Ivan Pedropillai BSc., MSc., FCCA, FCMA

8th July 2007

Dear Sir

Re: Dr & Mrs Brian Senewiratne - Private Land in Pine Mt Road, Mt Gravatt, Brisbane

The idea of a land grab by a city council in Australia is a repugnant anachronism, which most people will date back to the bad old days when aboriginal land was seized under false pretences. The report of a modern day heist of private land by the Brisbane City Council from a powerless, aged and humanitarian medical doctor who has given his life's service to the good people of Brisbane, has reached even us in the UK.

I am a retired senior executive from the Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum group who has lived in the United Kingdom for nearly 40 years. I can scarcely believe that in present day Australia, the Brisbane City Council is using its executive powers and legal muscle to forcibly acquire land that belongs to Dr and Mrs Senewiratne for a pitiable peppercorn price. I have visited and stayed with Dr and Mrs Senewiratne in their Brisbane house on a short visit with my wife last year. I have seen what a delightful property they have created out of a previously inhospitable, neglected and waterless bush and the Council should compliment them on their effort to develop and improve their property. A fair market value based financial reward in beautiful Queensland should be theirs to enjoy for their hard work and enterprise.

This land which was 10 acres of neglected scrubland and used as a dump for old cars, refrigerators and refuse in 1978, was acquired by Dr and Mrs Senewiratne in that year. It adjoins a forest owned by the Brisbane City Council, a large part of which was quarried by the council (Pine Mt Rd Quarry). Considering that such a large tract of land is even now available to the Brisbane City Council and that quarrying on it is not a very environmentally friendly activity, it seems incongruous that the some members of your staff have chosen the environmental protection subterfuge to harass a civic conscious doctor into giving up his hard won environmentally cleared land.

This must surely be the hand of an executive down the line acting beyond his authority in the name of the Mayor and his council. We appeal to you to see that justice and fair play is done in the name of 'fair' Australia. The 'criminal' case against Dr Senewiratne for clearing noxious Lantana weed from his own land can only be the trumped-up work of an over zealous executive in your legal department. The harassment to forcibly acquire Dr Senewiratne's land appears to be ill intentioned and could become a cause celebre world-wide when it is seen as a powerful City Council ranged against an internationally and nationally reputed humanitarian activist and a dedicated medical specialist powerless against such odds. The Council is reported to have A$1.5 billion at its command seemingly to bully its own ratepayers.

Dr Senewiratne is a medical consultant with specialist qualifications obtained in the UK and Australia and a medical degree obtained from the prestigious University of Cambridge in England. This decent human being had arrived as an immigrant in Australia some 30 years ago and since then has rendered invaluable public service in Queensland as an associate professor of medicine and a medical consultant. He is internationally renowned as a humanitarian activist, prepared to defend the vulnerable against oppression by the state. He has worked tirelessly as a member of the ruling majority Sinhala community of Sri Lanka to plead the case of the brutalised minority Tamils of Sri Lanka in international fora at much personal cost. In Queensland, he has been active in speaking out about major problems in the health service and seeking reform and improvements for patients.

Over the last 30 years Dr and Mrs Senewiratne had cleared their land by dint of their own hard work and investment of their limited resources to build a house for themselves and to plant an orchard of mango trees on a part of it. As a professional who had little capital at the time of his immigration to Australia, Dr Senewiratne looked forward to the capital appreciation of his land over the many years as his retirement fund which would permit him to carry out his voluntary humanitarian work upon his retirement. What the council is proposing to do, is tantamount to expropriating his hard earned retirement funds without paying him a fair market value in compensation. Instead, what has been offered to him is not even a tenth of the current market price for his land.

The fair and reasonable options available to the Council are:

All of these options will require the council to withdraw its legal actions against the Senewiratnes as a precondition to establish its bonafide intentions. Otherwise, it would ill become the Brisbane City Council to have its name posted in the international public media for bullying one of its outstanding and humanitarian citizens into giving up his retirement funds that are locked up in his land for a trifling mess of mere pottage.

I appeal to you and your Council to kindly look into this matter urgently and to do the right thing; and to call off your hounds from this poor and elderly gentleman and his dear wife and from the only asset he has nursed and nurtured for his retirement and some of which, like other parents, he may wish to pass on eventually to his children who are all upright citizens of Australia.

Yours sincerely

Ivan Pedropillai

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2nd Letter:

06 July 2007

Dear Lord Mayor,

Brisbane's City Council's (BCC) unjust and unwarranted harassment of Dr Brian Senewiratne (BS)

Although I am writing to you from many thousands of miles away, the above issue concerns us most dearly as BS has for over four decades been an unique Sinhalese voice speaking against the increasingly genocidal practices of the Sri Lankan government against its minority Tamils. Just three weeks ago, BS arrived here in the UK to assist our organisation (Tamil Writers Guild) in presenting evidence about the above mentioned genocidal practices to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils meeting held at the House of Commons. His leading role in that presentation of evidence has been very favourably commented on by several of the MPs and senior representatives of the major NGO/INGOs and Embassies who were present at that meeting.

However, we were very disappointed and angered to hear that BS’s decade long struggle against your Council’s unjust and unwarranted harassment of him and his wife has now taken a much nastier turn, with your Council’s issue of the recent acquisition notice on his land and property with a compensation offer of a paltry sum of approximately $430,000. All reasonable evidence suggests that this is a gross under-valuation of BS’s land and property. All of your Council’s previous attempts (eg. vegetation protection order, environment protection order, noxious weeds clearance order, compliance notice, replanting order and a criminal charge for allegedly damaging vegetation) to mentally, physically and financially ruin BS has failed.

It is clear that BS enjoys the tremendous support of his medical practice patients and colleagues. We understand that he has made a major contribution not only to patient care and the training of young doctors, but has addressed the significant problems in the health service in Queensland. His tireless activity in the area of human rights abuse in Sri Lanka over the past 40 years is too well known to require elaboration. Only last year (2006), he was publicly recognised and awarded plaques of appreciation by expatriate Tamils in New York, Toronto and Brisbane. What we are looking at here is a serious injustice done to someone who has played, and continues to play, a major role in addressing the escalating violation of human rights in Sri Lanka.

We are writing to you to rescind the acquisition notice or for BS to be compensated on the current property values (not on the intentionally devalued price). The alternative is for BCC to give BS a land of the same size in another part of Brisbane (BCC owns thousands of acres in this area), in what is generally known a ‘land-swap’. Simply to take his land and pay peanuts as compensation is just not acceptable.

As you will appreciate, BCC’s harassment has gone on for far too long and BS’s ability to speak out against the Sri Lankan government’s genocidal policies is being increasingly compromised by BCC’s actions. Hence, we are writing to you to seek an urgent and just resolution. We look forward to your early and favourable reply.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Priya Thamotheram,

Source: Tamil Writers Guild
Date: 16 July 2007