The Butcher City of Kandy

August 29, 2005

Dear Padma and all ,

We learn with every step and we cannot be discouraged here. We know what is

happening and the worst thing in a Buddhist place.

Let us be very practical and go about solving this issue. Pressure has to

multipronged and sustained. No doubt the dogs will die until we are able to

bring sense in them. But they are sacrificing their lives for their other

hundreds of brothers and sisters. Look at the fate of the operated ones. Are

they responsible or eligible for this trauma. They must be wishing to be

perished in the natural disasters rather.

My sincere suggesttion will be :

# the legal battle and please engage the top lawyer and place it in your highest

court of the land . And for this you must work hard for all the evidences

proving why ABC was needed and why this is a human safety programme. You may

give examples of India and elsewhere. And you could promise the judge that you

will get some help towards this economically. Make it a trial project first.

Also gather the evidence showing the cases of rabies are more where this

programme is not being done etc., etc., etc.,

# meanwhile the lobbying has to go on.

# And also your shelter for humane works ie., animals of destitute and

abandoned.

# Next is the public sympathy which can by the awareness and education.

I think that the above is an exercise that will ultimately help you. The

lobbying can start with good channels.

You could take out the video of the killings and circulate and show to the judge

also.

Hope I am helping.

Warm regards,

Pradeep.

Nihal Fernando <nihalas wrote:

To all, I write with reference to Padma's email to all (see below). it is indeed

very sad that Hari has fallen for Dr. J's false tears. Padma is absolutely right

about Dr. J. And now, there is more to undo at this end after this whitewashing

of Dr. J!!

Also, please everyone, SOFA does this tireless work and not KACPAW. Please note

that. People to contact are Padma and Rohini.

Rohini de Silva <rohinats

Padma <padmaeva

As Padma says, yes we have heard so many times about this land giving by the KMC

and running shleters nonsense. We run a shleter and I know how much care should

be given if you shut these animals at shelters. If you do not look after them

ok, you will create a bigger hell hole for them. And caring for thousands of

dogs, after allowing any number to be born is not in any one's agenda any where

in the world!!

I too agree with Pradeep that this work should have started on a written

committment. We cannot do much about those shortcomings now. If it is to be

revived , there should be a firm comittment on the part of the KMC.

Ironically, Dr. J was one of the most vociferous supporters of this programme,

if not THE most and it took only one visit from Edith Zeillweiger with millions

of Rs. in her purse to get him started most enthusaistically on this project.

And to start it he never asked the MC members!! He simply said this is the ONLY

way to curb rabies and made such pronouncements in newspapers and the programme

was on. In fact, one KMC member asked at one of the meetings convened to discuss

this problem a year or so ago, " What made Dr. J do this 180 degree turn?!

How do people get away so easily after providing allegedly false data on rabies

from the two major hospitals in Kandy ? beats me. SOFA says that he had provided

false data on hospital letterheads to show that there is a huge problem of

rabies in Kandy. The authentic hospital records (available with SOFA) show a

vast reduction in dog-bite treatment and no human deaths on account of rabies --

only one from Kandy hospital, and that too a person from a far away place. The

one from the Peradeniya hospital is not a confirmed rabies death. Any one can

verify this from the two hospitals.

Dr. J has told our Treasurer when once she visited him in his office " if I have

to kill one dog in Kandy, I will not sit on this seat for a day " .! For his

deeds over this weekend, he will have to get off his seat a many hundered

times!!

Dr. J will certainly be remembered for his butchering of these innocent animals

for a long long time in this " seat of Buddhism " called Kandy. Yes a very long

long time and I plead to you not to believe all this loving kindness stories of

his. Not all the perfumes of Arabia will take this foulest death stench from his

hands.

All of us here now need to look at ways of doing a sustainable programme and

that would be one way of consoling the devastated SOFA members and ourselves.

My heartfelt sympathies to SOFA memebers who did such tireless work with

absolute dedication and who were so badly let down by their partner, the KMC.

This is to say nothing of their time, money and effort and all those ionnocent

lives, who were made to believe that they are safe. All these dogs have gone

through the caring hands of SOFA only to be butchered this way!

