Deciphering the Enemy List of Gota

I love lists of all kinds. Thus, it is not unusual that I had a treat that The Honorable Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Secretary for the Ministry of Defence in Sri Lanka, under his capacity as the Competent Authority, released his ‘Enemy List’ on March 20^th. The description about this particular list appears only in one sentence. It was as follows:

“The List of designated persons, groups and entities referred to in sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph (4) of the United Nations Regulations No.1 of 2012 published in the Gazette Extraordinary No. 1758/19 of May 15, 2012, shall be as specified in the Schedule hereto.” [words in italics, are as in the original].

Government Notifications (Extraordinary) Mar 21 2014

The first page of this Extraordinary Gazette (presented in English) offered me one impression, that Gota suffers from Tamilphobia, despite the pretensions of his Presidential sibling, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Though Tamil has been designated as one of the national languages in Sri Lanka, the title of this gazette was written only in Sinhala and English. What happened to the Tamil language?

Anyone in this world is entitled to prepare his or her enemy list. The top bananas in any sort of government (democratic, nepocratic, dictatorial, communist) do have one.  It is my second impression that Gota has beaten the wily Richard Nixon outright in counting his enemies. Nixon’s original enemy list had only 20 names, [source: New York Times, June 28, 1973], among whom the inimitable Paul Newman was listed at number 19!  But look at Gota’s enemy list.  He has counted 424 individuals.  This is more than 20 times that of Nixon’s enemy list.  I have studied the list presented on page 2A, as Schedule Two Individuals.  Initially, I thought the list is alphabetical by name of individual, but, it’s not so.  Names of individuals are listed under the countries (in alphabetical order!).  The numbering system is as follows:  IN/CA/2013/01 Name of individual.

Australia numbers 01-04.
Belgium numbers 05-08.
Canada numbers 09-57.
Denmark numbers 58-83.
Finland number 84.
France numbers 85-127
Germany numbers 128-174
India numbers 175-206
Italy numbers 207-231
Malaysia numbers 232-241
Netherlands numbers 242-272
New Zealand numbers 273-274
Norway numbers 275-288
Sri Lanka numbers 289-290
Sweden numbers 291-293
Switzerland numbers 294-302
Thailand numbers 303-306
UK numbers 307-332
USA number 333
Then, those who are listed in the Interpol Red Notice are numbered from 334-366.  Then the numbering system (from number 367 to 424) is arranged rather haphazardly, with a mixture of those living in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA and Sri Lanka.

Those purported to be “living in Sri Lanka” are listed in numbers 397 to 411.  For all individuals (except one, listed as number397) even their Sri Lankan addresses are provided.  Ain’t this a joke?!  Either the listed addresses are fake, or police couldn’t locate them at the ‘given addresses’.  Or, in a worst case scenario, some of these individuals have been already dispatched to the ‘never-to-return-land’!

A respectable name among Eelam Tamils, Mr. Nadesan Satyendra (spelt as Nadesan Sathyendra) is listed as number IN/CA/2013/ 329.  His date of birth is given as 5.10.1932 [i.e., May 10, 1932].  I know this for sure, because when I had a telephone conversation with him 7 years ago, he mentioned that his birthday is proximal to that of mine.  Mr. Satyendra, a leading attorney, a Hinduism scholar and also a patron of industry during his Sri Lankan-phase of life, has been a public figure in Sri Lanka since 1959, when he appeared as a successful defense counsel to one of the accused in the then prime minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike’s assassination case.  Why I mention this is, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was running around in his short pants at the age of 10, Mr. Satyendra became a household name in Ceylon.  He will be 82 next month. From late 1990s to January 2010, with limited resources, Mr. Satyendra successfully administered the TamilNation.org website from the UK. (now at TamilNation.co)  Tamils all over the world did admire his passion, public service, and conviction to the Tamil ethnics spread all over the world.  I was a beneficiary of Satyendra’s Tamil Nation website and record openly my admiration of his services.  And, this Gota suffering from Tamilphobia had the temerity to name Mr. Satyendra as one of his enemies!

Another name which attracted my curiosity was Andrahennadige Chaminda Dharshana aka Ice Manju.  He is listed as number IN/CA/2013/200.  He is a Sinhalese by birth.  He is implicated in the assassination of Lt. Col. Tuan Rizli Meedin, a staff officer of the SL military intelligence in October 2005, at the instigation of LTTE’s Trincomalee leader Col. Sornam.  The extraordinary gazette mentions that Ice Manju is “living in India”.  Iqbal Athas, the then defense analyst, had covered this Ice Manju story in his regular column, ‘Meedin killing: Predator becomes the prey’ in the Sunday Times (Colombo) of November 6, 2005.  One can only guess why Ice Manju came to be listed among all the other Tamils.  One can perhaps suppose that if he is still living in India (This is a big ‘If’), he could be used as an assassin by rival intelligence weasels to target the top bananas of Sri Lanka?  Could this scenario happen? Don’t misunderstand me. I assert that I’m not an astrologer to predict the future!