tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18952433155418873712024-02-07T01:13:17.869-08:00Chimes of Freedom IIA Dissident's View of LifeRory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.comBlogger940125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-35652891803281522842019-03-13T19:51:00.003-07:002019-03-13T20:25:47.513-07:00<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>AND YET, AND YET</i></b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">On Tuesday night last, having just done a show on The Last Jacobite/Rebel Radio show I checked on FB to see what comments were coming in. And I found this:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>G.H: We don't even control or have a country of our own... But fuckwits like you, are determined to make sure that never happens... People like you are total TRAITORS... If you dont want to be Scottish get to fuck out of my Country!!!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This was on my own Timeline where I had posted a meme which read:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: 700;">I will never vote for the SNP again while the Murrells are controlling it</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So</span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> for this G.H. called me a traitor, of being un-Scottish and advised me to 'get the fuck' out of 'his' country!<br /><br />Now, while I know nothing about G.H. he will know very little about me. I can hear the desperation behind his impatience and anger. But the judgmentalism and condemnation smacks of unreformed Calvinism.<br /><br />G.H. won't know that I have lived in Scotland for 33 years, he won't know that for some of those years I served as a regional councillor in the Highlands, during which time I did everything I could to serve and honour my promises to the electorate of Nairn Alltan.<br /><br />He won't know that I used to keep a list of those promises in front of my office desk and ticked them off, one by one, as the promises were kept. He won't know that in November 1991 I led the blockade of a nuclear waste convoy heading to cross the Kessock Bridge in Inverness on its way from Germany to be stored at Dounreay.<br /><br />And he won't know about the pensioner who promised to vote for me if I banged the drum for him if elected. Something that I promised him I would certainly do. And on being elected that the Daily Record carried a picture of me on the swings near the Nairn Swimming Pool describing me as The Green Jacobite!<br /><br />And he certainly wouldn't know that on my return to council business after the nuclear blockade I found a vile racist note in my councillor's pigeon-hole whose sentiments were not very different to his described above. And of the constant use of racist language aimed at me, behind my back, by certain councillors. So bad that I had to report the Highlands only declared Tory, a Mr Graham, to the council Convener who gave that 'highland gentleman' a warning about his obnoxious behaviour.<br /><br />The interesting thing was this: until the time of that blockade most of the other 50 or so councillors treated me as a clown or, being a Eurasian, as a bit of an olive-skinned curiousity. And being a Highland Green they never failed to make parochial comments to me about the Green Welly-Boot brigade 'incomersh' amongst whom I clearly was not one!<br /><br />In the 'nineties the Greens were responsible for conducting a mini-uprising of the people of Nairn. Local folk were concerned about things like the pollution of the River Nairn, the filthy state of a sewage-covered Nairn beach, the illegal burning of highly toxic chemicals by Nontox and the secret dumping of poison by the same company into the local burns not far from that factory. People were getting ill with headaches.<br /><br />These and the wider problem at Inverness' dumping raw sewage into the Meikle Firth and the iniquitous Poll Tax were some of the issues I promised to address and did.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nine Greens stood for election, all through the Great Glen. But only I managed to break the Highland establishment and get elected. Much of that success I attribute to the kids at Nairn Academy who, on discovering that a Green was standing for the council, pestered their parents to vote for me. We adults should never underestimate our children. For it is the same planetary awareness that is now driving the Extinction Rebellion movement, also started by young people. Many young folk are tuned into the needs of the Planet and its biosystem. And they are aware of the world around them in a way that, sadly, only a few adults are. And I see that dearth of awareness on the nationalist Yes pages where Greens are, only too often, mocked and treated with derision.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nationalism seems to be almost a religious thing among many, whereas green and 'environmental' issues are almost the politics of fancifulness and even of English 'incomers' dancing to the tune set them by an English headquarters somewhere in the home counties! Well, I can only put that down to the sheer, pig ignorance of some who, while turning their nationalism into a quasi-religious thing headed by an imagined Saviour who will take us all into the Promised Land, but where the land and seas and all the life that lives in and around us is a thing of little or no concern to them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I believe it is that same insensitive, unaware attitude that leads our 90-minute patriots to a frenzy of anger and hate against their fellow Scots, calling them 'traitors' and telling them to get out of the country. Their inability to understand anything more than a cult of follow-my-leader boils down to a basic political illiteracy fuelled by an ill-concealed attitude of racism between their 'purity' and the barely-tolerated 'incomers' who they see are here on sufferance!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That is where fanaticism leads you to: an intolerance of others who you see as less-deserving of being Scots. And every time I receive abuse on the Yes pages on social media it is that fanaticism I see lurking behind the words. Fanaticism of the kind that leads to fascism.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many of us see ourselves as socialists. I see myself as a Green Socialist. And there are many in the SNP who consider themselves to be socialist or socialistic in outlook. Very few, surely, who would go anywhere near the fanatics. Not consciously or deliberately anyway. Fanaticism and fascism is a thing we all find repugnant and not to be made welcome in our New Scotland.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet, and yet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Look at the intolerance and abuse on the social media. And the anger and self-righteousness in some of us as being either 'true' Scots or traitors who need to go back to where they came from? I'm not talking here of something that goes on between nationalists and unionists; it's about what's passing between people on the same side: people who all want independence in order to make our country into a far better place than it could possibly be while being in its present neo-colonial state.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But there is this thing: political illiteracy, which requires us all to have a monolithic view, of toeing party lines and dishing out abuse at those who deviate from our imagined norms of acceptability. And that's where you find the poison of exceptionalism and race hatred; all the things that most normal humans will hold their nose and turn away from. Not among Jock Tamson's bairns are such to be found.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet, and yet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here they come in their almost goose-stepping arrogance, anger and intolerance.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here they come, following their Saviour and boasting nationalistic purity, ready for another kind of cleansing; if yer no wi' us, yer agin us and I judge yer ter be agin us for not following our Leader! Oh boy! What are the rest of us letting ourselves in for??</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is this the New Scotland we wish to see come about? Where there is one view and only one, where those of a different view (however slight it may be) are simply not to be tolerated, to be made into non-persons? And how do we deal with this home-grown fascism that thrives all around us among the fanatics?</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">You can read the original blog at </span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><b><i>https://chimesofreedom.blogspot.com/</i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRANqRWm0ky14qbfAlsboJrGkiEk-i7tMdBG_YJubICsL5PInzokiW24wgAHP2MLhqPO6DFNSg8p5g-LVa7qKxZjdgnrAkjx3zyOwi6HIu6z1U9MQ0g1TBw_3rwe-JD6wQ_RaJKPs1j4A/s1600/%2560Cheers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="750" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRANqRWm0ky14qbfAlsboJrGkiEk-i7tMdBG_YJubICsL5PInzokiW24wgAHP2MLhqPO6DFNSg8p5g-LVa7qKxZjdgnrAkjx3zyOwi6HIu6z1U9MQ0g1TBw_3rwe-JD6wQ_RaJKPs1j4A/s320/%2560Cheers.jpg" width="320" /></a></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-61295888423246034712019-03-11T15:58:00.001-07:002019-03-11T15:58:00.487-07:00<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<b><span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;">THOUGHTS ON A BRAVE NEW WORLD</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I probably sound old saying it but this New SNP is very different to the old one I remember 30 years ago. As it has grown larger it has taken on folk from Blair's Labour and they have succeeded in leaving their Blairite mark on the party.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is a lot of intolerance amongst what I suspect is predominantly the new membership. That's very different to the old SNP which was full of folk with different and often very radical, opposing views.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During that time I have seen the SNP leadership taking the SNP evermore to the Right, no doubt to get support from the 'great and the good'. But the price it has had to pay for this is the loss of its erstwhile radicalism. And that's a sad thing to see.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can understand how support for YeSNP has become a quasi-religious thing. We are all desperate to exit the rUK. But when a political party begins to resemble a cult then we should all be worried. That is not the purpose of political parties. And that is why more and more of us are beginning to speak out against what we see is happening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's not because we are yoons or Tories or quislings &c but because we believe deeply in the basic freedoms that we see disappearing around us. Some will read this and understand. Sadly others won't bother to read it but will use my reply as just another opportunity for name-calling and putting people down </span><span class="_47e3 _5mfr" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;" title="frown emoticon"><img alt="" class="img" height="16" role="presentation" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tcb/1/16/1f641.png" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: -3px;" width="16" /><br /><span aria-hidden="true" class="_7oe" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0px; width: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-844536599857680622019-03-08T13:56:00.002-08:002019-03-08T14:01:12.632-08:00<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">THEY HAVE NO ANSWERS</span></b></div>
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<b>Yessers like to believe that they are the most politically educated people in the world. Apart from being wishful thinking anyone looking from the outside in would question that.</b></div>
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FB's Yes pages are mostly full of servility and self-congratulation with the leadership of the SNP elevated to the position of being demi-gods who are going to lead us all to freedom. And even while the demi-gods hand over all the responsibility to a suddenly beneficent WM Tory g<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">overnment the adulation at home remains unquelled.</span></div>
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They forget that it's perfectly possible to desire independence without either belonging to the SNP or having to support leaders who treat us all as if they ruled Animal Farm.</div>
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This isn't about the SNP or even its leaders. It's about the sheer stupidity of those who follow political parties unquestioningly without ever stopping to think for themselves. And worse than that, about the same idiots who don't understand the meaning of tolerance.</div>
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There is something deeply wrong in the Yes Movement but who has the courage to risk attracting hostility by speaking openly about it? How has it come to pass that collectively we have become like Pavlov's Dogs, salivating at the very mention of a second referendum which The Great Leader tells us we cannot have because some would-be fascists in London say No?</div>
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Independence was never going to be easy; the UK will not willingly sign its own death warrant. So how does our Great Leader propose to honour the mandate that we, the sovereign people, have given her?</div>
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It's no good asking the YeSNP Hallelujah Chorus because they can't tell you, apart from loosing off another stream of desperate invective. That's what they reduce it all into.</div>
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And if that's the best they can offer Scotland just what kind of society is it that they are creating? Beyond the invective, the tribalism and the bigotry they will have no answers.<br />
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-24423717173808041182019-03-05T16:46:00.002-08:002019-03-06T14:36:44.675-08:00<b><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">FACEBOOK'S SNP STASI CENSORSHIP</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>No sooner had I published my previous post, The Politics of the Echo Chamber, someone reported it to Facebook who blocked it automatically.</b><br /><br />This is the second blog of mine to have been blocked in the last week. To add insult to injury my posts had been made to my own FB Timeline and to two other pages that I administrate. At that moment my blog had not been posted to any other FB page. The censorship was effected in under five minutes!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Clearly someone is watching all my posts and whenever they see one from my blog concerning their intolerance they have it shut down. It's easy enough to do. You report a blog as, say, being abusive and FB shuts it down automatically. Trying to appeal to have it reinstated is hopeless. Once FB shuts something down, it remains shut down. So what these people are doing is to knowingly take advantage of the FB dictatorship.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nothing gets done, there is no real outcry by others. One or two maybe but otherwise apathy rules and the SNP Stasi will know that too. So, in this way the Stasi succeed in controlling discussion on FB's indy pages and effectively making dissenters like me into non-persons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Welcome to the New SNP, where debate is strictly controlled despite outward appearances. This censorship on social media is, I am convinced, being coordinated with a nod and a wink from Hope Street. And it gives a good pointer to the direction the technocrats wish us to take in a post-independent Scotland. A new Scotland which will play an active part in the US-led NATO and Atlantic Alliance, a land already becoming a playground for neoliberalism and the privatisation of public land and a laboratory for corporate lobbyist, Andrew Wilson's, lunatic 'Growth' Reported when adopted.<br /><br />The sacrilege taking place at Culloden, the Flamingoland scandal at Loch Lomond, the despoliation given planning permission at Glen Etive. Neoliberalism already in action under the auspices of the Scottish Government and the New SNP.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though this Report is only up for discussion at the SNP's April Conference I am not at all starry-eyed about their leadership's intentions which I firmly believe is to push it through to make it the <i>modus operandi</i> for the Scottish Government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But leaving concerns about that aside for now, my focus remains on what the SNP Stasi are up to, turning the social media into nothing more than a platform for propaganda where all dissent is to be crushed at source. It's not just happening to a few of us. It happens every time someone speaks out of turn on the Yes pages. It mostly doesn't get reported because the victims usually just leave in disillusion and disgust.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Stasi's attitude is vengeful and nasty, but who cares?, it works for them. The principle is the old Leninist one of political expediency where the means suit the ends and the 'greater good' is served by the stifling of free expression and dissent. Welcome to the New Scotland!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This concerns all of us, not just the victims. If they can do this and get away with it today you could be next. Unless, of course, you are happy to remain one of their sheeple and keep your opinions to yourself. In which case I have to ask you: is this the kind of New Scotland you wish to see and help create?<br /><i><b><br />Is this what the struggle for our freedom is really all about? And if so, what kind of 'freedom' is that?</b></i></span><br />
<br />Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-45305385495531289112019-03-04T17:56:00.001-08:002019-03-05T10:08:04.916-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEHGysfME3jXdIFXbsj6hSuh-vWjBRJ3b-P3Cqs3e7offjgZsBAUdzS35h3eQA6aV_WcXhSv43BfaQdJrEF_KFczrFACT5Pk58FFKZzzS6oQj8anhxkBralzqCPCazujy4dTjzlX3tuc/s1600/Real+Enemies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEHGysfME3jXdIFXbsj6hSuh-vWjBRJ3b-P3Cqs3e7offjgZsBAUdzS35h3eQA6aV_WcXhSv43BfaQdJrEF_KFczrFACT5Pk58FFKZzzS6oQj8anhxkBralzqCPCazujy4dTjzlX3tuc/s320/Real+Enemies.jpg" width="180" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">THE POLITICS OF THE ECHO-CHAMBER</span></b><br /><br /><b>If the day ever dawns during my lifetime I will vote for Scotland's independence as I did in September 2014.</b> <br /><br />There is no question of it, despite all the accusations, mud-slinging and constant demonization I receive from those on the social media who think that everyone in the Yes Movement should meekly obey-the-leader and keep eating their cereal without having the temerity (how dare they?) of questioning quite what those leaders are up to in their positions of untrammeled power.<br /><br />They accuse me of being consistently anti-SNP, no matter how many times I point out to them that it's that party's leaders I throw eggs at and never the membership. Apparently they don't understand the difference! That worries me. And when I suggest they check my FB Timeline before slating me they just ignore my invitations and continue with the cheap jibes.<br /><br />So let me put the record straight: anyone who goes back to 2014 will see three years of consistently pro-SNP articles which could be said to be bordering on adulation. In those days I admit to having been a pretty unquestioning fan of Nicola Sturgeon and part of the Yes Movement's SNP-Right-or-Wrong bandwagon politics of the echo chamber.<br /><br />With the rest of us I voted for and watched the SNP sweep the board in the 2015 General Election and accepted Sturgeon's decision not to fight that election on a plebiscite for independence. Clearly this was all part of her 'cunning plan' to achieve independence.<br /><br />It was only in June 2017 that my eyes were opened when I saw that Sturgeon was going to fight a general election with the slogan 'Stronger for Scotland'. Stronger, but not on independence! So I organized a petition which subsequently was signed by over 1000 people before it was presented to Sturgeon. Basically the petition asked that she and the SNP should actively fight the 2017 GE on the issue of independence so that, on achieving a majority of seats in Scotland, she could use that electoral victory as yet more proof that the majority of the electorate supported independence.<br /><br />There was nothing controversial about such a suggestion as until about 2010 that position was clearly in every SNP election manifesto. And an electoral victory founded on such a manifesto is the most powerful mandate recognizable amongst international bodies such as the UN and the Council of Europe.<br /><br />Of course, that petition was ignored by the party hierarchy. In 2017 the SNP leadership were running scared having fallen for Tory Ruth Davidson's Goebbelesque 'Do the Day Job' attacks which Scotland's unionist media were only too happy to parrot. Instead of taking the Tories head-on and justifying the case for independence they ran away from the playground bully. And lost heavily as a result.<br /><br />Nearly two years on SNP leaders admit they made a mistake and should have addressed themselves 'to the 45%' who they had abandoned in their rush to the lifeboats. So it took nearly two years, for them to acknowledge this elementary tactic which others could see, for them to leave aside their hubris and eat humble pie. And these are the clever politicians leading us to the promised land?!<br /><br />And for daring to make such suggestions I was banned from SNP-controlled FB pages and roundly abused by a lot of the party faithful, many of whose company I would not personally choose. For me the phrase 'mob rule' took on a new meaning. I had criticized their leaders and become fair game from that very moment.<br /><br />Until then I had dismissed accusations made by the unionist media that the SNP's cybernats were hounding politicians and abusing them. I simply didn't believe a word of it, knowing all too well how the UK establishment use this scare-tactic as a weapon against a party or leader they wish to defeat.<br /><br />So imagine my sense of shock when in June 2017 those very same guns were pointed and fired at me by certain cybernats. Until that June I had unquestioningly followed the line that the SNP would liberate us all and that it was a traitorous thing to hold them in a negative light. Although, to be honest, while all the time playing the part of being one of Nicola's adoring fans, deep down another voice was cautioning me not to get too overly idealistic about this or any other political party's promises. Bob Marley's words 'Never trust a Politician' kept ringing inside.<br /><br />But leaving politicians well aside (a place which they should mostly be relegated to!) my concern was with certain Yessers and their fury and intolerance of a fellow Yesser. Was this the kind of reaction to be expected for questioning the leadership of a political party? Well, having been brought up to treat all politicians with scepticism (both my parents used to read and comment on the papers last thing every night) I was now having to deal with people who treated them like demi-gods among humanity.<br /><br />Perhaps it's old age but I swear I can remember a time when folk in the British Isles mostly all held politicians in a sceptical light and treated them with a healthy disrespect. I can remember, as well the history of two countries, Germany and the Soviet Union, where the endless adulation afforded political leaders was the norm in totalitarian societies. Never for a moment did I expect that slavishness ever to find a home in dear, brave, individualist Scotland.<br /><br />And yet the truth is that it has and I and several others have experienced its sharp end. And it's not coming from a person or two but in a flood of hate and vitriol. And that, taken with the banning for no reason (a reason is never given) makes me feel that someone is coordinating many of these attacks. I understand that the SNP has had several requests to rein-in its supporters but no such thing has happened.<br /><br />I can see that such an attempt to control would not be very successful. I couldn't see how it could work. Such a diktat from on high would never be received too well! But as well as that others have asked if their involvement in the witch-hunts on the social media might go deeper still. It hasn't gone amiss that it's invariably the SNP-controlled FB pages with a large readership whose admins are the most intolerant and the first to ban people for no obvious reason.<br /><br />No matter how much you explain your position when they attack you, they dismiss you, you become a non-person. Very rarely do they attempt reasoned arguments, mostly what you get are assumptions and when they pretend niceness they quickly follow pretence with a condescending lecture or two. And basically behind all that is Big Brother's veiled threat that we must all toe the line.<br /><br />That's what I'm sensing and hearing in all this from the party faithful. And I ask myself what kind of a New Scotland will it be if we are prepared to accept such levels of bigotry and intolerance? Where even fellow Yessers can be disposed of and made into non-persons for speaking their truth? Other countries have descended into one or another form of totalitarianism: Germany, the Soviet Union, and now England. Like many I pray that a New Scotland might provide a beacon of light in the surrounding darkness. I still do, despite these ominous experiences. I still believe in this country's values of inclusivity and basic decency. <br /><br />And despite all I remain an optimist that goodness will prevail.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-35671718316456576552019-02-28T15:00:00.002-08:002019-03-02T14:42:20.896-08:00<b><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">AUSTERITY & NUKES: THE PRICE WE WILL PAY FOR INDEPENDENCE?</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">'The party leadership plans to adopt vast majority of Growth Commissions recommendations.'</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">Do people realise what that will mean? It means that they will be adopting the plans for a neoliberal economy, no different to the neoliberal economies causing so much misery and strife the world-over. That and the SNP leadership's sworn allegiance to the Atlantic Alliance with a possible change of policy over nukes means that there will be little or no change after their post-indep</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-size: 14px;">endence plans.<br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm willing to bet serious money that one of the major concessions that will follow will be to allow the UK to keep its nuclear weapons indefinitely on Scottish soil. Similarly they will be forced to make concessions about the UK's continued access to North Sea oil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The price Eire had to pay for her independence was to give away the six counties to the Brits. No doubt they will demand a similar sacrifice from Scotland over oil and nukes.</span><br />
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-89046247554184177852019-02-28T10:28:00.002-08:002019-02-28T10:28:33.733-08:00<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">JUST MORE CARROT-DANGLING?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">Sturgeon and the SNP have had almost five years to prepare for a second referendum</span></b><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">. <br /><br />They've done sweet FA in all that time. Now they're calling for citizen's assemblies! What are they playing at? What are they afraid of? When support for indy is at least 50% of the population why do they continue to behave in this feart fashion?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Are they feart of the public or of WM, or both?? How far do the polls have to move before she'll do anything? And why, unlike Alex Salmond, is she not out in the streets drumming up support? Is she serious about indy or is it all just another carrot-dangling exercise?<br /><br /></span></div>
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-58013121378565529352019-02-27T13:58:00.003-08:002019-02-27T13:58:40.644-08:00<b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">FACEBOOK'S VENAL NATURE</span></b><br />
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I'm told that Mark Zuckerberg's great grandfather is Lord Rothschild. Whether true or not this man's greed and venal nature has no limits.<br />
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Not satisfied with banning a perfectly democratic blog for supposedly being abusive (!) I have now received this from their administration. Meanwhile all my appeals to FB to review their ludicrous ban remain ignored.<br />
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For the Yes Family to continue with this FB dictatorship is like turkeys voting for Christmas. We really must find an alternative platform and soon.<br />
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<br />Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-32202430474565456092019-02-27T10:14:00.002-08:002019-02-27T10:14:27.632-08:00<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">BACK TO ANIMAL FARM</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br />Oh the irony!</b><br /><br />The very same people in the Yes Movement who quite rightly rail 24/7 against the tyranny of British unionism are now turning on any individual on Facebook's Yes pages. We are being banned from Yes pages and now even our private blogs are being blocked from being posted.<br /><br />Since the summer of 2017 I have become increasingly outspoken about the manner in which the SNP's leadership have mismanaged the movement for Scotland's independence. It was that summer that my eyes were opened to their defeatism and consistent refusal to fight a general election on the indy ticket. Well, once one's eyes have been opened it's very difficult to close them again and the revelation was accompanied by a constant stream of abuse that it was my pleasure to receive on Facebook pages.<br /><br />That's when I was shocked into asking myself the question, what is wrong with these people that they cannot stand the slightest bit of criticism or dissent? Why are they so intolerant of others who do not share the exact same views as they do? And just who are they </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">who enjoy spending their time screaming at each other?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />I believe there are at least two groups: firstly those who really are no different to sectarian football fans who treat independence and the SNP as a football club where everyone else is there to be abused and shat upon; and secondly a silent group of privileged, well-educated people with some degree of vested interest in promoting the SNP and keeping it in permanent power.<br /><br />It is that second group which concerns me because I believe that they do not work alone and that they coordinate campaigns to isolate, marginalize and eliminate anyone who dares to criticize the party on the social media. It is this second group which I believe is responsible for the treatment that is being meted out to those who dissent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The latest episode started with my being banned from a Yes group called Uncensored for Scotland. No reason or notification was given for the ban but as this was the second time it had happened on this page it was pretty clear that the reason for their ban was that, in their eyes, my posts were having a 'divisive' effect on other members! Quite how I was causing division was, of course, never divulged!<br /><br />Following that I decided to revive my old blog, Chimes of Freedom, which had been lying dormant for several years. Yet, no sooner had I done that and posted blog articles to FB, I was again banned, this time not for my FB posts but for those from my own private blog! The reason given by FB was that I was 'spamming'!<br /><br />That's when the penny dropped. Someone was reporting my posts as spam and FB was acting on their complaints. Every ban has been challenged and I await FB's decision. You will understand why I'm not holding my breath!<br /><br />Now, while all this might strike you to be a rather childish game I believe it is rather more serious than that. Are this second group, the more well-heeled ones, acting alone? Or are they part of a coordinated informal campaign which can be traced back to the New SNP's headquarters? My intuition tells me that's more than likely and that this is the way the New SNP <i>apparat </i>seeks to control opinion on the social media.<br /><br />That <i>apparat</i> knows only too well how to turn to their advantage the algorithms of the FB <i>polis</i> by firing off a volley of spam reports against anyone whose posts they don't like and who they wish to silence. That is exactly what happened to me.<br /><br />Now I am all too aware that this claim will be immediately denounced by their vigilantes to be nothing more than a crazy conspiracy theory. But I've heard that accusation made only too often by people with something to hide. So all I request from those who read this is simply to keep in mind what I say, even if you don't buy the whole story.<br /><br />I am just as keen as these zealots to see the day dawn when Scotland will be free again. But where they and I part company is that I would like our freedom to be real, to mean something in our everyday lives and not just to become another means to keep a political party packed with privileged technocrats in charge of the Animal Farm.</span><br />
