{"id":86796,"date":"2013-05-14T05:34:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T00:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=86796"},"modified":"2013-05-22T13:10:54","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T07:40:54","slug":"the-cage-by-gordon-weiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cage By Gordon Weiss"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Padraig Colman<\/a><\/span> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Padraig Colman<\/p><\/div>\n

While I was reading the new publication from the International Diaspora Group on counting the dead in Sri Lanka,[i]<\/a> I cast my mind back to what Gordon Weiss had to say on the subject in his book, The Cage<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Bad Writing<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jason Burke[ii]<\/a>, writing in the Literary Review<\/em>, describes this book as a : \u201ccomprehensive, fair and well-written work\u201d. I beg to differ about the well-written bit. It is a good read, but not a good write. As seems to be the custom with contemporary authors in any genre[iii]<\/a>, Weiss provides a lengthy list of acknowledgements to those without whom etc….One of these is \u201cDavid Rampton of the School of Oriental Studies, for his insights into the JVP\u201d. Dr Rampton, or \u201cDave\u201d as he was calling himself when he was trying to persuade writers to boycott the Galle Literary Festival,\u00a0 was gracious (unlike many Sri Lankan academics I could mention) when I made extensive changes to a paper he had submitted for publication by an organisation for whom I acted as consultant\/editor. Dr Rampton\u2019s sentences were interminable and full of jargon. It was quite a struggle for me to bring out the essential inner beauty of his thought.<\/p>\n

Weiss is readable enough but it is a pity that some of those who \u201chelped\u201d did not draw his attention to several examples of inelegant English or lack of clarity.<\/p>\n

I am not sure if it is helpful\u00a0 or logically sound to describe Sri Lanka as \u201cthis endemically violent country\u201d.[iv]<\/a> I will leave it to those with more expertise than I possess in linguistic analysis and Sri Lankan history to argue that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost ominously of all, there is good evidence that at least on some occasions the Tigers fired artillery into their own people\u201d.[v]<\/a> Notice the jarring disjunction between the firm \u201cgood evidence\u201d and the slippery and logically meaningless \u201con at least some occasions\u201d. The way that he expresses it make it seem like a minor peccadillo on the part of the Tigers, perhaps no more than clumsiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, contrary to the ICRC, the very breadth of this mandate makes for inherent contradictions, so that\u00a0 the UN often finds itself\u00a0\u00a0 at loggerheads with itself\u201d.[vi]<\/a> It is that \u201ccontrary to\u201d that buggers up the sentence. I think he means that the UN has a broader mandate than the ICRC.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunger, however, is a great leveller, and erodes at notions of freedom, turning a resistant mood\u201d. [vii]<\/a> What?!<\/p>\n

Navi Pillay, UN Commissioner for Human Rights,\u00a0 is described as \u201can ethnic Indian Tamil of South African origin\u201d. [viii]<\/a>Would it not be better to say \u201cA South African of Indian Tamil origin\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the stubborn impenitence of the Sri Lankan government, and its insistence on cloaking its victory in a Potemkin-like pretence of bloodlessness, a quarter of a million people had witnessed the death and destruction inflicted by both the army and the Tigers\u201d. What does \u201cPotemkin-like\u201d mean in this context? I have seen Eisenstein\u2019s film The Battleship Potemkin<\/em> and I know about Potemkin villages in Catherine the Great\u2019s reign, but what is the relevance here?<\/p>\n

Factual Errors<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In his review on Groundviews<\/em>, Sanjana Hattotuwa, pointed out some errors and even sternly scolded about \u201cirresponsibly written and edited content\u201d.[ix]<\/a> \u00a0Sanjana points out that it was an armour-plated BMW 7 Series that saved Gotabaya\u2019s life, not a Mercedes. When the war ended, there was a \u201cbig, riotous party\u201d in Colombo (and indeed in Badulla) rather than \u201dlittle of the air of celebration\u201d that Weiss claims. Sanjana points out that Weiss gets his Peirises mixed up \u2013 Prof. GL was never Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Some of Weiss\u2019s statements raised an eyebrow with me. \u201cIn what they called Eelam (a Tamil word implying separation) a small portion of the Tamil inhabitants of Sri Lanka began to enjoy the fruits of an independence long denied by the Sri Lankan state, including the right to use their own language\u201d.[x]<\/a> Did Tamils living under Prabakharan in Killinochchi really have a better life than those living in Wellawatte?<\/p>\n

