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Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
The Law used to Advance Injustice
I fled Sri Lanka first under LTTE death threats in March 2006 and a second time in August 2011 after detailing election malpractices in Pitfalls in the President’s Alliance with the EPDP – A Visit to Kayts on Elections Day (Leader 24.07.2011). If I had been untruthful, the EPDP’s Minister Devananda had recourse to defamation charges; instead he abused his powers and got the police to collude on trumping up criminal charges. This is not uncommon in a country where the police are mere tools of the state, used even to murder opponents. The law is frivolously used. [For example, writer R. Tharmaratnam of London recently reported how EPDP Lawyer Rengan Devarajan filed a case against building supervisor Mr. G. Yogaratnam at the BARNET Courts in the UK. On 7 May 2013 when the case was called at great cost to Yoganathan, Devarajan faxed from Jaffna at the last minute claiming he had mistakenly thought the case to be fixed for June. No explanation having been proffered for suddenly remembering, the perceptive judge dismissed the case. That is how the EPDP uses the law against opponents].
Being Attacked in Exile
I presently teach at Michigan State University as a professor. I keep up my interest in Sri Lanka and write regularly of the government’s and its Tamil stooges’ work against Tamils. My articles usually appear in the Lankan print media so that they are subject to the legal system, however eviscerated and in its death throes.
I recently commented on Devananda’s weak commitment to devolution and his willingness to work with Sinhalese extremists in withdrawing the powers of the Provincial Councils prior to the Northern elections. I have commented on his friend K.T. Rajasingham who has been reported (Leader, 25.11.2007) as asking the President for funds to run a propaganda TV station and news portal for him. I have also commented on the government fomenting Buddhist fundamentalism through sham outcries against beef stalls and liquor shops, while allowing Tamil paramilitary stooges to run liquor stalls in the Vanni, keeping them open even on Full Moon Poya Days.
These articles have angered the Devananda-Rajasingam duo. K.T. Rajasingham went so far as to call up my friends after my article on his Asian Tribune as a propaganda sheet. He claimed that I am interested in the University of Jaffna Vice Chancellor’s post coming vacant in March 2014, and have therefore apologized to Devananda and asked for his blessings to return for the position.
I emphatically deny this. I have not communicated once with him over 2 years. In my eagerness to serve my beleaguered Tamil people, I once thought that I could do some good by leading the university. But that experience diminished me. To hold even the most minimal administrative position in a Sri Lankan university one has to submit to the murderers in authority. An engineer cannot function ethically in a job where the political authorities are implicated in murder and corruption of all sorts. Though I may still wish I could do some good for the University of Jaffna, I cannot compromise my personal integrity by dealing with the unsavory characters who control appointments. I will return to Jaffna when I am ready to retire.
Devananda’s Demand that I be Sacked
With Rajasingham’s intrigues failing, on 07.06.2013 Devananda lengthily wrote a complaint with strategic untruths to Prof. T.H. Curry, the Associate Provost of Michigan State University. Devananda introduced himself as MP and longstanding Cabinet Minister for four terms, Secretary General of the EPDP and continuously [sic.] elected as MP. He alleged that I was appointed VC on his recommendation despite coming third in the Council elections; that after my appointment, I made a deal with LTTE terrorists and on LTTE instructions fled without assuming my duties; and that I later, returned and applied again, but this time he refused to interfere because “such interference would be ultra vires [sic.] and undemocratic.”
Devananda continued, after the person with the highest votes was appointed, I wrote articles “containing fabricated and concocted facts attributed to [him] and [his] party … for the purpose of tarnishing [his] image and [his] party’s popularity;” that in “one unsubstantiated, baseless, defamatory piece of writing” I had insulted a section of the society supportive of him “in an obscene language [sic.] instigating social disharmony.” He went on that “such provocative writing that would cause to break the public peace [sic.] is a criminal offence punishable under section 484 and 485 [sic.] of the penal code. Accordingly the law enforcement authorities filed a lawsuit against him in the magistrate’s court of Kayts, Jaffna. … On being served with the notice to appear before the court … he fled the country [sneakily] and sought sanctuary in the US.”
Devananda ended his letter saying “I respectfully request you to reconsider your decision to continue employing a person who has been issued with an open warrant for a criminal offence. …Further by allowing him to use the office of your university [sic.] as a protective cover to carry out malevolent activities against others is in violation of the moral code of conduct and ethics of a high ranking institution like Michigan State University.” The letter, he says, was copied to “all Board of Trustees [sic.]”, Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, President [sic.],” my Dean and Department Chairperson, and numerous others, including the US Embassy and the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington DC.
Michigan State University Responds
The letter was replied by Attorney Michael Kiley, Associate General Counsel for the university on 10.06.2014:
“Secretary General Devananda: I write regarding the commentary about Dr. Hoole that you addressed to associate Provost T. Curry in an email that was copied to scores of other persons.
“The essence of your long complaint is that Dr Hoole is the subject of a criminal warrant because he authored a “writing [that] insulted a section of the society supportive of [you] in an obscene language instigating social disharmony. Such provocative writing . . . is a criminal offense. . . .”. You offered no factual support for your characterization of Dr. Hoole’s language as “obscene”. More salient, the asserted bad conduct would in this country implicate the exercise of “free speech”. Such is protected, not criminalized. Dr Hoole may or may not have published offensive comments at your expense, but such would have no bearing on his status at MSU.
“You asserted that Dr Hoole fled the jurisdiction. (Some would make a similar claim directed at you in connection with kidnapping and other unlawful conduct affecting Stanley and Mary Allen in 1984, the Choolaimedu incident in 1986, and the allegations stemming from Kilpaul, Madras in 1990. Michigan State University will not presume to sort through the particulars of personal and/or political differences between you and Dr. Hoole. There is no properly issued court order emanating from a tribunal recognized as having jurisdiction here. We decline to credit assertions having an adjudicative character.
“I wish you well in your work as Minister of Traditional Industries & Small Enterprise Development.”
Advertising their Own Evils
It is a sorry state of affairs when a minister claiming lengthy experience does not understand democracy. I did not see these letters until after Mr. Kiley replied. As expected of those behind a strong research institution, Counselor Kiley quickly researched facts and found out who the Minister is. By his behaviour when Sri Lankan freedoms are under scrutiny by the UNHRC, and by involving the State Department, Devananda has attracted attention to the evil nature of our government, leading to wider knowledge of his skullduggery in the Allen couple kidnapping and the Choolaimedu and Kilpaul incidents. When such a person is a longstanding cabinet minister, what is the world to think of the genocide allegations pending inquiry?
Minister Devananda has now written again, asking the university’s legal counsel by what authority he had replied the letter to the Associate Provost. That is excellent advertisement for President Rajapaksa and his arrogant cabinet – that the Rajapaksa cabinet includes men wanted for murder and kidnapping as senior ministers who are associated even with the kidnapping of two US citizens.