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-57616027282495914192019-02-27T10:13:00.002-08:002019-02-27T10:13:34.823-08:00<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">PLUS CA CHANGE: FEAR & LOATHING IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA</span></b><br /><br /><i><b><br />I have decided to revive my old blog which, as you might see, has been lying dormant for the last six years.</b> </i><br /><br />Since September 2014 I have been focusing all my energy on promoting Scotland's independence through Facebook and more recently MeWe. I did this in the belief that using the social media provided us in the Yes Movement with a powerful new tool for change. A tool that has been used successfully by movements all over the Planet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As well as that an awareness of modern history pointed to something very powerful unfolding in the events taking place in this country which took me back to my earlier days as an organizer and campaigner in England during the Peace Movement of the 1980's.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The peace movement we created in those days was extraordinary. Growing spontaneously it not only covered the entire UK but continental Europe as well as the rest of the world. Women played a major role and my former Russian-speaking wife played a significant part when she and others travelled to St Petersburg (still Leningrad in those days) to build bridges of friendship with the local Peace Committee. We did all that without the help of the Internet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During those days I well remember the radical historian, E.P. Thompson, who spoke about European disarmament and the Cold War being propagated by US President Ronald Reagan and Britain's Margaret Thatcher as the very mirror image of what President Brezhnev of the USSR was projecting on his side of the iron curtain. It was only much after the fall and dissolution of the Soviet Union that we were to discover that a major reason for its collapse was that the Soviet Union was no longer able to keep up with the level of arms production and deployment at the frightening pace being set by the US Military-Industrial-Complex.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moreover US intelligence knew this and was upping the arms race with the deliberate intention of breaking the USSR in this manner. And of course they succeeded in doing just that. In that game of brinkmanship the USA played an aggressive proactive role whilst the USSR was reduced to playing an unsuccessful reactive one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Talking as he did about how both sides of the Cold War were throwing-up and reacting to a mirror-image of themselves he went further. He pointed to the growth of a liberation movement within the Soviet Bloc and Solidarnosc in Poland. He predicted that this movement which, at the time, was active within the eastern bloc would inevitably spill over into western Europe and mirror itself west of the Berlin Wall.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, it didn't happen as neatly as that but the Scottish Referendum in 2014 brought back his prediction to mind. Just as movements like the Polish Solidarnosc were in a struggle to overturn Soviet imperialism here it was now happening in western Europe where a people were going about something not unsimilar in their attempt to rid themselves of the vestiges of another old empire, the British one.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At last the revolutionary times that Thompson predicted had come. In its own way what Scotland faced in September 2014 was the prospect of a peaceful revolution and the end of a 307-year era of occupation by a foreign power. And though we were denied that chance at the ballot-box that first campaign sparked a flame in the heart of Scots which has burned and grown ever since. The inevitability of big changes was something too great to be extinguished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's what took me to Facebook and the social media. Just as had happened in other countries, I saw the social media as the tool for organising and mobilising our own movement for liberation. Perhaps I was being far too idealistic about what I thought we could achieve through the Net. While I am sure that it has helped to attract support to the rallies and marches it has done little else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead of growing and maturing into a vehicle with a life of its own the Yes Movement on the internet remains nothing more than a disparate bunch of individuals who, collectively, remain beholden to the whims and fancies of a small clique of leaders in a political party which keeps us at arm's length while preoccupying itself with the reading of opinion polls and the production of revisionist economic reports that pander to no one but the obscenely-rich 1% and their neoliberal servants.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyone who dares to question this status quo is screamed at and called a plant, a yoon or similar. They are rubbished, marginalized and treated like lepers. That's the price you have to pay for speaking out of turn about the SNP or its government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Up until now I have consistently made it clear that I do not and will not comment about the rank-and-file membership of the SNP but that I reserved the right to criticize its leadership. All that fell on deaf ears with too many cybernats appearing to be unable to distinguish between the two. To these people the SNP and its leaders have taken an almost god-like role. 'Trust in Nicola, she knows best!' has become a rallying-call to the foot soldiers and anyone who won't do as they're told is dismissed willy nilly as some kind of low life that has no place in the Yes Movement. Instead of the politicians serving the people it is we who are being expected to kowtow to the politicians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, so much for Scotland's revolution! The more hysterical cybernats doing this remind me of a story that the Russian dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, once told of a meeting when Stalin made a speech and the Soviet deputies kept applauding him endlessly, each of them afraid of being the first one to stop clapping. Until they were falling down in sheer exhaustion! Too afraid to think for themselves or to admit that they might be mistaken, the zealots in our Yes Movement would like us all to toe the same Stalinist line or else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This was not quite the mirror-image that Thompson foresaw. Nor the one that I had hoped would start to grow in Scotland on that fateful day in September 2014. 'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose' seems a far more appropriate pointer to the future if the chorus-group of name-callers are to have their way. I really have to struggle these days to be an optimist about where we're being led. The Promised Land that beckons may well turn out to be nothing more than a mirage with the name callers finding yet more scapegoats to blame for their own failures.</span><br />
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-39773614862639787012019-02-27T10:10:00.005-08:002019-02-27T10:10:41.582-08:00<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED<br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>I understand that collectively we suffer from disempowerment. Our system disempowers us and then enslaves us.<br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Scotland we have the compounding of disempowerment due to centuries of annexation by an occupying power. But now all that is rapidly changing so this is OUR moment in what is really a global revolution of which we see only bits and pieces when the MSM allows us to.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Brexit has provided us with a critical watershed moment in what is really a peaceful revolution. And we know all too well the meaning of the phrase The Revolution will not be Televised!</span></span><br />
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-21096893288336252592019-02-27T10:09:00.003-08:002019-02-27T10:09:24.867-08:00<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<b><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">A SHARED DREAM</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>I want to see Scotland free of this nasty imperialist anachronism called the union. Brexit has exposed the UK before the whole world to be a sick, inward-looking parasite that feeds off corruption, lies and xenophobia. No one in their sane mind would wish to live in that kind of society.<br /></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel sorry for the sane ones in England; they have no alternative to the current political mess they are in. But we in Scotland do have an alternative and we have a party, th<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">e SNP, which is poised on achieving the greatest political victory of its existence.<br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Given that moment of history-in-the-making it would seem churlish and ungrateful for anyone to criticise the SNP or its leadership. And we all know that the unionist trolls are everywhere on these pages, determined to conduct a last battle of words as they are pushed inexorably into history. And so long as their battle is simply one of words, usually invective, let them do their worst. Who's listening?!<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They don't worry me too much; they are part of the bad old ways, even if they don't know it, governed by emotions and a fantasy they call the past. It's the future that concerns me. Like many others I have a dream of a New Scotland, a new renaissance, where our little country will help lead the Planet into the 21st Century.</span></div>
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-49759023280086969642019-02-27T10:08:00.001-08:002019-02-27T10:08:17.631-08:00<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>WHOSE COUNTRY?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Yesterday I posted this article from Bellacaledonia, The SNP's Great Moving Right Show,</i></b> <a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="async" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2Fy596ecor%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0F8OJWN63h2_LySfVjzDas1Xkjpth23IJB6i3Ttbdn4Dg8QU7lCkYkdbI&h=AT0qVDNuQeCupX22p5SXgReM693va25A7bCu6u-EpsSKdzdxk8MR-DEW5CL-OgZYx4ukKjxhzhJYtGRC8fOpEd5lJanzj_e5LMjnwMRhllZXZjoEic2PKlHQrziv3UDSrGT3B3nUbr6NBqyxXGCRUCJZ4UkKtrt4VMEOGz4J" href="https://tinyurl.com/y596ecor?fbclid=IwAR0F8OJWN63h2_LySfVjzDas1Xkjpth23IJB6i3Ttbdn4Dg8QU7lCkYkdbI" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/y596ecor</a><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Expecting the usual chorus of abuse and yoon-calling I decided to post it to just a few pages. No sooner had I done that I was told by one self-righteous cybernat, “if that’s the way you feel Rory, away to England and help JC. Your attitudes and posts are not helping the independence movement you claim to support.”<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The BC article, if you read it, is about the right-moving tendencies of certain senior SNP figures such as Andrew Wilson and Angus Robertson and how this is reflecting on the conduct of the Party. My purpose, as always, was to inform others and to let them decide. But apparently this is no longer allowed. And as a 'New Scot' of 33 years' standing I am told to 'away to England'!<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That did it. I can sympathize with feelings of resentment against migrants from the south coming to live in Scotland and treating it like a colony of Little Britain. But I have never been one of those and anyone who checks out my track record in local government politics will know my commitment to the Highlands as a former regional councillor and my preparedness to risk arrest and losing that post in order to put my body in front of the British state as I once did together with a small group of protesters at the Kessock Bridge in 1991, <a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2Fyxhekfm9%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR14m6OZ1-L3zfjmXXOOFOxY7zdPcAKufF_t8K2S_kgTE1mj7cPl3CHcdbM&h=AT1TA3FlvAxvR4GhpZoqg-srsqliLdfe3796TqE2TgIw0xfYcgiK1ODZAg7FmI_NTjAmbcGLZGulU0ubHD6YovOedGXMcOJBRTLooolKjL1LgKVmB5QNTymmo8CUA2AsBaW6C2IZtESlSsw-DAovpKYE1b8" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/yxhekfm9</a><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That protest was entirely spontaneous; no one planned it, it just happened. Afterwards the Scottish media was full of it and I believe that it helped the cause of Independence greatly. From being treated like a fool or a 'token coloured' by many Highland councillors I suddenly gained their respect. I also received racist abuse, including a vile note left in my councillor's pigeon hole. My reaction to that was to report it to the Highland Constabulary who sent several polis into the Council, effectively putting the fear of god into the guilty parties!<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So when people make puerile comments on FB such as the one quoted above, forgive me if sometimes I reply in anger. With them the slightest criticism of the SNP's leadership and it's all-out nuclear war. For having the effrontery to do so I get called a Yoon, a Tory, a snake in the grass and a whole lot else. Such is party politics in 2019AD: everyone is expected to toe the line and remain very PC. The message is quite clear: If you say anything awkward about the SNP you can get the fuck out of 'our' country.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our country? Since when did any political party confiscate the keys to our nation? When did we become a fledgeling one-party state? Just who are these people making these threats and what kind of a political agenda are they working for? I dread to think.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nationalism is something that, for many years, I wouldn't go anywhere near. I was born in a country that tore itself apart in a 50-year civil war caused by ethno-religious nationalism. But after living in Scotland and serving her in public office my eyes were opened to the true extent of imperialist occupation in this country. And worse than that the ABUSE that came with that occupation. So when I heard Scottish nationalism described as 'civic' I was only too happy to join up to it.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But what's so civic about the name-calling and 'away to England' taunts? What have I done to earn such abuse other than to call out some right-wing opportunists who would like to inflict their own neoliberal dystopia on us all post independence? Sorry, but I've seen it all before in another time and another place and I ain't ready to be suckered into it this time. Politicians are there to serve us and not the other way round. If certain cybernats can't see that then they do no one any favours. If they remain naïve about how politicians operate that's one thing; but when they start being abusive and telling people to get back to their own country then the alarm bells start to go off. If these people are allowed to prevail then god help us all.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Politics appear to be moving evermore to the Right. And the SNP is not immune from this unpleasant phenomenon. If we are to be constantly silenced today pre-independence than what are we to expect once it has arrived? I no longer feel comfortable in the presence of this kind of intolerance which effectively says either believe unquestioningly what you are told or get the fuck out of our country.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During my 33 years in Scotland I have always voted SNP and in 2014 I was proud to be able to vote for Independence. When Alex Salmond was my MP and after the SNP victory in 2010 I wrote to him saying that I looked forward to the day when he was our first President.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now I feel hurt and disillusioned by the thoughtless comments being made by certain cybernats on these pages. But being no spring chicken and having developed a tough skin in earlier political days I'm happy to give back as good as I get from these idiots.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But god help the New Scotland if their kind ever have anything to do with our collective futures</span></div>
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Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-82448474891495838562019-02-27T10:06:00.002-08:002019-02-27T10:06:20.383-08:00<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">LIKE TAKING CANDY FROM A BABY</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">Since posting two articles, one from the Sunday Mail and another this morning from the Daily Record I have been subject to a torrent of anger, indignation and (the usual) abuse. This is now the kind of reaction to which I have become accustomed since I began posting what have been described as 'anti-SNP' articles over the last month or so.</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before that practically all my articles were in praise of the SNP. Not because I was ever that star-struck by the SNP but as my contribution to giving solidarity to them and Indy. It was for the same reason I joined the SNP in September 2014. Indy was always the driving motive, not party politics.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADDcKeOF0Y_Ke66bWezBcovNeUhl7-OVeG8tkFVpEZlw9Rom0eT6NPhJ_rEJvN92fhsy44j7qXovXp8TVZHoH-SrWIRztkN2PCmd8opSFxzHDF62ivQlMh2g4DiNcTIxto9-FGKU0JMc/s1600/1ce4b624-59d4-11e5-a662-6c3be5bd1e0c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="941" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADDcKeOF0Y_Ke66bWezBcovNeUhl7-OVeG8tkFVpEZlw9Rom0eT6NPhJ_rEJvN92fhsy44j7qXovXp8TVZHoH-SrWIRztkN2PCmd8opSFxzHDF62ivQlMh2g4DiNcTIxto9-FGKU0JMc/s200/1ce4b624-59d4-11e5-a662-6c3be5bd1e0c.jpg" width="191" /></span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I admired Alex Salmond for having had the courage to deliver a referendum when support for Indy was around 28%. With the tremendous support he received from a vibrant Yes Movement that support rose to 45% and 50% at GE2015. Credit for that success and the 56 SNP MPs returned to WM must go to Alex and all those thousands of hardworking, committed patriots in the Yes Movement.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But the day after Indyref1 the Yes Movement was shut down and soon forgotten about. Meanwhile all the kudos for the Yes Movement's efforts shifted to the SNP. Since then we have seen a new leader, Nicola Sturgeon, treat Independence like a bargaining chip, something to duck and dive with and where the goalposts keep being shifted: first it was about EU membership, that was changed to Single Market membership. And now, after the SNP's heavy political losses, it looks very much that Indyref2 is going to be 'parked', 'kicked in the long grass' from which it'll never be retrieved.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My reason for posting the two articles were because they are very much in line with what we have been hearing from senior SNP figures (Swinney, Blackford and Sheppard) over the last week. If the UK were to go for a 'soft' Brexit and stay in the Single Market there would be no reason for Indyref2. End of.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now what we hear is that while Indyref2 is 'parked' indefinitely Our Leader is going to concentrate on Brexit negotiations. What this really means, when all her initiatives are studiously ignored by the Tories, is anyone's guess. Anything could happen. Jeremy Corbyn could well be the new PM with a more conciliatory approach to Scotland. Who knows?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But to dilute the SNP's constitutional commitment from fighting for Indy in every election to a referendum, and then to further dilute that referendum twice more before finally putting even that into suspended animation is ...</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The politics of expediency? Fudge and mudge? Dodging the issue? Take your choice. Whatever has brought Our Leader to this one thing is clear: to play fast and loose with a mandate given to her by our sovereign Parliament is grossly irresponsible and a dereliction of her position as Party leader as well as FM. Despite all her claims to act on behalf of the country the decision to dispose of Indyref2 in this way is about her party's electoral losses and has nothing to do with the aspirations of Scots for freedom.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To do this to us all is an act of irresponsibility and cowardice. It is also a great betrayal.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Although I could see this coming I still feel sick in the pit of my stomach. The shock this will cause in so many of us who put our trust in the SNP and its leadership will take time to play out. Some will cling to straws and refuse to accept the truth, reacting in anger and disbelief. How could this happen?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the coming weeks we will read all manner of articles attempting to analyse and rationalise. But one thing to me is clear: those of us who will not so easily give up on Independence and who want to see the revival of a popular Indy Movement must never again make the mistake of entrusting the future of our country to any one political party or leader. We are learning the bitter lesson of what happened when we did.</span></div>
Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-26275323171113608812013-02-28T14:19:00.001-08:002013-02-28T14:19:19.792-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSH2bIkl8GB_4-fJIHz5Ujs2o4pqdKp2_TwRIedfTq3POd5A-bWD3LykK_NFTsd_bmjcAaz9RLAEtU8YFrDV4biVRElZr64nHjIEnvDPF51Lb0N7LEa4zksU6snUaqQbb9h1BYOMkKKH8/s1600/Frodo%2340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSH2bIkl8GB_4-fJIHz5Ujs2o4pqdKp2_TwRIedfTq3POd5A-bWD3LykK_NFTsd_bmjcAaz9RLAEtU8YFrDV4biVRElZr64nHjIEnvDPF51Lb0N7LEa4zksU6snUaqQbb9h1BYOMkKKH8/s320/Frodo%2340.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">It's becoming clearer how employees from the Aberdeenshire Council have colluded in the abduction of my dog, Frodo, by a small, Scottish charity. Please <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HelpSaveFrodoTheDog">visit my Facebook page</a>, Help Save Frodo the Dog and give Frodo and me your support! </span><br />
<br />
<br />Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-84206129695765780582012-01-31T13:41:00.000-08:002012-01-31T13:43:52.885-08:00<br />
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; font-size: 24pt;">Emergency '58 --<br />
The Story of the Ceylon
Race Riots </span></b><span style="color: red; font-size: 24pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
<span class="spelle"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Tarzie</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"> <span class="spelle">Vittachi</span>, 1958, Copyright <span class="spelle">Tarzie</span> <span class="spelle">Vittachi</span></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
<span class="spelle"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">~<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Copy for Private
Circulation Only</i>~</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
<span class="spelle"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/BiographyVittachiTar.htm" target="contents">1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for </a></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
<span class="spelle"><a href="http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/BiographyVittachiTar.htm" target="contents">Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts</a></span> </span></div>
<img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Preface" target="contents">Preface</a>
<img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /> <a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Background" target="contents">The Background</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Fifth_Horseman" target="contents">The Fifth Horseman</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Goondas_in_Action_" target="contents">Goondas in Action</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Abrogation_of_a_Pact" target="contents">The Abrogation of a Pact</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Tension_in_the_North_Central_Province" target="contents">Tension in the North Central Province</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Polonnaruwa_Aflame" target="contents">Polonnaruwa Aflame</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Horror_Spreads" target="contents">The Horror Spreads</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Batticaloa_Killings_" target="contents">Batticaloa Killings</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /> <a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Emergency_Declared" target="contents">Emergency Declared</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Jaffna_Reacts" target="contents">Jaffna Reacts</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Padaviya_Panzers" target="contents">The Padaviya Panzers</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#General_Oliver_" target="contents">General Oliver</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Ethereal_Buccaneers" target="contents">Ethereal Buccaneers</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /> <a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Governors_Rule" target="contents">Governor's Rule</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Evidence_of_Conspiracy" target="contents">Evidence of Conspiracy</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Premier_Waves_his_Wand" target="contents">The Premier Waves his Wand</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Federalists_Detained" target="contents">Federalists Detained</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Rural_Reactions" target="contents">Rural Reactions</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Why_did_it_happen" target="contents">Why did it happen?</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Middle_Class_Tensions" target="contents">Middle Class Tensions</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#The_Rule_of_Law" target="contents">The Rule of Law</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Conclusion" target="contents">Conclusion</a> <img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Appendix" target="contents">Appendix</a>
<img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Glossary" target="contents">Glossary</a>
<img border="0" height="9" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" width="7" /><a href="http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm#Footnotes" target="contents">Footnotes</a><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Preface</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The people of Ceylon
have seen how the mutual respect and good will which existed between two races
for several hundred years was destroyed within the relatively brief period of
thirty months.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This book, most of which was written during those long, tense curfew
nights of May and June 1958, is a record of the events, passions and
under-currents which led to the recent communal crisis, and of the more
remarkable instances of man's inhumanity to man in those hate-filled days. It
is also an account of the rapid disintegration of the old-established order of
social and economic relationships in so far as it contributed towards the
disaster which overtook the country. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Social and economic change was perhaps inevitable and probably
necessary. Unfortunately the men who had been given a popular mandate to
initiate and carry out the change proved to be incapable of preventing the
process from degenerating into nation-wide chaos. The new order could have
been brought about without bloodshed and searing religious or communal
bitterness by the firm application of the law of the land without fear or
favouritism and by statesmanship which resolutely withstood the temptation to
yield to the shrill dictates of expediency. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When a Government, however popular, begins to pander to racial or
religious emotionalism merely because it is the loudest of the raucous demands
made on it, and then meddles in the administration and enforcement of law and
order for the benefit of its favourites or to win the plaudits of a crowd,
however hysterical it may be, catastrophe is certain. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At the risk of losing the monumental support of the anti-Muslim
Congress sympathizers, Mahatma Gandhi once said: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">"No cabinet
worthy of being representative of a large mass of mankind can afford to take
any step merely because it is likely to win the hasty applause of an unthinking
public. In the midst of insanity, should not our best representatives retain
sanity and bravely prevent a wreck of the ship of state under their
care?" </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Can anyone doubt that if this glorious principle of statesmanship
had been applied in Ceylon
the bloodbath of 1958 could have been avoided? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many Ceylonese—Sinhalese and Tamils—lost their lives in the riots of
May and June. Many of them lost their children, their property, their means of
livelihood and some even their reason. In Colombo,
Jaffna, Anuradhapura,
Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa, <span class="spelle">Eravur</span>, Kurunegala and many
other places where the two communities clashed the ugly scars will remain
tender long after time has buried the physical signs of chaos. There is no
sense in putting the blame on one community or the other. A race cannot be held
responsible for the bestiality of some of its members. Neither is there any
sense in trying to find a final answer to the question: who started it—was it
the Sinhalese or the Tamils? The answer depends entirely on how far back in
events you want to go—a never-ending and unrewarding pastime. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Emergency ‘58 ends with a question: ‘Have we come to the parting of
the ways?’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Many thoughtful people believe that we have. Others, more hopeful,
feel that the bloodbath we have emerged from has purified the national spirit
and given people a costly lesson in humility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is, perhaps, a more practical way to think about it. The
problems of Ceylon—social,
economic, political, religious and racial—are minute compared to those faced by
India or Indonesia. This
is a small country with a relatively tiny population. The physical
difficulties of distance which confront the governments of large land masses
are absent here. Ceylon
is one of the few countries in the world which is not squashed economically by
a heavy defence-budget. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What is lacking is responsible leadership among both communities and
statesmanship at the centre of government. We now know the cost of postponing
decisions and surrendering wretchedly to political expediency when problems,
which often thrive on neglect, assume massive proportions. Is it not possible
for a small people like us to throw away the labels which have divided us, one
group from another, and work towards a national rather than a sectional ideal?
There is no dearth of men who have the intelligence and the desire to work for
this aim. Is it impossible to get them together? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Emergency ‘58 is not likely to please every reader. On the contrary,
it is certain to displease many. I do not know how to write with text-book
discretion about the suffering we saw around us and the terror and the hate on
the faces of people we had known all our lives. Human history can never be a
chronological festoon of events held together by nicely defined causes. The
story of a man is the story of a succession of states like love, fear, hate,
indecision, self-assurance, ecstasy, depression. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The story of the race riots of 1958 is a story of violence, unreason,
anger, jealousy, fear, cynicism, vengeance and many other states of heart and
mind which the people of Ceylon
experienced. I have presented it like that and, therefore, I will freely admit
that Emergency ‘58 is opinionated. But I make one claim for the book: it has
been written with the old journalistic saw in mind: facts are sacred, comment
is free. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many friends helped me to write this book because they believed
that the facts must be recorded. I shall not list their names, as is customary,
for the very simple reason that I would prefer not to involve them
unnecessarily in any official reaction which Emergency ‘58 may provoke. </span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> T.V.Colombo ‘58.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The
Background</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">"what a tide of woes</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">Comes rushing on this woeful land at <span class="spelle">once!" Richard</span> II</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In May and June 1958, the Island
of Ceylon, the peaceful
tea-garden, burst into flaming headlines in the world’s press. ‘Seven Thousand
Britons Ordered to Quit Ceylon’, ‘Hundreds Killed in Race-Riots’, ‘State of
Emergency Declared’, ‘Dawn to Dusk Curfew Imposed’, ‘Northern Rebel Leaders
Arrested’, ‘Strict Press Censorship’, ‘Civil Liberties Suspended’, ‘Tea,
Rubber Piles High in Colombo Port’, '12,000 Refugees Removed to Safety’
proclaimed the special correspondents who had been forced by the severity of
censorship to sneak out of Ceylon and file their stories with a Madras dateline. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What had happened to Ceylon—that
tranquil, beautiful and profitable island, which had always been regarded in
the West as a model among the newly independent countries? The people of Ceylon had
seemed really to have assimilated parliamentary democracy and the nice forms
and conventions that make such a system work. The ugly racialism which had followed
the partition of India and the granting of independence had, mercifully, not
touched the island, while the religious fanaticism which had so severely
afflicted Pakistan, Burma and India seemed to have by-passed it. Ceylon’s living
standards were noticeably better than her neighbours’, so that the spread of
communism seemed a remote possibility in spite of the garrulity of the Marxists
and the complexity of Left-Wing political parties there. The activities of the
Communists, <span class="spelle">Trotskyists</span> and Bolshevik Leninists who
formed groups and united fronts with fervent enthusiasm only to splinter into
screaming ‘fractions’ a few months later, were looked upon with tolerance by
the Government and its friends abroad, particularly in the Commonwealth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here was a democratic country where many races and many faiths
existed side by side in tolerance and dignity. Moderation appeared to be the
key-note of this right little, tight little island. No wonder that a High
Commissioner for Ceylon in London once publicly boasted at a Guildhall banquet that Ceylon was a ‘little bit of England’. And,
superficially at any rate, it was from many points of view. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ceylon</span><span lang="EN-GB">
is about half the size of England,
about 25,000 square miles in extent. Her economy, like Britain’s,
depends principally on her export products. Tea, for which Ceylon is
justifiably famous, is still largely owned and grown by the British companies
who thereby produce as much as 62 per cent of the island’s foreign income.
Rubber and coconut produce are the other major sources of wealth. <span class="spelle">Plumbago</span>, gems and a few other mineral products have a
steady market abroad. There is no large-scale industry and very few and meagre
small-scale industries to produce wealth and opportunities for employment. A
huge slice of Ceylon’s
national income—more than a third—goes to pay the annual bill on food imports:
rice, flour, dried fish, canned products, meat, fruit, lentils of various kinds
and even spices. If the world markets for tea, rubber and coconut are disturbed
for any reason and prices fall, Ceylon
finds herself in Debtor’s Street. This is the danger of a lop-sided economy,
particularly when the greater part of the food requirements of the people is
imported. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On this economy about 9,000,000 people subsist. There are 6,000,000
Sinhalese who originally came from Northern India and settled in Ceylon over
2,000 years ago. The Sinhalese settled mainly in what are now called the North
Central, North-Western and Southern Provinces. The capitals of the most
powerful Sinhalese kings were Anuradhapura
and Polonnaruwa, which up to the present day show impressive archaeological
evidence of having been centres of a magnificent civilization inspired and
tempered by the ideals of Buddhism. Later, when these civilizations crumbled
and the jungle tide swept over Anuradhapura and
Polonnaruwa, the Sinhalese moved south and south-westward towards Kandy and Colombo. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">For many centuries the north and eastern parts of Ceylon have
been peopled mainly by another race, the Tamils. The Tamils are a people of
Dravidian stock who spilled over from South India to the Jaffna Peninsula
in the north and worked their way south and south-eastward, setting up a
powerful kingdom. In 164 B.C. the epic battle between King <span class="spelle">Dutugemunu</span>
of the <span class="spelle">Sinhalesc</span> and King <span class="spelle">Elara</span>
of the Tamils took place. According to tradition the issue was settled by the
two kings chivalrously fighting each other on elephants. <span class="spelle">Elara</span>
was killed. This battle settled the final verdict, according to Sinhalese
historians, on which race was to predominate in Ceylon. Echoes of this battle of
nearly 2000 years ago were to be heard on the same plains in 1958. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By the end of the sixteenth century, when Europe started taking an
active commercial interest in Ceylon,
the centre of gravity of the Sinhalese population had shifted south and <span class="spelle">southwestward</span>. The Tamils concentrated in the north and
the eastern maritime plains. On the fertile plains of the west which had once
been so intensely cultivated by the farmer Kings of Ceylon that they could
boast that ‘not one drop of rain water would reach the sea without having grown
one grain of rice’, the equatorial forest now grew dense and forbidding.
