Rising from Adversity - Epilogue

Rising from Adversity - Epilogue

Read Part I,  Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V of this story, before continuing on this final episode.

 

(a 4 minute read - less if you are a fast reader)

Eleander was a master schemer of the crimes that I have described in previous chapters.  Chamuel was his accomplice and they protected each other.

Elander was thirty-eight years old and Chamuel was thirty-four years old at the time of these crimes.  These crimes were willful, pre-planned and pre-meditated.

Elander prepared the environment to enable him to prey on innocent children.  He relocated the senior boys to a new dormitory on a separate wing in the boarding.  This allowed him to isolate the junior and more vulnerable pubescent boys in one wing from the senior boys who had a better understanding of these things.

Elander used religion as a cover to indoctrinate the innocent boys to believe that he is the caring father to them.  He even went to the extent of using biblical words such as ‘abba’.  He asked the boys to address him as father and abba.

Elander encouraged pubescent boys to visit him and massaged them in the pretext of healing their sports induced injuries.  Boys trusted him and were innocent in going to his room to receive treatment, one boy at a time.  He was alone with each boy in his room.  He did this to earn their trust and to explore how far he could go with them.

These actions should have evoked suspicion to his deputy, Chamuel.  He chose to look the other way.  He was an indirect accomplice to these crimes at the time.   Chamuel’s bedroom was next to Elander’s bedroom, separated by a single wall. There was no way Chamuel would have not observed what's going on in next door in Elander’s room.

Elander encouraged the boys to sleep in the summer house.   Taking the boys out in the open in the night with mats and pillows to another building should have evoked major suspicions among the Christian brothers.  None of the boys were in a position to refuse his order. There were at least thirty Christian brothers in the adjoining buildings.  They chose to look the other way.

Elander has been abusing multiple boys at the same time.  I was not a one-off victim.  I came to know what he had done to Richard much later.  

Chamuel could not have been blind to these crimes.

Elander was suddenly transferred out of the boarding school.  I do not know what caused this.  Perhaps there was some suspicion on Elander’s fondness for young boys in the wider circle among the Christian brother’ hierarchy.  It was possible Elander was transferred and sent to India to cover up an issue that may have come to the attention of the order.  The authorities decided to hand the reins to Chamuel, the fox, waiting for his turn to prey.

When Chamuel came to me on the pretext of helping after I wrote a scathing letter to Elander in India, it was done not to help me but to protect his paedophile pal.  By asking me to keep quiet, he was protecting the criminal.  Elander would have had Chamuel’s implicit trust to involve him in covering up the crime. It demonstrates their partnership in crime.  Covering up a crime is also a crime.

Chamuel was himself a paedophile.  His question to me about my genitals was totally inappropriate.  He, trying to touch me while I was horribly sick demonstrated his criminal intent and twisted sexual desires.

What Chamuel has done to Richard must have been terrible.  I came to know Richard’s situation only because I was his friend. I then came to know that Elander too had abused Richard. It was double jeopardy that innocent Richard had to deal with.

I came to know many other stories much later in life from the boys who were in the facility at the time.  One particular boy who was repeatedly abused tried to leave the boarding school.  His parents did not want to hear of it and discouraged it. Reluctantly, a few years later, he had no option but to become a Christian brother in the very same institute that violated him. He continued in the order, became an alcoholic and was an unhappy man.  He told that the worst part of his life was being forced to sit opposite his abuser at the same table.  His body and soul was ravaged by mental trauma from the sexual violence he endured as a young teenager. He died recently from his alcohol-induced illness in his early sixties, but he looked like he was in his eighties in the last stages of his life. He was a wasted man both physically and mentally with a lifetime of agony.   He must have carried a terrible burden on him, his whole life. I knew him as a tender innocent pubescent boy from the age of 13. He himself told me this story with tears in his eyes when I met him shortly before his death.  His blood is on these criminals.

Chamuel, I heard later, was far more abusive in his sexual pervasions with the innocent boys. He had been an aggressive pursuer of the more vulnerable boys. These incidents had taken place after I left the rotten institute. He had come to their beds in the dormitory and carried them openly in full view to his room. I have witnesses who have seen these scenes. The majority of these boys were from a financially disadvantaged background.  They could not refuse Chamuel's advances. These pubescent boys' parents could not afford to take them back.  Some of them do not talk about it.  This is how boys are silenced and remain mute in manhood. I have no idea where some of them are today, but I hope they managed to redeem their lives. 

All of these actions are willful multiple paedophile crimes on vulnerable children. They were sexual assaults. The crimes include wilful pre-meditated child grooming. Both of these paedophiles should have been jailed and banned from going anywhere near children for life. These are internationally proscribed crimes. 

I am not sure how many young innocent lives were destroyed by these two monsters.  Sri Lanka is a country that does not openly discuss and address these types of difficult issues.  But I am hopeful that will change in time.  I have spoken out.  I hope child abuse will become a thing of the past and new generations will be saved from such horrific crimes.

Finally, those criminals could not destroy me.  Instead, it fortified me.