War Heroes – Killed in Action

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General Gerry de Silva, LTTE, Padma Weera Vibushana, Puthukudiyiruppu, Wanni

Foreword to forthcoming book by Gen. Gerry de Silva

I am honoured to have been asked by General Gerry de Silva to write a Foreword to this book. I am also very pleased that he undertook the task of setting down the brave exploits of our soldiers.

One of the biggest problems this country faces is its failure to remember. Successive governments keep reinventing the wheel, and often in the process make it less rounded than previously. A principal reason for this is the failure to maintain records, or to refer to them.

A decade and a half ago, when I became Academic Coordinator of the degree programme that had been started at the Sri Lanka Military Academy, I suggested that the cadets should pay greater attention to recent military history. I was told by the officers in charge then that this would not be possible, since much of it was about failure. Since those responsible were still in positions of command, they would not want what went wrong to be analyzed.

I found this immensely sad, and drew attention to the fact that Indian army personnel, following what can only be described as the debacle of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, had produced a number of books which highlighted the lessons to be learnt from that operation. But that is why the Indian army was seen as comparatively professional, whereas ours in those days was still floundering.

All that changed in the decade that followed, and I believe the determination of some officers such as General Gamini Hettiarachchi to upgrade training, which also involved setting up the degree course, helped considerably. General Sarath Fonseka, who along with the Secretary of Defence contributed immensely to the victory, had initially been opposed to a degree course. He had this in common with many officers who thought we would create eggheads, whereas conversely my colleagues at the University thought we were lowering the value of the degree. But at my first meeting with him after I took over the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat, in 2007, he assured me that he found the degree course officers well motivated. In fact they were in the thick of battle in the last few years of the conflict, and I am sadly aware of how many of them died. I was moved then to read, in this book, of how a couple of them laid down their lives, knowing the likely outcome of their brave effort to inspire or save their men. These were Captain Samaranayake of Intake 54, and Captain Punsiri of Intake 56, whose faces I still recall, not the most distinguished cadets academically, but always determined to learn.

And there was yet another, even younger officer, whom I do not recall since he was in Intake 62, about the last I was able to teach properly, since 63 was not a degree course, an anomaly that was soon corrected. This young man died just over a year after he was commissioned at Puthukudiyiruppu during the fierce fighting of March 2009.

But of course the bulk of those who won the Padma Weera Vibushana, the medal of gallantry and conspicuous bravery which is the subject of the second part of this book, were mainly ordinary soldiers. The commitment to their country and their fellows which motivated them is what Gerry de Silva celebrates, and I hope we do not allow their heroism to be traduced by those, in other countries but sadly in this too, who understand nothing about war, or pretend they do not, and attack the heroism of these men.

Travels with Ena: Yala and other travels – Part 2

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Aluwihare, Ambepitiya, Anuradhapura, Dundee Cake, Ena de Silva, JVP, Kadirana, Lalith Athulathmudali, LTTE, Manorani de Zoysa, Puttalam Road, Richard de Zoysa, Tennekoon, Wilpattu, Yala

There were several more trips to Yala that year, and one to Wilpattu for the April New Year holidays. Richard was meant to come with us, but we also asked his mother Manorani, at which point he declared that he had too much work and could not get away. Like many markedly self aware people, he was determined to keep the various aspects of his life apart. I had realized this the previous year, when he had asked me to spend some time with him and Manorani at Kadirana, at a small estate bungalow not too far from Colombo which was owned by a cousin of his father. The first evening was delightful, but the next day he decided that he had to get back to Colombo for work, and we did not see very much of him in the days that followed. Manorani and I had a great time together, me writing, she sleeping most of the time and reading trashy novels, but it was always fun to have Richard back, even if late at night, with time only for a hasty breakfast next morning.

While we were at Wilpattu, typically, he turned up on his motor-bike, which he had bought in the days we taught together at 8^th Lane, falling off regularly and cultivating spectacular bruises, but ploughing on with his efforts to master the monster. He spent a few hours with us, claiming he was en route to some assignment. In fact this was true, for it was in those days that he had begun doing propaganda work for Lalith Athulathmudali who had recently taken up the position of Minister of National Security. Lalith had been a great friend of Manorani, and then of Richard, who saw him as a sort of mentor. He was very fond of him, and described him as Tigger incarnate, from the Winnie-the-Pooh books, full of enthusiasms that he did not think through properly. This was not quite accurate I think, for Lalith was ambitious and planned carefully, but Richard, while not entirely disagreeing, saw him as nevertheless comparatively innocent, and a tool in the hands of President Jayewardene.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 15 – Premadasa’s efforts at reform

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Arjuna Aluwihare, Dayan Jayatilleke, Gamini Dissanayake, JVP, Lalith Athulathmudali, LTTE, Mr Ashraff, Mr Sivasithamparam, Mr Yoheswaran, Mr. Amirthalingam, Neelan Tiruchelvam, Ossie Abeygunasekera, Premadasa, Richard de Zoysa, Sam Tambimuttu, TULF, Vartharajah Perumal

Premadasa’s dark period culminated in the killing of Richard de Zoysa in February 1990. I was away at the time, sailing round the world again on the Semester at Sea programme, and I got back only after things had settled down. I have written elsewhere, in different modes, about the incident, so I need not discuss it here. However what I found when I came back to Colombo in July was a world rapidly returning to normalcy.

