She wanted the truth and she needed closure
Sandya Ekneligoda receiving the International Women of Courage 2017 Award from America’s First Lady Melania Trump. Pic courtesy US State Department
Her story was as compelling as the legendary thorn bird’s song, and as painful. All who heard it, listened in horror and disbelief.
Sandya Ekneligoda, one of the 13 awardees of the recently concluded US State Department-sponsored International Women of Courage Award 2017 in Washington DC, told her story over and over, during the two-week programme arranged by the State Department in Washington DC, Tampa, Florida and Los Angeles, California. Among the 13 women selected for exceptional courage and perseverance against all odds, Sandya Ekneligoda was chosen from Sri Lanka, for her relentless search for truth and justice in the face of tremendous personal danger.
Prageeth Ekneligoda, Sandya’s husband, disappeared on January 24, 2010, two days before the 2010 Presidential Election. He was a political cartoonist attached to Lankaenews, who spared no effort in portraying through his cartoons, the abuse of power and corruption in government. He had just written a booklet called “Family Tree,” which mysteriously disappeared along with him. He openly campaigned for Sarath Fonseka, the only Presidential candidate challenging the then incumbent President. All these facts together obviously did not endear him to those in authority. But even Prageeth appeared not to have anticipated the worst, considering he had been abducted and released within a day in August 2009 by people who arrived in a white van, with a warning to guard his tongue.
On the day he disappeared, he left his office around eight at night with a “friend” he had known in earlier times. That was the last any one ever saw him. Sandya tried in vain to contact her husband through the night, but he never answered the phone. When she went to the police the next morning, they were not willing to record her statement. She made an official complaint of her husband’s disappearance with the greatest difficulty.
This was the turning point in Sandya’s life – from being a regular wife and mother, circumstances transformed her into a human rights activist. She wanted her husband back. She wanted the truth. She needed closure. And the government was not about to give what she wanted. But she was also not about to take “No” for an answer.
This persistence for truth and justice thrust Sandya into the limelight, and she was one of the chosen few to receive the coveted International Women of Courage Award from First Lady Melania Trump a few weeks ago. Before presenting the awards, Mrs. Trump addressed the audience with carefully chosen words, apt for the individual situations of the awardees. She said, “Together with the international community, the United States must send a clear message that we are watching.”
Sandya told her story at all the meetings she attended in the US from March 25 to April 8. She met senior officials of the State Department, and spoke with intellectual audiences at George Washington University and at the Meridian International Center in Washington DC, also at Stetson University and the South Florida University in Florida. She spoke with people who gathered to listen to her at the Pinellas Education Foundation in Florida and at the Los Angeles City Hall. She was educated, by detectives at the St Petersburg Police Department Investigative Services Bureau, on crucial technological advances, such as DNA, in resolving cold cases of missing persons and bringing closure to families. She also learnt how the Forensics Anthropology Department of the University of South Florida helps law enforcement identify missing people by examining skeletal remains.
She met with human rights watchdogs like Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch, and was interviewed by print and electronic media. Everywhere she went, there were outpourings of empathy and generous offers of help. “What can we do to help you?” was uttered by one and all. The Chief of Police of St Petersburg Police Department, Anthony Holloway offered to send a letter of assistance from the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Association, to Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) currently handling the Ekneligoda case.
As Sandya claims, the CID is impeded in moving forward with investigations, from individuals within the government. Those interrogated by the CID appear to not remember what happened.
Bill Maxwell, a veteran columnist of Tampa Bay Times who interviewed Sandya, said, “The uniform automatically makes the wearer a hero even when he may commit atrocities. When you add the pomp and circumstance of parades, medals, statues and commendations, those in uniform become untouchable, sometimes god-like.”
Sandya Ekneligoda says, “Pursuing the truth is not a crime, protecting the perpetrators is.” Sri Lanka Ambassador in the US, Prasad Kariyawasam said that over the past two years or more, the Embassy receives at least ten letters a week from the American public expressing horror at the Ekneligoda disappearance.
The irony of Sandya’s situation is that in her quest for truth and justice, she has been compelled to fight the country’s judicial system as well. She has been to every level of the judiciary – Magistrate’s Court, High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court. “During the past seven years, I have attended over 100 court sittings, about half of them in 2016,” she said.
The government appears to function on the premise that ignoring a situation will make it go away. So it is ignoring the hunger strikes by mothers and wives in the north, demanding to know what happened to their disappeared loved ones. Sandya, empathizing with these women struggling to come to grips with her same situation, has become their voice. “Circumstances have led me to become the voice for the voiceless,” she said. When American people asked her, “So what do these women want?” her answer was simple. ‘They just want the truth. They want to know what happened to their sons or their husbands.”
Sandya says, that in creating the Office of Missing Persons, a vital component in the country’s agenda of transitional justice, the government is evading minority communities and their need for resolution and closure. Where should these people turn to for redress?