On The Island news paper’s theories regarding Prageeth

"Instead it was all done in the Island Newspaper using the title of a deputy editor, another title which he has acquired which he has aquired through the story about Daya Pathirana"

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EDITORIAL

(May 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Now that the government faces such embarrassment regarding the disaaperance of Prageeth Ekneliyagoda , it is making certain persons from the governments propaganda unit to come out, not with any factual information about the incident but only some “theories.”

This is just about as ridiculous as it can get. Faced with this embarrassment and being without any defence against the accusations levelled against itk, the government is trying to create a theory instead of any factual information about what might have happened regarding this incident. C.A. Chandraprema's article is in that direction.

He creates a theory that he says that he has had for a long time and for reasons of his own has kept to himself until now. In his theory he says that the disapperarence is a fabrication done by Eknaliagoda himself and that in fact he is in hiding. It is, in fact, not a theory but a hypothesis.

To come to the stage of being a theory some kind of evidence should be adduced to support the hypothesis. Unfortunately his hypothesis that Eknaliagoda is in hiding is not an original hypothesis. This was put forward by the state media spokesman some months ago.

Whatever be the case, as this hypothesis is attributed to Chandraprema's own imagination we could also place before him something from Chandraprema himself to explain his way of thinking.


It is said that there was a student leader called Daya Pathirana.. It is also said that Dayapathirana was assassinated by the JVP. Now to go by the kind of theory that C.A. Chandraprema is trying to speculate, one may ask , is this Daya Pathirana strory a factual information, or is it some king of imaginary story?



It is possible that C.A. Chandraprema and K.L. Dharmasiri who were close associates could have fabricated some kind of story of the assassination of Daya Pathirana.. Did they, for example, carrying out this assassination themselves or perhaps got someone else to do it in order to put the blame on the JVP.

Now someone may ask, as in the case of Prageeth Eknaliagoda's incident, what is the advantage? C.A. Chandraprema says that Eknaliagoda would have the advantage of taking asylum in another country by creating the fabrication that he had been abducted. Or that there are people associated with Sarath Fonseka's election campaign that may have created the story to gain some advantage.

In that same manner it can be argued that creating the story about Daya Pathirana would have many advantages. C.A. Chandraprema who was penniless at the time .Many people knowthat C.A. Chandraprema was also penniless at the time and they have helped him financially.. took What advantage could this Pathirana have been to him? Well, it created the pretext that he was very loyal friends bound by a blood link in order to be in a struggle against the JVP.

Therefore that gave him closer access to security agencies and to men like the SSP Douglas Peiris. This former police officer was recently convicted of causing disappearance for five years rigourous imprisonment. He has filed an appeal. During his time as SSP many such disappearances took place. It also in the course of time brought him to closer links with the former deputy minister Mr. Ranjan Wijeratne who is notorious as being the mastermind of the operation of the forced disappearances in the country. This was time of operations of groups like PRA and BLACK CATS and the like.

This brought the penniless Chandraprema into a lot of fortune. He received information from the security agencies which he transformed into writing and acquired the reputation of being some kind of a journalist. This led to other advantages and also some form of credentials that allowed him to go abroad for his education. We are now speculating along the same lines as Chandraprema does on Eknaliagoda.

We are not saying that any of these things are facts. What we are saying is, to use Chandraprema's words, “theories.” So if there is a liberty to speculate on the life of Prageeth Eknaliagoda there is no reasons to limit our imagination to develop other theories regarding the originator of such stories, C.A. Chandraprema.

By this whole affair he has created some kind of image as a political analyst and obtained advantages within the political establishment. Even the presentation of the fabricated story of what happened to Prageeth Eknaliagoda would also bring him certain advantages.

So, is there anything to disprove any of these theories?

He say that Prageeth Eknaliagoda is capable of all this and that he himself collaborated with Eknaliagoda on some tricks in the past and that is why he says he knows that the man is capable of such a fabrication; hence the entire mythology of Tiapataran and all that.

The problem is that this kind of theorising is being done in a public newspaper. If it had been done in a bar or pub as some kind of naughty game it might be understandable. If it happened in a lunatic asylum yjat would have been quite appropriate.

Instead it was all done in the Island Newspaper using the title of a deputy editor, another title which he has acquired which he has aquired through the story about Daya Pathirana.

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