Category Archives: the imaginary and the real

ACL Ameer Ali, in Colombo Telegraph, March 2025, where  the title reads thus: “Has AKD Disturbed A Hornet Nest?

The disappearance of Inspector General of Police Deshabandu Tennekoon and Sewwandi the woman alleged to have supplied the gun in the murder of an underworld kingpin inside the court premise in Colombo, and similar disappearances previously of high officers in government service are proof of one indisputable fact in the recent history of Sri Lanka. They demonstrate how deeply interpenetrated are the crime world and officialdom in the country’s post-JR open economy or the so-called Dharmista Samaagaya. That openness not only made easier the entry and exit of goods and services and capital and labour but also criminals and contrabands. The market for narcotics and drugs for example, could not have grown so widely in Sri Lanka had it not been for this diabolic relationship.  At least that much could be gleaned from reading between lines Nandana Weeraratne’s, The Criminal History of Ranil Wickremasinghe 1977-1997 (Lanka Books 2024). That relationship between the underworld and officialdom became even more cordial after the civil war when Mahinda Rajapaksa and his clan became unchallenged heroes. Dubai and Qatar became offshore centres of operation for underworld kingpins, and profits made from criminal and illicit businesses were able to escape local tax net and Central Bank controls to find safe havens abroad. Didn’t Panama Papers identify members of Rajapaksa clan safekeeping their financial fortunes in offshore tax havens?

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