There are several programmes that are being done in the Puttalam district and

the Kalutara district now, by the Ministry of Health (namely the Public Health

Veterinary Services Unit) and killing of dogs has been stopped as a means of

rabies control in these areas. We need to get in touch with the Ministry and

establish such a programme with the help of the ministry in this now tarnished

city of Kandy and its environs. Champa (KACPAW)

-----------------------------

When I first met Jayasinghe at the KACPAW / WSPA conference in Sept 2002 he

played a similar game there.... almost crying, that he is a Buddhist and he

doesn't like to kill and about the terrible conditions at Gohagoda... as if he

had no power to instruct and supervise the people working there! I knew more

about him even at that time from Pethiyagoda, but I am not surprised,

that Hari fell for this game because he plays it quite well. Even when he

started to work against our programme, he also almost cried because the anti

rabies ordinance was forcing him to kill and I almost felt sorry for him.

Now something else: today we received word from the Mayor of Kandy through

someone from AWT, that he would stop the killing immediately, if we promise to

find some land for a shelter and take in all the street-dogs. Now this joke we

had from him before also (but now he gives us 6 months, earlier it was only two

weeks ... quite sufficient, isn't it? ... to build a shelter!). What we tried to

make clear to him those days, but he didn't get it, is, that this shelter should

have space for thousands of dogs, even if we have only few really ownerless

dogs, but the KMC's anual target is seizing 3000 dogs and if they take away 3000

dogs from the road, 3000 new dogs will take their place and they will be also

removed during the next year and so it goes on... if we take them all within 3

years we will have already 9000 dogs and this population will continue to grow

and the majority will be domestic dogs, because people usually do not have

fences, cages, chains etc, so their dogs also are on

the road and are being caught. So it's really silly, but in order to get a stop

to the ongoing terror, may be we should accept this agreement and then slowly

see how to proceed. Please let me know what you all think about it.

A ray of hope ... that's what I feel right now, at least for the moment... but

the problems, which will follow, are already embedded in it. It reminds me of

Oct.2002: Dr.Jayasinghe announced, that he has stopped killing the dogs in

Gohagoda (KMC dog)-pound, but he kept on catching more dogs and they were piling

up inside that terrible stinking hell-hole with hardly any food or water and the

kennels were never cleaned. Then he offered, that anyone, who has the funds, can

use the pound as a transit-home for a neutering-proramme, so Rohini and Edith

came forward and they got the keys and we all were happy, cleaned the place, fed

the dogs well, sterilized and vaccinated them and re-homed most of them. Then we

discretely shifted from re-homing to returning because naturally we could not

find homes for all the dogs... with silent cooperation of Dr.Jayasinghe... Hari

is asking quite rightly: why did nobody ask the councilors at that time whether

they agree? But now both, the Mayor and

Dr.Jayasinghe are hiding behind the " majority " of the council (to keep it

anonymous). To get more details please refer to attachment: History of the

no-kill programme, which Rohini wrote in Oct. 2004 in order to inform the Health

Minister of the problems we encountered even at that time (also at aapn website,

srilankadogs). I just mention this now because of the similar siuation: we can't

bear the suffering and so we go for any lolly-pup they offer us just to have a

momentary solution. But as Pradeep Nath mentioned quite truely: we should not

have accepted this without having a written agreement and all terms clarified in

that. By insisting on conditions we may have lost the offer, but if we had got

it right at that time, we would not face this tragedy now. So let's think

carefully about the present offer. I'm looking forward to your e-mails.

Thank you all for your concern.

Padma

-

Arun Tampoe

Padma

Cc: Nihal Fernando

Saturday, August 27, 2005 3:57 PM

Fw: A Plea To Save Innocent lives

so...this is what comes of uncoordinated shotgun massages scattered allover

and creates confusion....

after allthe tears and bleating DR J is hiding behind another bunch of

bureaucrats who are " only doing their duty " have we haerdallthis before ?

who has done what ?

-

Harindra Amaratunge

postmaster

Cc: Sagarica Rajakarunanayaka ; Arun Tampoe ; Elly Hiby ; Kelly Omeara ;

Sherr Grant ; Merrit Clifton ; Linda Furness ; Coolingkim ; Robert

Blumberg ; Padma ; Family Marsh ; Karin Busch ; Amaratunge, Chandi M. ; azam24x7

; nandablr ; P1hendo ; Dr.S.Chinny Krishna ;

aapn ; Nilesh Bhanage ; Tracey Clarke ; Rod & Tessa Weaver ; Linda

Molvik ; Weintraub ; Visakha SPCA ; Pradeep Nath ; Swathi Buddhiraju ;

