(‘The man’s best friend’ does not deserve this cruelty. These dogs have committed
no crimes, yet they are killed painfully in mass in a gas chamber.)
(October 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Colombo residents know the city’s Municipal Council’s street dog hunters catch straying dogs in large numbers and put them to death in a gas chamber managed by the Council.
The dog catchers are experts. Their throws of the noosed ropes will catch dogs precisely with only few fails. Being intelligent animals with five senses, the dogs too have special senses to understand their predator’s mission and they will not put much resistance. Even Richard Burtons noose throwing cowboy films are not so dramatic like the very early morning live dog catching operations of the Colombo municipal workers.Dogs are taken away in vans and kept in the municipal dog compound for three days. This gives the due owners of the dogs chance to reclaim their pets before they are put to death in the gas chamber. During the three days of captivity, the five sensed dogs will not be served even a meatless or marrow-less bone and by the time they are taken to the gas chamber, they are physically weak and would have by then sensed their impending fate.
The dogs that are saved before reaching the gas chamber never behave in the same old way on their return to their masters. They are mentally traumatised and behave erratic.
The dogs catching practices vary from Colombo city to other main towns in Sri Lanka. In the northern Jaffna town, dogs are caught with the metal nooses attached to long sticks. The dogs will be put in the caged push trolley and taken to the Jaffna lagoon where they will be drowned in the sea waters with the trolley. Once they are dead, the carcases are pulled out and the tails are chopped off and taken to the Jaffna Municipal Council by the dog catchers as evidence for payment for their service. Then the dog carcases are put in pyres and reduced to ashes.
Gassing of dogs is something that Sri Lanka has not given up since its colonial past. In Britain there are no dog executioners. Instead, the well regarded ‘Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA)’ plays a laudatory role to protect all the animal including the dogs. Their mission statement states: ‘The Animal Welfare Act of 2006 means we can now save animals from abuse before they suffer.’ A postman who kicked and killed a menacing dog whilst on duty and recently, a woman throwing a cat into a wheelie bin faced/will face court sentences for cruelty to the animals.
Some say dogs in Sri Lanka and the ones in the western countries are different types and such cruel treatment of gassing them is justified. What they fail to understand is how a system has evolved in the western countries to be responsible to rear dogs or any other species affectionately and responsibly is never understood by the Sri Lankans. The system in the West allows responsible behaviour by the masters and this has prevented uncared stray dogs menacing in the open.
One of Lord Buddha’s teaching is: ‘abandon thoughts that have to do with bringing suffering to any conscious being’. Being a state embracing Buddhist way of life in Sri Lanka has still not progressed to bring about statutory, regulatory and practical measures to follow the preaching of Lord Buddha. Instead, the state itself is following the inhuman practise of gassing the dogs against the Buddha dharma. The subject of inhumanely gassing the dogs for over six decades since independence is not a debating issue for the Buddhist hierarchy, the politicians or even the media in Sri Lanka. Such breach of Buddha’s preaching confirms the failures of the state of Sri Lanka to be compassionate and tolerant towards these innocent animals by following the very preaching of Lord Buddha.
Extending from this brutality towards dogs, one has to consider the emerging news about security forces gassing (link1 and link 2) the suspected Tamil Tigers taken into captivity recently. Unable to find the whereabouts of those arrested, the family members of the arrested live in hope that they will be released one day. Some have come to know the fate of the victims, but are unable speak out in fear of retribution from the state.
We have heard of gassing the Jews en masse by the Nazi Germans during Hitler’s regime. This collective inhuman punishment by the human against the human gave birth to the United Nations after the World War II. But the evolvement of the UN has not stopped gassing to death of humans. If the news is evidentially proved, not only Sri Lanka, even the world body UN will remain exposed for shying away from investigating and halting the issue of this inhuman conduct of the Sri Lankan forces at the outset.
Does the UN want disproportionate scale of gassing to take place for the Secretary General of UN to go on a flying visit to shake hands and dine with the President of Sri Lanka to put pressure on him? The UN Secretary General has to make much more progress to show that he is still decisive on the war crimes charges against Sri Lanka and whether he will embark on another mission on the heinous crime of alleged gassing the Tamils by the security forces will be one more testing episode that the world has to witness (External Link).
The idiom, ‘There is no smoke without fire’ must be the yard stick for the UN and the international community to put an end to this evolving gruesome culture of gassing of human in Sri Lanka.
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