By Rajasinghe Bandara –

It is always better to wait to comment until the dust settles in the aftermath of a bloodshed.  On the news channels, I watched Negombo prison riots from London, and the tragic deaths of the prisoners and the prison officers who were killed during the riots. 10 prison officials and 21 prisoners died ​in the two days of fighting between two groups of inmates at the prison. I condemn the killing of the prison officers and the prisoners in the strongest possible terms. I saw the cry, anger and emotions of the devastated relatives of the prisoners and prison officers.  Some mainstream media in Sri Lanka always exaggerate the cruelty of the prisoners while ignoring the circumstances of the ill-fated  prisoners and their poor relatives.  The government came to power promising to eradicate poverty but their priority became eradicating the drugs.  By launching the aggressive war on drugs, the government sent a skyrocketing number of prisoners to the prisons without a  plan to accommodate them.  They did not see the consequence of sending thousands of suspects to the overcrowded prisons. There were complaints and reports about how some police officers had abused their power to arrest and detain some individuals on false drug charges 

Did the government give the true figure of the current prisoner population?  It is reported to be 41000, but in their NPP election manifesto (2024) it said the total number of prisoners in 2022 was 138,581. How did the number drop to nearly 100,000?  Did the NPP exaggerate the true figure for political gains? 

https://www.scribd.com/document/766722056/NPP-Presidential-Election-Manifesto-2024

(see page 115-116)

Negombo Prison had capacity for about 650 inmates, but held around 2,400.  

In the National People’s Power (NPP) election manifesto, ‘A Thriving Nation, A beautiful life’, it recognises the increase in the remand prisoner population is a major cause of prison overcrowding due to the long time it takes to complete the legal proceedings. This is a crystal clear example that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was well aware of the critical issues in the prisons and the judicial system, and giving effective solutions for them must have been a priority of his government.  But neither the judicial system nor prison services have been improved as they promised. Legal proceedings suffer from delays due to severe court backlogs.  The vast majority of people waiting for justice suffer due to the delays in the courts. Even under the current government Sri Lankan courts have some of the worst backlogs and delays from magistrate courts to the supreme court.  

The following attractive pledges were made in the (NPP) manifesto to improve the conditions of the prisons and the life of the prisoners;

* Preventing all forms of torture inside prisons

* Analysing the nature, mental status and other qualities of the prisoners and categorizing and placing of prisoners accordingly.

* Expanding the facilities within the prisons, including special facilities according to international standards.

* Ensuring the quality of food given to the prisoners. (pages 115-116)

But according to the reports and the prisoners’ experience, appalling conditions in the prisons had gone from bad to worse since the NPP government came to power. 

It is reported that the prison officers had been killed brutally by the prisoners.  This shows the exploded anger of the prisoners and the mental status of them. Why did the government let the prison authorities neglect the suffering of the prisoners for such a long time? 

President Anura Dissanayake has been in power since 2024 and the government had sufficient time to address the issues, at least the major issues. Had he taken genuine interest to resolve the critical issues, in consultations with the prisoners and the relevant parties, this tragedy would have been prevented.  Although the minister of Justice Harsana Nanayakkara has taken responsibility for the tragedy, President Anura Kumara himself is also responsible for the bloodshed, as the minister of defence.  The government always boasts about the ministers and advisors in the hierarchy with so many professors.  Did they advise the president and the minister/s about the remedies for the prisons’ situations? 

Does Anura Kumara Disanayake really listen to the voice of the people?  Do the ministers listen to the voice of the people? They have very good reasons to doubt it.  I have my own experience.  The sycophants around the president have made him inaccessible to the ordinary public, like a king.  They always filter the actual voice of the people according to their assumptions of what he should hear. Although the sycophants misled him, Anura Kumara should have been sensitive to the media.  Some of our great kings, in the history, had disguised themself and gone from village to village to listen to the actual voice of the people. As an educator and freelance journalist I published many articles to educate the government to address the critical national issues proposing viable solutions to them such as human-elephant conflict, deforestation, human-monkey conflict and invasive foreign fish which destroyed the biodiversity in our fresh water lakes, with my international experience. But many issues still remain unsolved because of lack of political will.  For example, deforestation continues largely aggravating the human elephant conflict; invasive fish released to the freshwater lakes, by The National Aquaculture Development Authority (NAQDA), continue to destroy the biodiversity in our freshwater lakes including traditional fish such as ‘Lula’, lotus, and the waterweed.   Did the government take serious interest in the disasters?

Anura Kumara is very clever at delivering ‘fairy tale speeches’ in public stages about ‘the prosperity his government brings to the citizens’.   Do people really believe him as they did in the past?  A chief incumbent of a famous temple told me ‘Many people now call him ‘King Chethiya-Chethiya Rajjuruvo’, the king had a reputation as a liar.  The unrest among the farmers was created by importing massive quantities of rice from India and China when Sri Lanka had more than enough stocks of paddy to meet the needs of the rice consumers. ‘Recent farmer unrest in Sri Lanka was heavily exacerbated when over 160,000 tonnes of imported Indian and Chinese rice flooded the domestic market immediately before the local harvesting season, crashing paddy prices.’ 

Last week, by launching a Japan-backed safe drinking water project in Anuradhapura President Anura Kumara said ‘We imported rice for foreign tourists, they don’t like to eat Sri Lankan rice.’  This is a totally misleading picture.  When tourists go to any country they like to enjoy the traditional foods of the country including rice and curries, so do they in Sri Lanka.   

The government has clearly failed to deliver its promises yet, as they pledged.  The paddy farmers’ protests against the government demanding a reasonable price for paddy, demonstrate widespread anger and the frustration of the farming community. The harsh blows on the faces of the effigies of the minister Lal Kantha and Deputy Minister Namal Karunarathna demonstrate the frustration of the farmers. The islandwide outbreak of Dengue is another example of failure of the government’s ‘Clean Sri Lanka.’ programme, even the Beira Lake next to the presidential secretariat is not clean. People travelling on the trains can feel the bad smell of the filthy water.    The controlled price for rice is also not working.  Although the maximum retail price (mrp) of rice per kilo is Rs260, people always have to pay more than Rs.360 per kilo for good quality rice such as Araliya, Amul and Ponni samba. Araliya samba is widely sold in the black market at around Rs.400 per kilo. One of the aims of the government’s digitalisation programme was to improve efficiency in the government departments and minimise delays in serving the public.  However, when you send emails to government officials including to the permanent secretaries, they never bother to even acknowledge the receipt of the email thus forcing the public to come to their offices physically if they need to.  If you sent an email to the president’s office or prime minister’s office, the waiting time to get a response could be 6 months.  In most cases there are no solutions.  

One of the deadliest prison riots in our history is a wakeup call for the authorities, to take immediate action about the appalling conditions in the sardine packed prisons.  After the riots, the minister of Justice Harsana Nanayakkara announced that  Bogambara Prison would be used to accommodate the prisoners.  It is a wise decision although some politicians and NGOs are critical about the location next to The temple of tooth relic.  As it was a purpose built colonial prison and the 2nd largest prison, it can be improved and developed within a short period of time to accommodate more than 2000 inmates.   In my view it should be preserved and continued as a prison for the benefit of the prisoners. The critics should understand the priorities. Since the closure of the prison in 2014, the conditions of the buildings have deteriorated.  The prison will help to remind the colonial legacy to our citizens and the tourists.