On the Performance of Police Chief Chandra Fernando

by Sachi Sri Kantha

Chaplin’s use of inept cops for humor

Henry Bergman (1868-1946), John Rand (1872?-1940), Tom Wilson (1880-1865), Chester Conklin (1888-1971), Edgar Kennedy (1890-1948) and Bud Jamison (1894-1944) are a few names which may fail to click now. But, all contributed their talents to make millions laugh uproariously in movie theaters for nearly a quarter century, roughly from 1915 to 1940. These professionals belong to a select cluster of actors starring as inept and bungling cops who chased and tormented Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), the lovable Tramp.

In my view, the current Sri Lankan Police Chief, Chandra Fernando, seems a perfect professional descendant of these uniformed officers in the Chaplinesque comedy reels.

On his affection for the uniformed tribe servicing the community, the great Chaplin reminisced in his autobiography as follows: “I told [Mack Sennett]: ‘All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.’ As a matter of fact I had made some of my most successful pictures with just about that assembly.” [book: My Autobiography, Penguin Books, 1966, p.159]

If Chaplin had met the current Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police - Chandra Fernando - in his life, he might have even not needed a park and a pretty girl as props for his rib-tickling comedy. Chandra Fernando’s head, hat, parrot tongue, medals and uniform would have more than sufficed for Chaplin.

By his own admission, the IGP has reminisced, “During my college days, I was certainly not a bright student. I held no College Prefectship, nor did I walk-away with a single prize, but all knew that I was a great plodder who never, ever gave up...” [the news story by Sarath Malalasekera: ‘IGP felicited at his alma mater’, Colomobo Daily News, Oct.27, 2004]. The performance of Chandra Fernando in the recently concluded Geneva Talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE representatives attests to the fact that insufficient intelligence and a common sense deficit still plague the IGP, even after a lapse of nearly five decades. This was particularly exposed by Anton Balasingham, the chief negotiator of the LTTE, when he blunted and countered the IGP on issues relating to the assassinations of Alfred Duraiappah and Lakshman Kadirgamar.

On another occasion, Chaplin wrote how he struck gold by his incorporation of fumbling cop characters as his comedy foil. “Comedy moving pictures were an instant success because most of them showed policemen falling down coal holes, slipping into buckets of whitewash, falling off patrol wagons, and getting into all sorts of trouble. Here were men representing the dignity of the law, often very pompous themselves, being made ridiculous and undignified. The sight of their misfortunes at once struck the public funny bone twice as hard as if private citizens were going through like experience.” [an essay: ‘What People Laugh At’, in American Magazine, November 1918].

Views of the editor of Sunday Leader

I’m not alone in enjoying the comedy of Police Chief Chandra Fernando. Here are two sarcastic quotes from the editorials of Colombo's Sunday Leader, at the time when Chandrika Kumaratunga held the presidency. The first quote appeared before the assassination of former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, and the second one appeared after the assassination.

“IGP - who is also in line with his tongue hanging out, waiting for an extension of service.” [Sunday Leader, July 31, 2005]

“If the IGP himself intervenes to falsify evidence on behalf of the son of a two-bit politician of the ilk of Mervyn de Silva, what lengths would he go to for the government’s heir apparent? Besides, the IGP is shortly to receive an extension of service that is entirely within the President’s discretionary power: when she says ‘jump’ his only reply will be, ‘How high, Madam?’ [Sunday Leader, Aug.14, 2005]

The profile of the Police Chief and his crocodile tears

I have been a bit baffled on the subtle discrepancies on the ‘past details’ which have appeared in the press about the professional profile of Chief Chandra Fernando. If these are not typographical or transcriptional errors, the discrepancies reveal some obsessive impulse to hide something.

As per the description provided by Iqbal Athas, describing the performance of Chandra Fernando in Geneva last month, “Mr.Fernando began with a personal introduction about joining the Police force in 1973. Throughout his career he had been in close touch with developments in Jaffna…” [Sunday Times, Feb.26, 2006]. I wonder why the police Chief has to post-date his joining the Police force to 1973? A news report by Sarath Malalasekera which provided a profile on this Chief’s assumption of duties as the 29th IGP of Sri Lanka, mentions “In December 1971, Fernando joined the Police Department as an Assistant Superintendent of Police and worked in Kankesanthurai, Gampaha district, Matugama and the Police headquarters as Director [of] Research and Development” [Colombo Daily News, Oct.4, 2004].

