A Climate Of Fear Verging On Hysteria

By Emil van der Poorten -June 30, 2013 

Emil van der Poorten

A short while ago, I documented the attack launched by lorry-loads of goons accompanied by two members of the local police, on Vesak Day no less, on residents of my neighbourhood.

The second chapter of that little saga was when six of those Tamils resident on the informal colony adjacent to the land on which I reside were sentenced to pay fines of, I understand, three thousand rupees each for being inebriated (in their own homes on land they have occupied for a significant amount of time).  While there seemed little doubt that these men were inebriated at the time and place concerned there appeared to be some significance to the fact that not one member of the three lorry-loads of marauders, allegedly from the North Western Province bailiwick of a Cabinet Minister with a known propensity for violence, were charged with any offence whatsoever!  I am sure that the fact that the former were Tamils and the latter Sinhalese had nothing to do with this turn of events!

A Climate of Fear Verging on Hysteria by nelvely