Commemoration of Richard de Zoysa: Conversational Seminar

Commemoration of Richard de Zoysa: Conversational Seminar
Richard de Zoysa, who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed on February 18, 1990, has once again become a focal point of societal discourse after a span of 35 years. The film “Rani” by Ashoka Handagama is the reason for this discussion. Social pity for the mothers and wives of the 60,000 victims of enforced disappearances in the southern region of Sri Lanka who have not been located or have no graves has been sparked by the film’s depiction of Richard’s murder and his mother Manorani Saravanamuththu’s role. It also enquires into the enforced disappearances in the North.
At the same time, the “Mother’s Front,” established in 1991 by Manorani, in 1994 led the power coup where women who had lost their children and husbands marched to appoint a woman—a mother and a wife whose husband was murdered—as the executive president of the country. But for all those who were victims of enforced disappearances and were murdered in the South, even Manorani, who took the lead in 1994, did not get justice for her son’s murder due to the deceitful politics. That being said, history is not over. For thirty-five years, the fight against murders and enforced disappearances has persisted.
The echo of the criminal state is interpreted in a fresh round through Handagama’s “Rani,” and the intervention is connected to the future course to obtain justice in the present society through the sound of Richard’s footsteps.
Commemoration of Richard de Zoysa: Conversational Seminar
Date: February 18, 2025
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Colombo National Library Auditorium
Commented by:
Nandana Weeraratne
Pradeep Jeganathan
Vidarshan Kannanga
Asanka Abeyratne
Entrance and coordination: Mareene Nilashani