Browsing by Author "Chandrasoma, R."

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Opinion Survey on Heroin Trafficking in Sri Lanka
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Chandrasoma, R.; Semamayake, B.; Bandra, K.S.
Drug trafficking and drug abuse is one of the main causes of loss of well-being in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a transit country for heroin trafficking. Thus, the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB) conducted an opinion survey on heroin trafficking in Sri Lanka. The aim of the study was to obtain a wider view of the possible scenarios related to illicit drug trafficking in the country. A non-probable sample of law enforcement officers and the residents of the NDDCB- Treatment centre, was interviewed during February 2005. More than 90% of the sample revealed that most of heroin was smuggled to the country from India and Pakistan. Heroin from India is mainly smuggles via South India to Western coast of Sri Lanka using fishing boats. Pakistanis smuggled heroin mostly by air. In addition to heroin, hashish, opium, ecstasy and morphine also smuggled to Sri Lanka in lesser quantities. There is a network of Sri Lankan heroin business. Most of the interviewees’ opinion was that politicians, underworld gangs and L.T.T.E. senior business magnates and Muslims are involved in the business. The majority of those live in Colombo and its suburbs. The law enforcement agencies had identified three grades of heroin businessmen as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and categorized then into six stages.19 persons belong to grade ‘A’ .The ringleaders are in the first stage and had not seen or touched heroin. Heroin sellers and traffickers have connection with the buyers in different ways depending on the quantity of heroin buying and selling. Unloaded heroin in Colombo city had taken to safe houses and distributed to various places of the country by using luxury vehicles, three wheelers and fish transport lorries. The supply generally decreases in June, August and increases in March, April, and May. The study reveals that, there was no rational estimation of the number of heroin traffickers as well as the quantity of heroin trafficked to Sri Lanka. Therefore, all interviewees mentioned the necessity of reorganized, effective illicit drug control scheme for the country.
Portuguese Expansion - Prime Motives
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Chandrasoma, R.
In Sri Lanka, the Portuguese strategy evolved over the years. At first the motive may have been innocuously commercial and it can be argued with some factual backing that the marauding Arabs were held back by the advent of European imperial power in South Asia. The Sinhala nation was in an enfeebled and spiritless state and the cruel and crafty Portuguese quickly realized that there was territory for the taking with little expenditure of manpower. It is good to recall at this point that the 16th and subsequent centuries (we are speaking of the European nations) were marked by unparalleled brutality – both secular and ecclesiastical. Killing of opponents was a trifling matter. Killing the heathen was regarded as a religious duty in an age when human beings had no rights if they refused to conform. In such an age, the Portuguese held the first place in the league table for cruelty and it is our historic misfortune that they crossed our shores at a time of declining fortunes for the people of this ancient land. They had a reputation for the sadistic delight they took in torturing their victims – both human and animal. They – like their compatriots in the West – were experts in perfidy, double-dealing and lying when negotiating with weak native rulers. Is it a great surprise when it turned out that the ‘traders and friends’ were really loathsome killers of our people and exterminators of our civilization? That the Portuguese should never be pardoned for the ravaging of our towns, the destruction of our temples, the brutal conversion of an unsophisticated citizenry and the heartless massacre of innocents in the name of a God and Sovereign that the people of this Island had neither heard of or cared for is unarguable. However, the blame must be rightly apportioned. The lack of a fighting spirit among the Sinhala people, the adulation of the Fair-Skinned European, the infighting and unprincipled clinging to power of those who called themselves the leaders of the Sinhala nation and the gross neglect of the rights of the ordinary people made Sri Lanka a weak and vacillant nation-state at the mercy of ruthless predators. Isolated acts of heroism have little meaning when cowardice and pacifism are the reigning motifs in an economically weak and forlorn land – a land then and now without friends. The Portuguese battered on the door when the ancient religion (Buddhism) was at a low ebb and it is a mere freak of history that we escaped the bleak stranglehold of Catholicism.