Cities, temples, palaces, massive irrigation works were trampled into the
ground by the giant trees. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This gradual process produced many results, one of the most
significant being the actual physical isolation of the two main racial groups,
the Sinhalese and the Tamil peasantry. The peasantry makes up the vast majority
of the population of Ceylon.
This separation exists up to the present day and has been, as we shall see,
largely responsible for the fact that for several hundred years, the Sinhalese
and the Tamils have been able to live peaceably without recourse to the
internecine warfare which had impoverished the ancient kingdoms of the
Sinhalese and the Tamils. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But the forest and the scrub which acted as an insulating agent
between the two races are being stripped once again under the force of
‘progress’. Bulldozers, tractors and technicians from the Colombo Plan and
various other international agencies are helping the Ceylon Govern<span class="spelle">ment</span> to clear the jungle and make the plains fertile and
populous once again. It is a strange quirk of destiny and an illuminating
instance of the peculiar polarity of every process, that the recapture of the
land from waste, and its resettlement, has also brought about a recrudescence
of the economic competitiveness and bitterness which caused the inter-racial
wars in ancient Ceylon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is, of course, more to it than that. The physical separation
that existed between the peasantry was not evident in the middle classes. For
many scores of years the biggest ‘industry’ in Ceylon has been the public service.
The dearest wish of almost every parent is that their sons should find
employment in the civil service or the clerical service, or in one of the
Government’s technical departments. The Tamils particularly, who in the south
were not blessed by fertility of soil, always regarded a job in the government
service as a kind of sinecure qua non. Sons in the public service, with pension
rights and other ‘perks’ to their credit, fetched good prices in the dowry
market. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">All went smoothly as long as the public services and, as a <span class="spelle">spillover</span>, the mercantile services, were expanding fast
enough to absorb the growing educated population. But by the end of World War
Two the public services had reached saturation point. Since 1948, ten years of
independence have not produced the industrial and agricultural expansion which
was essential to increase wealth and maintain employment levels. The inevitable
result has been the creation of a large articulate class of educated,
semi-educated and disgruntled young men and women who, as might be expected,
are easy prey to the strident seductiveness of racialism, hyper-nationalism or
communism. The easiest explanation offered for their inability to find
employment or gain promotion in the public service was that the Tamils were
deliberately and cunningly packing the services with their own kind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In an economy which is expanding people have no time, desire nor
motive for race-hate, class-hate or religious hate. It is only when a country’s
economy is on the down-grade that the inner stresses of society begin to make
themselves felt. Group relationships begin to break up inexorably when the
economy is unable to sustain the pressure of population and insecurity haunts
the people. It is also an observable fact that politicians will try to exploit
this situation, particularly when they have no foreign political interests of
any magnitude with which to distract the people’s attention from domestic
problems. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ever since the grant of independence in 1948, there has been in Ceylon a
tremendous churning up of emotionalism—the chief feature being fear of
insecurity. Beside the 6,000,000 Sinhalese and the 1,000,000 indigenous Tamils
referred to already, there are 1,000,000 South Indian Tamil immigrant labourers
who were brought over by the British for cheap labour on the estates. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Their existence in Ceylon
was the subject of constant reproach against the Government by the growing
population in the hill country, a group which is loosely referred to as the ‘<span class="spelle">Kandyans</span>’. The first Prime Minister of Ceylon, D. S. Senanayake,
put an end to the open influx of South Indian labour by enacting the Ceylon
Citizenship Act which defined the qualifications for citizenship in Ceylon.
Although this Act was specifically intended to limit Indian immigration it had
the effect of excluding British and all other foreign people in Ceylon from citizenship rights and privileges,
with the result that even Britons with long-established business interests in Ceylon have to
secure temporary residence permits to stay in the island even for a brief
period. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The fear of being evicted from their relatively comfortable billets
on the tea estates hammered the Indian Tamils into powerful organizations which
could paralyse the entire tea trade at will. The fear of unemployment for
themselves and their children impelled the Kandyan peasantry to demand the
expulsion of the Indians. The fear that this Tamil-speaking group of 1,000,000
indigenous Tamils and 1,000,000 Indian Tamils would join together and form a
really formidable minority caused the Sinhalese politicians considerable
anxiety. Every community in Ceylon
was affected by this fear of insecurity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Ceylon
Moors, numbering over half a million— mainly traders and businessmen—were
afraid of being lumped together with the Tamil minorities, particularly because
many of them had adopted Tamil as their mother tongue. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Burghers too—a group of about 45,000 descendants of the
Portuguese and Dutch regimes in Ceylon, most of whom had identified their
interests with those of the British and had adopted the Western modes of
living, even to the extent of regarding English as their mother tongue—reacted
quickly to this feeling of insecurity. Many of them could not contemplate a
future under different standards from those to which they were accustomed, and
the fear that their children would have to live under disadvantages due to
their fair colour or their relative unfamiliarity with the Sinhalese language
and traditions, drove them away to Australia,
Canada or Britain as
immigrants. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The British residents, planters and merchants, who just after
Independence numbered around 7,000, had soon got over their initial panic and
decided that independent Ceylon was progressing steadily enough, and its government
was stable enough, to guarantee the safety of their business interests in
Ceylon. Until about 1951 they overcame their fears of expropriation—but after
the death of D. S. Senanayake the major efflux of British people and capital
began. Present indications are that there are not more than 3,000 Britons in
planting and business in Ceylon.
During the past two years many of their investments in Ceylon tea estates have been sold to Ceylonese
businessmen and speculators who have bought up the control of big companies
incorporated in London. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This widespread fear of political, social and economic insecurity
is at the root of the disorders that Ceylon has been going through
recently. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many observers of the Ceylon scene are frankly amazed
that ‘language’ appears to be the issue over which the Ceylonese have been
killing each other. Underlying this amazement is the often-expressed opinion
that it was a retrograde step from the point of view of ‘Progress’,
international relations and national unity, to have removed English as the
first language of the country, as Ceylon did in 1956. This opinion betrays a
profound lack of appreciation of what ‘language’ means in countries like Ceylon, India,
Pakistan and Burma. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Those who feel that it was a pity to downgrade English to the
position of a second language do not realize that only about 5 to 6 per cent of
the population were literate in English even after 150 years of British rule in
Ceylon—and the standard of ‘literacy’, in this sense, has been the ability to
write a signature in English. The actual number of people who used English as
their first language was very small. English was, and still is, the prerogative
of a minute section of the population. But though small, this section of the
population—generally regarded as the middle class—has wielded a monopoly of
political, administrative and economic power in Ceylon. They have been accustomed
to speak, write, think and even dream in English. The administration of the
country was conducted in English. The law is in English and the Courts are
conducted in English, although almost 95 per cent of the people do not know any
English at all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Until last year it was not possible to send a telegram unless it was
first translated into English. One of the remarkable features of Ceylon is that, unlike in Britain, almost
every trade union is directly controlled by politicians. Many visitors to Ceylon have
been appalled by this phenomenon and prospective investors bolt when they come
across it: it is certainly an unfortunate development but the cause of it,
again, was language. The law, as we have seen, was written in a language that
95 per cent of the people did not understand. Every politician, like nature,
abhors a vacuum, and the Communists and Trotskyites were quick to rush in to
fill it in the field of unionism by acting as interpreters, guides and
advocates of labour. They were responsible for building up a formidable network
of trade unions within twenty-five years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Language, therefore, has been much more complex and significant a
problem than is usually appreciated. The switch-over from English as the
official language to <span class="spelle"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swabhasa</i></span>,
or the Mother Tongue, was thus inevitable with the growth of democracy. The
awkward question was: which mother tongue— Sinhalese or Tamil or both? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first glance the answer seems obvious—80 per cent of the people
are Sinhalese. Ergo: Sinhalese must be the national language. In fact that is
decision of the present all-Sinhalese Government of Ceylon argued when they were
campaigning for election in March and April 1956. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Tamils, however, felt differently. The extent of their
participation in public life had been far in excess of their numbers. Tamil
leaders had fought shoulder to shoulder with Sinhalese patriots in the struggle
for independence. Their language had a rich heritage and was used as a live
language by nearly 50,000,000 people in South India and Ceylon. Why,
they asked, should it now take second place to a language which is spoken,
after all, by only 6,000,000 people? In any case, they asked, why should not
the Tamil language be used in the areas where the Tamils predominate? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The election campaign of 1956 was begun on this issue. The United
National Party which had been in power for eight years under three Prime
Ministers—D. S. Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, and Sir John Kotelawala—had
resolutely refused to create communal disharmony by allowing this dispute to
come to a head. But Kotelawala had made the grievous error of publicly stating
that his Government would uphold the principle of parity of status for
Sinhalese and Tamil. This made it official and feeling became much more violent
and open than ever before. The Government party back-benches were embarrassed
by the demands of their electorates to save the Sinhalese language from the
‘indignity’ of being yoked with a minority language. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The present Prime Minister, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, despite—or
perhaps because of—his aristocratic background and his Oxford education, found no difficulty in
denouncing the status quo. His campaign for power was openly based on the cry,
‘Sinhalese Only’. In the English version of his election manifesto he squared
his conscience by writing in a clause providing for the ‘reasonable use of
Tamil’ but this was conspicuously absent in the more significant Sinhalese
version. The Kotelawala Government then made the biggest tactical and moral
blunder they could possibly make. Hoping to ride back to power on the popular
‘Sinhalese Only’ wave, they abandoned their policy of parity for Tamil and adopted
the Bandaranaike line. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What they had not realized was that the ‘Sinhala Only’ cry was a
potent issue only because the Government was opposing it, and that as soon as
the Government accepted it too, it ceased to be an issue. Thus Bandaranaike had
won his point without a fight and the Kotelawala Government had sacrificed the
support of the Tamils and the respect of the liberal-minded middle class. The
rest of the campaign was fought on religious issues. The United election front
led by Bandaranaike was given massive support by an ad hoc organization of over
12,000 Buddhist monks who came out of their temples and hermitages to canvass
openly against the Kotelawala regime which, they claimed, was influenced by the
Christians, particularly the Catholics. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here were the best election agents any politician could wish
for—12,000 men whose words were holy to over 5,000,000 people, campaigning for
the downfall of the Government, zealously and, what is more, gratis.
Bandaranaike also promised the Kandyan peasants that he would drive the Indian
Tamil labourer away from the tea estates. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When, on top of this, he offered a socialist programme of
nationalizing foreign-owned tea estates and mercantile firms and of evicting
the British from Trincomalee harbour and the Negombo Air-field used by the
Royal Air Force, he had every popular dissident element in Ceylon behind
him. When the election results came in the Government party had lost fifty-two
out of sixty seats and the <span class="spelle"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mahajana</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <span class="spelle">Eksath</span> Peramuna</i>, Bandaranaike’s People’s United Front,
which had offered sixty candidates for election, had won fifty-one seats.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the predominantly Tamil areas the Federal Party led by S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam, who advocated a Federal form of government with equal status for
Tamil as an official language, swept the polls. They had presented a slate of
fourteen candidates, ten of whom were returned. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was widespread jubilation at the defeat of a Government which
had ruled for eight years without noticeably changing the living conditions of
the people. Very soon, however, the new Government, composed largely of
tenderfoot politicians who had never been in authority before, realized that
there was a vast difference between an election campaign and running a country.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Prime Minister Bandaranaike himself with long years of political
experience as a responsible Cabinet Minister behind him, realized this readily
enough and tried his best to hold his team of young, inexperienced bucking
broncos together. He soon found that the forces which had been released by his
victory were too formidable to resist. Labour demands became so vociferous and
violent that he was soon compelled to introduce repressive measures which even
the Kotelawala Government had not used. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Communists and the extreme Left Wing members of his own
Cabinet, like Food Minister Philip Gunawardene, began putting on the pressure
for the nationalization of foreign-owned tea estates, insurance companies and
banks. Bandaranaike used his armoury of eloquence to withstand this demand
because he realized very well that Ceylon could not risk jeopardizing
her best source of income by meddling with the tea estates. He, like his
predecessors, also realized that Ceylon could not develop without a
considerable flow of new capital from abroad. Bandaranaike found himself the
prisoner of his election promises. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">To assuage (one of his favourite words) the militant Sinhalese he
enacted the Sinhalese Only Act, thereby setting off a series of disorders two
months after the new Government took over. This was the first outburst of
racialism on such a scale. The area most seriously affected was the Gal Oya Valley—the newly-opened colony for the reclaiming and
settlement of the land on the eastern side of Ceylon. Over 150 people were killed
during that brief spell of open race-hate. Religious rivalry grew apace.
Fortunately there has been no open religious violence up to the moment of
writing, although many a flare-up has seemed imminent. In August 1957 the
Tamils threatened an island-wide <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Satyagraha</i>
or civil disobedience campaign. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This danger was averted by the forging of a pact between Bandaranaike
and the Federal Party leader, Chelvanayakam. Almost exactly a year later the
Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam (or B-C) Pact was jettisoned, which led to the large-scale
riots and bloodshed of May-June 1958. Ceylon is now afflicted by a
general malaise which no one can escape sensing. National unity has been
shattered. The racial and religious tolerance which leavened our relationships
has been sacrificed for political expediency. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Increasing poverty and unemployment have brought the people to the
brink of communism. The next outbreak of violence may not be racial or even
religious. During the latter days of the 1958 riots the attack was directed
noticeably against Government officials and the middle class. The pattern is
clear. Unless the Government is able to open up new avenues for employment,
increase the productivity of the island quickly and effectively, maintain law
and order without succumbing to sectional and separatist demands, when violence
breaks out again, it is likely that Ceylon’s system of parliamentary democracy
will be thrown away for something more ‘efficient’ and ruthless. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Fifth Horseman</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse rode into Ceylon in May 1958,
without fuss or warning. No one recognized the hoof beats on the dusty,
provincial roads, where they were first heard. People knew about War,
Pestilence, Famine and Flood —these were disasters which they accepted as part
of their human heritage, although they had never suffered seriously from war or
pestilence or famine. They had only just come through a devastating flood but,
within weeks, the Black Christmas which had brought these waters down had been
all but forgotten except by those who had lost a son, daughter or parent. The
bounty of nature and of willing friends abroad had swiftly brought the green
flush back to the paddy country in the North Central
Province. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">War they had experienced, too, but it had never been a blight for Ceylon.
Very few of our people had ever heard a shot fired in fear or anger. War had
brought prosperity to Ceylon,
boom prices for tea, rubber, coconut, full employment or as near full
employment as we had ever come across before, and a steady bank balance in London so that while we
set about building up the agrarian economy we could afford to buy our food with
crisp pound notes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Of pestilence we had had some cruel knowledge. The ravages of
malaria and ugly tropical fevers had been experienced by the older people. But
with new drugs and new methods of prevention people had begun to take their
immunity for granted and to regard their neighbours in perpetually pox-ridden Bombay and Calcutta
with lofty sympathy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Only the greybeards had ever spoken of famine, many, many years ago.
But these stories hardly earned a whimper of interest because everyone knows
that for a Ceylonese one meal of rice missed is a catastrophe of major
magnitude. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Slight though our acquaintance with these disasters was, it was
still acquaintance. But for most of our people in 1958 the Fifth
Horseman—Race-Hate—was hardly even that. We had heard about the attempts of the
Australian settlers to decimate the Aborigines or herd them into Tasmania; we
had read of the process by which the Red Indians had been corralled into
reservations; we had read of the Nazi gas chambers, Buchenwald and Belsen; and
the tribulations of the Jews who exist on their patch of desert in Israel are
horribly tender and raw in our memories. We had read the lurid account of how
the waters of the Indus and the Ganges had turned red with the rivulets of
blood that flowed into them from the Hindu-Muslim massacres which accompanied
the partition of India. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Gal Oya race-killings of 1956, in Ceylon,
and the ugly episode of Little Rock
in 1957 should have warned us that the Fifth Horseman took no notice of time,
place, literacy or standard of living. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But these episodes did not wake us up in time. It could not possibly
happen here. Of course we had heard our parents talk of the Riots of 1915 and
the brutalizing of the Muslim population by the Sinhalese, but all those
stories were so interlarded with incidents featuring acts of personal heroism
that the Cynical Generation put them in the same category as the omnipresent and
unfailing family yarn that father always came first in class during his
time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It couldn’t happen in Ceylon. That is what we all
thought. After all we had lived together, Sinhalese and Tamils, for so long,
sharing our profits and losses, celebrating each other’s petty triumphs and
consoling each other in our misfortunes and, what is more, respecting each
other for integrity and for ability when we recognized it. And above all, we
had always been able to indulge in mild teasing about each other’s idiosyncrasies
in much the same way that the English rag the Scots. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It couldn’t happen in Ceylon. Of course there were racial
and caste prejudices underlying the common pleasantries of social behaviour and
of course there were politicians trying to stir these murky depths into foaming
activity. But what of that? Look at the composition of the delegation that went
to borrow 50,000,000 dollars from Washington
at the very time of the race riots in Ceylon—was that not as fair a mixed
bag of Ceylonese as you could wish? Here and there you could hear a low growl
from someone pointing out that one religious group was conspicuously omitted
from that selection.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> But,
peremptorily, you shushed this protest because it was ‘divisive’ in character
and too awkward to deal with anyway, without getting yourself into very deep
waters indeed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So it couldn’t happen in Ceylon. But it has happened, and
the chances are that it will happen again and again in other forms, perhaps
more vicious and meaningless than the tragedy we have just encountered. How did
it happen? Where did it begin? What course did it take? That is the burden of
this story. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Goondas</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"> in Action</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In April 1958 the Ministry of Lands and Land Development was advised
by its field officers that the projected transfer of 400 Tamil families who had
been displaced by the closing down of the Royal Navy dockyards in Trincomalee
should be put off for more propitious times. Under the Government’s plan these
labourers were to be taken to East Padaviya
for resettlement as farmers on land newly opened for colonies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sinhalese colonists from places ranging from Veyangoda to Kosgoda,
squatters from various distant places and some of the older established
Sinhalese families who regarded this province as being traditionally Sinhalese,
were opposed to the settling of Tamils in the Polonnaruwa or Anuradhapura districts. Stirred by the
constant cacophony of communalists who had been preaching the gospel of
race-hatred in every part of the island for over two years, their objections were
shot through with unprecedented bitterness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In fact, the field officers of the Land Development Department had
reported that Action Committees had been formed and that there were open
threats of violence if the transfer scheme was carried out. From Kebitigollewa,
a little Sinhalese village standing on the Medawachchiya-Pulmoddai Road, had come a
direct declaration of war: a war to the knife and the knife to the hilt, should
any Tamils pass that way to settle in the farm colonies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government was persuaded to put off the settlement plans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile race-hatred was being churned up elsewhere. Several months
before the Tamil Federalists in the north, desperately anxious to find a
popular gimmick to symbolize their struggle for linguistic equity, had begun to
obliterate with tar the Sinhalese character <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i>
which had replaced the English letters on the registration plates of motor
vehicles. New cars moving in the north and the east with the offending letter
had their plates smeared with tar. The Tamil <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shri </i>character was substituted for the officially accepted
Sinhalese character. The Government took a top-level tactical decision not to
prosecute any of the offenders for fear that they would be built up into
martyrs. Federal supporters went about in the Peninsular and the east coast
with illegal number plates. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is quite true that the use of the Sinhalese character for this
purpose at a time when language was a sore point was unnecessary and
provocative. Nevertheless the tame decision to permit people, however provoked
they may have been, to flout the law blatantly and to continue to do so for
months with complete impunity brought the prestige of the Government and the Police
into abject disrepute. The impression among the Sinhalese in the south was that
the Government had abdicated its authority in the northern and eastern
provinces of Ceylon.
In the north the new buses of the Transport Board—inevitably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SRI</i> numbered—were daubed with the
equivalent Tamil sign. This set off an ugly wave of reprisals in the
predominantly Sinhalese areas. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Bands of Sinhalese rough-necks were suddenly let off the leash in Colombo. Bare bodied,
sarongs held shoulder high displaying genitals unashamedly, armed with
tar-pails and brushes and brooms they shrieked through the streets of Colombo
tarring every visible Tamil letter on street signs, kiosk name boards, bus
bodies, destination boards, name plates on gates and bills posted on walls.
They were armed with ladders to reach roof level where necessary. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Outside Saraswathie Lodge—a ‘Brahmin’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thosey</i> kiosk in Bambalapitiya—I watched a gang of these <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> smearing tar on the Tamil
language poster advertising the Thinakaran newspaper for sale. Someone shouted
to the tar-brush artist: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Go on. Paint a huge Sinhala <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i>
sign on the bastard’s door.’ The artist beamed at this inspiration but his past
caught up with him at this very moment. He handed over the brush tamely to
another: he himself was completely illiterate. He could not write even the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i> in Sinhalese. These were the types
who were so vociferous about the glory of the language for which they were
willing to exterminate a people and vivisect a nation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>, once started,
did a thorough job of it. They invaded even the public offices—even the
relatively sacrosanct second and third floors. In spite of their rank
illiteracy they seemed to know where the Tamil politicians lived in Colombo. Their walls were
defaced with huge black letters. They even had sufficient sense of dramatic
irony and temerity to give the tar brush treatment to the Left-Hand-Drive rear
warning plate in English, Sinhalese and Tamil on the Prime Minister’s Cadillac.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Within twelve hours they had covered the whole of Colombo. Next day the wave struck the suburbs
and the provincial towns. And then the ineluctable wave of reprisals swept
through Jaffna
and Batticaloa. And the Police looked on. They had been given strict—but
verbal—instructions not to interfere. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> soon
discovered this. On the third day, when they found that they were running short
of Tamil signs to tar, they started picking on anyone who looked like a Tamil
to keep themselves in training. Two or three men were tarred on the streets. It
was only then that the Police intervened. But the hate-wave had scudded through
the whole island and had now spent itself for the present. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The official response was—no prosecutions. What was the charge
anyway? Mischief? Damage to public property? But there was no evidence to
convict a crow, let alone the hundreds of men who had rampaged around the
streets of Ceylon
in hysterical gangs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government ‘deplored’ the ‘incident’, leader writers ‘viewed
with alarm’, the Police made the obvious guess about ‘who was at the bottom of
it’ and the wiseacres wagged their hoary heads and cackled over the dreadful
state of Lanka. But no one even attempted seriously to piece these seemingly
isolated episodes together and discern a pattern in them. It was just another
Untoward Event—like the Ganemulla train fiasco </span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></sup></b></span><span lang="EN-GB"> and the Imbulgoda ambush.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> No one
responsible for the preservation of order realized at the time that if such a
tide of hatred could sweep through the entire country so swiftly, it could
happen again in a more deadly form if the original impact was more powerful and
its spread was better managed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Another dangerous sub-plot in the evolution of the tragic drama was
the organized boycott of Tamil-owned kiosks and shops in isolated areas. This
campaign had been set afoot by certain militant monks who, with consummate
cynicism, chose villages in Attanagalla, the Prime Minister’s own constituency,
as the take-off point for their campaign. This movement swiftly spread to other
outlying towns such as Welimada, Kurunegala and Badulla. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister, Mr S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, continued with his
year-long efforts to convince the people that the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam
Pact which he had made with the Federal Party a year ago, was a fool-proof
solution of the Communal Problem, inspired by his understanding of the doctrine
of the Middle Way.
For instance, a newspaper reported: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister, Mr S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, presiding at the
prize distribution of the Sri Gnanaratna Buddhist Sunday School, Panadura, said
that knotty problems of State had been successfully tackled by invoking the principles
and tenets of Buddhism. ‘The Middle Path, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maddiyama
Prathipadawa</i>, has been my magic wand and I shall always stick by this
principle,’ he said. (Ceylon
Daily News.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The yes-men round him smirked complacently whenever he referred to
his Magic Wand for solving problems in that special tone of voice which
accompanies a double entendre. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Bandaranaike said much the same thing when he justified the
Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact at the Annual Sessions of the Sri Lanka Freedom
Party held at Kelaniya on March I and 2. The relevant section of his
Presidential Address is: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">‘In the discussion which the leaders of the
Federal Party had with me an honourable solution was reached. In thinking over
this problem I had in mind the fact that I am not merely a Prime Minister but a
Buddhist Prime Minister. And my Buddhism is not of the “label” variety. I embraced
Buddhism because I was intellectually convinced of its worth. At this juncture
I said to myself: “Buddhism means so much to me, let me be dictated to only by
the tenets of my faith, in these discussions. I am happy to say a solution was
immediately forthcoming.’ (Sunday Observer, March 2, 1958.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But the oftener he defended the B-C Pact the clearer it became
that, in the Prime Minister’s own opinion, it needed defending. The longer he
delayed its implementation with the twin instruments of the Regional Councils
Act and the Reasonable Use of Tamil Act, the weaker became the enthusiasm of
the Sinhalese as well as of the Tamils. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The voices of the critics of the B-C Pact seemed to increase in
volume and effectiveness as time went by. At the height of the tar-brush
campaign it became evident that even within the Government Party there was a
wide divergence of opinion about the efficacy of the major miracle of Mr
Bandaranaike’s Magic Wand — the B-C Pact. Even his own kin and henchmen
muttered together in the dark corridors of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sravasti</i>
about how unpopular the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lokka </i>(the
Boss) was becoming in the country by persisting in his defence of the Pact. No
one dared to approach him—it was hard to endure the whip-crack of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lokka’s </i>pliant tongue. Till the last
moment he spoke in eulogies about the wondrous nature of the B-C Pact, of
communal harmony, of brotherhood and of national unity. But no one had yet seen
the Bills which for a whole year were being fabricated by the Legal
Draughtsmen. And no one was impressed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Abrogation of a Pact</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the morning of April 9 a police message reached Mr Bandaranaike
warning him that about 200 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikkus</i> or
monks and 300 others were setting out on a visitation to the Prime Minister’s
residence in Rosmead Place
to demand the abrogation of the Pact. They would arrive at 9 a.m. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister left the house early that morning to attend to
some very important work in his office. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikkus</i>
came, the crowds gathered, the gates of the Bandaranaike <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Walawwa</i> were closed against them and armed police were hurriedly
summoned to throw a barbed-wire cordon to keep the uninvited guests out. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikkus</i> decided to bivouac on the street.
