7th May 2000

By Alia

Cops and robbers

This is the story of a spy who came from the cold, or shall I say, cold storage. Even if he lost his official position sometime ago after serving in a capital not so far from Colombo, our James Bond was hired on a free lance basis.

Life was good for him until he chose to make a trip to Europe as head of an important delegation. An international body was having its annual sessions. He had remained its local head and was invited together with a team. The man went ahead and awaited the arrival of the delegation from Colombo. The others turned up at the airport to take flight. One of them produced his passport and was being cleared when a suspicious sleuth noticed something amiss.

The passport described the man as a Sub Inspector of Police and the picture showed the man in uniform. He was asked to produce his service identity card. The man did not have one. It has now turned out that he was not a cop but a labourer and a close associate of the sleuth.

The sleuth, who would easily have been mistaken for Hitler if he was living in that era, is now in trouble. So is the labourer.

As one wag remarked, it was a rare case of cops fooling the cops or cops and robbers in the same set up.

Gone into a shell

The man who leaned heavily on the media to tell his many success stories on the battle field and what a decorated warrior he was has gone into a shell.

At the latest Government – Opposition summit, the the leader of the latter group was given a full brief on the prevailing situation in the north.

The warrior butted into to say the leader should not tell anything about this to the media. His plea met with a sharp retort. "Why are you wanting to keep the public in the dark," the leader shot back. There was pin drop silence.

To pay damages

A three member bench of the Supreme Court has made some strong indictments on the Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Cecil Tissera, who they have named as the main "architect" of events leading to the retirement of then Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral D.K. Dassanayake at the age of 47 years.

He has been called upon to personally pay Rs 50,000 as damages to Rear Admiral Dassa–nayake before June 30, this year, The court has made some strong strong observations against Rear Admiral Tissera in the 20 page judgement.

Best seller

Last week's Gazette notification promulgating regulations under the Public Security Ordinance has become a best seller. The demand has exceeded the supply with the Government Printer having to churn out more copies.

Lucrative

The billion rupee procurement drive will undoubtedly spawn a few millionaires.

The agent of an European combine, insiders say, has been assured of commissions by the principals who have secured the order.The amount is said to involve over Rs 15 million in just one deal. How lucrative the war is for some !!

Rajpal Abeynayake's Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents