The Constitution Undermined: By The TNA Manifesto Or The Sex Trade In Children?
By Rajah S. Rajasingham -September 18, 2013
Douglas Devananda - Leader EPDP
In a most damaging story affecting the already poor government fortunes on the eve of the Provincial Council elections, Colombo Telegraph reported that the then US ambassador Robert Blake had wired Washington in 2007 that “[Tamil] children are sold into slavery, usually boys to work camps and girls to prostitution rings, through EPDP’s networks in India and Malaysia.”
Stephen Sunthararaj, an employee of World Vision, a California-based “Evangelical Christian Humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice,” had maintained that children are often smuggled out of the country with the help of a corrupt Customs and Immigration official at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo.”
The then Government Agent for Jaffna, K. Ganesh, who was close to the EPDP and the government, had confirmed the story to the US Embassy saying that young women were taken and forced to have sex with between five and ten soldiers a night. For his efforts, Stephen Sunthararaj was first arrested and when his release was ordered by court, white-vanned as he walked out in freedom and disappeared.
Nothing could be worse for the government than this news just before elections on September 21, 2013.
When the Jaffna-based Uthayan had reported on this story some time ago, Douglas Devananda, the EPDP leader implicated in this story, had reacted in feigned anger and filed a case for defamation for Rs. 1000 million against Uthayan, one of over 10 cases he has filed to use the courts to suppress news of his doings.
Unfortunately for Devananda, the court date came up on Sept. 16, five days before polls. Devananda wanted to avoid his own case because the timing in terms of the elections would be bad and give an excuse for further news reports on his activities. So he absented himself from court. Read More