Peddlers, cool-drink carts, betel sellers and even bangle merchants pitched
their stalls hard by. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dhana</i> was
brought to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikkus</i> at the
appointed hour for food. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the meantime, the Prime Minister was fighting off the opposition
to the Pact among his own party colleagues with desperate fury. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At 4.15 p.m. the B-C Pact was torn into pathetic shreds by its
principal author who now claimed that its implementation had been rendered
impossible by the activities of the Federalists. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister had gone home that afternoon accompanied by half
a dozen Ministers who stood on the leeward side of the barbed-wire barricade
while Mr Bandaranaike listened to the shrill denunciations of the monks. The
Minister of Health sat on the Street facing the monks and preached a sermon,
promising them redress if they would only be patient. The Prime Minister
consulted his colleagues. The monks had won. The Magic Pact was no more. But
the monks insisted on getting this promise in writing. The Prime Minister went
into the house and the Health Minister, hardly able to suppress the look of
relief on her face, brought the written pledge out to the monks. Yet another
victory for Direct Action had been chalked up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The nation was left wondering what next. In two years the people had
experienced two new theories of politics: government by crisis and government
by scapegoat. What crisis next? was the big question. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then the Communist-party-inspired strikes broke out. The Public
Service Workers’ Trade Union Federation, whose leadership was Communist but
which was mainly independent at the rank-and-file level, staged one of the most
costly farces in the history of trade unionism in Ceylon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government, unofficially of course, resorted to thuggery to
break the strike. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A gang of thirty-eight thugs, imported, according to police sources,
from the Grandpass area and from Shanty
Town in McCallum Road, had
been organized into a mobile unit. They went round the city in a truck, beating
up strikers demonstrating on the streets. The troops were called out to patrol
the streets. This had the immediate effect of attracting public sympathy, which
previously had been lacking, to the PSWTUF. Opposition Leader N. M. Perera
scored a quick political victory for the Trotskyites by demanding the
withdrawal of the troops by nightfall of that day or else. . . . The troops
were withdrawn despite Food Minister Philip Gunawardene’s protests. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government tried every device which had been employed by the
previous Government against the public servants eleven years ago: the Finance
Minister put out propaganda to the effect that there were only 1,750 on strike
when actually many thousands were out; the Labour Minister, T. B. Illangaratne,
declared the strike illegal and appealed to the patriotic sentiments of the
clerks even as the Labour Minister of 1947 had appealed to him and his
colleagues who were then out on strike; the Food Minister tried to make out
that this was a Tamil plot to weaken the Sinhalese Government even as Finance
Minister J. R. Jayawardene had tried to drive a communal wedge into the 1947
strike. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But the PSWTUF held out for a fortnight in a futile frenzy at the
unexpected ferocity of the Government, which had hitherto capitulated to labour
demands supported by some show of violence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government won that battle outright. The Public Service Workers’
Trade Union Federation broke up after the strikers split into warring factions
and the net economic result was the loss of two weeks’ pay for every striker.
The Government, without a doubt, had won a major battle. But—it was a pyrrhic
victory, which was sufficiently expensive in terms of its reputation as a
workers’ government to cost it the war, eventually. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">From the PSWTUF crisis to the next. The Communist-controlled Ceylon
Trade Union Federation, which had come out a day after the PSWTUF, found they
had caught a Tartar for once during the past two years. On the management side
the Ceylon Employers’ Federation, encouraged by the Government’s firmness
against the PSWTUF, had decided to stage a Custer’s Last Stand against
political trade unionism. The Prime Minister and the Labour Minister, both
heartened by the defeat of the PSWTUF and concerned about the grave losses to
revenue caused by the cancellation of tea shipments, declared the CTUF strike
illegal and refused to intervene. The Employers’ Federation was advised by the
Prime Minister to hold out even as he had done against the clerks. The
employers went to it with a will. Large notices appeared in the newspapers
calling attention to the illegality of the strike. These were followed by
notices calling for new recruits. This too was done at the instance of the
Government. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When events had reached this pass, the Trotskyite Unions which had
watched the CTUF struggle with lofty detachment were impelled by pressure from
their rank and file to make some display of solidarity. From the moment they
showed signs of active interest in the CTUF-CEF struggle, the Prime Minister
began to relent—perhaps retract is the apter word. Instead of allowing the
Employers’ Federation to make their last-ditch stand against the Communists,
the Prime Minister called for ‘negotiations’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The CEF took the view that there was no point whatever in
‘negotiating’ at that stage in an illegal strike. But on the ground of national
interest the Government pleaded, cajoled and then finally tried to browbeat the
employers into agreeing to accept every striker back and retain in addition,
if they must, the men already recruited. At the last meeting the Prime Minister
threatened to use emergency powers to take over the companies and run them
himself if they did not give in. It was dangerous to the CEF to keep the men
newly recruited in preference to those on strike, it was argued. The CEF
replied that they would cope as best they could. That evening shocking and
tangible justification of the Prime Minister’s concern for the danger to the
CEF was forthcoming. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An explosive meeting of the Communist and Trotskyite Unions was held
in Hyde Park—not a hundred yards away from
Lipton’s Circus, sensitive nerve centre of the dispute. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Police, for some strange reason, withdrew every officer on duty
fifteen minutes before the meeting concluded. On a nice calculation, a dashing
cracker was exploded in the crowd by a man whose identity the Police and press
reporters well knew. When the noise died down hysterical panic took over. The
mob ran panting, bleating, slobbering with fear and subhuman anger, breaking
every glass window and door in the vicinity. A dispensary which had no connection
whatever with the dispute had its show windows and giant coloured bottle
smashed to smithereens. The tea kiosk at the corner, which had supplied meals
to the strikers for weeks, was damaged. Several Ceylonese firms—Car Mart,
United Tractors, Tuckers, Bousteads—against whom the CTUF had no quarrel
whatever at the time, were given the ‘treatment’. Passing cars were stoned. A
taxi was burned. Some motor bicycles were set on fire. A hunt began for
‘Europeans’ to molest and, maybe, lynch. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was pandemonium for forty minutes. Then the Police returned
and restored order. It was a very costly forty minutes. Thuggery had scored
another victory. None of the miscreants was prosecuted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The employers still held out. The Prime Minister who, not a fortnight
before, had denounced the strike as illegal was now all for appeasement. He
threatened again to nationalize the CEF firms. Their answer was direct: ‘If we
capitulate to the CTUF now we might as well pack up for good.’ They were
determined to call what they believed to be the Government’s bluff. The impasse
was complete. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Elsewhere, in the meantime, the next crisis which was to help the
Government over the labour crisis was gathering. The Fifth Horseman had pounded
his way into Ceylon
with his treacherous army of destruction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Tension in the North Central
Province</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Annual Federal Party Convention began at about this time in
Vavuniya, forty miles from Anuradhapura,
the capital of the Sinhalese-dominated district. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Federalists, whose bid for recognition as the party of the
Tamil-speaking people had reached its peak in May, June and July 1957, had
dissipated a great deal of this popularity in their futile indignation over the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i> sign on vehicles. The longer Mr
Bandaranaike put off the enactment of the Regional Councils Bill and the
Reasonable Use of Tamil Bill the dimmer became the lustre of the halo worn by
Mr Chelvanayakam, the Federalist leader. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the north and the east other voices which had been shouted down a
year before began to be heard again. The conviction grew that Mr Bandaranaike
had never intended to implement the B-C Pact and that therefore the Federal
Party had been bamboozled into calling off the massive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">satyagraha</i> they had planned for August 1957. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Bandaranaike’s sudden volte face on April 9, when he broke up the
pact which he himself had forged, set the pendulum of popularity swinging back
in favour of the Federalists. They appeared once more in public as the
aggrieved party. Mr Chelvanayakam was seen again as the martyred victim of the
Government’s duplicity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Bandaranaike, for his part, declared that notwithstanding the
abrogation of the Pact he would present the two controversial Bills
guaranteeing ‘fair play’ to the Tamils when Parliament reconvened in
June. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This announcement was greeted with loud protests from the militant
Sinhala elements who stood by the slogan: ‘Ceylon for the Sinhalese’ and
‘Sinhalese Only from Point Pedro to Dondra Head’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This in turn increased the fervour of the Tamils for a separate
State. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was in this atmosphere that the Vavuniya Convention was prepared.
The Federal Party Chiefs, sensing the mood of the moment, went all out to make
the convention a key event. Special arrangements were made in advance for the
transport of delegates and supporters from every part of the island. Extra
bogeys were attached to the train from Batticaloa. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At this stage our story ties up with the disturbances over the
resettlement of Tamil labour in Polonnaruwa and Padaviya related earlier.
Sinhalese labourers had organized themselves as a striking force against any
infiltration of Tamils from Trincomalee. This loose organization had been
employed before— on two or three occasions—as shock troops which acted at the
instigation of certain politicians to whom they were beholden. A year ago they
had been sent as far as Maho to break up a meeting called to hear Dudley
Senanayake denouncing the B-C Pact. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In May-June 1957 confronted by the threat of a mass <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">satyagraha</i> by the Tamils, Sinhalese
settlers and labourers in the Padaviya area had been warned by the politicians
to prepare themselves against a Tamil invasion from the Trincomalee district.
They began to refer to themselves in epic terms as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sinhala</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamudawa</i> or the
Sinhalese Army. But the tension had eased on both sides of the communal barrier
when the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact was signed at the end of July that
year. The Sinhalese politicians, too, had then shown signs of remorse. The
Minister of Lands had instructed his officials to set apart 400 allotments for
the Tamil labourers who were being laid off by the evacuation of the Royal Navy
from Trincomalee. On the basis of five to a family this meant the settling of
2,000 Tamils in Padaviya. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Sinhalese labourers, however, would have none of it. Led by a
monk, a gang of Sinhalese squatters came in one night and occupied eleven <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wadiyas</i> intended to accommodate the
Tamils who would camp there to clear the land for settlement. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Ministry could or would do nothing to counter this forcible
occupation. Once again the Government, by inaction, gave its tacit sanction to
a fait accompli carried out deliberately and openly by people who seemed to be
confident of being able to flout authority with impunity. The squatters formed
Action Committees and proceeded to clear the land and settle in according to
the pattern set by the official settlers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Their political bosses now decided to use these ‘shock troops’ to
stage demonstrations against the Tamils bound for the Vavuniya Convention.
There is reason to believe that no murderous violence was intended at this
stage. The orders were to stone buses and trains, hoot and generally signify
‘disapprobation’. The Sinhalese labourers were ready and began the treatment on
random passers-by who happened to be Tamil, even before the real trek to
Vavuniya began. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But events moved too fast for them. On May 22, five hundred thugs
and hooligans invaded the Polonnaruwa station, and smashed up the windows of
the Batticaloa train in their frantic search for Convention-bound Tamils. The
General Manager of Railways, Mr E. Black, said: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">‘According to the information we
have—telegraph wires too have been cut—passengers entraining from Batticaloa
were alarmed at threats that a gang was to attack them as they were under the
impression that most of the passengers were going to the Federal Convention at
Vavuniya. At Welikande, all but one of the passengers got off the train in
fear. The train went on to Polonnaruwa with the one passenger. At midnight, as
the train steamed in, the gang set about the train and the lone passenger. The
train was stopped and left for Colombo
at 7 a.m. this morning without a single passenger. The incident occurred at
midnight. The passenger was sent to hospital by the Railway Officers there. A
Railway Official was sent from Colombo
today to hold an inquiry.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Observer reported this incident in more detail on May 24: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘On Thursday night, passengers were intimidated into getting off at
Welikande as news had reached them that a gang of men were on the way to prevent
them from making the trip as they felt that passengers must be prevented from
getting to Vavuniya for the Federal Convention. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One passenger however continued the trip but was severely assaulted
at Polonnaruwa station. A gang of men, alleged to have numbered nearly 500, got
on the train at this station, smashed windows, went from carriage to carriage
looking for passengers, damaging railway equipment as they did so. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They found one passenger who cowered in his seat, pleading with
them to leave him alone as he did not belong to the community they were looking
for. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You are all the same”, was the reply and they began assaulting him.
He was later despatched to hospital. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">All telegraph wires had been cut and there is still no communication
between Polonnaruwa and Colombo.
The train which should have arrived in Colombo
that morning, left the station at 7 a.m. in the morning and arrived in Colombo late last evening.
Meanwhile a Board of Inquiry has been despatched to Polonnaruwa by the General
Manager.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the night of the 23rd at 9.15 p.m. the Batticaloa-Colombo train
was derailed at the 215th mile on the Batticaloa-Eravur line. Two men,
Police-Sergeant Appuhamy and railway porter Victor Fernando, were killed in the
wreck. Many others were injured, some of them very seriously. Hoodlums, on the
watch for Vavuniya-bound passengers, attacked the wrecked train. Fortunately
there were only forty-seven people on that train. The wreckers had made a
serious miscalculation. There were very few Tamils on board. And it was the
Sinhalese who suffered most. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At 6 p.m. on May 24 a crowd—nearly a thousand strong— again invaded
the premises of the Polonnaruwa railway station. They assaulted everybody in
sight, including Sinhalese travellers and railway officials, and damaged a good
deal of railway property. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Assistant Superintendent of Police Johnpillai who was travelling on
leave to Valaichenai at the time, was beaten up at Giritale. Timely arrival of
police patrols saved his life. Mr Johnpillai, who was in a critical condition,
was rushed to hospital together with several others who had suffered at the
hands of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That night police sources reported that after an armed party had
cleared the crowd out of the railway station things were reasonably quiet. But
the Railway Department took the precaution of cancelling, immediately, all
trains which were scheduled to run between Batticaloa and Colombo. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt;">Polonnaruwa Aflame</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Polonnaruwa town was buzzing with people and carefully calculated
rumours. They huddled en masse in the streets, exchanging stories of a
threatened Tamil invasion from Trincomalee and from Batticaloa. Labourers from
the Land Development Department, the Irrigation Department and from the
Government farms who made up the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sinhala
Hamudawa</i> were constantly on the rampage, raping, looting and beating up
Tamil labourers and public officers. The rumours that a Tamil army was marching
to destroy Polonnaruwa gave the roughnecks a heroic stature. More <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">veerayas</i> (heroes) joined in to share the
glory of saving the ancient Sinhalese capital from the Tamil hordes as their
ancestors had done a thousand years before them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A notable feature of these activities was that the Sinhalese
colonists who had settled in the area for some years, and therefore had some
stake in general orderliness, took no part in the rioting. The vast majority of
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamudawa</i> were imported Government
labourers and the rest were recently arrived squatters who had no roots yet in
the area. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many of these labourers were marked ‘present’ on the check-rolls
while they were busy marauding in the town area. It would have taken a brave
supervising officer to refuse to mark their attendance. Some of these men, in
fact, had their attendance marked simultaneously in two places—on the check
roll at their work places and on the register of the remand jail after they
were arrested. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was some evidence of method in all this madness—it was crudely
but effectively planned. The rioters had arranged signals—one peal of a temple
bell to signify police, two to signify army and so on. They also had a simple
system of hand signals to give their associates in the distance such
information as which way a police patrol went. The element of planning was even
more evident in the agent provocateur system which was widely used. Many
thugs—some of them well-known criminals —had shaved their heads and assumed the
yellow robes of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikku</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A taxi driver known to the Police as a bad hat was stopped on the
road. He had a shaven head. Under the cushions of the seat they found two
soiled yellow robes. Police reports record that two ‘monks’ arrested for
looting and arson were car-drivers by ‘occupation’. These phoney priests went
about whipping up race-hatred, spreading false stories and taking part in the
lucrative side of this game—robbery and looting. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Whenever the Police went after a looter with a shaven head he
disappeared into a house and came back in the invulnerable robes of a monk.
Monks were ordained in Polonnaruwa in those few days faster than ever before
in the history of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Upasampada</i>, the
Buddhist ordination ceremony. They paid no attention to the sacrilege they were
committing in the sacred robes that the Buddha Himself had worn. This menace
became so bad that the Police took a decision to arrest every man with a shaven
head. They later discovered that a few innocent Muslims had fallen into their
net. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">All this went on while Polonnaruwa had no government nor even a
Government Agent of its own. The Government Agent of Anuradhapura, Deryck
Aluwihare, had been ordered to look after both provinces in perhaps the
toughest assignment ever given to a young Civil Servant. With the assistance of
a few civil administration officers, a small Police force under A.S.P. Bertram
Weerasinghe and a small army unit of fifty men (and with no orders yet from Colombo), he was flying between Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, trying to
maintain order. He had asked for reinforcements from Colombo
but the Government seemed reluctant to take the situation in the North Central
Province seriously. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Community life in Polonnaruwa was completely disorganized. The
bazaar was seething with frenzied hatred. The first task of the administration,
or what there was of it, was to provide a refuge for the Tamils whose lives
were in danger— it was quite impossible to protect isolated people with the
meagre means at their disposal. The Government Agent organized a refugee camp
hard by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kachcheri</i>. Refugees
streaming into the camp soon disorganized the rudimentary sanitary arrangements
which had been provided. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Before very long the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
turned their spite against the Tamil officials in the Government offices.
Government Agent Aluwihare then set up a refugee camp for them in an isolated
Irrigation Department bungalow, stationing five policemen there for their protection.
The people, the Government Agent and the refugees knew deep within themselves
how vulnerable they were. How could five policemen defend this house against
hundreds of hoodlums demented by blood lust? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The situation of the refugees became worse when the merchants,
under threat of reprisals from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>,
refused point blank to sell foodstuffs to the officials looking after the
refugees. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A quick decision was taken. Army personnel commandeered whatever
provisions were needed under the Government Agent’s receipt.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The thugs displayed a temerity which was quite unprecedented. They
had complete assurance that the Police would never dare to open fire. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey Aanduwa</i> (The government is ours)
bug had got deep into their veins. As the situation deteriorated, desperate
measures were needed. The ringleaders of the racial revolt and people
suspected of using their position and influence to stir up trouble were
arrested. Among them were half a dozen chairmen of village committees and a few
other parish pump politicians. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
had developed a slick technique of throwing dynamite. They carried it in the
breast pockets of their shirts, with the fuse hanging out. As the ‘enemy’
approached they struck a match, lit the fuse, pulled out the stick of dynamite
and flung it at point-blank range. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On May 24 and 25 murder stalked the streets in broad daylight.
Fleeing Tamils, and Sinhalese who were suspected of having given them
sanctuary, had their brains strewn about. A deaf mute scavenging labourer was
assaulted to death in the Hingurakgoda area—just to see what had made him tick.
The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> burnt two men alive, one
at Hingurakgoda, and the other at Minneriya. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1895243315541887371" name="On_the_night_of_May_25"><span lang="EN-GB">On the night of May 25</span></a><span lang="EN-GB">, one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Ceylon was
carried out. Almost simultaneously, on the Government farms at Polonnaruwa and
Hingurakgoda, the thugs struck remorselessly. The Tamil labourers in the Polonnaruwa
sugar-cane plantation fled when they saw the enemy approaching and hid in the
sugar-cane bushes. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> wasted
no time. They set the sugar cane alight and flushed out the Tamils. As they
came out screaming, men, women and children were cut down with home-made
swords, grass-cutting knives and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">katties</i>,
or pulped under heavy clubs.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At the Government farm at Hingurakgoda, too, the Tamils were
slaughtered that night. One woman in sheer terror embraced her two children and
jumped into a well. The rioters were enjoying themselves thoroughly. They
ripped open the belly of a woman eight months pregnant, and left her to bleed
to death. First estimates of the mass murders on that night were frightening:
150-200 was a quick guess on the basis of forty families on an average of four
each. This estimate was later pruned down to around seventy, on the basis of
bodies recovered and the possibility that many Tamils had got away in
time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The hoodlums were now motorized. They roamed the district in trucks,
smashing up kiosks and houses and killing any Tamils who got in their
way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the morning of May 26, the expected Emergency had not yet been
proclaimed. The situation in Polonnaruwa seemed beyond hope. Government Agent
Aluwihare, ASP. Weerasinghe and their colleagues had not had a wink of sleep
or rest for four days. They had been promised army reinforcements and Bren guns
but there were no signs of their coming. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The refugee camps were now overcrowded. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Aluwihare had a hunch that the Irrigation bungalow which gave
sanctuary to the Tamil public officers was no longer safe and he had moved its
occupants into the main camp near the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kachcheri</i>.
The Police had received information that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> from Minneriya, Hingurakgoda and Padaviya were planning to
build up their forces for a major assault on the night of May 26. The targets
were to be the refugee camp and the Police station in which the public officials—mostly
Sinhalese—--had now taken refuge. The basis of the war had shifted: it was an
all-out struggle against the forces of authority who stood in the way of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sinhala Hamuduwa</i> taking complete control
of Polonnaruwa. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That morning at about 8.30 Government Agent Aluwihare and a
Land Development Officer, Vasa de Silva,
who was doing yeoman service in the district, were jeeping down a long lonely
roadway which led to the bund of the Parakrama <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Samudra</i>. They were on the look-out for a suitable site for a second
refugee camp, away from the main centre of excitement. Suddenly they saw signs
that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> had passed that way.
There were three bodies on the road. They stopped the jeep and dismounted to
see if there was any life left in the bodies. The first man they looked at was
very dead indeed. His brain had spilled out on the roadway. As Aluwihare was
turning away he heard shouting and saw a huge truck load of about fifty thugs
advancing on them from the front. They were shooting ‘There’s the Government
Agent. Kill him. That’s the rascal who is helping the Tamils. Kill him'.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The two officers whipped their jeep round. It must have been a
terrifying ordeal. They managed to escape only because between them and the
advancing truck the road had been strewn with new metal which had not yet been
rammed down. The truck bobbed up and down, preventing the thugs from shooting,
and was delayed just long enough for the officers to turn the jeep and speed to
the safety of the police station. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">All morning, apparently by prior arrangement, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas </i>were building up their forces.
From Minneriya, Giritale and Hingurakgoda the gangs converged on Polonnaruwa
for a do-or-die attack on the last bastion of authority—the Police station.
The Police station was now crowded with Sinhalese officials against whom the
terrorism was now being directed because they were the symbol of law and
order. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The defenders were in a desperate plight. The Police rank and file
were afraid that if they made a fight of it against the terrorists they would
be hauled up before a Commission of Inquiry. This fear of a political
inquisition had sapped their morale considerably and it was mainly their
confidence in their officers which enabled them even to make a show of
resistance. The mob was certain that the Police would never shoot and their
experience of the past two years during which the politicians had publicly
denounced the police and taken the side of the crowd, right or wrong, increased
the fears of the police. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At about noon Government Agent Aluwihare and A.S.P. Bertram
Weerasinghe</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> and
their wives went to lunch at the Polonnaruwa rest house. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">About 1000 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> were
lying about on the slope leading to the rest house, recuperating their strength
for the Grand Finale they were going to stage that night. About fifty of them
suddenly walked into the rest house. The women, including Mrs Miriam Gaskell,
the rest house keeper, were asked to stay in. Aluwihare and Weerasinghe met the
men in the veranda and asked them what they wanted. They wanted tea. Mrs
Gaskell accordingly made tea for her ‘guests’, who departed peacefully enough
except that they ignored the regulation that refreshments had to be paid
for. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As the day wore on the tension increased. The crowds outside the Police
station had grown to about 3,000. The small Army unit and the handful of Police
kept them at bay. But the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
were enjoying themselves, hooting, hurling obscenities at the police and the
officials. They caught a Tamil official making his way to the station and beat
him up to the gates of the station and then withdrew. The Police dared not fire
and the Army said that they had no orders to shoot if there was a charge. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The refugees in the station breathed a huge sigh of relief when they
saw the promised Army reinforcements coming in. It was 2 p.m. It was only a
platoon of twenty-five men—half the unit having been ordered to relieve
Hingurakgoda. Things were no longer hopeless, however, because the new platoon
had brought a Bren gun. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The arrival of Army reinforcements drove the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda</i> leaders into a frenzied ‘conference’. Later events showed
that they had taken the size of the unit as an indication that this was only
the advance party of a larger force that would arrive that afternoon to relieve
the beleaguered town. Their decision was attack now before the opposition was
better fortified. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Bren gun was mounted near the gate. At 3.20 p.m. the first wave
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> advanced towards the
police station, with sarongs lifted, shouting obscenities and coarse defiance.
They were still confident that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey
Aanduwa</i> would not shoot them down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As they came nearer, the Bren fired a burst over their heads to warn
them. This had just the opposite effect. They took it as confirmation that the
army was only bluffing. The roar of the crowd became louder and the obscenities
more defiant. The entire 3,000 now began to swarm towards the barricade. At
this point the Army unit commander said that he needed authority to open fire.
Aluwihare signed the order. The officer put the paper in his pocket and walked
out. On came the mob. They were only a few yards away now. One man in front
raised his sarong, displaying his genitals in foul defiance of the army. The
Bren opened fire and the passionate exhibitionist fell dead. Two of his
comrades shared his fate. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The crowd scattered in all directions as the Bren stuttered briefly.
Men who had been borne up by a demoniacal courage reinforced by an assurance
that they were politically protected now fled screaming in terror, and
forgathered in groups far away from the range of the gun. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Forty-five minutes later the Minister of Lands, C. P. de Silva, M.P.
for Polonnaruwa, accompanied by his Director of Land Development, Chandra de
Fonseka, arrived at the police station. They had flown in from Colombo and had seen the havoc at
Hingurakgoda en route. The Minister’s first comment was: ‘This is worse than
Gal Oya in 1956.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> accosted their
M.P. and demanded his explanation for the shooting of their three comrades.
The burden of their lament was that the Government Agent, the police and the
army had killed Sinhalese <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">veerayas</i>
while protecting the Tamils. ‘We did not send you to Parliament to get your
army to kill Sinhalese,’ they wailed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It must have been a devilishly tricky dilemma for the Minister. He
knew very well, as he told the officials, that the shooting of the three
hoodlums had prevented a massacre of hundreds in Polonnaruwa that afternoon.
But it was politically very awkward for him as the M.P. for the area and
Minister in charge of the settlements in the district to answer the persistent
question: Why is the army killing Sinhalese?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Horror Spreads</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This question was going to loom large in the next few days and twist
the entire picture out of focus. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">If there had been any chance whatever at this stage of keeping
Sinhalese tempers under control it vanished completely following the Prime
Minister’s broadcast call to the nation of May 26. The call was, no doubt, well
intentioned and a statement to the nation was, for once, essential and even
overdue. But, unwittingly or otherwise, it contained a reference which had the
effect of blowing raw oxygen into a fire that was already raging vigorously. By
a strangely inexplicable perversion of logic Mr Bandaranaike tried to explain
away a situation by substituting the effect for the cause. The relevant portion
of the speech was: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An unfortunate situation has arisen resulting in communal tension.
