Wednesday, October 14, 2015

We Shall Grow Coconut and Pineapple.........................

Just after the introducing television to Sri Lanka  in early 80 's  most of houses had only black and white televisions. Not in the main cities, but in small villages there were only few televisions. The whole neighborhood gathers around that particular home the everyone watched television together. There were not much television channels so everyone happy with the same programme. There were no arguments over tv channels. The house owners making tea, people eat beetle leaves, it’s not only an experience of watching television, it was a social event. Sometimes there was bad reception.to everyone helps to fix the antenna which always fixed into a bamboo tree.


But things are drastically changed now. We have television in almost every house. Sometimes we have more than a television per houses. And we have over 30 television channels plus cable channels and satellite antennas. Even with a house with only four members there is conflict over channels, since we have so much to choose we are going our own ways. I ll tell you a good story, I had a cousin brother after he got married the first thing he did was bought a television and made their bed room into a television room, Because the sister in law had bitter arguments over tv channels with his father in-law.so my cousin brother bought this  their own television. But the problem did not solve as he expected .little while later new couple started fighting over the television channel. But I do remember in this same house about twenty years ago all of us gather in front   of the small black and white television and watched cartoons very happily. Now it an only a good old memory.

Out of all my childhood television experiences I do remember one tele drama. Even those days tele drams were not common as today. One episode for one week. These tele dramas I cannot remember the name but it was about drug addicted son and his wealthy family. Drugs were supplied to the son by father’s close associate.in the end it came to know father himself was a drug dealer  and his son indirectly become a victim of the process. Most of the actors in the teledrama were film actors. During that time there were not this much actors everywhere, the role of the drug addicted son was done by Kamal Addararachchi, though he was subjected to many controversies I have to admit he is good actor. He was in his early twenties while he did this role.People started believing he  is really drug addicted one after watching the tele drama, this was in late 80’s and drug addiction  just started to begin.

Most of infamous drug smugglers to the Sri Lanka had direct links with Pakistan also majority of them were Muslims May be this is different in western part of the  world  where it has notable drug lords such as  George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder Rivas or  Frank Lucas none of them linked  with Pakistan or Muslims. But In Sri lanka Colombian Cocaine is not very common drug. Instead of that we have Heroin from Afghanistan known as “Afghan Kush Kush”. 


But this smuggling drugs did not happened so openly. They did very primary methods of smuggling drugs such as swallowing, body packing, hiding the goods in luggage, or clothes, Sometimes the goods are hidden in the bag or vehicle of an innocent person, who does not know about the contraband, for the purpose of retrieving the goods elsewhere. And it came to Sri Lanka in really small quantities. Usage of drugs mainly with the urban youths, it has not spreading into the villages. Most cases school children were targeted in the city. There were very unfortunate stories  about boys who got through  grade 5 scholarship exam  came to leading schools in Colombo and ended up  using drugs.

The real stories like” Basketball diaries” actually happened  with some school children.Also we never had drug dealers who keep it as a  controlled business what we saw in “Godfather “Young school  students were the main victim.Apart from that there was a higher percentage of drug use on the coastal belt of southern part of the Sri Lanka. Because of the Civil war the northern part coastal belt as well the youths not been widely open to the tourism. Around Hikkaduwa the most popular beach town in Sri Lanka for decades linked with drugs .it’s more like a beach culture.

The drug business is not an effort   of single, Like rest of the world even in Sri lanka this is very much linked with support of the police, crooked politicians and  very clever lawyers  etc.
But in the past  ten years our country became a center for the drugs .My home town Ingiriya which is over 60 km from Colombo there were no people who were addicted to drugs, but in past ten years this became very common in the Ingiriya area.it started with sand miners oh River Kālu. Then spared into the school children.
After the end of the Sri Lankan civil war drugs were widely available in the northern part of the country.

About Jaffna peninsulas was always famous for its educated, ambitious hardworking youths, but after 30 years of civil war the old Jaffna peninsula turned into an epic center for drugs.

Well how this happened? Who is responsible for this disaster? As Sri Lankans we are partially responsible for what have made into this country. We ll we can scold our government and politicians but we are the people who elected them. We had a  prime mister who had   lunch with person charged with drug dealing. The same prime minister later told what the wrong of having lunch with a friend is. Yes the prime minister is correct there is no fault of having lunch with a friend, but problem is the friend is charged for smuggling drugs to Sri Lanka. Meanwhile the same prime minister’s son got elected to parliament and the good government’s offers a minister post. Well this is Sri Lanka.

But yesterday Colombo High Court Judge Preethi Padman Surasena sentenced Gampola Vidanage Samantha Kumara alias Wele Suda to death over possession of and dealing in heroin. This is only for 7.9 grams in 2007.but same person has 57 charges and other court process not yet been finished.As per the police this person is responsible of supplying 60%   drugs in Sri Lanka. During the 19 years of his activated his time before he was captured in Pakistan he has send 10000milion worth drugs to Sri Lanka. We Sri Lankans easily could have made bricks out of his drugs.

But Wele Suda appealed and said “When I came to the Court, the CID took me away saying they needed to obtain a statement from me. 80g heroin were put on me and then I was produced in Court. I was not aware of anything. That is all I have to say my Lord." To the judge. He is innocence his own ways.
But the Police had traced assets worth Rs 185 million belonging to Samantha Kumara alias Wele Suda,
As per the list of property  a two-stored Bungalow at Wijerama Road, Colombo 7, a house at the  Royal Park housing complex, Rajagiriya, two houses in the apartment complex at Bagatalle Road, Colpetty, a house at Palanwatte, Pannipitiya, a house at Obawatte, Madiwela, a land 16 perches in extent at Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 7, a 15-perch block of land at Nedimala, Dehiwala, a Prado vehicle, a BMW vehicle, 3001 grams of gold and Rs 18.2 million in banks.
In addition, the police team had raided the ‘heroin headquarters’ of Wele Suda located in a super luxury multistoried residential complex at Sri Jayewardenepura and seized 901 grams heroin, as well as Rs 9,071,680 in cash.
But Wele Suda said this all he earned by his coconut and pineapple cultivation which was given from his father. If it is that much profitable business I’m going to stop practicing architecture, we should grow coconut and pineapple.this clever planter but thinking his children should not follow the same sending to the international schools like most of other leading business men. Yet  again  this is just only one piece of a huge chain, what about the others?