Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa told Parliament on Tuesday that Sri Lanka should raise a separate armed force to protect its surviving super tuskers, modelled on a Kenyan programme — one part of a wider package put forward four days after the tusker Kavantissa’s death.
He cited former Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta, who he said raised a dedicated armed force to protect super tuskers including the celebrated elephant Ahmed, the Daily Mirror reported at 12.38 p.m.
A package, not a single proposal
In a fuller account of the speech, Newswire reported that Premadasa also called for a special elephant protection task force of experienced wildlife officers; a dedicated wildlife hospital for seriously injured wild animals; mobile laboratories, emergency treatment units and a rapid-response mechanism; and foreign veterinary specialists on complex cases.
He offered the opposition’s help in securing foreign funding, urged the government to address shortages of wildlife vets, and proposed adding environmental groups and civil society to the President’s expert committee on Kavantissa’s death.
”Time has come to stop this culture”
In a second filing on the same speech, an hour earlier, the Daily Mirror reported that Premadasa named Kandula, Walagamba, Dathusena and Genghis Khan among tuskers killed in recent years. He said Kavantissa had faced threats and been shot several times, and questioned what was done to safeguard the animal and what treatment it was given — a line that follows the resignation of the vet who treated it.
A point neither filing makes alone
Read together, the accounts contain a tension. Premadasa wants the officers who made an arrest over the shooting placed on his proposed task force. In the same speech, the Daily Mirror reports, he said the person who apprehended those who shot Kavantissa is to be removed from his job. That claim is his; this desk could not confirm it.
His proposal also differs in kind from the Wildlife Department’s position. Its Director General said on Tuesday that steps were being taken to obtain Sri Lanka Army support — existing troops assigned to the task, rather than a new force raised for it.
Not reported
Neither filing gives a cost, a legal basis, a force size, or any government response. Ada Derana also covered the speech, but its site has returned HTTP 403 to this desk for 32 consecutive days, so its filing could not be dated or cited. NewsFirst and Hiru had not filed at the time of writing.