Certain incidents in the Batticaloa District where some people lost their
lives, including Mr D. A. Seneviratne, a former Mayor of Nuwara Eliya, have
resulted in various acts of violence and lawlessness in other areas—for example
Polonnaruwa, Dambulla, Galawela, Kuliyapitiya and even Colombo. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The killing of Seneviratne on May 25 was thus officially declared to
be the cause of the uprising, although the Communal riots had begun on May 22
with the attack on the Polonnaruwa Station and the wrecking of the Batticaloa-Colombo
train and several other minor incidents. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No explanation was offered by the Prime Minister for singling out
Seneviratne’s name for particular mention from the scores of people who had
lost their lives during those critical days. Did the fact that he was a wealthy
man rate him a special mention in a Call to the Nation at such a moment? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No effort was made to check whether the Seneviratne killing was a
political affair or the outcome of a private feud as suggested by Mr S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam during the debate in Parliament on June 4. If it was, indeed, a
‘private’ murder, the use of this man’s name in that context was a grievous and
costly error. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Almost unnoticeably the tension spread to Colombo and the suburbs. From Pettah, Slave
Island, Wellawatte, Dehiwela, Mount Lavinia, Ratmalana and Maradana reports of
Tamils being beaten up by hoodlums came in clusters, but they still did not add
up to a really massive campaign. Not yet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Among the Sinhalese people in Colombo
at any rate, the general attitude so far was expressed in the words: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Garandi marala pau gannawa</i> (Damning
oneself by killing harmless rat-snakes). This was the working-class
response—among the factory workers, the office boys in mercantile
offices—except here and there where the communal bug had nested for long. Among
the middle class—the clerks and the English educated people—the distaste for
the trend of events was more marked and positive. Weary of two years of
increasing lawlessness and with nerves frayed by the industrial and political
storms and crises that had driven the nation into a state of perpetual dementia,
the middle class and the ‘intelligentsia’ of the country felt violently
repulsed at this display of racial cannibalism. But worse was to come. A
nation, mollycoddled by nature and pampered by Fate, was to undergo its worst ordeal
yet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On Tuesday morning, May 27, at seven-fifteen, a group of citizens</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></sup></b></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span lang="EN-GB">,</span></sup></b><span lang="EN-GB"> who had distinguished themselves in various fields of public
activity, called urgently to see the Prime Minister and implored him to
proclaim a State of Emergency.
Mr Bandaranaike’s answer was that it was an ‘exaggeration’ to call the
situation an ‘emergency’. His supplicants later said they were appalled at the
insouciance with which the Prime Minister appeared to be taking the mass
murders, looting and lawlessness which had broken out everywhere in Ceylon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is not difficult to find a likely explanation for Premier
Bandaranaike’s calculated astigmatism. The ghosts of a previous regime were
haunting Rosmead Place, night and day. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hartal</i>
of 1953, one day of mass violence and arson, had coerced Prime Minister Dudley
Senanayake to advise the Governor-General to proclaim an emergency. In the
resulting military activity nine rioters were killed and an innocent passenger
in a taxicab was shot by a sentry whose challenge the driver had not heard. The
entire episode had left an ugly taste in the mouth of every Ceylonese and there
is no doubt that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hartal</i>
disturbances, and the consequent increase in the unpopularity of the
Government of that time, were the principal causes of the resignation of Mr
Senanayake. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Emergency’, therefore, was a synonym for ‘confession of failure’ in
Mr Bandaranaike’s Thesaurus. Even during the first rash of communal killings
that occurred two months after he became Prime Minister in 1956 the reports of
at least 150 people being slaughtered by mobs had not impelled him to call an
emergency. He had survived that conflict because the Police, not yet
demoralized by two years of official condonement of thuggery, had acted
firmly—even against Government party politicians who were inciting people to
riot. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister, presumably, was confident that he would come
through the 1958 massacre, too, with a little bit of luck and some judicious
‘tide watching’.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">While this discussion was going on, Colombo was on fire. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> burnt fifteen shops in the Pettah and a row of kiosks in
Mariakaday. Looting on a massive scale took place in Pettah, Maradana,
Wellawatte, Ratmalana, Kurunegala, Panadura, Kalutara, Badulla, Galle, Matara and
Weligama. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The cry everywhere in the Sinhalese districts was ‘Avenge the murder
of Seneviratne’. Even the many Sinhalese who had been appalled by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda</i> attacks on Tamils and Tamil owned
kiosks, now began to feel that the Tamils had put themselves beyond the pale.
Across the country this new mood of deep-seated racism surged. The Prime
Minister’s peace call to the Nation had turned into a war cry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Another vicious story, fabricated by a ghoul with a keen sense of
melodrama, careered through the country leaving a trail of arson and murder
after it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A female teacher from Panadura, the story went, who was teaching in
a school in the Batticaloa District, had been set upon by a gang of Tamil
thugs. They had cut off her breasts and killed her. Her body was being brought
home to Panadura for cremation. On the morning of May 27 the Panadura townsfolk
whispered it around that the mutilated body had been brought home. In the
bazaar there was sudden pandemonium. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> intensified
their depredations. They ransacked Tamil-owned shops and beat up shopkeepers
and passers-by. A gang of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
rushed into the Hindu temple, and attempted to set fire to it. In their frenzy
they were clumsy and failed to get the fire going. But they had a more
interesting idea. They pulled an officiating priest out of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kovil</i> and burnt him into a cinder. The
story of the mutilation and murder of a Panadura teacher gained such currency
that the Ministry of Education despatched a senior Inspector of Schools to
investigate. His report: there was not an iota of truth in the story. He also
discovered, when he checked through the records, that there was no female
teacher from Panadura on the staff of any school in the Batticaloa district.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As panic spread, doors were closed in Sinhalese as well as Tamil
homes. The Tamils closed their doors to escape murder, rape and pillage. The
Sinhalese closed their doors to prevent Tamils running into their houses for
shelter. But there were many Sinhalese, living in the midst of thuggery, whose
innate decency and humanity triumphed over their natural terror. One family
took in sixteen Tamils who came to them for shelter. They were fed and
accommodated in a single locked room for three days. Neighbours’ or servants’
gossip would have destroyed over a score of lives. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yet another fiendish rumour had been circulated to inflame the
Sinhalese. This was the story of the ‘Tar Baby’. In Batticaloa, it appeared, a
Sinhalese baby had been snatched from its mother’s arms and immersed in a
barrel of boiling tar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The atrocities increased with alarming rapidity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Among the hundreds of acts of arson, rape, pillage, murder and plain
barbarity some incidents may be recorded as examples of the kind of thuggery
at work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Young Annesly Mendis of Moratuwa and a friend of his, both employed
as Technical Assistants in the Irrigation Department at Polonnaruwa, decided
to flee the district with their families as the terrorism was now directed
against Government officials. They set out from Polonnaruwa in two cars, taking
the Giritale-Naula Road,
expecting to reach Matale by a circuitous route. Mendis, in his old Ford
Prefect, carried his wife, her few months old child, and an ayah. Soon after
they set out Mendis’s car developed engine trouble. They managed to sputter
into Giritale, but there the Ford packed up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here they were advised by Engineer Dias Abeysinghe to take the road
through the Elahera Irrigation Department camp to Naula, as he had received
information that the more direct Habarana
Road would soon become dangerous. Mrs Mendis, the
baby and the ayah were transferred to the other car and three friends who had
come along for the ride transferred to the Ford. The important thing was to get
the women and children away. Mendis tinkered around with the Ford and managed
to get the engine working again. As they were about to set out a youth called
Leo Fernando—who had changed his name discreetly from the Tamil Fernandopulle
after the Gal Oya riots—was offered a lift. There were now five in the
car—Mendis, Fernando, a young man named Walatara and two others. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first car, miraculously, got away. The mobs had not yet congregated
on the road. The Ford limped into Diyabaduma and was promptly surrounded by 200
terrorists. The leaders greeted them with a hostile question: ‘Aren’t you
Tamil?’ They protested that they were Sinhalese. Mendis was forced out of the
car and asked to recite a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gatha</i>—a
Buddhist stanza in Pali. Being a Methodist he knew no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gathas</i>. He had also a bad stammer and fear made it worse so that he
could not explain himself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The mob began to beat him up. Bleeding from his head and ears Mendis
ran down the street. They shot him in the back. Insatiable, they then dragged
Leo Fernando out of the car and hacked him to death without any palaver. In the
confusion the other occupants of the car escaped into the jungle and reached Colombo two days later.
Mendis’s body was carried, tied to a pole like a shot animal, to the far side
of the bazaar. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> poured
petrol over the mutilated bodies. Within minutes Mendis and Fernando were two
hideous heaps of charcoal. Not satisfied yet, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> burnt the Ford and dumped its charred remains in the
Elahara irrigation channel. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the Colombo
area the number of atrocities swiftly piled up. The atmosphere was thick with
hate and fear. The thugs ran amok burning houses and shops, beating-up
pedestrians, holding-up vehicles and terrorizing the entire city and the
suburbs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A Government official’s house was invaded by a gang of hoodlums
under the captaincy of one man who was obviously drunk on the perverse delight
of seeing other people suffer. Under his orders his stooges began stripping the
window curtains and piling up the furniture to make a bonfire. The family
huddled in a room waiting for the worst—father, mother and five little
children. The chief thug broke into the room and saw them standing hypnotized
by terror. Sweating, panting, his eyes bloodshot with frenzied hate, he paused
to look at the family he was about to destroy. Then, suddenly, something seemed
to click in his mind. He asked, pointing to the children: ‘Are all these
yours?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The father nodded, a great sob cracking his throat. The thug clapped
his hand to his forehead and said: ‘Anney—I have two myself,’ and walked out of
the room. Calling his gang together he left the house still intact. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Another Tamil officer working in the same Government department was
not so fortunate. The thugs stormed into his house and assaulted his wife and
grown-up daughter in the presence of his little child. His mind cracked under
the shock. In the French liner <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Laos</i> which took
the family away to safety in Jaffna
he insisted on reciting large chunks of the Bhagavad Gita to the captain of the
ship. All his formal education—he is a Cambridge
scholar—had proved useless to him in the face of disaster. His broken mind
reached out for the only solace a man has when his own ingenuity and ability
have proved futile. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At Wellawatte Junction, near the plantain kiosk, a pregnant woman
and her husband were set upon. They clubbed him and left him on the pavement.
Then they kicked the woman repeatedly as she hurried along at a grotesque
sprint, carrying her swollen belly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A great deal of property was destroyed in the wave of arson which
hit Mount Lavinia and Ratmalana on May 27. Mr R.
R. Selvadurai, a former Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, was one
of those who lost his house. He had at first been reluctant to accept warnings
of impending trouble, and had in any case no wish to leave until he had made
contact with his sons, who were out. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately for the family the two young men got home just in time
for them all to escape with their lives and take shelter in a police station
where over 1000 Tamils had already sought refuge. Mr Selvadurai learnt that
night that his house had been burnt. Next morning he and his son tried to
salvage at least his books, and a few remaining pieces of furniture, but they
were seen by a group of eight thugs who quickly made sure that even these
relics of his property should not be left to him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">While the Prime Minister was telling the citizens’ delegation that
it was an ‘exaggeration to call the situation an emergency’ in every village
from Kalawewa to Nalanda people’s houses were in flames. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When an eye witness reached Dambulla it was still intact. In a few
minutes a factory-new Ceylon Transport Board ‘Special’ arrived loaded with
‘passengers’. They disembarked and swiftly set about their business: in ten
minutes six houses were blazing. And hell spread through the bazaar. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Batticaloa Killings</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Soon after the Polonnaruwa incidents of May 23 and 24 the madness
spread to Eravur in the Eastern
Province. The Tamils in
this area retaliated against isolated Sinhalese homes and trades people. Tamil
fishermen waged a sea-shore battle against Sinhalese fishermen who were driven
out to sea. They dared not return to the east coast and were not seen for days.
Police feared serious loss of life at sea but later reports indicated that the
fishermen had landed here and there on the south coast. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tamil <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> set up road
blocks and interrupted traffic. Like their Sinhalese counterparts they
cross-examined passengers who were dragged out, beaten up and deprived of
their belongings if they were suspected to be Sinhalese. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One Sinhalese driver whose duties had taken him to Batticaloa was
returning to Colombo
on May 26. They caught him near a causeway and interrogated him. His terror was
so great that he could not speak. ‘Who are you?’ they asked. ‘Are you Sinhalese
or Tamil or Muslim?’ The man was still speechless. They persisted. Eventually
he found his tongue. When they asked him for a tenth time to state his race: ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lanji</i>,’ he spluttered, trying to make ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lansi</i>’ (Burgher) sound Tamil. Immediately
he realized his mistake but the thugs were satisfied. They let him go on his
way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">From May 23—when the first train derailment took place— up to
Tuesday, May 27—the day on which a State of Emergency was declared—the highest
incidence of violence in the Batticaloa district was in the Eravur area. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">With the news of the first train derailment, many Sinhalese in the
area had already left their homes and begun a hazardous trek to places of
safety. Some went into the jungles where many of them gave up their lives to
hunger and to the animals. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When the number of Police in the area were augmented by military
personnel, on May 27 and 28, they drove along the edges of jungles announcing
through their mobile loudspeakers that people who were within hearing distance
should come out to safety. Those who were still alive accepted this offer. The
corpses of the others were discovered in various stages of decomposition. In
one case, the Police found the bodies of a mother and child whom she had been
breast-feeding at the time of death. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Sinhalese who had not fled their homes or who were intercepted
in flight by berserk Tamil <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
suffered a similar fate. In the heart of Eravur a Sinhalese man and his wife
were assaulted and set on fire. Their belongings were then looted and their
dwelling place burnt down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Homes which had been evacuated were given the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chulu</i> light treatment. First: goods which could be of any use were
looted. Then, a liberal dose of kerosene was splashed on the walls of the
house, and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chulu</i> light was flung at
it. The police were helpless. Their numbers were too small—they did not even
have sufficient men to release one or two of them to guard the Public Works
Department powder magazine at Batticaloa— and, besides, they had received no
orders to shoot and fight back with methods which would give them some hope of
getting the Tamil hoodlums under control. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In a few places hand-bombs were thrown at cars. Mercifully, by this
time people had been sufficiently scared for many of them to cancel proposed
trips to the area. The damage might otherwise have been much greater. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ironically, in the town of Batticaloa
itself—the area chosen as the centre of the Tamil
Kingdom of the Eastern Province
by Tamil extremists—the damage to Sinhalese life and property was relatively
small. In fact, Tamil kiosk keepers closed shop and sought sanctuary in areas
where members of their own community were amassed in greater numbers at the
very hint of disturbances. During the first few days of the rioting the Tamils
who had stayed behind in Batticaloa town, mainly public servants stationed in
the area, bought their provisions, groceries and food from Sinhalese shops
which plied a brisk and highly profitable trade. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then, two stories came through from the south to step up the fury of
the mobs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">First, there was the rumoured death of a Tamil fiscal clerk at
Kalutara. As the story went, a Tamil fiscal clerk who had almost reached the
official age of retirement, but who had expressed a wish to work a few months
longer so as to qualify for the best possible pension with which he would have
to fend for himself, his wife and nine children, had been transferred a few
weeks earlier from Vavuniya to Kalutara. He had protested against his
transfer, the story continued, but had been forced to accept it. Now, he was
dead. One report said that he had been burnt alive; another that he had been
hacked to death. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Second, reports came in of what had happened to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kovil</i>, the Hindu priest, and many other
Tamils in Panadura. Even here, the reports varied as did the estimates of the
number killed. But the details were unimportant. Blood was all that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas </i>wanted. In the chaos that
followed it was almost impossible for anybody to keep a count of who had been
injured, who had been lynched, and what had been burnt—so swiftly did the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> move from area to area, and so
ruthlessly did they set about their tasks of destruction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The official figures are: 56 cases of arson, and 11 murders in the
Batticaloa Administrative district. But there is reason to believe that more
than that number of killings occurred in Karativu alone, where the
Sinhalese—many of them migrant fishermen—were massacred. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Men, women and children were pulled out of their homes— wailing, and
screaming for mercy—and beaten, more often than not, to death. Houses were set
ablaze and law officers were powerless. Meanwhile in other parts of the
district houses were still blazing, looting was proceeding apace, and the
search for victims was still on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many of the migrant fishermen in the area had left their homes
earlier. What they had left behind was quickly grabbed and shared among the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>. Some of this was discovered
later and a small-time politician who was found to have a sizeable stock of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">madhal</i>, or home-spun fishing nets, in
his house stated that he had taken all this under his roof for
protection. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the Eravur area there were other incidents of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda</i> activity and in many cases both
the Police and the military were fired at when they attempted to intervene. In
one instance, Police and service personnel had to fire several rounds at a
blood-thirsty crowd before they could rescue alive two men who had been set
afire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Despite Mr Bandaranaike’s characteristic attitude of ignoring the
presence of a monster in the hope that it would go away or fall dead of its own
accord, the pressure for the declaring of a State of Emergency was rising overwhelmingly. The
Governor-General had broken with convention to visit the Prime Minister at his Rosmead Place home
in order to impress on him the need for firm, urgent action. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Between eight and ten o’clock that morning the situation all over
the country, notably in Colombo district, Kurunegala, Polonnaruwa and the
Batticaloa-Eravur area had deteriorated so badly that even the stoutest heart
and most cynical mind could not possibly help quailing at the continuance of this
barbarism. In Colombo Fort, Pettah and Colombo South the thugs ran amok,
beating up people who wore their shirts over their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vertis</i>, Tamil fashion. They stopped pedestrians and passing cars
looking for ear-ring holes in men’s ears. It was impossible to disguise these
marks of early parental affection and many Tamils paid dearly for this
traditional feature. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> could not
find any obvious distinguishing marks they used the ingenious device of testing
people’s race by asking them to read and explain a piece from a Sinhalese
newspaper. Very few Tamils and—mirabile dictu!—very few Sinhalese, particularly
of the English educated class, could pass this test and they were summarily
dealt with for their ignorance of the official tongue.</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></sup></b></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Emergency Declared</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Shortly after noon on May 27, the Governor-General proclaimed that
a State of Emergency had arisen in Ceylon. Several
units of the army and navy were mobilized. Army units were rushed to Batticaloa
district from Colombo
and Diyatalawa where the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sinha</i>
regiment had just held its passing-out parade. Volunteers were called up for
active service. A dusk to dawn curfew was clamped on the whole island. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government also took the bold step of proscribing the Federal
Party and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jatika Vimukti Peramuna</i>,
which were at the two extremes of the language conflict. It was a bold step,
certainly, that had immediately beneficial results—but whether it was a wise
one remains to be seen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The rioters continued their battle in the streets. Fresh fires broke
out in Wellawatte, Maradana and Pettah. Looting continued apace. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gangs of hoodlums in the Ratmalana area appeared to be working
according to a predetermined pattern. Thugs disguised as policemen went round
Tamil houses warning the residents that the Police could no longer guarantee
their safety and advising them to take refuge in the Police station. Nearly
10,000 people left their homes in terror. Then the ‘policemen’ returned, some
now in mufti, others still in uniform, to ransack the empty houses. When they
had left the scene, hard on their heels came the ‘firing squads’. They came in
vehicles in twos and threes. A bottle of petrol was flung into the house. A
stick of dynamite was despatched after it and another house was burning.
Others, less efficiently equipped, zealously collected whatever furniture was
left behind and used it as firewood to get the flames going. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Even after the emergency was declared the momentum of the
island-wide riot continued. The afternoon papers and the radio announced the
emergency, and the death penalty for looters, but a mob knows no fear. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">From three o’clock that afternoon people rushed back into their
homes. The Navy took charge of the Pettah area, the Army took over Maradana in
Central Colombo and Wellawatte in the south, moving out towards the periphery
of Colombo. The
difficulty was that when a street was cleared of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> it did not stay clear. Crazed and emboldened by their
successes of the past few days they came creeping back to loot and burn as soon
as the military had moved past. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By 4.30 p.m. the Navy had cleared the Pettah of thugs. Sten guns
mowed down <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> and stragglers. No
account was taken of the number of deaths that afternoon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A Navy officer told me: ‘We don’t know how many were killed. If in
the next few days the Pettah starts smelling of rotting flesh you will know it
is not the meat market. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By 6 p.m. it became clear that the Ceylon Army and Navy which had
never before seen hot action except on newsreels, and had no Battle Honours to
their credit, were doing a first-rate professional job. Their orders were to
shoot and to shoot to kill. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In what the columnists call ‘high political quarters’ there was some
doubt as to whether the military personnel would be willing to open fire on
their own compatriots. No one knew how deep the communal bug had eaten into the
armed services. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Within two hours of the call out the Army and Navy had proved that
their morale, discipline and training were of a very high order. At 5 p.m.
Queen’s House—which had suddenly been converted into a G.H.Q.—received a
message that Colombo had been cleared up to
Wellawatte, Borella and Victoria
Bridge. The fan-out had
been relatively easy so far.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then the Army began encountering some large-scale opposition,
apparently organized, in the area between Manning Place and 42nd Lane, Wellawatte, where several rows
of Tamil kiosks had been looted and burnt and some Tamil homes had been stoned
and Tamil residents assaulted earlier. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> held their
ground even with the army advancing on them. Hand-made bombs and hand grenades
were tossed at the soldiers, who, despite definite orders, were reluctant to
shoot into the milling crowd of Sinhalese and Tamils who had gathered at the
street corners to watch the activity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Several ‘warning’ rounds were fired into the air, Army and Police
personnel charged the crowd thrice and by 6 p.m. the area had been
cleared. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile Tamil homes in the area—notably down Vihare Lane, Hampden Lane and High Street—were
receiving <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda</i> treatment. Among the
homes which were subjected to a continuous barrage of stones was that of the
Chief Clerk to the Superintendent of Police, Colombo. By the time the army reached the
spot the hooligans had fled. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At night, several hours after the curfew order had come into force,
a hand-bomb was thrown into a home at Ramakrishna
Road where several Tamils had gathered for
‘safety’. One Tamil received a direct hit on his arm which removed a large
chunk of his flesh. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the night, despite the curfew and military vigilance, new fires
were started in Dehiwela and Ratmalana, particularly in the new housing estate
where many new Tamil residents had come to settle during the past two years.
Six brand-new houses blazed like giant pyres. Twenty-seven houses were gutted
by fire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The street battle was still raging when people began their regular
trek to work. It was quieter at Vivekananda Lane Junction but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> were still active and an army
detachment was still under sporadic attack. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At Ratmalana, near the bus station, there was a pitched battle
between the Army under Colonel F. C. de Saram and hundreds of Sinhalese zealots
fighting grimly on despite the hopelessness of their effort. Their fanaticism
had been ignited by the death of a Sinhalese bus driver who, they claimed, had
been killed during the night by a Tamil policeman’s bullet. The search was on
for a Tamil policeman and the drivers refused to ply the buses. Vehicles were
stopped by the crowds who checked them for Tamil passengers. Tamils were pulled
out forcibly and attacked. One Tamil lady had her ear lobes torn off because
her attackers were in too much of a hurry to give her time to unscrew her
ear-rings. A man displayed a long gash in his wrist made by the pin in his
strap-buckle when the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas </i>tore
his watch off him in their frenzied haste. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile the morning plane from Jaffna had come in and, with it, a crop of
five new rumours, hot from the unofficial mint, and all counterfeit. Sinhalese
residents in Ratmalana told the drivers at the bus station that the Tamils had
murdered hundreds of Sinhalese in Jaffna. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Police records show that up to that date Jaffna was still quiet and that, at this
stage, no damage had been done to any Sinhalese there.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></sup></b></span><sup> </sup>But a few Sinhalese
residents who could afford the air fare had left Jaffna fearing reprisals—as indeed they
might, for the tension was at snapping point. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">During the night the Navy had brought the Pettah into order. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> had moved on towards Maradana
and Borella where there were still a few isolated incidents. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> displayed uncanny knowledge of
people’s movements and an almost incredible temerity. At 4 p.m. on May 28 outside
the Galle Face Hotel where a society wedding was taking place, they singled out
from many cars, a car belonging to a young Tamil wedding guest. In the presence
of hundreds of people, armed policemen on duty and Army patrols, they set this
car ablaze with complete impunity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mercifully, the harbour was still free from arson and race-war.
Miraculously the harbour labourers did not carry the war into the port area
although many of them, as was discovered later when lists of thugs arrested
were published, had joined in the looting and thuggery in the street
battles. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Army took advantage of the opportunity to do some slum-clearance
too. On ‘top level’ orders they indulged in official arson by burning down the
whole row of shanties that disfigures the General Lake’s
Road. Politicians who would never have dared to clear them out by allowing the
Municipality to impose the by-laws of the city were already tasting the
advantages of dictatorship over democracy, the way they had understood and
practised it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Jaffna</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"> Reacts</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Police sources are certain that while shops in Colombo
were being looted, people assaulted and killed, and the Prime Minister was
being pressed to advise the Governor-General to declare a State of Emergency, the whole of the Northern Province was still comparatively
quiet. In some parts, mainly in the town of Jaffna itself, a few stragglers
were still around—tar brushes and pots in hand—on the look-out for vehicles
bearing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i> number-plate, and
there had, of course, been an increased tension in the atmosphere from the
time that rumours of what was happening in the North Central Province started
trickling through after May 22. The Sinhalese residents of the area, however, who
had lived through the June ‘56 riots without encountering so much as a jeer,
did not feel that either their lives or their property were in danger. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In fact one Sinhalese Police officer who was stationed at Jaffna
told me that when he spoke to some of his Sinhalese acquaintances and told them
that there were some indications that what was happening in other parts of
Ceylon might spread to the peninsula, they shrugged it off with a smile and reminded
him that in 1956 they had been safer at Jaffna than they could have been
anywhere else. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The change came on May 28. By then rumours of what had allegedly
been done to Tamils in the south had come through. As with all rumours which
were spread during this period, many of them were totally groundless. But
nobody stopped to check them. And what finally unleashed the fury of the Tamils
in Jaffna was
the story—repeated in various forms by different people-of the fate of the
Hindu <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kovil </i>and its incumbent at Panadura. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At street corners and in market squares the crowds began to gather.
First they came in small batches of twos and threes, then in greater numbers.