Am I alone in finding Weiss\u2019s use of his Jewish forebears\u2019 victimhood vicarious and somewhat distasteful? Weiss claims that during the Second World War his own grandfather \u201cand dozens of other relatives were killed because of their ethnicity\u201d. He is blas\u00e9 about the LTTE\u2019s racism. Would Weiss be in the appeasement camp had he lived in Europe in the 1930s?<\/p>\n

On page 203 he says the Chinese built a port in Laem Chabang in Myanmar. Laem Chabang is in Thailand not far from Pattaya Beach, where I once went on holiday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn relative terms, and in the course of a long and bloody civil war, the number of civilians killed by terrorist acts attributed to the Tigers was somewhat modest compared with estimates on the overall death toll inflicted on the Tamils\u201d.[xi]<\/a> Discuss. What does \u201cin relative terms\u201d mean? The \u201coverall death toll inflicted on the Tamils\u201d includes, of course, Tamils killed by the tigers. Perhaps he should have clarified that.<\/p>\n

Weiss says on page 65 that Alfred Durayappah, Prabakharan\u2019s first victim, was appointed mayor of Jaffna by the prime minister. He was elected not appointed.<\/p>\n

On page 237, Mano Ganesan, is described as \u201cthe TNA party leader\u201d. I asked Mano about this. \u201cWhat to say? Gordon is a known friend. It is an oversight. No issue. haha. I am comfortably the leader of Democratic People\u2019s Front, the party of the Voiceless, the party which conducts democratic struggles for all the people of all the regions.\u201d [xii]<\/a><\/p>\n

In his survey of Sri Lankan history, Weiss criticises D S Senanayake for settling Sinhalese in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, \u00a0\u201cpart of Tamil majority \u2018dry zone\u2019 as opposed to the Sinhalese majority \u2018wet zone\u2019\u201d.\u00a0 Sinhalese view those areas as the cradle of their\u00a0 ancient civilization rather than part of a Tamil homeland.<\/p>\n

Lack of Expertise<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Sri Lanka, even though I could not bear witness<\/em><\/strong>, I was close enough to the levers of action to believe that they [children] were being wounded and killed in large numbers each day\u201d. My emphasis.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what it says on the tin. The cover blurb says: \u201cGordon Weiss witnessed the conflict at first hand as a UN spokesman in Colombo\u201d.<\/p>\n

The bibliography is both long and deep. If he has actually read all those publications he is a better man than I am. I wonder how he found the time. The notes are also extensive and informative although open to debate in some instances.<\/p>\n

Weiss was not a witness. Like an urban myth or an internet hoax, a story gets passed around and is treated as legal currency. The neologism “churnalism” has been credited to BBC journalist Waseem Zakir who coined the term in 2008. “You get copy coming in on the wires and reporters churn it out, processing stuff and maybe adding the odd local quote.\u201d Stephen Colbert coined the term \u201ctruthiness\u201d – “We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truth \u2013 the truth we want to exist”.<\/p>\n

Praise for Sri Lankan Army<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weiss has good things to say about the Sri Lankan Army. \u201cOn the whole, however, the vast majority of people who escaped seem to have been received with relative\u00a0 restraint and care by the front-line SLA troops who quickly passed them up the line\u00a0 for tea, rice and first aid. The faceless enemy, such a source of terror for the young peasant men and women of\u00a0 southern Sri Lanka who made up\u00a0 the majority of the troops, were suddenly given a human aspect, as thin, bedraggled and women clutching children to their breasts and pleading in a foreign tongue fell at their feet\u201d.[xiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that Weiss cannot say that those who \u201cescaped\u201d were treated with care. It has to have the begrudging modifier \u201crelative\u201d. Relative to what? Relative to the care given by the\u00a0 LTTE from whom they had escaped?<\/p>\n