I found out that even this sentence has one factual error. Chief Chandra Fernando did join the police force in December 1971, but not in the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police. My impeccable source is the Sri Lankan Parliamentary Debates [Hansard] of January 5, 1979, p.170. I saved a copy of this particular issue in my personal collection, since it contained the roster of then ranking Sri Lankan police personnel, in an answer provided by the then Minister & Deputy Minister of Defence T.B.Werapitiya, to a question raised by R.P.Wijesiri MP, on behalf of his colleague Ananda Dassanayake MP.

During the 1970s, select members belonging to the Sri Lankan police elite (including some Tamils) were the recognized faces of the Sri Lankan state’s anti-Tamil terror. In 1979, this elite cluster consisted of 1 Inspector General, 5 Deputy Inspectors General, 30 Superintendents-Grade I, 34 Superintendents-Grade II, 65 Assistant Superintendents, 8 Probationary Assistant Superintendents, 20 Acting Assistant Superintendents, 9 Chief Inspectors, 41 Inspectors-class I and 477 Inspectors-class II. Between pages 169 and 171 of the Jan.5, 1979 issue of the Hansard, the then serving 65 Assistant Superintendents were listed. Among these 65, the name ‘C.Fernando’ appears at No.38 – then serving the Gampaha division. His date of birth was given as 12 Oct.1945. Thus, the Police Chief is now 60 years old. The date of his first appointment is given as 15 Dec 1971. But, he was not appointed as an Assistant Superintendent of Police [ASP] then. He received promotion as ASP on 15 Dec.1974. One may wonder why the Police Chief then has to post-date his joining the police force to 1973, in Geneva last month. Is he suffering from amnesia, of his own professional past?

Last month in Geneva, Police Chief Chandra Fernando also shed crocodile tears for the assassinated TULF leader Amirthalingam. It was a performance worthy of entry in a Chaplinesque comedy reel. Eelam Tamils have vivid memories, how some lower grade minions belonging to this same Sri Lankan police force abused, assaulted, manhandled and threatened Amirthalingam publicly on numerous occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Not only Amirthalingam, even his family members (wife and sons) have been tormented by the Sri Lankan police force during that period. Mrs. Mangaiyarkarasi Amirthalingam has gone on public record about how she was abused and threatened by one of the Police Chief’s then Tamil colleagues who answered to the name of Bastianpillai, belonging to the CID division. Not only Amirthalingam, even other elected representatives of Eelam Tamils belonging to the TULF [like K.Thurairatnam and V.Yogeswaran] had personally suffered from the atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan police force in 1970s.

“Throughout his career he had been in close touch with developments in Jaffna.”, noted Iqbal Athas in his puff piece on the Police Chief’s performance in Geneva. If this is sincerely true, then Chandra Fernando should have offered his apologies for the indignities heaped on the Eelam Tamils by his timid police force. One just has to read the complaints made by the then TULF representatives in the parliament against the police atrocities in the Northern and Eastern provinces, between 1972 and 1983. But no such apology was forthcoming from Police Chief Chandra Fernando. I mentioned the name of the sadistic cop Bastianpillai in the previous paragraph. He is now a foot-note in Eelam Tamil militant history. In his book, ‘Tigers of Lanka: From Boys to Guerrillas’ (1996, 2nd ed), M.R.Narayan Swamy briefly annotated how this sadistic cop met his death on April 7th 1978. Even Narayan Swamy got the initials of this then prime torturer of Tamil youth wrong.

For historical record, I provide a few details on T.L.B.Bastianpillai, as available from the Hansard Jan.5, 1979 issue. He was born on Dec.27, 1941. He received his first appointment in the police force on May 18, 1964; and was promoted to the grade of Inspector Class II on June 1, 1972. At the age of 36, Bastianpillai departed to meet his Maker on April 7, 1978, while combing for Tamil militant activity in the Murunkan jungle of Mannar district.

While making a specfic mention of the 1975 assassination of Alfred Duraiappah to score a dubious debating point in Geneva, it would have been apt if police Chief Chandra Fernando had also referred to the atrocities committed by his senior contemporary Bastianpillai in the 1970s. While I was affiliated to the University of Peradeniya as an assistant lecturer between 1978 and 1981, I had one Tamil medical student named P.R.Seermaran who was a detainee and torture victim of this sadistic cop Bastianpillai. From this student of mine, I heard about the torture details as served on teenage Tamils by Bastianpillai and his colleagues. Leader Amirthalingam’s second son was also a student of mine during 1979 and 1980. Now, in 2006, for political gain, the police Chief  sheds crocodile tears over the fate of Amirthalingam and the Tamil child conscripts of the LTTE.