The petty local ‘leaders’ obviously found in this situation a golden
opportunity for enhancing their authority. They proclaimed, in all seriousness,
that it was their duty to avenge what had been done to their brothers and
sisters in the south. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> in
the crowd, always on the look-out for opportunities to display their prowess
lucratively, agreed. The hunt for Sinhalese was on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In one respect this set of outrages differed from what had gone
before. No attempt was made to do bodily harm to the Sinhalese. They were told
to leave their homes and their shops, once they proved to the satisfaction of
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>—by producing their rent
receipts—that the buildings which they occupied were owned by Tamils. Then
their goods were dragged out on to the road, heaped up, and burnt. This was
regarded by the Powers in Colombo
as certain evidence that the rioting in the north was organized by some
powerful behind-the-scenes interests. It certainly looked like that on what
evidence there was at the time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Jaffna
itself there was one ugly incident on May 29. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That evening a crowd of around 200 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> were on the look-out for anything—just anything—to
destroy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Earlier they had done the round of homes occupied by Sinhalese; now
they were in the heart of the town, boisterous, belligerent and restive but,
apparently, with no victims on whom to vent their spleen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then they had an inspiration: they would destroy the Naga <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vihare</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The idea caught on and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>
marched on to the Naga <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vihare</i>, a
Buddhist temple in the heart of Jaffna
town which had often been used as a halt by pilgrims en route to the Nagadipa <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vihare</i> at Nainativu. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> collected
whatever weapons they could find on the way, but by the time they had had their
initial stock of brickbats at the Temple
the police were on the scene. They prevented a full-scale demolition of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vihare</i>, but were not in time to check an
assault on its incumbent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By the time the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikku</i> was
removed to hospital he had a four-inch gash on his forehead and was severely
bruised. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Later the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas </i>attempted
to storm the hospital and the police opened fire. Nobody was killed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On May 30, the disturbances took a slightly different turn when
Government offices in Kayts and Valvettiturai were broken open, records
destroyed and firearms stolen. This, coupled with the organized nature of the
rioting, was built up by the Competent Authority into the Northern Rebellion,
and it was announced off-the-record—at a press conference held on May 31—that
there was a definite attempt in Jaffna
to cause a breakdown of the civil administration, to destroy Government
property and to establish a separate State. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As a matter of fact, the explanation was much simpler. In Kayts and
Valvettiturai smuggling has been, for generations, the natural occupation of
the people. The only offices attacked were those of the Customs—the smugglers
were making hay! They were destroying for all time their dossiers and the
weapons which the Government might use against them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the same day, at Kayts, some Government boats were destroyed. And
then occurred one of the foulest and most provocative examples of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda</i> activity in the course of the
riots.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Buddhist Temple of Nagadipa stood on the island of Nainativu,
eight miles from Kayts. According to hoary legend Nagadipa has direct
connections with the life of Gautama Buddha. In the old days only a shrine
existed, but by dint of devoutness the temple had grown to sizeable
proportions. Isolated as it was, and lacking financial support from a steady
flow of pilgrims, the temple had still managed to survive and preserve its
atmosphere of quiet holiness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In commemoration of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buddha
Jayanti</i> celebrations the Burmese Government had given to the Nagadipa <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vihare</i> a magnificent bronze-alloy
statue. This image had been taken round various centres in the south so that as
many persons as possible could see it before enshrinement in Nainativu. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One afternoon a gang of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i>,
suspected to be among those who had earlier destroyed the boats at Kayts
(presumably with a view to preventing any chance of being pursued by the Police)
set out on the eight-mile trip to Nainativu. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There they acted swiftly and skilfully. This act of desecration
was, without a doubt, premeditated and planned. With vicious zeal they set
about destroying the temple. They dynamited the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dagoba</i>, snapping off the tapering top section. They burnt every
building except one, an outhouse. A small detachment of the gang wreaked their
anger on the Buddha image from Burma.
They hauled it off the pedestal and carried it away with them. Perhaps it
proved too heavy for them to carry across to the mainland for display as a
trophy, because it never reached Kayts. With what surely must have been
demoniacal purpose, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> sawed
through the neck, one arm and some fingers of the image. Their intent was to
damage it beyond repair in case it should be recovered later. Then they tossed
the truncated body and its smaller parts into the sea at various points. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The news of this dangerous devilry reached Colombo two days later. It was an act of such
gross vandalism, with such huge potentialities for rousing the already fermenting
South into foaming anger, that the Governor-General and the Army command were
loath to believe their ears. As each hour passed they expected the story to
spread through the Buddhist population, sparking a massacre. But the strict
secrecy which had to be maintained until the military had really dug in and
established themselves as a formidable force throughout the island was somehow
kept unbroken. The Minister of Transport and Works, Maitripala Senanayake, was
sent to Nainativu to investigate. He confirmed the earlier reports: destruction
was almost complete. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The incumbent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikku</i> of
Nagadipa was invited to Colombo
and told that the temple would soon be restored to better shape than it was in
before the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goonda </i>attack. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhikku</i> maintained a dignified and
discreet silence. The Public Works Department was instructed to start
restoration work at once. By the end of July a brand-new temple had risen from
the debris of the old edifice. The navy undertook the almost hopeless task of
salvaging the image. They had no clue as to where it was dumped but,
miraculously, they found the spot. As expected, the damage was
irreparable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">With the assistance of the Burmese Ambassador, the Governor-General
was able to secure a replica of the destroyed image from Burma. It was
brought to Ceylon
in early August as a gift of ‘relics’ from the Burmese Navy to the Ceylon Navy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The story of the destruction of Nagadipa and the way it was rebuilt
in eight weeks will weave itself into Buddhist legend in the years to come. But
when the tension dies, people who relate the story will forget its most
significant aspect: if its destruction had not been kept a tight secret, all
the vigilance and guns of the armed services would not have prevented a wholesale
massacre of the Tamils. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mob fury was then directed at individuals, one of whom, Mr
Pathirana, was a resident of Jaffna
of very long standing, known and respected by all his neighbours to whom he had
always been helpful. He owned the house in which he lived— and on May 31 the
mob destroyed it. They then took his car in procession to the esplanade and set
fire to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By the evening of May 31, however, the Sinhalese had all been moved
to safety, the belongings of almost all Sinhalese residents had been destroyed,
and there was nothing left for the hoodlums to work on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A few sporadic attempts were made to attack single policemen, but
when the army, under Colonel F. C. de Saram, reached Jaffna, the whole peninsula was quiet again.
The Army settled in for the Occupation of Jaffna. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Padaviya Panzers</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Two days after the emergency was proclaimed an epic battle took
place in the Anuradhapura
district. It is likely to be remembered long after the horror and shame of the
riots of ‘58 are forgotten. To appreciate the story fully it is necessary to
get some idea of the character of the area in which this event occurred. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The story begins in Padaviya where Government works have recently
been concentrated to speed up settlement: a place very like a Wild West pioneer
colony in a cowboy film. There were the settlers, the hired labourers and the
Government officials. There was no real community life, no law except that of
the Jesse James school. There was no middle class to speak of—no steady,
moderating influence except the farmers who had been settled longest and who
had already got themselves a valuable stake in the soil. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On May 30 the labourers employed by the
Land Development and Irrigation Department at Padaviya, and the newly-arrived
squatters in the allotments, could no longer contain themselves. One of the
hot-heads made a self-denunciatory speech: ‘Comrades,’ he said. ‘We are not
men. We are women. We have not yet shed a drop of Tamil blood although our
countrymen are suffering at their hands.’ It did not take long for the blood
lust to get a hold on the ‘Padaviya Panzers’, as they were to become. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A relative quiet had settled on Polonnaruwa
and Anuradhapura
since the emergency was declared and there were already signs of normal human
relations being restored. On May 28 and May 29 Sinhalese people had been seen
bringing exhausted Tamils out of hiding into the refugee camps on bicycle
pillions and in carts. Government Agent Aluwihare had apparently decided it was
safe to leave Polonnaruwa and go to his ‘substantive’ station at Anuradhapura to check on
the situation there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the station there was stranded a refugee
train carrying 2,000 Tamils fleeing from Colombo.
The drivers had refused to go further north into ‘Tamil country’, where a
derailment had occurred during the last strikes. In addition there was the
refugee camp at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kachcheri</i> where
600 Tamils were being looked after. The Government Agent, the Army and the Police
officers were very anxious to prevent bloodshed in the Holy City of
Anuradhapura and so far their luck had held. Two army units, one under Major
Eardley McHeyzer, the other under Major M. O. Gooneratne, were keeping guard on
the town, to be on the safe side. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But there were still thugs in Anuradhapura town, and
they had made a pact with the Padaviya Panzers that they would, as soon as the
time was propitious, join forces and sack the town. Around midmorning of May 30
the restless labourers at Padaviya decided that the time had come. Or perhaps
it was prearranged—no one will ever know the real truth. They intimidated the
Irrigation Engineer with threats of butchering his family and secured the keys
to the dynamite magazine. From the Land Development Officer they wrested the
keys of the petrol dump. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They packed the dynamite into empty kerosene
and cigarette tins. The cigarette tins were to be used as medium range
hand-grenades. The kerosene tins were potential block-busters. The Panzers were
preparing for a full-scale battle and would go far afield to wage it! Their
staff work was uncannily thorough. They filled a bowser full of water and
another full of petrol. They filled up the tanks of seven trucks and two giant Euclids. One truck was
loaded with hand-bombs, the kerosene-tin block-busters, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">katties</i>, knives, grass-cutting blades, home-made swords, elephant
guns, ancient matchlocks and some modern shot-guns. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Six trucks were jam-packed with men. The two
Euclids led the procession as this weird
mechanized unit set out to sack Anuradhapura.
About 6oo managed to find room in the vehicles, and many more set out gaily on
foot, shouting slogans and shrill war-cries. Their enthusiasm vanished before
two miles were behind them. But the mechanized army, oddly reminiscent of Hannibal’s bizarre
forces, persisted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They did not take the direct road to Anuradhapura. The leaders
of this mechanized Panzer Division were ex-servicemen who had seen some action
abroad. They obviously knew the drill and had a shrewd practical knowledge of
field strategy. They took the Padaviya-Kebitigollewa-Vavuniya
Road, instead of the direct road to Medawachchiya,
burning what Tamil kiosks they came across on the way. At Vavuniya they turned
south taking the Medawachchiya-Anuradhapura
Road. The Government Agent of Vavuniya telephoned
a frantic message to Anuradhapura
that they were heading for the town. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 137.45pt left 228.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The rough sketch-map
below will help to illustrate the story. Government Agent Aluwihare left Major
Guneratne in charge of the refugees and with Major McHeyzer and his unit of
fifty men rushed north towards Medawachchiya to meet the Padaviya Panzers
before they reached Anuradahapura. As they were charging along the Anuradhapura-Medawachchiya Road
they had a hunch that the Panzers would feint again: that they would turn off
at Medawachchiya to Kebitigollewa, go south to Kahatagasdigiliya and west again
to Anuradhapura
while the army was chasing them round the perimeter of the quadrilateral. Major
McHeyzer turned back towards Anuradhapura,
took the turn towards Kahatagasdigiliya and placed a machine-gun nest to ambush
the Panzers should they come that way. Then he returned through Anuradhapura towards
Medawachchiya, in case they were coming by that route. At Medawachchiya the
defenders found their hunch had been right. The Panzers had indeed turned left
and were moving towards Kebitigollewa for their three-sided dash for Anuradhapura.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 137.45pt left 228.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><img border="0" height="267" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image003.jpg" width="284" /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Army met the Panzers halted at a point
a few miles short of Kebitigollewa. They had run into a Police patrol of five,
headed by Inspector Daya Ranasinghe.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></sup></b></span>
Ranasinghe held the Panzers up with five rifles, ordered them to dismount and
held them covered, hoping and praying that something would turn up to save the
situation. He knew very well that he and his men could not expect to stall an
army of blood-thirsty hoodlums for long. But the shooting at Polonnaruwa had
taken the gleam off their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey Aanduwa</i>
complex and their sense of discretion was now more dominant than their
self-assurance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When the Army arrived Major McHeyzer
ordered his men to surround the rebels and take them into custody for violating
at least half a dozen Emergency Laws. But when the soldiers began to circle
round them, the Panzers tried to make a bolt for it through the jungle. A brief
burst from a Bren stopped the stampede. When it was all sorted out it was found
that eleven men had been killed and eighteen injured. The army took 343
prisoners and brought them, in the trucks they had stolen, to Anuradhapura. The thugs who had planned to
enter Anuradhapura
as conquerors were brought in as prisoners. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Army halted at about 7.30 p.m. in the
bazaar while Government Agent Aluwihare sent word to the Magistrate and the
coroner. While waiting for them he noted that the curious crowd was becoming
restive. Noticing the local thugs among them he warned them that if they were
found guilty of any looting, arson or violence they would be given the same
treatment. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Later this warning was to be interpreted as
a piece of sadistic barbarism on Aluwihare’s part. He had not realized that
while he was talking some men had peeped into the truck carrying the eleven
bodies of the men who had been shot. The politicians told the story of the
brutal manner in which Aluwihare had exposed corpses in the bazaar and
intimidated innocent people. As the story became more embellished they came to
believe that the army had, without cause and without remorse<sub> </sub>fired
at a peaceful party of unarmed people who were going home minding their
business. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The cover story of the Padaviya Panzers was
indeed plausible. The men who had escaped had run bleating to the politicians.
Their version of the story was that they were going home peacefully after a
brief tour of Vavuniya when they met a police party. The police ‘requested’
them to rest awhile on the rocks, smoke and chew the fat. The army, said the
police party, had expressed a desire to discuss one or two matters with them
and would appreciate it if they waited for them in that spot. The Army arrived
with the Government Agent, Mr Deryck Aluwihare, who ordered the Army to fire
without giving them a chance to explain their innocence. They were squatting
peacefully on the rocks, they insisted, when the Army fired. Hence, they
explained, the blood smears on the rocks. The first version was the one that
was given official recognition by the Governor-General. The reader can make a
shrewd guess as to which version the politicians preferred. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">General Oliver</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first casualty in the emergency was the
national press. Since the riots started the press had reported the incidents
all over the country with care and discretion. Editors exercised their own ‘censorship’—on
the principle that while it was the duty of the Press to record events of the
day, they were morally obliged to ‘play down’ or, if necessary, ‘miss’ stories
which, if published, were certain to exacerbate communal tensions further and
endanger the safety of the State. In fact, up to this moment, the newspapers
had displayed a greater sense of responsibility and a keener appreciation of
the state of the country than the politicians who were flapping their hands
helplessly and hoping that the chaos they saw round them would sort itself
out. With the announcement of the emergency came the simultaneous imposition of
press censorship and the appointment of an Information Officer as Competent
Authority for this purpose. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Two hours later the editors of the
newspapers were invited to a conference by M. J. Perera, the Competent
Authority. He met them at the head of the stairs and by way of an opening
gambit he pointed through the window at the neon sign atop the Grand Oriental
Hotel building which read: ‘2500 Years of Buddhism’. He remarked: ‘Two thousand
five hundred years of Buddhism—and see what we’ve come to!’ One of the editors
replied: ‘Two thousand five hundred years of Buddhism and two and a half years
of Bandaranaike!’ If the Competent Authority was amused, he did not show
it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Gentlemen,’ he observed as the conference
began, ‘I have been appointed Competent Authority but I must confess that I
feel quite incompetent to deal with journalists. ‘I propose,’ he continued, ‘to
delegate my authority to you so that you, as responsible journalists, can
impose your own censorship.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This seemed an ideal formula in theory but
the editors present, accustomed to the vagaries of politicians’ moods and their
talent for breaking mutual faith, would have none of it. Their attitude was
that the very fact that the Government had decided that press censorship was
necessary was proof of their unwillingness to trust the editors’ discretion and
that in a competitive business like newspaper publishing they could not accept
the responsibility for censorship. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They argued that in the emergency they would
be completely at the mercy of the whims and prejudices of the politicians
managing the country if the discretion was left to them. It was pointed out,
with considerable cogency, that any voluntary censorship on the part of the
press could only be possible if there were no censorship regulations
simultaneously operating as a threat. The Government could not have it both
ways. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Competent Authority felt that he was
incompetent to settle this issue at his level. The entire conference walked
across to Queen’s House for a man-to-man talk with the Governor-General. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 9.35pt 350.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That conference will live
in my memory for a long while. It was farce at its most accomplished. From the
moment we entered Queen’s House the comic unreality of it began to impress
itself upon me. At the gate the sentry challenged us but was ignored as though
he were a street urchin begging for coins. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 9.35pt 350.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We were a motley crowd,
perhaps the most informally-clad visitors ever to enter those marble halls. We
were met at the door by a glamorous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aratchi</i>
who wore a quaint little tortoise-shell comb in his hair. He passed us on to a
resplendent senior <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aratchi</i> who wore a
fancy waistcoat of a more intricate design. He wore his hair in a bun and a
mantilla-comb of enormous dimensions ornamented his coiffure. The
ludicrousness of these costumes and the old-world characters who wore them with
such peacock pride had never struck me so forcibly as now when the whole country
was in upheaval outside the cold, formal, out-of-this-world luxury of Queen’s
House.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></sup></b></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Upstairs, as we were ushered into the
air-conditioned ‘office’ room of the protagonist of the great tragicomedy, H.E.
the Governor-General, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, C.G.M.G., KCVO K B.E., was
already trying out his lines. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As the curtain went up he was ‘discovered’,
as the playwrights say, sitting at a desk with six telephones and no papers on
it. He held a telephone to each ear. He did not even look up as we entered. We
stood inside the door as he told the mouthpiece of one
telephone—’sh-sh-sh-shoot them.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That settled, he cradled that telephone and
said into the mouthpiece of the other: ‘O.E.G. here. Clear them out even if you
have to sh-sh-sh-shoot them.’ The second telephone clicked back on its
cradle. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I was definitely impressed. In two short
sentences, one of the most polished players ever to bestride the public stage
had created the atmosphere he needed for the drama that was to unfold. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I watched silently, marvelling at the
facility with which Sir Oliver had slipped into the old ‘O.E.G.’ role which he
had played with such extravagant distinction as Civil Defence Commissioner
during World War Two. The only difference was that he was no longer plain Mr O.
E. Goonetilleke, Civil Defence Commissioner, but ‘General’ Sir Oliver
Goonetilleke, Supreme Commander of the Armed Services of Ceylon and of the
Civil Liberties of the people. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Having delivered his two opening lines, Sir
Oliver rose and walked round the table towards us, the look of stern determination
still on his face. Then, when he was at a hand-shake’s distance, the tight
look was peeled off and that completely convincing and completely simulated
smile cracked his face from east to west. He pumped a round of hands, with
special words of greeting for old acquaintances and more special words of
welcome for the strangers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As soon as the conference began it became
clear that the liberal interpretation of the press censorship regulations given
to us by the Information Officer was very far from Sir Oliver’s understanding
of them. His words, which I report as nearly verbatim as I can give them,
were: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No news of any incidents or about any
aspect of the present situation. No editorials, no comment, no columns, no photographs
or cartoons of any kind on the emergency without reference to me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was pointed out that such harsh
censorship had never been imposed even during the worst days of the war—in Ceylon or in Britain during the Blitz. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sir Oliver’s response to that was to shunt
the subject on to another line but close enough to convey his meaning: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I advise you to read up the Detention Laws
under the Emergency Regulations. Detention without trial. No writs of habeas corpus,
no bail, no… </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He broke off with a sunny apology, to make
another telephone call. All we heard was:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Maurice de Mel. Not Royce. Maurice. Is
that Maurice? 42nd Lane,
Wellawatte? Clear the place. If necessary sh-sh-shoot.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By this time not even the most obtuse among
us needed a diagram to know which way things were going. But Sir Oliver
couldn’t resist making the point clear by telling us: ‘Gentlemen. One favour.
One personal request. When you report the news in future please don’t say that
I am running the sh-sh-show. I don’t want all kinds of jealousies to come up,
you know. . .</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">That made it official. Sir Oliver was
running the show. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As we rose to go Sir Oliver, smiling
beatifically, improved the shining hour by throwing away a loaded line with the
grace and timing of an Olivier: ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘bear with me for a few
days. A few weeks. Maybe months. Then you can call me a m-m-murderer if you
like.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As we went back to our offices we knew that
the emergency regulations had already resulted in two major casualties. The
first, as I have said, was the freedom of the Press. The second casualty was
the civil liberties of the people and their right to know the truth about the
way in which the Government they had elected was dealing with the national
crisis. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is difficult to find a parallel for the
harshness of the censorship imposed on the national Press of Ceylon. Even
during the Battle of Britain, when the British people, almost overpowered by a
well-prepared and well-equipped Luftwaffe, were fighting back with their knees
and their knuckles for their very existence, the Press had never been gagged as
tightly. News which was likely to create ‘alarm and despondency’ was left out
and reports of troop, naval and air force movements were necessarily censored.
But comment was always free. The British Press and the reading public were
still free to comment on and criticize the conduct of the war by the
Government. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Ethereal Buccaneers</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Queen’s House was now the venue of the daily
press conference and, although the impression was given that the conference was
being held by the Information Officer, it was Sir Oliver Goonetilleke himself
who conducted it. The Information Officer was but a civil service cipher in
the proceedings—a role which that officer, I am sure, much preferred to the one
for which he had been billed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">From the first day of the censorship the
public was treated to the finest examples of the kind of pre-fabricated news
that they will assuredly get if the Press is ever nationalized. The news given
by the Competent Authority had not even a nodding acquaintance with the facts.
Censors must, when the occasion demands, keep news out—but the Competent
Authority went ten times better and altered the facts to suit the purposes of
the Government. For instance, a foreign Press correspondent in Ceylon filed a cable referring to the fact that
a quarter of the population of Ceylon
is Tamil speaking. The ‘one-fourth’ was deliberately altered by the Competent
Authority to read ‘one-sixth’.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></sup></b></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government was anxious after the first
day or two to shift the focus of interest from the events in the Sinhalese
areas to Jaffna
and Batticaloa. The news was therefore carefully but crudely twisted to suit
this purpose. The ‘news’ breaks from the Northern and Eastern Provinces
were given exclusive prominence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The headlines read:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Substantial Increases of
Military strength in Batticaloa area, N.P. (Ceylon Observer—May 30).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 20.1pt 30.3pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No Air Trips to
the North (Times of Ceylon—May
30).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 20.1pt 30.3pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tighter Security
Measures in North and East. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On May 31 the Competent Authority reported.
‘The situation in the Northern Province is now becoming hourly the chief
problem of the Authorities, with a growing suspicion that just as the secret
wave-length and calling sign of the Police radio has fallen into the hands of a
widespread organization, the Police secret cipher is also in the hands of the
same organization.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Obviously a Master was at work. The mixture
of fact and fiction was expertly dispensed. At the press conference Sir Oliver
was asked why this pirate radio could not be tracked down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">His answer was: ‘Notice of that question,
please. We are on the verge of locating it.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">People spoke freely of the pirate radio and
the uncanny knowledge displayed by the ‘secret organization’ that was operating
it. A couple of innocent radio hams had to surrender their equipment. But it
soon became clear that no one had actually heard this radio station. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Everyone who talked about it knew someone
else who had heard it but they themselves had no direct experience. And, as it
must happen, a rich crop of theories sprouted on the false ground prepared by
the rumour-mongers. Sir Oliver, enjoying the melodrama of his role, gave
official impetus to the pirate radio theory by ‘appealing’ to the public
through the press conference to demonstrate their patriotism by refusing to
listen in to the pirate radio. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Like a Police commissioner in an Eric
Ambler thriller he spoke with calculated reticence about the breaking of the
secret Police code and the secret wave-length by these ethereal
buccaneers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The theories grew multifold. Some said it
was a short-wave station, others said it was the same wave-length as Radio Ceylon. Some
said that the radio was operated off a Russian ship in the Bay of Bengal,
others said it was a British vessel engaged in the fleet manoeuvres off the
coast of Trincomalee. Some said that the
pirate radio had been located in the Flower
Road area; others claimed that it had been traced
to a spot near the Galle Face Hotel. Some spoke of a Russian hide-out in the
Katukurunda area where a transmitter could easily be secreted; others were
certain that it was the Voice of America indulging in a clever game of
ventriloquism. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Some located it in the Hendala area where a
relative of a Communist boy has his country cottage and ‘work-shed’; others
were certain it was a mobile transmitter. The truth of the matter was that the
pirate radio was an imaginative masterpiece, used by Sir Oliver for the
specific purpose of making the emergency ‘big’ enough to call for really ‘big’
and unprecedented counter measures. Already Members of Parliament were showing
alarm at the ferocity of the military activity in the country. Moreover the
possibility of having to ‘get tough’ in Jaffna
if reprisals began there on a mass scale had occurred to Sir Oliver. Hence the big
build-up of the atmosphere of conspiracy and ‘foreign intervention’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Hence the story of the technological skill
and uncanny omnipresence and omniscience of the radio privateers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was, no doubt, another consideration
in Sir Oliver’s mind. He knew that as long as the Press was fed with sufficient
quantities of raw meat it would be so preoccupied that it would not protest
much about censorship regulations or start asking awkward questions about the
suppression of civil liberties in the country. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is an interesting speculation to
consider whether, if the heat of the early days of the emergency had continued,
Sir Oliver would have dragged the Martians and Flying Saucers into Ceylon’s
troubles in the role of Arch Conspirators. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By the second week of June, the pirate
radio was already a wispy memory. But what about those who still may claim that
they had heard a radio transmitter which was definitely not Radio Ceylon? The
C.I.D. answer: Very possibly it was the Police radio-network on to which people
had unwittingly tuned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Governor's Rule</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As soon as the emergency was proclaimed the
political complex of Ceylon
underwent a complete transformation. The first significant evidence of this was
the virtual abdication of the legislative authority in the first week of the
emergency. The Governor-General made this abundantly clear on May 27— three
hours after the emergency was announced—when he told Pressmen, ‘Please don’t
publish the fact that I am running the show.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The events that followed proved that such
indeed was the case. The legal aspect of this situation must be stated briefly
in order to appreciate what was happening. Under the laws of Ceylon the Governor-General’s role in an
emergency is that he proclaims a State of Emergency on the advice of the Head of the
Government. This act has the effect of shifting authority temporarily to the
Governor-General but, under the law, he is obliged to delegate these powers
back to the Prime Minister and his Ministers. The Prime Minister is then armed
with extraordinary powers in order to take action to cope with the
emergency. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The analogy of what took place in Britain when
that country was in a state of war is illuminating. The King proclaimed a State
of War on the
advice of the Prime Minister who was then given back the authority to carry on
the war. Thus Sir Winston Churchill who took over from Mr. Neville Chamberlain
was de jure as well as de facto in full control of the conduct of the war. He
gave the orders and he shouldered the responsibility for winning the war and
for the mistakes of his command. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Ceylon a curious phenomenon
occurred. The Prime Minister, for reasons never openly stated by him anywhere,
took the unprecedented step of passing the buck back to the
Governor-General—thus making Sir Oliver Goonetilleke virtual ruler of Ceylon.
