Mahinda: No More Rapists In The Party
Another Mulkirigala demon painting. The temple is near Tangalle.
People complain about Game Of Thrones being rapey. They should check out the Tangalle Pradeshiya Sabha. Since the case of a 13 year old being held as a sex slave there and lots of news about child abuse and rape, the pressure is on the government. Why the government? Because in many cases local government politicians have been involved, especially in Tangalle, the President’s home turf. In response Mahinda has issued one of the sadder statements ever, that alleged rapists will be suspended from the party.
I can find this statement in the Daily Mirror print only, so I’ll reproduce it here:
Alleged rapists will be suspended from party — President
President Mahinda Rajapaksa said, at an SLFP Central Committee meeting held at Temple Trees last night, that all members of the SLFP who had been accused of rape and child abuse would be suspended from the party and not allowed to contest any elections.
He added that if any members were found guilty of such crimes in a court of law they would be expelled from the party.
While it’s good that he’s doing something, this is kinda dubious if/then coding. If any party member is accused of rape they’ll be suspended and won’t be able to contest elections. Hence, I could accuse any SLFPer of rape before any election and they couldn’t run. Not really going to work.
Honestly, Mahinda shouldn’t even have to get up and say this. A lot of politics and party politics in particular works based on decency and shame. Prime Ministers dissolve governments if they lose ceremonial no confidence votes. Party leaders resign if they lose elections or face scandal. Ministers step down if there’s even a whiff of scandal around them. Sri Lankan politics isn’t like that – people keep their positions until you pry them out of their hands. No one is worse than the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, having lost over a dozen elections and faced mutiny and national shame, yet still clinging to his post. Sadly, many politicos are like him, because people allow them to get away with it.
If there is a serious rape allegation then a politician should step down because A) they have shame B) the party has shame and C) the people make them feel ashamed. Sri Lanka right now has zero out of three, which – as Meatloaf would say – is bad. Hence the President has to get up and declare a rapist policy, because all parties lack the decency to regulate themselves on this basic level. And because people have let politicians get away with murder and rape for years. With all the pressure, however, I pray this is starting to change.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
While it’s good that he’s doing something, this is kinda dubious if/then coding. If any party member is accused of rape they’ll be suspended and won’t be able to contest elections. Hence, I could accuse any SLFPer of rape before any election and they couldn’t run. Not really going to work.
Not really. Even though the rape is not yet proven in a court of law, all the evidence points to the fact that the girl has been raped. Even if all of the alleged rapists are found to be not guilty due to some technicality, it still doesn’t change the fact that all the evidence points to a very high probability of the girl being raped.
They should’ve done this with Dumida Silva. You cannot send him to prison if the court didn’t find him guilty. But no sane person would deny that all the evidence pointed to a high probability that the girl had been raped.
This is the same method we use when stating that global warming is man made. There’s no conclusive proof. But all the evidence looks exactly as if global warming is man made and therefore the best course of action would be trying to prevent that disaster.
‘Ullo, ‘ullo, that is news to me.
What about Deshamanya R. Dhuminda Silva?
So many felonies and misdemeanors have been committed by members of the ruling party without the slightest admonition or action taken by the powers that be, so empty rhetoric is best ignored as the usual BS.
What a tragic circus!!