Thursday, March 24, 2005

Yesterday I got up at 5am to get the team of 18 up and ready to leave to go to the South to deliver 420 backpacks of school supplies for a school in the south in the city of Ambalagoda.

We finished distributing the school packs and drove the 2 hours back to our house in Colombo. When we arrived we found the tenet of the ground floor, Mr. De Alwis very upset with us. He held himself in the doorway blocking us from going in and thereby entering the top floor of the apartment we legally rent until our lease is up at the end of April.

When Mr. De Alwis, whom is also the deputy mayor of a city near Ambalagoda stepped away to speak to one of his servants, I tried to enter at which point the mayor came to the doorway and grabbed my arm. I yelled for him not to touch me and to let go of my upper arm, at which point he said he would harm me by punching me. After my team and many of the neighbors who gathered near the house turned to see this he yelled that he would punch me. After a few moments of him staring at me he said, “I will kill you”, at which point he ordered his servants for a knife. His servants delayed and he walked inside asking one of his servants to watch the door and went inside with the intention of finding a knife.

At this point, my entire team and myself moved about 15 feet away from the gate and contacted the police via cell phone. After one of the neighbors notified him we had done so, he yelled, “Be very careful, watch your back, I cannot be touched here”.

Mr. De Alwis, is the deputy mayor of Bentota, Sri Lanka. Bentota is one city (2 km) north of Ambalagoda and he has communicated many times that his city is in need of Tsunami relief. Because he has communicated in the past we found to be untrue, I have passed upon the needs to other organizations such as Compassion International, United Red Cross, and other professional tsunami relief organizations.

Our entire team is agreement, that Mr. De Alwis is a threat to the tsunami relief we do here and more importantly to our safety in the country. We have filed a police report of this matter and notified the US Embassy. The US Embassy and other relief organizations have instructed us to move from the premises, which we have done and are currently at a safe undisclosed location in the countries capital city, Colombo. We are currently looking for another place to live and asking for a donation of US $500, which would provide housing and utilities until April 31st, the date of our return to the US. Sri Lanka’s lease policies differ from the United States in the way that tenants prepay the entire term of the rent plus deposit. We hope to get our deposit from the property owners in Minnesota but because of the close relationship between the deputy mayor and the owners we do not expect this to happen.

Thank you for your time,
Vegas Thornton
Vegas@srilankaoutreach.com