Lakshman Kadirgamar assassination

The then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated on August 12, 2005. Immediately, like a seer blessed with supernatural powers, police Chief Chandra Fernando pointed out the assassins – the usual suspects – to the Reuters news agency.

“Two people had been arrested for Kadirgamar’s killing, police sources said, giving no further details. Police blamed the Tigers but have not yet provided solid proof. ‘It’s the Tigers,’ Inspector General of Police Chandra Fernando told Reuters today. ‘We suspect it’s them.’” [Melbourne Age, August 13, 2005]

Now seven months have passed. I provide below relevant excerpts from a select list of brief news reports/commentaries from Colombo, which cumulatively contradict the braggadocio of police Chief Chandra Fernando on this issue

1. Jayampathy Jayasinghe: Kadirgamar assassination; Ballistic experts rule out sniper gun. Sunday Observer, Aug.21, 2005.
   
   “The weapon that was used by unidentified assassins to kill Minister Kadirgamar last week was not a sniper gun as it was widely reported in all the print and electronic media, according to ballistic sources. Most surprisingly the lethal weapon has been identified as a sub-machine gun that had been stolen either from the armed services or purchased from an arms dealer….”
   
2. Editorial: ‘That Elusive Southern Consensus’. Sunday Leader, Aug.21, 2005.
   
   “…Kadi was, after the President, the second-best guarded individual in this country; yet he was slain, apparently with the greatest of ease. That there were gross lapses in his security is abundantly clear from the fact that at the time of the shooting the sentry turrets of his residence was unoccupied, and there was no effective return of fire from his bodyguard (the single shot fired by his bodyguards missed the window – let alone the assassin – by several feet!). What is more, the intelligence services, quite apart from not making a physical inspection of neighbouring houses, had not so much as carried out a ‘paper verification’ of who owned them, who was living in them, and who was visiting them…”
   
3. W.A.Sunil and K.Ratnayake: Unanswered questions about Sri Lankan foreign minister’s assassination. World Socialist Web Site, News & Analysis Aug.26, 2005. [www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/sril-a26_prn.shtml]
   
   As of now, this remains as the only well-balanced and thought provoking analysis, providing emphasis on the lack of hard evidence surrounding the assassination. Sunil and Ratnayake also infer that “much of what has been leaked to the media is either dubious or has been later shown to be misleadig or false.”
   
4. Sarath Malalasekera: Gnanakone detained till completion of investigations – CCD. Daily News, Oct.25, 2005.
   
   “…Judge [Sarojini Kusala] Weerawarena allowed an application by the Colombo Crimes Division to pursue the bank accounts of the two residents who were living close to the house where former Foreign Minister Kadirgamar was assassinated. Earlier, the investigators had interrogated at length the two suspects who were taken into custody in connection with the murder. The investigating team forwarded all the items collected at the scene to obtain expert evidence on several tests including DNA, finger prints and ballistic…”
   
5. Sarath Malalasekera: Kadirgamar assassination; Suspect linked to underworld. Daily News, Nov.22, 2005.
   
   “Ishothor Arokkayanathan, one of the suspects in the assassination of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, is alleged to have been involved in underworld activities. Therefore the suspect could not be brought before court on every hearing dates for security reasons. This was told to Colombo Chief Magistrate and Additional District Judge Ms.Sarojini Kusala Weerawardena by the Welikada Remand Prison officials when the Kadirgamar murder case was called yesterday…”
   
6. Iqbal Athas: Face to face with President Rajapakse – War on Corruption – Don’t Shut Out Media. Sunday Times, Jan.8, 2006.
   
   “…Once again President Rajapakse reached out to the telephone. This time he spoke to Police Chief Chandra Fernando to ascertain the progress of investigations into the assassination of former Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. His wife Suganthie had made representations about what she claimed was slow progress…”
   
7. Kadirgamar assassination case: Suspects further remanded. Government Information Department News Room, Jan.18, 2006 [site: www.news.lk/news_2006_01_183.htm]
   
   “…Judge [Ms.Sarojini Kusala] Weerawardena directed the CCD officials to forward, the items collected during the investigations in connection with the assassination, to the Government Analyst and submit a report to Court on the next date…”
   
8. Sarath Malalasekera: Kadirgamar assassination case; Colombo Chief Magistrate orders to expedite investigations. Daily News, Feb.13, 2006.
   
