds and has a gang of NGO personnel under him to extend servility to Tamil terrorists and the reactionary UNP.

On Sunday, the president raged against the investigations of him, his family and their allies, dismissing them as politically motivated.

The investigations’ focus was to put those who fought the war, the former navy commander, intelligence officials and me in prison,” he said in a speech to Buddhist monks. They forced officers to say my name and implicate me in investigations.”

That is not justice,” he added. That is not the rule of law.”

One case that may implicate Mr. Gotabaya had been set to begin on Wednesday, but was postponed until next month. It involves the 2010 disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda, a journalist and critic of the Rajapaksas. Government investigators said that a military intelligence unit abducted and likely killed him, and an army lieutenant colonel and six others who served under President Rajapaksa’s command when he was defense secretary have been indicted.  The true account of this matter was mentioned above together with the allegation of former Minister Ranawaka’s role to avenge publication of his sex crimes.

Mr. Eknaligoda’s wife, Sandya Eknaligoda, believes the trial will not go forward, and fears for her safety after a decade of accusing the Rajapaksas of abducting her husband. It was also alleged the former minister Ranawaka has given a large amount of money to Sandya Ekneligoda to continue with her allegations of Rajapaksas so that his involvement will get covered.

The infrastructure that had been built to support the investigations into the Rajapaksas and their allies has swiftly been unraveled over the last week. The Criminal Investigations Department, or C.I.D., which has been spearheading the inquiries, has been gutted, and its powers limited.

The head of the C.I.D. was reassigned last week to a junior position away from the capital, Colombo, officials said. And the lead detective on many of the cases, Nishantha Silva, fled to Switzerland on Sunday. National television channels on Tuesday displayed the photos of other detectives involved in the investigations, accusing them of corruption and treason, after they were stripped of their personal security.

A spokesman for the National Police Commission of Sri Lanka said they would decide in the next few weeks whether the investigations would continue.

Mr. Silva was the lead detective in several investigations into Sri Lanka’s military, when President Rajapaska served as defense secretary.

On Monday, Mr. Rajapaksa ordered a blanket ban on travel out of the country for all 704 C.I.D. officials, a move seen as an attempt to prevent other police officers from fleeing.

Some diplomats said Mr. Rajapaksa may be trying to take stock of the government he just took over. But, they added, they would be watching closely whether the travel ban is eventually lifted or whether the ban leads to the ranks of C.I.D. being purged.

Kamal Gunaratne, Sri Lanka’s newly appointed defense secretary, said Mr. Silva had broken the rules by not seeking approval from the government before leaving to Switzerland. He denied accusations that the new government intended to derail the cases against the Rajapaksas and their associates.

We are not going against anybody or any officer of the C.I.D. We are just following the rule of law,” Mr. Gunaratne said in a telephone interview. This is a democratic country. It is not a military rule, where dissent will be crushed.”

During the civil war, Mr. Gunaratne led a military unit that the United Nationsaccused of conducting summary executions of detained rebels. Mr. Gunaratne has denied the accusations. The western imperialists and the Tamil terrorists are envy of Mr. Gunaratne because it was the Army Division under him that shot and killed the terrorist leader Prabhakaran at Nandikadal, a lagoon area, and thereby put an end to the 30 years of aggressive war.