The Island descends to vulgarity

"The crude interpretations that are found in Chandramrema’s ‘theories’ come from a vicious attempt to misinterpret some comment by Sandaya."
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EDITORIAL

(May 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The two-part article by CA Chandraprema on Prageeth Ekeneliyagoda is one of the worst pieces of vulgarity ever published in a newspaper in Sri Lanka. The entire article is one of speculation, which Chandraprema calls ‘theory’, and it is an article written for character assassination and for the purpose of damaging the call for an inquiry into the disappearance of Ekeneliyagoda which has become a political embarrassment of the government of Sri Lanka.

The speculation of Chandraprema is that first abduction of Ekeneliyagoda was a fabrication created with the view to get political asylum. And that the disappearance is self-generated for a political purpose while in fact Ekeneliyagoda has gone into hiding. Both of these speculative stories were conjured up without any factual information to support them.

The only factual information in the article is that Ekeneliyagoda’s wife Sandaya that he, Chandraprema, has been responsible for the release of Ekeneliyagoda the first time. Chandraprema says that this is false and tries to make a big fuss about this to state that Sandaya is engaged in creating fabrications. This is a crude interpretation of what a person in the condition of Sandaya, who is trying to understand for herself this whole affair of a disappearance. In Sri Lanka, there are literally tens of thousands of persons who are in a condition like Sandaya. Even a slight acquaintance with a few of them would easily explain what on some incidents the families of disappeared persons say about the circumstances of disappearances.

Unlike in other crimes, victims of disappearances are in a particular disadvantage, as they are unable to get any kind of information about what has happened to the disappeared loved one. Even in a case of murder, the criminal trial process reveals the details of what has happened. At least the survivors have the revelation of what happened to their loved ones. In a disappearance, the affected family knows nothing. Sometimes they hear about this or that detail and they try and attribute it to some reason or the other. In this instance, Ekanaliyagoda was released after the first abduction and the actual reasons that led to such release are not known to the family. They rely on what someone says about it or they themselves try to think out how that might have happened. In that process of trying to find explanations they may also be wrong. The very experience of a disappearance places the closest relatives in a traumatized position. People who face trauma of that kind have to keep on dealing with all the subtle maneuvers of denials the perpetrators of the disappearance engage in. This experience should be appreciated when dealing with this or that comment they may say about this or that incident relating to the disappearance.

The crude interpretations that are found in Chandraprema’s ‘theories’ come from a vicious attempt to misinterpret some comment by Sandaya.

The rest of the long article is an attempt to create the image of Ekeneliyagoda as an irresponsible leftist who is capable of any kind of falsification for a petty advantage. The obvious purpose of creating that image is to damage the concerns that have been expressed on his behalf. The worst part of this crude speculation is the use of the world ‘pennilessness,’ trying to interpret it as a condition that leads anybody to be engaged in any kind of dishonorable activity. Sri Lanka has millions of penniless persons. Their behavior pattern does not reflect that kind of base behavior. It is not exaggeration to say that base behavior is more attribution to wealth and power than to poverty. That power corrupts and absolute corrupts absolutely is a known that hardly knows any exception. However, for Chandraprema it is in the poor he sees the source of meanness.

The very fact that the Island newspaper has degenerated into the publication of this kind of character assassinations without any kind of factual basis and that persons like CA Chandramrema are considered journalists in this newspaper are clear indicators of the debasement of the editorial policy. Perhaps pleasing the powers that be may be the cause for such debasement.

In a further article, we will deal with Chandraprema’s own factual history to demonstrate where his theories come from.

Related Link: Has madness any limits?