I have argued that Premadasa used the opportunity offered by the international furore over Richard’s death to rein in the death squads that had destroyed the JVP. I am aware that the force used was excessive, and I believe Premadasa knew this too, but felt he had no alternative when the Ceasefire he had offered was ignored. To his credit it must be noted that, after February, the squads, which had been continuing with excesses such as Richard’s killing even after there was no threat, were disbanded.

I suppose normal too was the renewal of hostilities with the LTTE, since hindsight teaches us, as it taught Premadasa and Chandrika and later Ranil too, that the Tigers were at their most dangerous when pretending to negotiate. Though Premadasa’s technique of dealing with the Tigers after war broke out was not as successful as that of the Rajapaksa government, he also in his own way did much to reduce their strength. In particular he concentrated on developing the East, and in fact by the time he died he was able to hold elections there in which the UNP did remarkably well.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 14 – ‘Lakmahal’ ages

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Bandaranaike, Chanaka Amaratunga, Indo-Lanka Accord 1987, Lakmahal, Lakshmi, LTTE, Neville Kanakaratne, Premadasa

Mrs Bandaranaike took defeat badly. She promptly changed tack within the party, and began the movement leftward that finally gave control of the party over to Chandrika. Sunethra encouraged her in this, for she told Chanaka, on the morning after the election, that the only hope now was to bring Chandrika back. Chanaka vehemently contested this suggestion, and thought that Anura’s position should be strengthened. Later he felt that this position contributed to the decision by Mrs Bandaranaike not to put him in Parliament on the National List as had been promised.

Anura too contributed himself to his final sidelining, in part because of his lack of energy, but also through his innate softness. When the opportunity came for him to be General Secretary of the SLFP, his mother left the meeting in high dudgeon, and he promptly got upset and agreed to a compromise. Dharmasiri Senanayake however, who was appointed, was a solid supporter of traditional SLFP socialism, and he lent himself to the maneuvers which led to a renewal of the alliance with the old left, and the return of Chandrika in triumph.

Chanaka however found himself courted by Premadasa who I believe appreciated the contribution he made to the All Party Conference that had been called. In time too Premadasa showed himself much more competent as well as more inclusive than we had previously thought. Though 1989 was an awful year, in which, after an attempt at a Ceasefire, he moved to crushing the JVP insurrection he had inherited, subsequently he showed himself able to compromise.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 13 – New political alliances

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Bandaranaike, Champika Ranawaka, Chanaka Amaratunga, Cyril Mathew, Dhammika, Dinesh Gunawardena, IPKF, J R Jayewardene, Jaffna Library, JVP, LTTE, Mr Ashraff, Mr Yoheswaran, Ossie Abeygunasekera, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, Referendum, Vijaya Kumaranatunga

By the late eighties, Sri Lanka was in a state of turmoil. In the North and East, the Tigers were battling with the Indian Peace Keeping Force. In the South the JVP was gaining in strength, aided I believe by several SLFP members who saw this as the only chance of getting rid of the authoritarian government J R had developed, with not even a pretence of fair elections. The techniques initiated at the election to the Jaffna District Development Council in 1981, which had included murderous intimidation of opposition politicians (I was in Parliament when the MP for Jaffna, Mr Yoheswaran, subsequently assassinated by the LTTE, described how he had barely escaped with his life) and gratuitous violence such as the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, had been applied successfully in the country at large.

Given the absurdity of the Referendum which put off elections to Parliament for six years, the wholesale prevention of opposition meetings, the total control of the media, and then to make doubly sure the ruthless stuffing of ballot boxes (not just impersonation but the phenomenon of armed gangs taking over whole ballot books from Returning Officers), I am astonished at how the chattering classes, who accepted all this because it was done by their favoured patron, now claim two decades later with a very different sort of duly elected government in power that democracy is in danger.

The stand taken by Chanaka then was the more admirable, and I continue proud of the dissent we expressed in the days before this became fashionable. But the greatest credit I think has to be taken by the old Left, which not only opposed J R’s authoritarianism and racism, but then had also to face violence from the JVP when they came out in support of the Indo-Lankan Accord. In the Provincial Council elections that took place in 1988, they came under attack on both sides, and some brave characters lost their lives, as for instance the Communist Party stalwart who had helped print the Liberal Party newsletters.