Although his reasons were not stated, they are not far to seek. The first and
obvious reason was that Mr Bandaranaike felt inadequate to deal with a
situation which could not be tackled with words, however eloquent and polished
they might be. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The time for decision and action had
arrived. Mr Bandaranaike, like all three previous Prime Ministers of Ceylon who
had increasingly learnt to lean more and more on Sir Oliver whenever they were
in trouble, particularly towards the last days of their tenancy of Temple
Trees, was not slow to recognize the advantage to him of letting Sir Oliver
bring the country under control. Sir Oliver’s experience as a public servant,
Minister, diplomat, negotiator, War Councillor and Civil Defence Commissioner
during World War Two fitted him magnificently for the job of handling an
island-wide emergency. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The personal qualities which had made him a
success in all his previous undertakings—his razor-sharp mind, his adeptness at
bluffing his way through the stickiest mess, his ability to visualize the
opponent’s manoeuvres three moves ahead, his sweeping cynicism, his blasé
attitude to scruples which would baulk another man over weighted with
conscience, qualified him eminently for the job. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was also a keener and more subtle
reason for Mr Bandaranaike’s uncharacteristic self-effacement. His experience
of tide watching<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></sup></b></span> has given
him a sharp prescience about the force and direction of the next wave of
popular emotion. He realized that the administration of the Emergency Regulations
and the military activity necessary to bring the extremists under control,
while giving a sense of temporary relief throughout the country, would
inevitably cause a strong reaction among the people - both Sinhalese and
Tamils. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As most of the disorders were in
predominantly Sinhalese districts and since more Sinhalese were likely to be
jailed, beaten up or killed by the armed services, the reaction from the
Sinhalese against the Government was bound to be powerful. It is even possible
— indeed even probable, to judge by Mr. Bandaranaike’s previous actions — that
he expected the communal conflict to become deflected into a war between the
Sinhalese Buddhists and the Christians. The Prime Minister had decided to allow
the Governor General to take the spotlight so that he could also take the
rap. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 52.15pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sir Oliver Goonctilleke, an old fox
himself, was quite aware that when the day of reckoning came he would be called
to answer by the Prime Minister. This was what he had in mind when he told the
press ‘Gentlemen, bear with me for a few weeks. ‘Then you can call me a
murderer if you like.’ But he was gambler enough to depend on the outside
chance of escaping intact and if possible of doing well for himself out of the
situation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He had also sufficient love for his country
and enough personal conceit to realize that he was the man of the hour and that
he alone among Ceylon’s
public men was equipped to cope with civil disorder on a massive scale. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Bandaranaike’s instinct was perfectly
right. The repercussions to the military control of the country and the
punitive treatment of the rioters and trouble makers in the Sinhalese districts
built up within four weeks to formidable proportions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 136.6pt 470.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 136.6pt 470.25pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Evidence of Conspiracy</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government party was thrown into
absolute confusion during the riots. Its members were sensible of the responsibility
of restoring order, whatever the political cost. One of the younger M.P.s—Mr
Pani Illangakoon of Weligama—made a rousing speech in which he told the Prime
Minister, ‘Let us govern or get out!’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This was the mood among many members of
Parliament who were fed up with the vacillation and volubility which had
characterized MEP rule for over two years. But as politicians interested in
retaining their seats and being returned to power at the next election should
there be one, they were unwilling to sacrifice the goodwill of the communalists
among their voters. Many of them, who had suddenly and quite unexpectedly found
themselves M.P.s, could not face the thought of being flung back into obscurity
and relative penury once again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Confronted with this personal problem they
cowered in Colombo
waiting for the situation to crystallize in one form or another before they
could make up their minds about the direction in which to move. One Cabinet
Minister risked a quick visit to his constituency and regretted his rashness.
The Government Agent had to provide him with an armed escort to save him from
the angry crowds of his onetime political supporters who now clamoured for his
blood. Their cry was: ‘We did not send you to represent us in Parliament to
take the side of the Tamils against us. The forces of the Government are
massacring the Sinhalese and protecting the Tamils.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Government party men huddled together at the
M.P.s’ hostel and in their Colombo
homes, terrified at the prospect of returning to their electorates. Not knowing
what had hit them, and not daring to probe into their consciences in case they
should discover the culprits within themselves, they turned to finding suitable
scapegoats. The great question of this period became: ‘Who was at the bottom of
the communal riots?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Governor-General and the Prime Minister
were not taking others into their confidence. News trickled out from Queen s
House that the Governor-General had announced, off-the-record at a press
conference, that the riots had not been spontaneous. What he said was:
‘Gentlemen, if any of you have an idea that this was a spontaneous outburst of
communalism, you can disabuse your minds of it. This is the work of a Master
Mind who has been at the back of people who have planned this carefully and
knew exactly what they were doing. It was a time-bomb set about two years ago
which has now exploded.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Speculation snowballed. The Right-Wing
elements within the MEP were inclined to believe that Moscow had engineered the riots by remote
control through local agents. Police and Army intelligence reports from
Batticaloa, Matara and Colombo
had pointed to this possibility. Rumour had bruited it about that the Ceylon
Air Force had succeeded in locating the pirate radio in the Russian Embassy at Flower Road. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Rightists in the Government were
excited about the possibility of the Communist Party being banned. Naïvely they
hoped that this would provide a cover-all explanation which would acquit them
of their own responsibility and at the same time force the Prime Minister to
make a complete break with Mr Philip Gunawardene and the Left. Police reports
of a Communist conspiracy were, in fact, becoming so positive that the
Governor-General even sought advice from the Attorney-General about the legal
aspect of a raid he was thinking of ordering on the headquarters of the
Communist Party. One of the Communist Party branch offices in Colombo was actually raided—but, apart from
the discovery of some articles claimed as loot, there was nothing conclusive to
implicate the Communists or the Russian Embassy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In their wild scramble for ‘evidence’ of a
Communist conspiracy they even attributed the second train derailment at
Batticaloa to the local Communists. Why had the Communists done this? To
distract the attention of the public from their pathetic failure to break the
Employers’ Federation in the CTUF strike! This divertissement theory gained
rapid currency. The Prime Minister was kept constantly briefed by the Governor-General
about the Police and Army intelligence reports suggesting complicity on the
part of the Communists and the Russian Embassy in Colombo. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A certain amount of force was given to this
line of speculation by an editorial in the Singapore Standard of May 3 which
directly pointed an accusing finger at the Soviet Ambassador in Ceylon,
Mr. V. Yakovlev: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">"There is
also another factor in Ceylon’s
present chaotic state of which most people in that island are probably unaware.
It will interest them to know that the chief Kremlin Emissary in Ceylon is the same man who was responsible for
recommending to his Communist bosses the bloody purge of Poland and Hungary. This revelation will show
the people of Ceylon
the danger that lies in their midst." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But Mr Bandaranaike was disinclined to
accept intelligence reports at their face value. In fact, as we shall see, he
had his own private theory about the culprits and the Communist Party was not
an integral part of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Left Wingers, for their part, were
equally naïve. Their candidate for guilty knowledge about the communal riots
was their long-time enemy, the United National Party which had formed the
previous Government. The Prime Minister, too, gave out vague hints that he had
convincing evidence of a UNP conspiracy against national harmony and racial
peace. And indeed there was some circumstantial evidence forthcoming during
the riots that appeared—at least on the face of it—to vindicate this suspicion.
The first piece of ‘evidence’ connecting the UNP with this crime against the
nation was the publication of certain inflammatory pamphlets directed against
the Tamils and Premier Bandaranaike’s proposal for enacting legislation to ensure
the reasonable use of Tamil. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">These pamphlets appeared under the
signature of the printer who produced the UNP Journal and its Sinhalese
edition, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Siyarata</i>, Sirisoma
Ranasinghe. As the Prime Minister told Parliament in the course of his address
on the State of the Nation on June 24, Ranasinghe had visited the areas worst
affected by the riots shortly before the trouble started. Moreover Ranasinghe
was known to have been a close associate of J. R. Jayawardene, the UNP stalwart
who has been hated, distrusted and feared most by the Left politicians. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Soon after the emergency was proclaimed
Ranasinghe was arrested and jailed. J. R. Jayawardene made the suspected link
firmer by visiting him in remand prison and trying to bail him out. Another
reason for the suspicion that fell on the UNP was the reports that came in from
the Trotskyites in the Badulla area who, having been told that many of the
Sinhalese rioters were UNP men, assumed that the UNP was solely responsible for
the chaos in the country. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And when P. Nadesan, the former Private
Secretary of Colonel Sir John Kotelawala (the former Prime Minister),
publicized in the Press the news that the Gallant Colonel had decided to return
home within two days of the announcement, Premier Bandaranaike saw red—or more
accurately, green, the colour of the UNP flag. Angrily he told his friends that
Sir John was coming back, ‘trying to do a de Gaulle on Ceylon’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister’s wrath was so widely
gossiped about that Sir John’s former subordinates and hangers-on who had
invited him to come home so that they themselves (many of them Tamils) could
feel safer, hurriedly called Sir John at his home in Kent and begged him to cancel his
trip. In fact they were only just in time to prevent a major ‘incident’,
because the Prime Minister, on seeing the notice of Sir John’s imminent return
in the newspapers, gave a curt order to External Affairs Defence Secretary,
Gunasena de Zoysa, to get the Ceylon High Commissioner’s Office in London to impound Sir
John’s passport. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 9.6pt right 450.7pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first the Communist
Party theory and the United National Party theory contended for general
acceptance. Soon, however, the theory of the UNP’s guilt became less plausible.
People realized that if the UNP had indeed created mass riots of that intensity
and scale—it must then be still a great power in the land. This was a
conclusion that the Left Wing was loath to accept. But their ingenuity
triumphed. When Right-Wing conjecture linked the Communist Party and the
Russian Embassy as partners in the crime, the Left Wing retaliated by bringing
together the UNP and the Americans, as they were fond of doing in the old days.
These theories were now sufficiently embellished and extended on an
international scale to explain away such awkward questions as, ‘Is there any
Ceylonese with the technological knowledge to construct and operate a
short-wave radio transmitter without detection?’ and ‘Who in Ceylon is
capable of breaking the Police code and secret call sign?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Premier Waves his Wand</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By June 3, when the Government Parliamentary
Group met to assess the situation, their attitudes had crystallized in some
definite form. Almost every one of the members knew the depths to which the
prestige of the Government had tumbled since the emergency. All over the Sinhalese
areas, wherever people had been roused by communal leaders and by the rumours
of Tamil atrocities, the charge was that the Government was using the army to
murder Sinhalese instead of to quell the Tamils, as it should have done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When, therefore, the Government members of
Parliament met on June 3 many of them knew their line. They had to find a
scapegoat to offer to the Sinhalese whose communal passions had been churned up
by the riots. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Prime Minister Bandaranaike obviously did
not relish the idea of facing this meeting—a reluctance which had come on him
perhaps for the first time since his triumphant election. There was too much to
explain. There was much he could not explain. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was afraid that the Leftist group would
ask awkward questions about the Governor-General’s activities as
Commander-in-Chief. But when the time came to go to the meeting he was in
command of his self-assurance again. He knew that the groupers—like their
marine counterparts— were only waiting for some kind of direction. He felt
confident that his old magic wand—his bilingual tongue—would save him once more
and help him to re-establish his party’s confidence in him. Besides, the Press
would not be there, or hanging around outside to pick up the story of the
meeting from one of the members. And even if a good reporter got his story he
was not in a position to publish it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister decided that he would say
precisely what he pleased and, more important than that, what would please his
party. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The report below, written by one of the
M.P.s present at the meeting and now published here verbatim, shows that even
the events of the past month which would have shattered the nerves of any
ordinary man had hardly touched the Prime Minister’s self-confidence and his
hypnotic power over the back-benchers of the MEP: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I will run this country with my Army and Navy—I
have taken certain steps to see that no extremists, either from the north or
the south, will ever succeed in undermining this Government. Even if it means
running this country for fifty years with my military forces, I am prepared to
do so,’ Premier S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike told the Government Parliamentary
Group at its emergency session yesterday. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Certain people seem to think that
the Government is weak and they also expected it to collapse during the last
few days. They have been proved wrong, the Government is firmer than ever
before. I will show these people just exactly how strong the Government is—as I
have proved during the last ten days,’ he said. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Premier outlined the events that
led to the State of Emergency
being declared. He began with the Federal convention, the Polonnaruwa train
hold-up, the Batticaloa derailment, and the shooting of the planter, Mr D. A.
Seneviratne. The shooting, he said, had resulted in a number of other incidents
in the rest of the country which finally resulted in his advising the
Governor-General to declare a State of Emergency. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have since
then got complete control of the situation. All the forces which are against
law and order, under the misguided conception that they could overthrow this
Government, combined in the events during the last two weeks. The Government
did not hesitate to act. We have succeeded in checking law breakers and
hooligans.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Thunderous applause greeted the
Premier’s statement. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The M.P. for Gampaha, S. D.
Bandaranayake, then said: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘If the Government had banned the
Federal Party, why did not the Government then take the next proper step and
arrest the Federal leaders? Why haven’t Messrs Chelvanayakam and company been
arrested? They should be behind bars instead of being free to do as they like!
It is the Federalists who have planned this, in a well-organized way— the
Government is weak and has brought itself into disrepute by not taking the
proper action in arresting these leaders.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Bandaranaike: ‘It is not only the
Federal Party which is responsible for activities against the Government. There
are other forces that have worked against the Government.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr S. D. Bandaranayake: ‘Who are they? Name
them. We have a right to know! Why weren’t the Government Members of Parliament
consulted and told the facts?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: (Angrily) ‘In a State of Emergency
it is not possible to run to every M.P. and seek his advice.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">S. D. Bandaranayake: ‘Who are these “other
forces” whom the Government has information about? These forces which are
working against the Government?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: ‘There are certain matters which I
cannot place before this group in fairness to the Governor-General. There are certain
confidential matters that cannot be publicized now—and certain confidential
steps that the Government has taken to protect itself against these same
forces. Bear with me for a little while, and I will be ready to place these
facts before you. I cannot disclose them to you. I am confident that you
gentlemen will understand the position. But when this is all over, and you know
the facts and the action I took, I tell you, you will have nothing but praise
for me.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The M.P. for Weligama, Pani Ilangakoon: ‘I
also want to know why the Federal leaders have not been arrested. All over the
country they are saying that the Government is weak. If we cannot govern, then
let us get out. The Tamils have worked against us, they have plotted to
overthrow this Government, with outside assistance. They will destroy us
eventually. Before that happens, I ask that the Tamils be settled once for all.
I ask that they be told that Sinhala Only has come to stay—and they must
submit. This Government has been too tolerant of these Tamils. The Sinhalese
are the laughing stock in the country as a result of the Government’s weak
stand against the Tamils.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: ‘Certainly the Federalists and
other forces have planned to overthrow the Central Government and set up a
separate administration in the east and the north. But I have thwarted that.
Their attempts have been quelled. My military forces are now in the east and
the north. There is military rule in these two provinces, each with a military
governor, yes, I say they are military governors. With my Army I will see that
there is no repeated attempt to set up a different administration in these
provinces.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Several Members of Parliament then asked:
‘All over the country they are saying that you have acceded to the Federal
request for a Federal
State by sending the
Tamils back to the north and east. The whole country is under the impression
that before long they will exist as separate Tamil Federal States.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: ‘I will never allow that. I will
never allow division of this country. What has happened is that the women and
children who were living under very unsatisfactory and inconvenient
conditions, have been sent, on their own wish, back to the north. That is all.
There was no intention, nor is there any intention whatsoever, that the
Government is helping, by this manner, the creation of a Federal or separate
State.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">M.P. for Horana, Mr Sagara Palansuriya:
‘The Tamils are gaining strength in all parts of the country where they are. Is
this Government going to stand for this nonsense? The Sinhalese are in danger
of being liquidated by them.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An M.P. identified as M.P. for Hambantota,
Lakshman Rajapakse: ‘Destroy them!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: ‘Who said that? Are you seriously
thinking that the Tamils must be destroyed? This Government has no such
intention. I am surprised that there is such talk and stranger still such talk
from the M.P. for Hambantota, who is wedded to a Tamil, for better or for
worse—isn’t that so, Lakshman?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Addressing the group sternly, the Premier
said: ‘It is my intention that every inhabitant in this country should live in
peace and harmony. It is my intention that we should live together as one
brotherhood. I tell you as Prime Minister, I would be inhuman if I did not work
for this, and I tell you again, as Prime Minister, this Government will work
towards this end. My mind has been engaged on this problem and I have no doubt
at all that the Government Parliamentary Group will co-operate in the
fulfilling of this task. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I will further tell you that I intend
appointing Advisory Councils for the north and the east to begin with. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Meanwhile the military will stay there
until such time that the Government is convinced that they should be withdrawn.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Minister of Education, W. Dahanayake:
‘Do a de Gaulle. Do a de Gaulle.’ Another burst of applause from Government
back-benchers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government Group then passed a vote of
appreciation of the Premier on ‘the tactful way the entire situation had been
handled’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The resolution was moved by W. Dahanayake
and seconded by the M.P. for Nattandiya, Hugh Fernando. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Members of Parliament then asked why
certain persons had been detained by the police on mere suspicion. Many of
‘their men’ had been either arrested or detained without any grounds at all.
There was considerable argument on this matter and many of them demanded that
these persons in whom they were interested be released. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They asked whether any more persons were to
be detained in the interests of security. There was considerable dissatisfaction
in their constituencies as a result of this action. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Further, they asked what assistance the
Government would give to some of the constituents who had been injured during
the recent events. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Premier replied that a large number of
persons had been rounded up and when the Police were satisfied that they could
be released, they would do so. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The third M.P. for Colombo Central, M. S.
Themis, then complained that certain personnel in the Army were ‘throwing their
weight about’ and he asked that this be stopped. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 23.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Premier: ‘The Army is doing a
splendid job under very difficult conditions. I dare say there may be such
cases. It cannot be helped under the circumstances.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is a vast gulf, however, between the
spoken word and the bleak fact. Premier Bandaranaike had certainly assuaged the
apprehensions of many members of his party but there was that vast, amorphous,
mute but powerful body of militant Sinhalese opinion which he could not appease
so easily. No verbal sops would satiate this racial monster. It had to be
offered raw meat. Preparations were accordingly made to put the Federalists
under detention. This gesture alone, it was decided, would be big enough to
assuage the outraged racial feelings of the Sinhalese extremists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Federalists Detained</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As the emergency went into its second week
the number of incidents became negligible, but tension still prevailed. Underneath
the superficial calm, made unearthly by the early curfew and the rigidity with
which it was observed in Colombo
and the suburbs, race feelings were still taut. There was general acclamation,
however, for the efficiency and professional skill shown by the armed services
in maintaining order. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The job they did looking after the refugees
was magnificent. The refugee population in Colombo
had grown to formidable proportions: 12,000 men, women and children of every
imaginable walk of life were herded together in temporary camps —the bulk of
them in Royal College. There were threats of an
invasion by hoodlums in the night but the army threw such a heavy cordon round
the place that the refugees were soon reassured. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 126.95pt 468.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Marketing Department
kitchens supplied the food. Voluntary organizations managed the general welfare
of the refugees. Under Colonel C. P. Jayawardene’s care the refugees had few
complaints. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 126.95pt 468.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But race-hatred even
sneaked into the refugee camps. One politician on a tour of inspection noticed
a placard pinned over the door of a W.C. saying ‘Men’ in Tamil. He gave orders
for the offending letters to be removed and the English equivalent to be substituted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The social workers in Colombo too had caught the infection.
Charitable organizations split down the middle of their membership when some
of the philanthropic ladies forgot the time-honoured dictum that Charity, like
Peace, is indivisible. They objected to helping out at the Tamil refugee camps,
preferring to wait until the Sinhalese refugees arrived from Jaffna before they gave their milk of human
kindness a chance to flow in liberal measure. There was even discrimination in
the food given to the Tamil refugees and the Sinhalese refugees when they
finally arrived from Jaffna. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister never set foot in the Royal College
camp for Tamil refugees, but he was one of the first callers at the Thurstan Road camp
which accommodated the Sinhalese evacuees from Jaffna. Perhaps it was bad politics for
Sinhalese politicians to be seen commiserating with Tamil refugees. Perhaps if
they knew what the Tamils in the camps were feeling they would have felt warmer
towards them in their plight. Ironically it was much safer for a Sinhalese
politician to walk into the Tamil camps than it was for Tamil politicians—of
whatever hue they were. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The general reaction among the refugees
whenever they saw a Tamil M.P. was: ‘Look! See the mess you’ve got us into with
your blundering ambitions. Why can’t you leave us alone even now?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One Tamil politician, well known for his
powers of intercession at high levels, was so badly mobbed when he visited the
Royal College camp that the army had to fire
in the air to break up the mélee. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Even the proscription of the Federal Party
did not serve to make martyrs of the Federalists and save their cause. The attitude
of the refugees towards them spread among their relatives and eventually
through most of the peninsula. The Tamil people found themselves, perhaps for
the first time, without a leader or a sense of direction. They only wanted to
be left alone to lick their wounds and plan their pitiful future. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Federal Party found itself in a
political abyss. At the General Election it had been returned with no less
enthusiasm than that which the MEP had inspired in Sinhalese areas. It had
therefore considerable claims to represent a substantial section of Tamil
interests. Premier Bandaranaike had acknowledged this when he entered into
negotiations with the party’s leader, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, and had signed
the Pact which bound all the Tamil interests to the Federal Party’s
programme. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The delay in the implementation of the Pact
had drained away a great deal of popular strength from the Federal Party. They
needed an issue desperately in order to stay in the spotlight. This was one of
the reasons for the anti-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i> campaign
described earlier: a campaign begun against the wishes of Chelvanayakam,
which had proved futile. The issue was too patently insubstantial to rouse any
real popular fervour in the north—but it certainly succeeded in provoking the
retaliatory tar-brush campaign against Tamil signs in the south. Federal Party
prestige had fallen very low by April 1958. It rose a few points when the B-C
Pact was torn up by Premier Bandaranaike and the Party became the martyred
victims of Premier Bandaranaike’s political manoeuvres, but this trend ceased
abruptly when the riots began.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tamils who had never taken an active role
in politics suffered so much physically and spiritually that they began
blaming their plight on the Federal Party. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prime Minister had made a very shrewd
assessment of this situation when he decided on the bold step of proscribing
the Federal Party on May 27. Many people expected a swing of sympathy towards
the Federalists but it did not materialize. Moreover there were many Tamils,
like Tamil Congressman G. G. Ponnambalam, who had preached communalism for
fifteen years, and were only too ready to wag an I-told-you-so finger at the
Federalists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt 126.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Only one shred of prestige still
remained—the indestructible reputation for integrity that Federal Leader S. J.
V. Chelvanayakam had earned. Even in the face of such an overwhelming
adversity, this reputation held. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On June 4 he had stood up in the House, his
body bent, his face creased with the horror he had seen. At the refugee camp he
had broken down and wept. Even the Sinhalese extremists in the Government Party
who had demanded the extermination of the Tamils during the previous night
were moved to give him a patient hearing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But he was arguing from a pathetically
futile brief and even his client had forsaken him. He found he was defending
himself and the Federal Party who were being indicted by the Tamils as well as
the Sinhalese. But one point which he made was vital to any serious evaluation
of the cause of the riots. He placed on record his conviction that the murder
of D. A. Seneviratne in Batticaloa had no connection with the race-riots. It
was a ‘private’ murder committed at the instigation of Seneviratne’s personal
enemies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Little did Chelvanayakam or his colleagues
suspect that behind the Prime Minister’s glasses his eyes were twinkling with
dramatic irony. The House adjourned that night at about 10 p.m. As the Federal
Party M.P.s left the premises they were accosted by the police and placed under
house detention. Chelvanayakam and Party Secretary Dr E. M. V. Naganathan were
held incommunicado in their homes in Kollupitiya. Those who had no homes in Colombo were detained at
the Galle Face Hotel ,on the second floor, overlooking the swimming pool.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Federalist leaders arrested were: S. J.
V. Chelvanayakam (Kankesanturai), Dr E. M. V. Naganathan, V. A. Kandiah
(Kayts), Dr V. K. Paramanayagam, V. N. Na-. varatnam (Chavakachcheri), N. R.
