{"id":23791,"date":"2013-08-04T22:04:32","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T02:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=23791"},"modified":"2013-08-04T22:04:32","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T02:04:32","slug":"how-are-we-to-survive-if-we-are-deprived-of-clean-drinking-water-weliweriya-residents-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=23791","title":{"rendered":"“How are we to Survive if we are Deprived of Clean Drinking Water?” Weliweriya Residents Ask!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dinouk Colombage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grieving over the death of 17-year-old Akila Dinesh, the victim of an alleged army shooting to quell their protest against their supply of water being contaminated due to effluents being discharged by a factory in the area, residents in Weliweriya have accused the Army of firing live bullets to disperse unarmed civilians, leading to mayhem in the town of Weliweriya on Thursday (1).<\/p>\n

A resident in the area, Gihan Illesinghe, was at the scene of the protest on Thursday evening. Speaking of the incident, he said the Army had fired at them, perhaps to scare them and prevent them from protesting. “I cannot understand why the Army had to be deployed as we were unarmed and it was a peaceful demonstration. Once they arrived on the scene, the tension increased and it was inevitable that something unfortunate would happen,” he said.He also said when the riot police arrived with water cannons, many protesters started to react. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“We did not want to be silenced. How are we to survive if we are deprived of clean drinking water? This factory, by continuously discharging toxic effluents, has contaminated the supply of water, which we use for drinking and cooking, apart from bathing and washing, and neither they nor the government have done anything to address the issue,” he said.<\/p>\n

Attacks and counter-attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weliweriya in the Gampaha District was temporarily transformed into a war zone on Thursday (1) evening as armed soldiers and police, attacked protesters with live ammunition, water cannons and tear gas. The assault by the armed forces on the civilians left a 17-year-old youth dead, and as many as 50 others injured. The deceased, whose body was sent to the Gampaha General Hospital, was identified as Akila Dinesh, a resident of Weliweriya.<\/p>\n

Protesters took to the streets in Weliweriya town, to highlight what they describe as contamination of their water supply by a factory owned by Dipped Products PLC, a subsidiary of the conglomerate, Hayleys. Residents of Weliweriya and the surrounding villagers participated in the protest, blocking traffic and bringing activities in the town to a standstill.<\/p>\n

Following several hours of protests, riot police were dispatched to the scene where they attempted to disperse the crowds by using water cannons and tear gas. However, many of the protesters returned to the scene and had fought back, throwing stones and bottles at the police, sources said.<\/p>\n

Witnesses claimed the police were unable to clear the protesters off the streets, and shortly afterwards the Army was deployed. This resulted in a tense situation, with a large number of residents attempting to fight back.<\/p>\n

Military Spokesperson, Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasuriya, explained the Army was deployed following a request made by the police under Section 95-96 of the Criminal Code Procedure. Accordingly, if the police are unable to contain a violent disturbance, they are permitted to enlist the support of the military, which are duty bound to respond. <\/p>\n

According to the Spokesperson, the military informed the protesters that the factory had been temporarily closed and investigations would be carried out to determine the cause of the pollution.However, the military personnel has defended their actions, stressing they had been fired upon first by an unidentified group. Brig. Wanigasuriya, said investigations were ongoing regarding the attacks, and added they had recovered shell casings and a weapon believed to be a T-56 rifle.<\/p>\n

He went on to state that after this announcement, many of the protesters began dispersing. However, it was at this point that soldiers in the armoured vehicle claimed they had been fired upon by an unidentified group. This prompted the armed forces to retaliate. Brig. Wanigasuriya reiterated that while live ammunition was used, the soldiers only fired into the air to disperse the protesters, despite being attacked with stones and petrol bombs.<\/p>\n

Repeated pleas ignored<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the military has defended their use of force, in response to being first attacked and thereby retaliating in self-defence, witnesses have accused them of employing tactics similar to those used in a war zone. A store owner, Chamendra Jayasuriya, said he participated in the protest because he felt the authorities had been ignoring their repeated requests to stop the factory from discharging toxic effluents. “The army came and announced that we had to vacate the streets and the situation with the factory would be resolved. However, most people did not want to leave and soon the soldiers started firing. We fought back by throwing stones at them. <\/p>\n

They say some people had thrown petrol bombs, but I do not know where they got those from,” he said. Jayasuriya could not confirm or deny whether the soldiers had been fired upon, but stressed he did not see anyone carrying a gun. He said the excessive use of force by the military led to the death of a young person, Dinesh, and the injuries sustained by numerous others on that fateful day. “They fired on us even though we were not armed. There was chaos on the streets of Weliweriya town and everyone was fighting as though it was war zone,” he explained.<\/p>\n

He described the fighting as having lasted for nearly an hour before most residents fled into hiding, “We were scared that if we remained in sight, the Army would shoot us. All those injured were being rushed to hospital, and late into the night, we heard more gunshots. I don’t know what was going on at that time as I took refuge in my shop,” Jayasuriya said.<\/p>\n

Police Spokesman, SP Buddhika Siriwardena, said he cannot comment on the death of Akila Dinesh as investigations are ongoing. “The riot police were deployed on Thursday (1) evening to control a protest that was being held in Weliweriya. We could not disperse the crowds peacefully, and therefore requested the Army to assist to control the situation,” he explained, adding, the police had fired rubber bullets and used tear gas on the protesters, but denied they had used live ammunition. He confirmed the police were investigating reports that the Army had been fired upon, but refused to comment further on the incident.<\/p>\n

The factory belonging to Dipped Products PLC, a subsidiary of the Hayleys Group has been temporarily shut down, and no representative of the company could be contacted for comment on the incident. However, on Thursday, the company issued a statement to the Colombo Stock Exchange, insisting they were not responsible for the water supply in the area being contaminated.<\/p>\n

COURTESY:CEYLON TODAY<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dinouk Colombage Grieving over the death of 17-year-old Akila Dinesh, the victim of an alleged army shooting to quell their protest against their supply of water being contaminated due to effluents being discharged by a factory in the area, residents in Weliweriya have accused the Army of firing live bullets to disperse unarmed civilians, …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘“How are we to Survive if we are Deprived of Clean Drinking Water?” Weliweriya Residents Ask!’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23792,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791\/revisions\/23792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}