-- Redley Silva
Scene 1: The Riots
Narrator: In July 1983 the Tamil rebels who have
been fighting for a separate state in North and East of Sri Lanka ambushed and killed 13 government
soldiers. After their funeral in Colombo Sinhalese mobs went on a rampage. The
riots against the Tamils in the South continued for several days. I was on my
way to work, when I saw Tamil-owned shops being attacked, looted and set on
fire by Sinhalese mobs. They chased after Tamil people. I saw one man being
doused in petrol and set alight. The man engulfed in flames fell on the ground,
frantically struggled for his life and was burnt to death.
Late in the afternoon the police announced a curfew,
but arson attcks and looting continued, and people rushed to get back to their
homes. The buses didn’t run because the arsonists had emptied petrol tanks.
Scene 2: The Loot
Narrator: As I walked I saw a young man carrying
a sack full of things. When we came to a junction there was a policeman who
noticed the man with the sack.
Policeman: Oi, you, come here! What’s in the sack?
M: My things, sir.
P: Put it down! Open it! Aah
Jaati Aale! This is your loot!
M: Sir, I’m looking after my
brother, sister and my mother.
P: Did your mother tell you to
do this?... What have you got there?
M: Few shirts sir.
P: What sizes?
M: 14 and half 15 and half.
P: Don’t do this again.! Go now!. No! Leave it
there!. You go!
M: But, sir…
P: What? ... Take one shirt and go home!
Scene 3: The Tiny Bell
Narrator: The riots displaced a large number of
Tamil people living amongst the Sinhalese. Some went to the North. Some others
sought refuge in South India, Europe, Canada and Australia.
One day I was visiting
my Tamil friends in the North. I took a coach from Colombo to Jaffna. At Elephant Pass Checkpoint
government soldiers ordered all
passengers to get off the coach and line up for body and bag search. After my turn there was an old man with
a straw carrier bag. He looked a Hindu priest.
A soldier pointed a gun at him.
Soldier: Show your ID!
Old
Man: Here, sir.
OM: Where’re you going?
Soldier: Jaffna, sir.
Soldier: What’s in the bag?
OM: Kutti Mani, sir.
Soldier: What!!! (the soldier assaults the
old man with the butt of his gun.)
Narrator: The old man fell on the ground and his
bag got thrown off. The man next
In line picked it up and took something out. He,
then dangling it cried out to the soldier.
Man: Sir, This is Kutti Mani!
Soldier: Who said that name again?
Man: Sir, in Tamil Kutti Mani means
tiny bell.
Soldier: ...Get back on the coach!
Narrator: The words ‘Kutti Mani’ did ring a bell
to the Sinhalese soldier. It was the
name of a Tamil rebel
leader who was killed in prison with other Tamil
prisoners during the
riots by Sinhalese prisoners.
Scene 4: The Poster
The war in the North and East escalated with more
and more Tamil youth joining the nationalist struggle, and the government
recruiting more and more Sinhalese youth to fight them. I joined a campaign in
the South demanding the government to stop the war, and begin talks for a
political settlement. As part of this campaign, one night I was putting up a
poster on a bus stop. I had almost finished pasting it. I was smoothing it off.
Suddenly I was pulled and there were two policemen.
Sergeant: What’re you doing?
Narra: Putting up a poster.
S: What poster.?
N: That one. He turned on a torch.
S: ‘STOP THE WAR!’ That's anti-government! Take it off!
N: I just put it up, If you want, you take it off.
S: Paraya! Take it off!” Take it off!” Take it
off!”
PC: Sir, are you going to kill him?
S: Put him in the car!
N: They locked me up in a police cell.
The following morning the Sergeant produced me
before the Officer-In-Charge.
OIC: Sign this statement!
N: I’m not signing any statement without my lawyer.
OIC: Lawyer! What Lawyer?
N: Bala Tampoe.
OIC: Bala Tampoe!
OIC: Mr Silva you take a seat, please. PC, get him some
tea! Sergeant!
OIC: Do you know who Bala Tampoe is?
S: No sir.
OIC: Idiot,
he's well-known. He'll sue us for assaulting that fellow
S: But sir, we can keep him
under the Emergency.
OIC: Idiot, you can’t control your bloody leg!
S: Sir, this is my chance for
a promotion.
OIC: OIC: Mr.
Silva I'm sorry for what happened. We’re not going to press charges against
you. Sergeant will to take you to a doctor to treat your injuries and then
he’ll drop you at home.
