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| Paramilitary leader and Minster Douglas Devanada is finding it hard to steer the wheel. |
It is time that Tamil people must reject the scoundrels like Douglas Devananda. TNA must find ways to exclude Douglas and Karuna likes in any negotiations with the government in order to hold on to some credibility in their dealings. Let them be pandered and be panegyrised by the government to extend its agenda against the minorities.
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(December 28, Jaffna, Sri Lanka Guardian)Under enormous pressure following Wikileaks revelation of his degrading conduct, the Minister and paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda has pleaded innocence over his decades old shameful violent conduct.
In his statement in Tamil, Douglas Devananda has claimed: ‘Neither me nor my party went into politics with the affection for violence, but chose the path of politics to promote the socio-political status of the Tamil speaking people. We entered politics as human rights activists to defend the very precept of right to live of our people.’
He further sates: ‘I and my party openly shook our hands with the government. Some expected us to follow the path of the other organisations that were wrongly involved in human rights violations. Instead, we earned the faith of the people and have progressed to become a massive force to be trusted by Tamil speaking people’.
Confining to these two comments of the paramilitary leader and the Minister Douglas Devananda, there is a need to independently assess his role in the past and at present.
Having earned the patronage of the government and with the enjoyment of the freedom to do anything at his will and his masters mission to allow him enjoy the impunity he and his paramilitary outfit deserve there is no compromise that he had committed heinous crimes and many of them are so secret that no one will ever know the truthful owners of the crimes.
Douglas Devananda is the Maharishi for certain types of crimes against his own people. Having won the heart and mind of the government, he acted like a mafia leader and executed kidnaps, murders, tortures, kidnappings, ransom demands and many other forms of crimes to punish his enemies and to execute the orders of his masters.
His criminality extends further than Sri Lanka and his involvement in the murder in Tamil Nadu in the late 1980’s is still a legal issue in India, which he his attempting to strenuously whitewash.
He aligned with the President Premadasa when he was not even a parliamentarian. He was accorded the status of a Minister and given with all the facilities to run his mafia setup in the heart of Colombo. Gun wielding paramilitary men were seen on the roof tops and mango trees and the police or military will not dare to enter premises to deal with the paramilitary rule of Douglas Devananda in Colombo.
During this period, he acted as a loyal agent, engaging his paramilitary men to spy the Tamils embarking at the Katunayake International Airport. He was linked up with the airport intelligence officials and hours before international flights are landed the passenger lists are passed on to Douglas Devananda to look for LTTE suspects and his opponents. When a person is identified, tip off is given to the Defence Ministry intelligence and the person is taken away from the airport and his fate will be rarely known to anyone.
In situations where physical identity is needed Douglas Devananda’s duly authorised persons or himself personally visit the airport and from far away they will identify the person/s to the intelligence service.
Douglas Devananda was given chit books by the government with the government loo to authorise his persons to go around Colombo and spy the movement of LTTE activists. The chit is like a receipt that gives the details of the person carrying the chit and it will be signed by Devananda. In the event of security forces stopping the Douglas’s intelligence men, the chits will be produced and they will be allowed to go.
Douglas is the first man to introduce the white van kidnap culture in Sri Lanka. His opponents were kidnapped in the daylight in Colombo without any fear. This happened from early 1990’s. This practice became a national tool for the intelligence, mafia and the other paramilitary groups to indulge in human rights violations. All of them practiced this culture without any fear and with the backing of the state.
Douglas Devananda is accused of many murders, but to this date he has not been investigated in any of them and is said to be enjoying the unprecedented exemption from punishment, harm, or recrimination over his conduct.
He is accused of killing his own supporters for expressing dissenting voices. The well known radio announcer K S Raja who joined his group and broadcasting pro-EPDP programs in the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation radio was drowned and killed in the Galleface Green in Colombo in 1992. Sources close to K S Raja confirmed, he was killed following argument with Douglas Devananda.
Killing of Minister Lalith Athulathmudali was attributed to Douglas Devananda. The dead body found at Murugan Road in Wellawatte following the death of Lalith was that of the assassin who was associated with Douglas.
Though Douglas Devananda has denied it, his paramilitary group is said to be strongly behind the murder of the TNA parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj.
The murder of Jaffna journalist of the BBC Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan was carried out by the paramilitary group of Douglas Devananda on November 19th, 2000. The assassin was illegally sent to the United Kingdom soon after the murder and he claimed asylum and is being looked after by the international setup of the EPDP.
Douglas Devanada was able to carve out a region of islets in the north whist the LTTE was active. In fear, government officials and medical staff refused to serve in these islets. Douglas Devananda enjoyed so much power that he had taken medical doctors and officers by coercive means even to the extent of kidnapping them and forcefully taking then to serve in these areas.
The paramilitary leader stresses that he is a political man in his statement. The so-called political man who deeply engaged in the President’s All Party Representative Commission headed by Prof Tisse Vitharane to find a political resolution to the conflict is maintaining dumbfounded silence over the sabotage of the outcome of the commission by the President.
Doulas talks about 13th amendment plus as the way forward for the solution to the conflict and will only campaign amongst his circle of Tamils and his demands will rest there. In front of the President, he is a humble pussycat and will not utter a word even to extend his claim. Even the President has acknowledged that he will only demand ‘Sally’ (Money) whenever he meets him and not the 13 + as he claims.
If one looks at the status quo of the administration of post war north, it is clearly a government engineered Douglas’s paramilitary rule stretching its hold. The provincial office Kachcheri is under his dictates and the Government Agent is a mere puppet singing and dancing to the whims of the EPDP group. EPDP is said to be levying illegal taxes on those using the services of the Kachcheri and also turning the GA Imelda Suumar to a politician without allowing her to do her job independently.
The extra taxation levied reaches the funds of the Douglas’s paramilitary group. In addition to these illegal fund-raising, the Minister also is involved in wide-ranging clandestine businesses. This includes importation and distribution of cement; running of luxury bus service and money laundering activities. His business empire does not come under the remit of the Inland Revenue.
His competitors were systematically eliminated to hold on to his controlling interests. The well known killing of former Hinduism minister (Kerosene) Maheswaran in front of the sanctum sanctorum of a Hindu temple in Colombo is blamed on Douglas and is said to be as a result of business rivalry. Late Maheswaran’s wife Wijayakala who is an MP at present had claimed in the Sri Lanka parliament recently that her husband’s murder was carried out by Douglas.
It is also claimed in some circle that killing of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunga is suspected of being carried out by either one of the paramilitary groups of Doulas Devananda or Karuna.
Douglas Devananda’s paramilitary outfit is forcefully occupying properties in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and even in Colombo. Even their office in Jaffna is the famous Srithar cinema theatre and the gun wilding paramilitary group is occupying this building without even paying rent. According to information, the owners of the theatre have asked the paramilitary group vacate but they are continuing to remain with their coercive tactics.
It is time that Tamil people must reject the scoundrels like Douglas Devananda. TNA must find ways to exclude Douglas and Karuna likes in any negotiations with the government in order to hold on to some credibility in their dealings. Let them be pandered and be panegyrised by the government to extend its agenda against the minorities.
The world has rejected them and also the Diaspora Tamils have disowned them. Unless rejection comes within Sri Lanka, Tamils are expected to face a daunting task in the future.
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