Daily News Editorial

A commendable act

03 March 2017

The government should be commended for handing out one of the largest, if not the largest, monetary compensation on behalf of a civilian who had died at the hands of a state organ. The next of kin of each prison inmate killed during the police shooting in the prison breakout on November, 2012 is to receive Rs. 2 million and those of each injured victim Rs.500,000.

True, no value can be attached to a life, a prisoner or otherwise, and it will be small consolation to the relatives and loved ones of the victims. But given the dire circumstances of the families of the prisoners who perished, the substantial compensation indeed would be like a god send to them. These prisoners had their own families, children etc. who obviously were being maintained by illegally earned money such as through drugs and extortion. It is hoped that their children, at least, would be put on the correct path with the aid of the substantial compensation, if not already gone astray themselves. If this could be achieved, the compensation would have been put to productive use and, what is more, would have prevented the progeny of the victims going the way of their fathers and ending up in prison.

It would better if the prison authorities take some measure to ensure that the compensation money is put to right use. Rs. 2 million would no doubt be a mind boggling sum to these folk who belong to the lumpen strata who have never dreamed of setting eyes on such an amount, let alone possessing same. The tendency would be to spend this money on the same nefarious activities engaged in by the departed victim. If so, the money would not only be a waste but also recipe for disaster, in that it would spawn another breed of lawbreakers and perhaps criminals.

The aftermath of the horrendous prisons massacre was laid out in all its gory details that saw adults and children weeping and wailing at the scene.The incident was the blackest episode in the country's prisons history, perhaps second only to the Black July prison massacre that brought international condemnation on the country. Both chapters were closed, with no one brought to justice or held accountable. Both attacks had the makings of having been orchestrated.

In the Black July incident, Sinhala convicts were provided with knives, katties and other blunt weapons to get about their business, that saw a gory ending, with over 50 Tamil inmates butchered to death. Nobody took responsibility or was held accountable. In the recent incident too no heads rolled. On the contrary there were attempts to justify the massacre, with a Senior DIG, close to the Rajapaksas, eagerly giving out a list of the inmates killed, which included the names of notorious criminals, as if to justify the sordid operation. Both episodes are only distant memories today, what with the feeling conveyed to the public that it was good riddance.

The government should strive to get to the bottom of the 2012 prison massacre because there were rumours that were then in circulation that the breakout was stage managed in order to get at some selected inmates who knew too much of the doings of a powerful bureaucrat.

Be that as it may, our prisons need a complete overhaul and badly so. The whole system is corrupt and rotten to the core. It is no secret that there is subterranean world within the prison walls akin to the underworld outside. Prison officers, from top to bottom, too have become an integral part of this subterranean world catering to the needs of selected inmates.

What is therefore needed is wholesale reform. There is talk that our prisons are to be made more congenial correction centres like those in the developed countries. Already, one such cantonment, on these lines, have already been completed in Angonapelessa in the deep south and was slated to have been opened by the President, who however had demurred and instead said he would rather open schools than prisons.

A case against Big Matches? Leading prelate of the Jathika Hela Urumuya and Founder of the Sri Bodhiraja Foundation, the Ven Omalpe Sobitha Thera has taken his campaign to extremes and threatened to go court to halt Big Matches which he claimed was the platform for youth to get inducted to alcohol and tobacco. The Ven. Thera said he would move court against the police and school authorities for not banning Big Matches. It is not clear when the Ven. Thera is planning to file his court case, because, the Big Match season is already in full swing and the Battle of the Maroons, which was the bone of contention, due to the recent clash between groups of students of the two schools, is set to begin tomorrow. Besides courts cannot rule on moral issues and could intervene only if there could be a breach of the peace. Big Matches, though, have come to stay, with even some of our Lord Justices, enthusiastic participants in the fun.