The ghosts of Batalanda, a double-edged sword

By kassapa

If ever there was a case of any publicity not being good publicity, it was former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s interview with the Al Jazeera television network where he seems to have opened a veritable can of worms vis-à-vis the Batalanda Commission report.

Had Wickremesinghe dealt with the question directly and noted that the government of the day did not see it fit to prosecute him for his alleged but unproven misdeeds at Batalanda, he would have most likely got away with minimum damage to his reputation.

Instead, Wickremesinghe took up the arrogant position that “there was no report tabled in Parliament”, very much in the tune with “there is no election and even if there was an election, there is no money”. Those words have now come back to bite him- and bite him hard.

For context, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga established the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on September 21, 1995, to investigate the alleged illegal detention, torture, assassination and disappearances of individuals at the Batalanda Housing Scheme under the purview of the State Fertilizer Manufacturing Corporation.  

The commission was chaired by then Court of Appeal Judge D. Jayawickrama, with High Court Judge N.E. Dissanayake serving as a member. A team of police officers was appointed to assist with the investigation, and the Attorney General’s Department provided legal support, leading evidence.

Respected legal personalities such as current Supreme Court Judge Yasantha Kodagoda and President’s Counsel Sarath Jayamanne were part of this legal team. The commission submitted its report to President Kumaratunga on March 26, 1998 but its recommendations were not implemented.

As for the Batalanda Commission report being tabled in Parliament, Wickremesinghe is technically correct when he says it wasn’t but what he didn’t say was that the report has been a public document for the past twenty-five years, being published as a ‘sessional paper’ by the government in 2000.

Now, even that has changed. Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake tabled the report in Parliament this week. As this has been in the public domain for a quarter of a century, there are no great secrets that have been newly revealed in the document. However, it has generated renewed interest on the entire Batalanda saga with Wickremesinghe in the cross-hairs of his political opponents as a potential target.

While tabling the document, Rathnayake told Parliament that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will be appointing a committee to study the recommendations of the report and, quite possibly, make recommendations of their own about follow-up action, if any. Whether this will be a worthwhile exercise, given that the events in question occurred more than thirty-five years ago, remains to be seen.

Wickremesinghe has responded with a statement of his own, in predictable fashion, noting that the government of the day did not see it fit to pursue action against him at the time and that subsequent governments, of which the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was also a participant, also saw no need to act. How then can the report suddenly become relevant, he asks.

Theoretically, Wickremesinghe has a valid argument. If his chief political rival at the time, Kumaratunga didn’t think it was worthwhile progressing the report’s recommendations to try and remove Wickremesinghe from the political arena, how worthwhile would it be to do so now when Wickremesinghe has all but ended his political career and will be eighty years of age at the time of the next national elections?

There is another consideration that the government must factor in, if they were to pursue the report for further action. As Wickremesinghe has noted, the report also mentions the atrocities committed by the JVP during their violent struggle against the then government in ’88-’89. It must necessarily follow that any action taken on the report must also focus on these aspects as well, to ensure that there is justice to everyone.

Already, parliamentarians such as Dayasiri Jayasekera are calling for investigations not only into Batalanda but also into the numerous killings of well-known and much respected individuals carried out at the behest of the JVP during those dark days such as Gladys Jayawardene and Stanley Wijesundera, to name just two of them.

For decades the JVP tried and failed to shed the heavy baggage of that era which is why voters didn’t trust them enough and didn’t allow them to go above the ‘three per cent’ mark. That only changed in 2024. Trying to discredit Wickremesinghe by rekindling the ghosts of Batalanda might be well and good in terms of targeting the former President, but if the price they have to pay for that is re-inventing their former fearful image, then they are brandishing a double-edged sword.

Already, the Samagi Jana Balavegya (SJB) is also feeling the heat. Party leader Premadasa has reportedly advised his parliamentarians to be cautious about what they say during the debate on Batalanda, scheduled for April 10.

That is only understandable because Premadasa in particular has to tread carefully. On the one hand, he cannot afford to be too critical of Batalanda because those events occurred under his father Ranasinghe Premadasa’s watch. On the other hand, he wouldn’t want to be seen as being supportive of Wickremesinghe either, especially when the latter is being accused of atrocious activities.

Therefore, in a curious turn of events, those who will most benefit from the Batalanda allegations being aired in public will probably be Namal Rajapaksa and his party. Rajapaksa could now wag his finger in all directions- the JVP, Wickremesinghe and his United National Party (UNP) and even the SJB!     

It is therefore questionable as to whether proceeding with the Batalanda saga by allowing a parliamentary debate will serve any purpose. For the government, it may bring out skeletons which it has tried hard to keep confined to its closet. Ranil Wickremesinghe may well end up with some egg on his political face, but that is hardly worth the price the government will have to pay, especially considering that Wickremesinghe is a spent political force now.

The wisdom of letting bygones be bygones has not dawned on the government but at least, the debates will provide political theatre for the long-suffering public.