Pat Jayatilleke ; Nicki Farthing ; Harindra Amaratunge ;

suzane.vanina ; Paulette Begon ; mertens.rosa ;

speakeasy ; phianimal ; perro10 ;

sb299871 ; nihalas ; email-sarathjayasinghe21 ;

mail ; Nimal Ranasinghe ; Manel Liyanage ; dinesh nanayakkara ;

Jayani Lokuge ; Nayomi ; Nishantha Weerathunge

Saturday, August 27, 2005 3:55 PM

A Plea To Save Innocent lives

Dear Mr De Silva,

Ever since I heard that innocent dogs were being killed in the religious city

of Kandy during the past few days, I have been calling numerous officials in Sri

Lanka to find out what is going on.

These are my findings:

First I talked with Dr Jayasinghe.

From what I understand, Dr Jaysinghe is not the evil person who is calling

for the killing of these poor creatures. He is mereley a government servant

trying to fulfil the orders of the government officials that he works for.

Next I talked to the Mayor of Kandy (Mr. Senenayake). He informed me that he

had placed a no kill order for the for past three years and had asked KACPAW to

completely rid all stray dogs from the streets of Kandy. (A very big task). He

also stated that the decission to start killing the dogs was an unanimious vote

consisting of approximately 24 officials and that he could not put a stop to the

killing.

What I dont understand is this:

Mr Senanayake needed several officals to implement the recent kill order but

three years ago he placed a NO KILL order with no apparent involment of

officials.

KACPAW and several organizations have steralized and administered rabies

vaccinations to stray dogs and released them back on the streets of Kandy only

becuase of limited funds and manpower available to completely re-home or house

stray dogs. But at least these organizations and donaters from across the world

are trying to find a humane mehtod of animal control. The whole world is

stepping in the direction of humane mehtods of animal control, in which

direction is Sri Lanka heading?

Only you Mr De Silva can bring about a humane resolution to this attrocity. I

have the utmost faith in you sir that you will put a stop to the killing of

these innocnet dogs, and once and for all implement a humane mehtod of stray dog

control.

Thank You for you cooperation and time.

You definitely have my vote including the rest, I wish you success in all

your endeavours

Sincelely,

Harindra Amaratunge

USA

FYI (see email below)

Dear Dr. Harischandra, many emails from across the world have been sent to

Dr. J and the Minister of Health urging Dr. J not to start killing dogs in

Kandy. Kim Cooper of the UK alerted all of us about these developments. It was

just the other day that the minister was talking about getting cabinet approval

for a no-kill programme in SL. We need a meeting with the minister to discuss

all this. I wonder whether you could have one arranged? Could you also speak to

Dr. J and try your best to convince him not to do this senseless thing? These

are sterilized, vaccinated dogs (vaccinated by your teams as well last year) and

the tireless efforts of SOFA members and the enormous amounts of money they have

spent cannot be just dismissed like this by commencing killing dogs in Kandy.

This was a programme mooted by non-other than Jayasinghe himself when plans of

an ABC programme were being discussed by SOFA with the KMC. Champa

Van: Karin Busch [mail]

Verzonden: zondag 21 augustus 2005 14:03

Aan: 'sarathjayasinghe21'

Onderwerp: stray dogs in Kandy

Urgentie: Hoog

Dear Dr. Jayasinghe,

The distressing news reached us that after all the vaccination and

sterilization campaigns in Kandy and surroundings conducted by Dr.

Harischandra's team last year, which were supported and welcomed by several

international organizations as well as private donators, you have plans to kill

all the stray dogs after all in the fight against rabies. We re ally do not

understand how it can be decided to kill dogs that already have been sterilized

and vaccinated against rabies. Apart from the waste of resources and efforts by

the people who put all their energy in it to realize these campaigns, it would

also be a terrible shame on the Municipality of Kandy if innocent creatures are

killed. And should there be still some dogs left which have not yet received the

same treatment, why cannot these be vaccinated and sterilized as well? Not only

human beings, but also animals are entitled to a healthy life. In your capacity

as the Kandy Municipal Chief Veterinary Surgeon, you are one of the

persons who is responsible for the welfare of the animals in the region of

Kandy. Therefore, we respectfully but most urgently request you to use only

human methods such as vaccinating and sterilizing in order to improve their

health. Killing would do not only the opposite, but is furthermore a most

barbaric deed.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Karin Busch.

Burg. van Fenemaplein 2 / 1103

2042 TA Zandvoort

the Netherlands