Men in Black

On February 4th, The President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Jaffna for the Independence Day Celebration and to ribbon cut a new building site for a 15 story hotel. Police and military swarmed Jaffna for three days. Of particular note, there was a goon squad making its mark all over town.

There were about a dozen of these men in black. They rode huge black motorbikes with tires suited for a bush quad. They wore black bullet proof vests, black padded pants that looked like armour, black army boots, black motorcycle helmets with black balaclava ski masks. Their hands were encased in black leather gloves. To top off the ensemble of ridiculous, they wore large black ski goggles. They looked like caricatures from Batman.

To top it all off, they roared about the streets of Jaffna, like a gang of Hell's Angels. One of these super heroes even performed a wheelie in the street to impress us all. It was a joke. Does this squad accompany the president wherever he goes? Was it ordered up just to intimidate the people in Jaffna where the president is not so welcome? Merchants along the parade route told us that they were "ordered" by the military and the police to display patriotism by flying Sinhala flags.

So, on our lunch hour, we zipped out on our bicycles and staked out a spot along the road to watch for the President's car to go by, but mostly we wanted to try and get photos of these creatures. I snuck one picture, but the camera was pointed too high; great shot of treetops though. We never did see the president's car and we eventually scuttled back to work.

This week, I was conducting a group therapy session. With much ado and despite my best efforts to keep people out of the group room while a client was sharing his grief story, one of the participants was hauled out of the group by the Sri Lankan Army for questioning. So much for the sanctity of the counselling room. Clearly, Sri Lanka is a police state.