He repeats similar sentiments later but drops the begrudgery. \u201cDuring the course of research for this book, dozens of Tamils described the Sinhalese as inherently kind and gentle people. The front-line soldiers who received the first civilians as they escaped to government lines, those who guarded them in the camps and the civilian and military doctors who provided vital treatment distinguished themselves most commonly through their mercy and care.\u201d[xiv]<\/a> We will forgive the dangling participle. Only a pedant would point out that Tamils were not doing the research.<\/p>\n

Hang on \u2013 weren\u2019t these internment camps? \u201cIf a civilian survived the crossing , they faced an uncertain future in government internment camps (of the existence of which they were well aware)\u201d.[xv]<\/a> I was tempted to file that under Bad Writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt remains a credit to many of the front-line SLA soldiers that, despite odd cruel exceptions, they so often seem to have made the effort to draw civilians out from the morass of fighting ahead of them in an attempt to save lives. Soldiers yelled out to civilians, left gaps in their lines while they waved white flags to attract people forward and bodily plucked the wounded from foxholes and bunkers. Troops bravely waded into the lagoon under fire to rescue wounded people threading their way out of the battlefield or to help parents with their children, and gave their rations to civilians as they lay in fields, exhausted in their first moments of safety after years of living under the roar and threat of gunfire\u201d.[xvi]<\/a><\/p>\n

Numbers Game<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weiss introduces a caveat. \u201cI have not dealt in close detail \u00a0with the matter of figures of dead and wounded, how they are calculated and how reliable those sources\u00a0 might be. I make the point in the text that it is for others to get closer to that particular particle of truth\u201d. [xvii]<\/a> \u00a0A strange way of putting it. Despite this disclaimer, throughout\u00a0 the book , Weiss\u00a0 repeats the mantra that 10,000 to 40,000 civilians were killed.<\/p>\n

Weiss was and is a major player in the numbers game. When he was\u00a0 working\u00a0 for the UN in Colombo,\u00a0 he went on record as saying the number of civilian casualties was 7,000. This became the official figure quoted by The UN General Secretary\u2019s New York spokesperson,\u00a0 Michelle Monas, who told Inner City Press<\/em> reporter Matthew Lee, \u201cWe have no way of knowing the exact count\u201d. When Weiss left the UN and returned to Australia and began writing this book he increased the figure to 15,000, \u00a0which he then upped to\u00a0 40,000, a figure that a whole range of media outlets, including BBC and NDTV, ran with. Journalists confused the issue by failing to make clear whether information came from \u201can employee of the UN\u201d\u00a0 or\u00a0 \u201ca former employee of the UN\u201d, rather than \u201cthe UN\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom this confusion of information, and despite the prospect that the Tamil Tigers might be forcing the Tamil doctors or the UN staff, to give inflated figures of the dead and wounded, the accumulation of events and casualties seemed consistent\u201d.[xviii]<\/a> Having raised the possibility that figures were inflated, he gives himself licence to inflate further.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom this point on, the death toll could only grow\u201d.[xix]<\/a> Does this mean that more people would be killed or that estimates of the dead would become more inflated? Earlier on the same page, a press release by Navi Pillay is quoted saying that as many as 2,800 civilians \u201cmay have been killed\u201d. Weiss gives this spin: \u201cCritically, the civilian death toll Pillay quoted finally established a baseline that had some kind of official imprimatur and weakened government efforts to confine solid numbers to the realm of speculation and confusion\u201d. Pillay\u2019s statement did not take us out of the realms of speculation because she said \u201cas many as 2,800 may<\/em> have been killed\u201d. That is speculation. What does establishing a \u201cbaseline\u201d mean? Does it mean that because Pillay says \u201cas many as 2,800 may have been killed\u201d that gives Weiss licence to say 10,000 to 4,000 and Frances Harrison and Alan Keenan to say 147,000?<\/p>\n

Gordon Weiss\u2019s lower\u00a0 estimate of 7,000 civilian deaths, made in 2009, was challenged by Sir John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, who stated in New York on 24 March 2009 that this figure could not be verified. In spite of this, Weiss throughout The Cage<\/em> routinely talks of \u201cbetween 10,000 and 40,000\u201d, \u00a0which is meaningless.<\/p>\n

Convoy 11<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his Groundviews<\/em> review, Sanjana Hattotuwa writes that The Cage<\/em> is: \u201cA mind-numbingly harrowing account of violence that supports what the UN Panel of Experts says are credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Weiss takes pains to emphasise that the appalling details are based on reports by two men who each had significant experience in active combat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanjana\u00a0 chastises Weiss for naming names which the Darusman Report withheld: \u201cJustifiable caution over and confidentiality of sources in the UN Panel\u2019s report is ruined by the revelations in The Cage<\/em>, attributed by Weiss to specific individuals.\u00a0..After reading The Cage<\/em>, it is a matter of simple extrapolation that the sources were in fact Col. Khan and Col. Du Toit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rajiva Wijesinha recalls meeting \u201dthe shady South African Chris du Toit\u201d[xx]<\/a>, whom he says was an intelligence officer for the apartheid regime. Weiss also claims that Du Toit had trained and commanded proxy guerrilla forces in the illicit wars fought by South Africa in Angola. Du Toit was most probably involved in the training of Jonas Savimbi\u2019s UNITA guerrilla group who committed horrendous crimes against humanity in Angola.<\/p>\n

Wijesinha questions Du Toit\u2019s method of calculating civilian casualties. \u201cHe said that there were three elements taken into consideration, first the dead bodies … seen by UN staff, secondly reports they received, and thirdly extrapolation. Pressed on the number of those seen by the UN, he said it was something like 39, over the previous month. Given what he then said about the numbers calculated on the other methods, I believe the figure that was being floated around was excessive. The implications of the methods he employed, for speculation that is now treated as gospel by the panel, need to be reviewed in greater detail\u201d.[xxi]<\/a><\/p>\n

Wijesinha continues: \u201cUnder close questioning, he had to admit that, while there had been firing on areas near where he had been sleeping, he could not say with any certainty from which direction the firing had come. He had brought with him large pictures of craters caused by shells, and he took out one and said that was the only shot the direction of which they could be certain of, and that had come from the direction of the LTTE forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN officer who was actually with the convoy was Retired Colonel Harun Khan. He is said to have managed counter-insurgency operations in Bangladesh,[xxii]<\/a> most probably against the Buddhist Chakma hill tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts where horrific crimes against humanity were committed.[xxiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Weiss says Harun Khan took photographs of the carnage, but the only example he provided seems to be questionable. This is what Groundviews<\/em> said: \u201cThe problem is that this photo, part of what Weiss claims is \u2018many other images of the wounded and dead from these days in late January 2009\u2019<\/strong> taken by Col. Harun was actually taken 22nd August<\/strong> 2008 at 5.08pm, and not in late January 2009.<\/strong> This emphatically does not help any advocacy, domestic and international, to hold those responsible for alleged war crimes accountable for their actions and calls for independent investigations to determine the veracity of these very serious allegations. It is possible that Weiss was careless, and posted the wrong photograph. It is possible he and the UN, as we noted in our review of his tome, have the originals of these images, where similar scrutiny under any photo editing programme can very easily determine whether they are in fact from late January or earlier.\u201d[xxiv]<\/a><\/p>\n

I do not know the truth of what happened but there is a lot of churnalism here. Weiss\u2019s account cannot \u201csupport\u201d the Panel\u2019s view because he was not there and they were not there. I gather from Weiss\u2019s account that Du Toit was not with the convoy either but was back in Colombo.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weiss quotes Timothy Garton Ash: \u201cLiberal internationalism… means developing norms and rules by which most states will abide, preferably made explicit in international law and sustained by international organisations. It posits some basic rights that belong to every human being on this planet…It seeks to\u00a0 build peace between nations on these foundations\u201d.<\/p>\n