Scene 5: The CID
Narrator: By 1986 there was a large number
of political prisoners held in southern
prisons under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I was part of a campaign for the
release of these people. As part of this campaign we produced Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist in a
Sinhala translation called Saakki.
One day I was at home after a national tour with the
play when an Officer from the Criminal Investigation Dept paid a visit.
CID: You’re Redley Silva?
N: Yes
CID: I have few questions to ask about your activities.
N: What activities?
CID: About this play you’re doing.
N: I’m involved in several plays
CID: This play called ‘Saakki’
N: So what about it?
CID: You’re criticizing the police.
N: But it’s the Milan Police
CID: You’re talking about a man falling out of a 4th
floor window?
N: But it’s the 4th floor window of the Milan Police
Station.
CID: But we’ve also got 4th floor in our CID
N: That’s a mere coincidence. I didn’t write this
play. It was Italian playwright Dario Fo who wrote the original play.
CID: But people make connections.
N: We are experimenting with dramatic forms. You
see, we have our traditional fold drama
called Kolam and the Italians have their
traditional folk drama called Commedia Dell’arte. So, we are trying fuse these
forms to modernise Sri Lankan
Theatre. That is our objective.
CID: Mr. Silva, we’re watching you!
Scene 6: Lord Buddha
N: In July 1987 the
Indian Government intervened and brokered a deal between the Sri Lankan
government and the Tamil rebels. Under this deal the Indian Army came to the
north and the east of Sri Lanka to keep the peace. Sinhalese
nationalist groups launched a protest march against the Indians. The march
began under a Bo Tree near the Central Bus Stand in Colombo. I went there to
see what was happening. It is said that
Buddha attained Nirvana under a Bo
Tree. I just wondered for a moment if Buddha
were there on that day under that Bo Tree, what might have happened.
Buddha: Nahee
verena, veranee
Protester: Oi, you Indian, what’re you doing
here?
Buddha: Follow my path to peace.
Pro: Ah, you're a peace-keeper! I’ll smash you, bloody
Indian!
N: But Buddha disappeared from the scene before that
happened. The protest march turned into a riot. They attacked buses and set
them on fire. Those had been imported from India for public transport. Some of them marched through the Market
kicking onion stalls and trampling on them. People used to call them ‘Bombay
onions.’
Scene 7: Traitors v Patriots
N: By 1988 the Sinhalese nationalist groups calling
themselves Patriots launched a terror campaign against all those who supported
the Indo-Sri Lanka Deal. The government in turn called on the Indian Army to
withdraw. In the north and east the Tamil Tigers also turned their guns against
the Indians and other Tamil rebel groups. In the south the government politicians unleashed goon squads to kill those who challenged their power.
Thus a reign of terror engulfed the whole country.
One day I was returning home after a theatre
workshop. We were devising a play based on the biblical story ‘The killing of
the Innocents by King Herod’. On my way someone tapped on me on the shoulder.
Ah, Dharme, how're you?
Dhar: You should stop the play, Saakki!
N: Why?
Dhar: All the political prisoners have been released under
the Indo-Sri Lanka Deal.
N: But killings and disappearances continue.
Dha: We must kill the bloody patriots before they kill
us!
N: Is that why you carry a gun?
Dha: Look, take this as comradely warning!
And Dharme himself was shot and killed by a
so-called unidentified gunman, probably a patriot. I was one day leading a
theatre workshop with a group of young people. My sister came to see me.
Sister: Listen, some people came home
looking for you.
N: Who?
Sis They said they were from the Ministry of Defence
but they didn’t show IDs. They wanted to take you for questioning. I think they
were goons…And there’s something else. Lionel’s been missing for three days.
His wife’s been to the police but they deny any knowledge of him.
N: What happened?
S: He went to a meeting with the Manager of a
Garments Factory in Katunayake on behalf of a worker. They say he left their
office around 5.30 in the evening. But he never went came home.
N: I must look for him.
S: No. You have to lie low. You know, there are
vans without number plates roaming the streets, picking people up. Don't go out
at night and don’t come home.
Scene 8: Hunt For Lionel
N: But I was determined. With a couple of friends I went in
search of Lionel. We went to the factory and traced his last journey. We spoke
to several frightened people living along the street, until we found a man who
was willing to speak.
M: Some people came this morning. I was about to go to work.
They pointed a gun at me and ordered me to stay at home. I asked them why. They
said it was a protest against the government. Then, a couple of hours later,
the police came and took me to work in their van. Is your friend one of them?