   “Sarojini Kusala Weerawardena, Colombo Chief Magistrate and Additional District Judge, directed, the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) probing the assassination of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to expedite the investigations and submit a comprehensive report to Court on February 24….”

A retrospective analysis on the shooting and the post-event bungling

I also located a retrospective analysis, contributed by a correspondent identified as J.Edirisinghe to a pro-Sinhalese website [www.lankaweb.com], dated Aug.22, 2005, which is somewhat interesting for the presented details. I reproduce a segment, since the queries raised by this correspondent again raise doubt on the (1) inept quality of police protection offered to Sri Lankan VIPs, and (2) the motives of police Chief Chandra Fernando in implicating the LTTE to the assassination:

“…A well skilled marksman when aiming at a human target from a distant location, using a sniper gun, will definitely choose the left side of the chest of his victim as far as possible because the chest is the most largest enough and most vulnerable area which is easiest to be targeted. This is done with the motivation of making a most deadliest injury to the heart and the task is not impossible with the Maximum Effective Range and Expected Accuracy which all modern sniper rifles are equipped with, today.

In this case it is clear the killer must have missed his target, probably because the target was not in a substantially illuminated environment at midnight (with the availability of garden lights). Awareness of the injury is not deadly, made the shooter to proceed for two more shots, one to the head of the victim with precise targeting.

When we talk about a sniper gun, we should be aware that, it is not meant to be used for random shooting of bullets (as a machine gun), but getting a target through a precise telescopic view to achieve a perfect accuracy. Using a tripod as a supporting device also a reason for the above. If we consider the killer got the chest of Mr. Kadiragamar as his first target, it is very sensible to believe after the hit, the body was not in standing position anymore due to the heavy impact of the caliber .450 bullet and most probably lying on the ground, struggling with a deadly pain.

Then the second shot (the third, if it has been fired), the sniper has to change the previous aim of his gun (still with the poor artificial illumination) spending a considerable amount of time for a precise firing (again through a telescope mounted on the sniper rifle). When evaluating the time spent on this we have to consider the excited psychological of the shooter too. Further the extra ordinary skill of this marksman allowed him to target the head of a body (possibly struggling and twitching with a deadly pain) which was lying on a distant location, again in an artificially illuminated environment.

We all should be well aware that late Hon. minister was privileged to enjoy a maximum level of security according to his VVIP states. With that in mind with a crude imagination of time spent by the killer to get perfectly three deadly targets on Mr. Kadiragama, we have to be confused with, where was his so called heavy security escort and what they were doing during that noisy time span of firing….Further (it has to believe so) that so called bodyguards were definitely not in the vicinity of Mr. Kadiragamar to make any response to the first gun shot sound, according to the facts available to the public.

In addition to above all it is interesting to mention the results of a research I did on details available about modern sniper rifles, in the internet….In my research I was unable to find make of sniper rifle (or gun) in caliber .450 category, being the nearest available as caliber .50 (as an ex: Barret M82A1- USA make), which comes under the large caliber sniper rifles. Mostly the large caliber sniper guns are not a preference on human targets due to some disadvantages. On the other hand, if caliber .450 bullets were the definite cause for this death, the rifle which fires those bullets must be a custom-built item. In that case the owner of the gun could be easily traced from the handful of gun manufacturers in existence.

Being aware of all the above contradictory information, my curious mind left me in a state of confusion about the abnormality of all those occurrence which were used to describe the assassination of Mr. Kadiragamar. Proceeding further, considering the precise and selected accuracy of gun shots fired in this assassination, finally and contrariwise I am obliged to believe that possibly the killer used a caliber .450 revolver (a type of small hand gun) at a point-blank range (in a close proximity) with his victim, as an alternate option. This I say because the caliber.450 revolver is a best selection considering it’s lethality, by any killer….

Further it is obvious that the autopsy done on the body of Mr. Kadiragamar should not be in the category of a natural death (still the investigations are underway). Then the body was cremated, leaving with no option for a second party to challenged later for another autopsy, at a suspicion for any foul play in the assassination. According to usual legal practice on a sudden death in Sri Lanka, the last rituals of the body had to be done, with an option to exhume it, if needed, with an expectation for another autopsy for the removal of any ambiguities.

If so should it be believed that the expiditious, unethical cremation of the dead body of Mr. Kadirgamar happened according to the greatest will of some invisible powers who was in a big hurry to convert the remains of some dirty dust to unrecognizable ashes!!!...”

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