I am a great admirer of Timothy Garton Ash. I have even set up a Google alert so that I can read all of his articles. Let us not forget, however, that he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the \u201cCoalition of the Willing\u201d. Remind me what the reason for that invasion was. First of all, Iraq was somehow behind 9\/11; then Saddam had WMD; when those excuses proved spurious the invasion was retrospectively justified as being about\u00a0 \u201cbasic rights that belong to every human being on this planet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Weiss puts his own spin on this: \u201cThe choice between strategies when fighting\u00a0 an insurgency is relatively straightforward\u201d. There\u2019s that word again; relative to what? Weiss believes that liberal democracies choose the \u201chearts and minds\u201d strategy. I am reminded of General Westmoreland\u2019s maxim: \u201cGrab \u2019em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow\u201d. See how the liberal democracy that is the United States conducted \u201ccounterinsurgency\u201d in Vietnam[xxv]<\/a>. Weiss sermonises: \u201cCounterinsurgencies are fought by liberal democracies in places like Afghanistan. Their leaders and decision makers understand that they are ultimately answerable to constituencies that might, like the French in the Algerian war of independence, withdraw support if they become too murderous\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite praising the conduct of most SLA soldiers, Weiss in the end accuses the winning side of exceptional brutality, not fitting in with his sense of how liberal democracies would fight insurgency.\u00a0 As Sanjana Hattotuwa said in his review: \u201cWeiss offers no larger analysis of this tragic fragmentation between spontaneous compassion and calculated mass scale atrocity, and its effects on the civilians caught in direct or cross-fire. \u201c<\/p>\n

Has the book had an influence? It generated great interest in foreign embassies in Colombo. As Sanjana told me: \u201cSeveral embassies had block booked 20 \u2013 30 copies of the book, which resulted in higher than planned demand. This may have given rise to the perception at the time the book was hard to get, which it was, but not because of heavy handed Govt censorship.\u201d[xxvi]<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Burke is generally positive about The Cage<\/em> but finds something lacking in the coverage of President Rajapaksa: \u201cHis various political victories are not the result of electoral fraud. The end of the war in Sri Lanka has sparked an economic boom that is forecast to double the wealth of Sri Lankans – if not of northern or plantation Tamils – within a few years and possibly triple it within a decade as foreign investment and tourists flow in. If that is so, his continued rule seems assured.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[i]<\/a> http:\/\/www.satp.org\/satporgtp\/countries\/shrilanka\/document\/TheNG.pdf<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ii]<\/a> http:\/\/www.literaryreview.co.uk\/burke_06_11.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[iii]<\/a> http:\/\/pcolman.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/01\/peter-grimsdale-perfect-night-or-perfect-fright\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[iv]<\/a> The Cage pxx<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[v]<\/a> The Cage p109<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[vi]<\/a> The Cage p139<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[vii]<\/a> The Cage p191<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[viii]<\/a> The Cage p205<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ix]<\/a> http:\/\/groundviews.org\/2011\/05\/24\/a-review-of-the-cage-the-fight-for-sri-lankan-the-last-days-of-the-tamil-tigers\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[x]<\/a> The Cage p8<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xi]<\/a> The Cage p81<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xii]<\/a> Personal communication via Facebook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xiii]<\/a> The Cage p181[xiii]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xiv]<\/a> The Cage p186<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xv]<\/a> The Cage p209<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xvi]<\/a> The Cage p216<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xvii]<\/a> The Cage pxxvii<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xviii]<\/a> The Cage p135<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xix]<\/a> The Cage p205<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xx]<\/a> http:\/\/www.thesundayleader.lk\/2011\/04\/24\/bad-faith\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxi]<\/a> http:\/\/rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com\/2011\/05\/09\/the-darusman-panel-a-review-of-the-evidence-in-the-context-of-past-realities-and-future-plans\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxii]<\/a> http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2011\/07\/10\/book-review-%E2%80%93-the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxiii]<\/a> http:\/\/www.angelfire.com\/ab\/jumma\/religion.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxiv]<\/a> http:\/\/groundviews.org\/2011\/07\/02\/photographic-evidence-of-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka-or-not\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxv]<\/a> http:\/\/pcolman.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/21\/deadly-accountancy-part-1\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xxvi]<\/a> http:\/\/groundviews.org\/2011\/05\/24\/a-review-of-the-cage-the-fight-for-sri-lankan-the-last-days-of-the-tamil-tigers\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":65003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cage By Gordon Weiss - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cage By Gordon Weiss - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-14T00:04:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-22T07:40:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Padraig-Colman-Colombo-Telegraph.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2488\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"3302\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"17 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-cage-by-gordon-weiss\/\",\"name\":\"The Cage By Gordon Weiss - 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