N: No, he was a Legal Adviser to workers.
M: Some days you hear stories of burnt bodies at various places.
N: Can you tell us where these places are?
M: They say there’s a place at Raddoluwa but I don’t know where
exactly.
N: We went to Raddololuwa. It was a very quiet area.
We walked into the first house and spoke to a woman
there.
W: Who are you?
N: We are journalists from Colombo.
We heard stories
about a place where people had seen burnt bodies.
W: We hear screams and gunshots some nights, but
we don’t go out to see.
N: Can you show us where this place is?
W: No, no, no! I can’t come, if you want, you go. It’s in that
direction.
N: So we went to that place, and saw a clearing where it looked
like a bonfire had been built, there were burnt tyres and logs. Nearby there
was another clearing with recently turned soil. The three of us dug up the
place with our hands. We found pieces of clothes, shoes.
We went to Lionel’s house straight away and showed
his wife the things. She recognised pieces of shoe belonging to Lionel. We said
she could perhaps go to the Police and tell them she knew where he had been
buried and maybe she can at least find his body. This she did. But there was no
body.
Well, people used to say that once the goons had
done their job it was the police did the undertaker's job.
Scene 9: The Parliament
Narrator:In
December 1990 an MP raised my case in Parliament with the Minister for Defence.
Speaker: Mr Vasudeva’s
question please.
V: Sir, my question is addressed to the Hon. Minister for
Defence. One of Mr Redley Silva has
complained to me that on the 19th of November, two persons identifying
themselves as officers of the Ministrry of Defence had been making enquiries
about his activities related to drama. I have a reasonable suspicion that some
section of the state apparatus is taking an aggresive interest in screening
dramatists and their creations with a view to neutralise them as their work
apparently hurts the guilty conscience of the government. This is another
instance….
S: I think you will have to wind up.
V. Sir, this demonstrates the dangerous tendency of the
government to subvert democratic expression. This comes after our experience
with ‘ Who’s he? What’s he doing’. The
producer of that play is now missing, presumed dead and the playwright was
found dead after having been abducted. So from the standpoint of artists we ask
the government to look into the Mr. Redley Silva’s case.
S: Hon. Minister of State for Defence, you can answer the
question now.
M To the question raised by Mr. Vasudeva, I will answer it in
two weeks time.
Scene 10: Count Down
N: While I was waiting for an answer, the Hon Minister for
Defence he was blown up by a landmine and killed.
After a couple of
weeks I met the MP and asked for his advice.
MP: I advise you to leave the country immediately. You’re on the hit
list. So it’s not safe for you stay here any longer.
Scene 11: The Toilet
Narrator: On 17th January 1991, I took a Gulf
Air flight from Colombo to London. The pilot announced the flight was going to
be diverted to Frankfurt because the Gulf War had started. Some of the
passengers got off the plane, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was fleeing my
country. Someone called Wilfred picked
me up at Heathrow airport. He took me to a flat in East Finchley. He said
Margaret Thatcher was also living in that area. He showed me a fridge full of
food and said I could eat anything. He gave me some money, and said it was from Amnesty for me to buy winter clothes.
He said he’d arrange a solicitor to sort out my asylum application and left
me. It was a very cold winter. I was
all alone. No friends, No one to talk to. I had nothing to do. One day, I went
out to buy some clothes from the Oxfam Shop. On my way back I saw white men
without hair. I was scared because I thought they were skin heads. I had read
about them, that they attack black and asian people. So I crossed over to the
other side of the road and hurried back to my flat. If I saw policemen I hid
from them because I feared they’d arrest me and send me back home. I didn’t
want to go out. I couldn’t go to toilet. I didn’t eat. I just slept. Eventually, the solicitor, Mr
Rajah came. He thought I was in a pretty bad state. So he took me to the
hospital. The doctor said I was in severe depression and chronic
constipation. They gave me
anti-depressants and laxitives. After
few days I was able to go to the toilet!
©
Redley Silva (June 2003)
Redley Silva was a Human
Rights and Cultural Activist in Sri Lanka and former secretary of the Movement
for Inter-racial Justice and Equality (Mirje) campaigning for the right of
self-determination for Tamils. He was trained as an actor/director at the State
Institute of Theatre Arts, Sri Lank and was involved in the mainstream and
street theatre as an actor/director. He
is nNow living in London and working with a group called Artists in Exile. 'Twisted Thing' is based on his experiences
during the turbulent period in Sri lanka from 1983 – 1991 and was devised,
written and performed by me as a one-man show.
`