Rajavarothiam (Trincomalee), C. Vanniasingham (Kopay), C. Rajadurai (Batticaloa)
and A. Amirthalingam (Vaddukoddai). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt 126.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The demand for their arrest made by
members of the Government Group the previous night had been answered. Fifty-two
other Federal Party members, including a few Muslims, were arrested and placed
under detention in Jaffna,
Batticaloa and Mannar. The arrests continued to pile up to the impressive figure
of 150. Premier Bandaranaike was experiencing the heady taste of absolute
power for the first time. The arrest of the Federalists was a smooth operation.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt 126.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But its slickness was marred by the
failure of the Government to give the same treatment to the members of the
other proscribed party—the Sinhalese leaders of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jatika Vimukti Peramuna</i>. This operation took place a week later
when K. M. P. Rajaratne was put under house arrest at Kotte. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt 126.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Rural Reactions</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">With the Federal Leaders under arrest and
the refugees removed from the danger zone, community life quickly began to
return to normality, or so it seemed on the surface. But the refugee camps
were murky reservoirs of terror and tension, which continued to pollute the
entire atmosphere. They were an ugly symbol of national degeneration. The refugee
population, both Tamil and Sinhalese, was soon exchanged as hostages of war
would be exchanged. This eased the tension immediately so that judging only
from superficial appearances things seemed to be settling down. The normality,
however, was illusory. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It had been paid for at an exorbitant price
by the people in terms of personal and civil liberties. The outward calm that
now prevailed enabled people to look back and count the cost. What they found
was terrifying. The country was being governed under martial law although
martial law had not been proclaimed. Parliament had been forced virtually to
abdicate authority to the Governor-General in his role as
Commander-in-Chief. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">New laws had been passed and old laws
protecting the citizens’ rights had been suspended with draconian
ruthlessness. The ferocity of the new and unprecedented press censorship laws
has already been described. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One by one the fundamental rights of the
citizens were remorselessly stripped away. The authority of the Courts to intercede
in any injustice done against a citizen was removed. Actions taken by the
Government and its agents were decreed to be above the law. The right to appeal
against harsh or unfair treatment was taken away without so much as by
your leave. The Government decreed that it was not answerable to anyone in
the land: no reason need be given for any of its decisions or acts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Even the right to life was wrested from
the citizen by fiat. A new law proclaimed under amendment on June 30 permitted
any officer delegated by the Government to bury a dead body without an inquest,
witnesses or even the most perfunctory record.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Certain officials were quick to take
advantage of their absolute power in order to settle old scores. No one will
ever know how many people were speedily despatched in this way, no questions
asked. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the very first day of the emergency the
three writs— Habeas Corpus, Mandamus and a Certiorari—which protect the citizen
against unlawful or unconscionable action of the State were suspended. Repressive
measures were decreed by the mere say-so of the Governor-General and the Prime
Minister, and these were applied with a remorselessness unprecedented even in
the worst days of World War Two anywhere in the world except in Fascist
Europe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was one good result which followed
from the very harshness of the new laws: people who had taken the benefits of
democracy for granted because they had been given democratic forms and
privileges without their ever having to fight for them, began to learn to value
consciously what they had lost. There was a noticeable change of attitude
towards totalitarian politics and politicians who advocated anti-democratic
measures. Many Ceylonese who had watched apathetically, disinterestedly,
cynically or fatalistically while the gospel of totalitarianism was spreading
far, wide and deep, began to ask awkward questions. They had received their
first real taste of a police state and found it too bitter and harsh for their
palate. Extremism of all forms—racial, religious or political—was questioned
and objected to more often and more vehemently than ever before. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the Sinhalese rural areas two attitudes
were dominant. The ‘People’s’ Government had let them down by taking such
harsh, punitive steps against the Sinhalese who, they pointed out with
considerable cogency, were only continuing along the logical course that had
been set by Premier Bandaranaike himself when he made ‘Sinhala Only’ his
campaign cry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The other complaint was that emergency
regulations such as the curfew ruined business. Vegetable farmers, for
instance, were driven to desperate straits when dealers stopped buying because
the curfew was driving their usual customers home early. The paddy farmers and
the betel growers who are accustomed to start work before dawn cursed with
increasing venom as the curfew continued. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There were the odd incidents, too, which
heightened people’s animosity towards the totalitarian regulations under which
they were living. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the North-Western
Province an angry delegation came to Colombo to meet their
M.P. They told a Pressman that they wanted him to resign from the Government
and cross to the Opposition. Their reason? It was a piquant story. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A man in their village was bitten by a
deadly snake just after dusk. Two of his relatives ran four miles to fetch a
snake-bite specialist. The three men hurried back but the curfew caught them
halfway. A Police patrol arrested them and placed them in the lock-up for the
night. Their pleas were of no avail because the Police had no authority under
the new regulations to let them off or bail them out. When they returned home
the next morning they found that the patient was dead. Anger at the Police
mounted as the story spread in the district. Finally they had decided that this
was but a symptom of a general malaise and had come to Colombo to place their point of view before
their M.P. The M.P. concerned was, somehow, not available that day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Human stories like this were proliferating
rapidly. It became plain that the tension that had preceded the riots was
being wound up again—but against the police state practices adopted to quell
the disturbances.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Why did it happen?</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 138.3pt 466.85pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The most persistent and
most prickly questions were: what had been the cause of the communal troubles?
Had they been organized or had they occurred spontaneously without any drive or
direction from anyone? The short answer to the first question is that the cause
of the communal troubles must be sought in time, circumstances and events far
removed from the riots of 1958. The short answer to the second question: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Were the riots organized or spontaneous?’
is that the truth lies somewhere between those two explanations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">To expect a simple answer or a single
explanation of the events that occurred in May and June would be to presuppose
that human beings act rationally and purposefully even when their behaviour is
actually sub-human. But from general observation of the forces that operate and
events that take place when there are substantial minorities in a country, it
is possible to say that the common factor which has been present in race
conflicts wherever they have occurred, is discernible in the context of Ceylon
as well: the pressure of an economic challenge from the minority on the
majority. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Underneath the complexity of events and
crises it is this common economic factor that motivates the application of the
principle of apartheid in South
Africa, and the anti-Jewish attitudes in the
West. An illuminating example has been the increasing reluctance in Britain towards
the employment of Commonwealth immigrants. The United Kingdom has always shown a
much more liberal attitude towards Commonwealth immigrants than the dominions
have shown to Britons. But with the threat of the American recession hitting Britain after
the usual time-lag there has been a noticeable change of ‘Commonwealth’
consciousness. The huge influx of West Indians in Britain and the fear that British
industry would have to retrench have been among the causes of the increasing
complaints by ‘coloured’ visitors of unprecedented discrimination against
them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The same factor is at the bottom of the
racial disturbances in Ceylon.
This is more clearly seen in the open economic warfare that has been waged
between the Kandyans and the Indian immigrant labour population on the tea
estates. The Kandyan peasantry, through its articulate representatives, has
been pressing for ten years for the repatriation of Indian labourers so that
the Kandyans may fill the vacancies on the estates. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A study of the speeches of most Sinhalese
politicians who denounced the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact would bear out
the fact that the fear that activated their successful struggle was the
possibility that the Indian immigrant labourers, numbering over 1,000,000 and
the Ceylon Tamils, numbering about the same, would form a powerful alliance
with which they could retain economic control of the island. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Even Dudley Senanayake’s speeches against
the B-C Pact were based on his avowed antipathy towards allocating the
potential economic resources of the North-Central and Eastern Provinces
to a separate racial group in perpetuity as contemplated under the Pact.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This economic pressure—the fear of being
elbowed out of employment and business—played a substantial part in the race
hatred that came to a crisis in 1958. When ‘liberal minded’ people speak
nostalgically of the glorious past of forty to fifty years ago when the
Sinhalese and the Tamil leaders such as Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan fought
shoulder to shoulder with Sinhalese like F. R. Senanayake and Burghers like
Sir Hector Van Cuylenburg, they rarely ask themselves the question that must
logically follow. What is the difference between then and now? The answer to
this question will indicate the real issue at the bottom of the race troubles. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Thirty years ago, or, for that matter, ten
years ago, the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Burghers of Ceylon meant the
same thing when they spoke of Independence, Freedom, and National Culture. They
spoke of being independent of foreign control in managing Ceylon’s affairs, or of freedom from dictation
by Whitehall or of an indigenous culture decayed
by antiquity and ill-use but uncontaminated by Western modes and forms which
had dominated South and South-East Asia for
four hundred years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Sinhalese and the Tamil peasantry had
never mixed or met. The large masses of the two populations lived in separate
concentrations—the Sinhalese in the south and west and the Tamils in the north
and east. Of course in almost every Sinhalese village and certainly in every
town there have always been Tamils, but they were there for the specific
purpose of running a kiosk or provision store or pawn-broker’s shop. Or they
were public officials employed by the Central Government or local
authority. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Likewise, in predominantly Tamil districts,
there were Sinhalese who had drifted there for specific purposes, though in
much smaller numbers than the Tamils in the Sinhalese areas. This is easily
explained by the fact that there were more economic opportunities in the relatively
fertile provinces in which the Sinhalese predominated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The physical separation of the large mass
of Sinhalese and Tamils was a major factor in the prevention of racial rivalry
for many hundred years. The Sinhalese and the Tamils were also insulated by the
vast forests and the scrub wastes that lie between the concentrations of
population. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In ancient times it was otherwise. When the
Sinhalese Kingdom
was centred in Anuradhapura,
the proximity of the Sinhalese to the Tamils in the north provided the ideal
setting for race warfare, and the agrarian wealth of the region provided the
motivation for the economic competitiveness that inevitably led to open
conflict. There was constant conflict between the two elements. But when the
forest swept over this region and the centres of gravity of the population
moved towards Kandy
and the West Coast, separating the two major races, their internecine rivalry
died down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Looking at recent events from this point of
view, it is not surprising that the clearing of the jungles and the
resettlement of people in contiguous racial groups in the North-Central Province
led to a re-awakening of the old fires of communal conflict. The tension and
terrorism at Padaviya, Polonnaruwa, Hingurakgoda and Dambulla seem to contain
an element of historical inevitability. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Middle Class Tensions</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 126.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The majority of the Sinhalese and Tamils,
as we have seen, never mixed in sizeable concentrations. But while the Sinhalese
and Tamil peasants were separated physically, linguistically and economically
from each other, the middle classes, the white-collar groups, merged freely in
Colombo and the bigger towns, living side by side, working in the same social
and economic fields, competing with each other for jobs, in trade and for
supremacy in sport. The social and cultural atmosphere in which they were
reared tended to blur the racial division between them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 126.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They spoke in English to each other and to
their employers. They assimilated Western culture with much greater facility
than almost any other Orientals did. At school they studied British and
European history. Very little, if any, Ceylon history was taught in the
schools. When an ‘educated’ Ceylonese used a phrase such as ‘the extravagance
of the sixteenth century’ he was not talking about the era of Buvaneka Bahu VII
of Ceylon,
but of Elizabethan England. He knew more about the battles of the first Duke of
Marlborough than about Ceylon’s
war against the Portuguese. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">His values were minted abroad in British
public schools. The liberalism and humanism of the English Universities was
absorbed by him with the same ease as such essentially British phenomena as
cricket and rugby football. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Against this background of tolerance it was
easy to practise a kind of facile laissez faire in social and cultural affairs.
A man was every bit as good as his neighbour if he had been to the same school
or at least one of the other five public schools. As long as a man’s table
manners, conversation, clubmanship and general background were all right his
race, caste and even his origins and financial status could be ignored. Racial
integration was widespread and deep in the professions, in trade, in the
public service and in sport, but however faint the line of demarcation was, it
continued to exist in private relationships. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">However liberal and ‘broadminded’ people
were, very few of them could bear to contemplate the possibility of their sons
or daughters marrying ‘out of’ race. This barrier was of course reinforced by
the continuation of caste considerations in marriage. Moreover there was a
notable difference between the middle-class English-educated Sinhalese and his
Tamil counterpart. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 136.9pt left 228.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Most Sinhalese who
received an English education and adopted Western manners and values as though
to the manner born, did so neglecting and even scorning their own traditions,
language and forms. Most Tamils, on the other hand, skilfully balanced the two
roles. In Colombo or in London they tried to be model Westernized
‘gentlemen’, wearing the correct dress with calculated casualness, speaking the
correct tongue with cultivated allusiveness and careful avoidance of the
distinctive accent of the denizens of the north. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: decimal 136.9pt left 228.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But, unlike the
English-educated Sinhalese they preferred to live closer to their traditional
soil. They slipped with accomplished grace from their European clothes into
their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">verti</i> and shawl. However deep
their new roots in Colombo may have run they found no difficulty in being
cosmopolitan braves in Colombo, and peninsular Tamils when they went to Jaffna
(which was quite often, since most Tamils maintained their traditional habitats
in their ‘villages’ in the north and the east). And, most significant of all,
the average English-educated Tamil was more conscious of his religious
tradition than his Sinhalese friends and colleagues were. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Despite this underlying divergence of
attitude, the middle classes were able to mix freely and amicably as long as
they did not clash in economic competition. While there were employment
opportunities in the public and mercantile services for clerks, accountants,
junior field officers and executives, middle-class race relations were ideal.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But, by the end of the war and at about the
time when Ceylon
became politically independent, the pressure on employment began to mount.
Thousands who had been employed in war-time service were demobilized and sought
employment in the public services or in private firms. Every year the Free
schools were turning out tens of thousands of young men and women desperately
anxious to earn a living to help their parents out or to start a life of their
own. Unfortunately there was no corresponding increase in jobs in the
mercantile world or in the Government or municipal services. By 1950 these
services were saturated with personnel. The school system had been devised by
the British to produce clerks by the hundred. It continued to do so although
no one wanted clerks any more. There were—and are - opportunities for
technically skilled youths, but the education system does not provide
facilities for technical training. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">For the Tamils, the public service and the
mercantile services had long been the principal means of earning a livelihood.
Lacking the relatively vast acres of arable land enjoyed by the Sinhalese, they
had turned to white-collar jobs for their economic salvation. Almost every
Tamil family concentrated on getting their sons—and if possible their
daughters—into the Government or mercantile service. They made an aim of it and
when they achieved the aim they made a career of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They had certain distinct advantages in
their pursuit of public service jobs. Jaffna
has, per head of population, much better educational opportunities than the
rest of Ceylon.
Foreign missions had established schools in Jaffna
many decades ago and had given the people of Jaffna a tradition of schooling. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 11.05pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Moreover, the Tamil boy is relatively more
diligent than the Sinhalese—like the Jew in the West, he has to be to exist.
The result was that Tamils did extremely well in public examinations and were
able to get the jobs they were qualified to do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By 1950 the shrinking of employment
opportunities became acute. ‘Educated’ unemployment was on the rise and many of
these youths, frustrated and articulate, were beginning to join the Marxist
parties which gave them promise of jobs and a better standard of living. The
Government of the day was fumbling in a futile manner against these problems,
expecting people to live on promises of sunshine tomorrow or the next day but
never today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 10.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Sinhalese, being greater in numbers,
cried loudest against the Government’s apathy but when they looked about them,
many of them saw that if the Tamils were not in the public and mercantile
services there would be very much more room for the Sinhalese. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There were politicians ready to encourage this brand of
thinking and they lost no time in building this race-awareness into a more
erosive force. It began to be widely believed that the Tamils occupied an
average of about 6o per cent of the places in the public service. Whenever
responsible Cabinet Ministers made this statement it acquired a great deal of
credibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Indeed, when people examined the race composition of
certain sections of the Public Works Department or the Audit Department, the
charge that there had been some deliberate ‘packing’ of Tamils in the public
service was difficult to refute. Certain Government departments had a large
percentage of Tamil personnel. There is no doubt that there was a certain
amount of place-fixing and promotion-mongering among the Tamils employed in the
public service. This is not unusual, for wherever minorities work they have a
tendency to strengthen themselves numerically whenever the opportunity
arises. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.3pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is, however, no way of estimating how much of
these charges is true. No reliable count has been taken of the racial
composition of the Government services. But one fact is certain from common
observation: the theory that 60, 50 or even 40 per cent of the public service
is composed of Tamils is patently false. What lends credence to this false
impression is the fact mentioned above—the abnormal concentrations of Tamils in
particular Government departments. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The most serious mistake that a minority which wishes to
he regarded as an integral part of a nation can make is to attract avoidable
attention. Huddling together in tight enclaves is perhaps the most dangerous of
these mistakes. It is an observable fact in the history of racial conflict
that ghetto walls are generally built from the inside. This exclusivity hardly
ever provokes the envy of people but it always attracts notice and hostility.
The Tamil colony in Wellawatte had long been an object of critical and derisive
notice among communal-minded Sinhalese in Colombo.
When this colony, overcrowded as it was, spread further south into Ratmalana
which was fast developing with the widening of the Galle Road and the improvement of the bus
services, the derision turned into alarm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The residents of Ratmalana saw justification for the
forebodings of the extremist Sinhalese politicians when they found that this
area which had been traditionally a Sinhalese residential district was rapidly
becoming colonized by new Tamil settlers. The establishment of an exclusively
Tamil college and the increasingly large proportion of Tamils in the new
housing estates caused them to wonder whether Ratmalana was becoming a ‘Little
Jaffna’. It is not a matter for wonder, therefore, that during the riots the
worst damage in the Colombo
area was done in Wellawatte and Ratmalana. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Perhaps, to round off this observation, it should be
added that there are psychological reasons for this tendency to huddle together
in little groups. People with mutual interests, common relatives, similar
social and religious habits naturally tend to congregate. It is for these
reasons that Ceylonese and Indians travelling 7,000 miles to see London,
generally choose to live in Earls Court, now sometimes called ‘Little India’ by
British people. Chinatown, Harlem, the Jewish Quarter and the ‘Europeans Only’
residential districts in the East and Africa
are all evidence of this natural desire to find comfort in numbers. But this
exclusivity is achieved at a price. It attracts unwelcome attention. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No one troubled to investigate whether the charge was
true, partially true or false, but many Sinhalese—outside the public service
rather than within it—came to believe that the Tamils had formed a secret
conspiracy to take control of Colombo
and the administration of the country by sinister infiltration. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This charge was widely publicized among Sinhalese
speaking people by various propaganda devices. The result was that although the
racialist feelings of many middle-class Sinhalese were kept in control by their
habit of restraint, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> broke out
in violence against the Tamil officials as soon as the riots broke out in
Polonnaruwa and Colombo. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.6pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the very first day of the communal clashes in Colombo the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> directed their activities
against the Tamil public and mercantile clerks who were returning home after a
day’s work. Many of the buildings that were burnt in the Ratmalana area
belonged to Tamil public servants or pensioners. The heaviest attacks seemed to
be on them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This is what first led the police and the
Governor-General to suspect that some organization was behind the race-riots,
inviting the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">goondas</i> and directing
their operations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There could be little doubt that there was organization
behind the riots in certain areas—particularly Ratmalana, Polonnaruwa,
Kurunegala and Badulla. But who was it? Was it one organization or many? The
Government’s intelligence machinery proved to be quite inadequate to provide an
answer for these questions. They had little more than hunches and
post-rationalizations to justify their theories. The probability, however, was
that the riots which had broken out according to the pattern we have seen,
provided an opportunity for many groups ready to fish for power in troubled
waters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An observation made by Deputy Inspector-General of
Police (Range Two) Sidney de Zoysa at the police officers’ secret conference of
June 13, though extravagant, confirms this view. This is the relevant part of
the official minutes of that meeting.<b> </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Who is the Master Brain? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt 22.65pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G., C.I.D., said that he was not
prepared to answer that question. DIG. Range Two, said that, talking of his
Range at least, he could see the hand of the NLSSP in some places and at others
that of the VLSSP, the CP, the UNP and even the MEP!’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is surprising that an officer of such experience and
acumen should have left out the Federal Party and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jatika Vimukti Peramuna</i> (the two banned parties) from his
reckoning. The explanation for this discrepancy is surely that he was talking
in broad, general terms to convey his impression that politicians covering the
entire gamut from Right to Left had tried to turn the situation to their own
advantage. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The communal fires spread so fast and furiously that no
one was able to harness their power and direct its spread towards any
particular goal. Among the political parties the heaviest losers were those of
the MEP. People began to react sharply against the military rule that had
suddenly been imposed on them. Many people who had whooped for sheer joy when
the United National Party had been trounced in 1956 were heard to remark
nostalgically that ‘whatever his faults, Sir John would not have permitted
things to get into such a muddle’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Government was aware of this reaction and took every
opportunity to discredit the UNP and blame the riots on the communalist
elements in that party. Nevertheless it was clear that the tremendously popular
hold that the MEP had on the people two years ago had been violently broken by
the same vocal elements that had brought this party to such an overwhelming
triumph against the mighty UNP at the 1956 General Election. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Rule of Law</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">How had this come about? The process by which the MEP
found itself in this situation in 1958 is evident in the pattern of the events
we have seen. The spinal column of the body politic is LAW; shatter this or
damage it seriously and the entire body becomes paralysed. Respect for the law
among the people makes for order, without which no government is possible, so
that it is the business of the rulers, from the point of view of
self-preservation as well as public duty, to enforce the law whenever it is
blatantly flouted. In order to maintain order the Government is empowered to
use a Police force, a civil administration and, at times of extraordinary
disturbance, a military arm. Any government that destroys the authority of
these services and whips up the suspicion and hatred of the people against them
is surely undermining its own strength. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An incident which occurred at the first meeting of the
new Parliament gave a clear sign of things to come. There was great enthusiasm
when the MEP Government came triumphantly to the House of Representatives to
start the task of bringing the new millennium into being. The crowd stormed the
council chamber, clambering over the benches and even sitting on the Speaker’s
chair. When the Police had tried to block them, they had been ordered to ‘Let
the People have their way’. The crowd jeered and hooted at the Police. Inspectors
and constables looked on shamefacedly while they got their first glimpse of the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey Aanduwa</i> mentality in
action. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Before a month was out some Ministers, still riding high
on the wave of popular acclaim, were denouncing the Police from public
platforms, flinging vile allegations at them and accusing them of being
politically opposed to the People’s Government. The crowds loved it, like
children watching the Headmaster ticking off the class teacher in their
presence. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">When the Gal Oya riots of 1956 broke out a few months
later the Police were already demoralized. Until Deputy Inspector-General of
Police Sydney de Zoysa went there and threatened to arrest even Cabinet
Ministers if they incited the mob to violence, the politicians made
inflammatory speeches against Police action. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In Colombo,
on that occasion, the Police looked on or looked the other way when Tamils were
beaten up on the street hardly a hundred yards away from the House of Parliament.
They did not move a finger when hoodlums stripped a Federalist politician and
chased him all the way across the Galle Face green to the hotel. Police
explained that they had been ordered not to interfere. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Soon after the shine had worn off the new Government a
series of strikes began all over the country. In two years Ceylon was to
experience over 400 strikes. The Police were under orders not to interfere with
the demonstrators so that the demonstrators were able to break all the laws of
peaceful picketing with impunity. The Police looked on shamefacedly while
rotten eggs or tomatoes and red ink were thrown at staff officers and non-union
members who refused to strike. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Politicians rode into Police stations and demanded the
immediate release of this or that suspect, held for questioning or production
before a magistrate. They usually had their way. Things came to such a pass
that the Prime Minister had to make a public appeal to the Police to remember
that the new ruling party was composed of immature politicians who needed time
to get used to their position of vantage. But it was not the new men who were
making the most trouble. Seasoned campaigners who had suffered at the hands of
the police when they were in Opposition were also getting their own back. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey Aanduwa</i>
complex spread through the island and deep into the instincts of the
mischief-maker and the hoodlums. Their brashness was reinforced by the
knowledge that the death penalty had been abolished: the thought that they
would not have to swing for it whatever violence they committed was a great
source of strength to them. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The manufacture of hand-bombs and other deadly missiles
became a widespread cottage industry. The law and its arm, the Police, were
becoming increasingly hopeless and helpless at the time of the big strikes and
the race-riots of May and June. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Politicians were able to get away with major offences
without any fear of prosecution. On the contrary they stood a good chance of
being nominated as ‘heroes'. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In April 1958 Police received information that a major
religious conflict was brewing in the Maradana area over the building of a new
Catholic Church. The Assistant Superintendent of Police of Maradana, A. C.
Lawrence, had to place a guard at the church to prevent trouble. The
Government’s way of dealing with the situation was to transfer the A.S.P. to
another station in order to ‘assuage’ the people who were threatening
trouble. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">At the Police officers’ conference held on June 13 to
discuss the emergency the beaten-dog whine of the Police is unmistakable. The
fear of political reprisals, such as commissions of inquiry and dismissals,
weighed heavily on their minds and the thought of the horrors they had
witnessed due to the inactivity imposed on them weighed heavily on their
conscience as human beings and as trained policemen. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">This official verbatim record of that meeting is
self-explanatory. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Secret Proceedings of the Conference held at Police Headquarters</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">On Friday, 13 June 1958</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Present: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr. S. W. O. de Silva, O.B.E.,
Inspector-General of Police (in the Chair) C. C. Dissanayaka, Deputy
Inspector-General Range One, S.G. de Zoysa, Deputy Inspector-General Range Two,
Mr. W. A. R. Leembruggen, Deputy Inspector-General Admin., S.A. Dissanayaka,
Deputy Inspector-General Criminal Investigation Department, D.C. T. Pate,
Deputy Inspector-General Emergency. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> C.
P. Wambeek R. Rajasingham<br />
D.
S. E. P. R. Senanayake J. F. B.
Johnpulle<br />
W.
E. C.Jebanasan V. O. L. Potger<br />
T.
H. Kelaart N. W. Weerasinghe<br />
H.
K. Vanden Driesen J. A.
Selvaratnam<br />
R.
E. Kitto S. K. Iyer<br />
J.
A. A. Perera S. T. Thuraisingham<br />
J.
W. L. Attygalle C. L. O. Conderlag<br />
B.
W. Perera T. B. Danapala<br />
J.
M. H. Toussaint F. H. de Saram<br />
B.
C. Wijemanne A. H. F. Caldera<br />
L.
H. Bibile S. D. Chandrasinghe<br />
H.
R. Hepponstall A. D. Rodrigo<br />
I.
D. M. Van Twest G.Jayasinghe<br />
R.
A. Stork A. C. Lawrence<br />
D.
S. Thambyah D. S. S. Jayatilleke<br />
A.J.
Rajasooriya L. D. C. Herath </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">Discussion</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The IG said that he summoned this
Conference to hold a post-mortem on Police attitudes and action in connection
with the recent disturbances but not for the purpose of fault-finding with any
individual officer. The first phase, he said, was over and there may or may not
be a second or a third phase. It was, however, best to hold a post-mortem on
the first phase to find out whether the Police had slipped up and, if so, how,
in order that the necessary steps may be taken to prevent a repetition of the
same mistakes in similar circumstances in the future. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">He said that the criticism most
frequently levelled against the Police was that at the early stages Police were
not sufficiently firm in their actions and that even after the emergency was
declared, somehow or other, the Police allowed things to drift by not tackling
looting and other acts of hooliganism promptly and with sufficient force, with
the result that things got worse. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Even before the emergency there were
requests from practically all districts for the assistance of army units and
this, the 1G. said, was not a good sign at all. The Police had about the same
equipment as the Army and also greater numerical strength. There was,
therefore, no reason why the Police should not have relied on their own
resources in the first instance and called in the Army only after all possible
action had been taken but still found that Police resources were
insufficient. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The IG. said that Mr C. C.
Dissanayaka had prepared a few points for discussion and he called upon Mr
Dissanayaka to mention them. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Dissanayaka confirmed that this
conference was not meant to find fault with anyone. He, however, cautioned that
in the course of the post-mortem some hard facts may have to be stated, but
they should not be taken as a reflection on any officer personally. It was in
that spirit that officers should enter the discussion. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">He said that although there were
several matters which merited consideration he had selected only the following
because they were, by far, the most vital: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">1.Was Police
ineffectiveness due to any weakness at the top, at the centre or at the bottom,
i.e. bad officering or leadership, weakness in the inspectorate or weakness in
the constabulary? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">2.Were the Police
splitting up into racial groups, religious groups or any other groups? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">3.Was the studied
inactivity of the Police, specially on the 26th of May, due to their acting on
instructions from anybody or were the Police in sympathy with the thugs or with
any other movement, or due to any other cause? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">4.The Colombo Division opened
fire five times, but no one was hit. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">5.What was
this new tendency, and how did it arise, of repeated requests being made from
all parts of the country for the military and everybody saying that no action
was being taken as they were awaiting orders? Orders from whom? The law was
quite clear as also were the Firing Orders! </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">6.There had
been allegations, some true, about: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> (i) thieving
by the Police and</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(ii) Police
actively conniving when looting was actually going on in the presence of the
police. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">7. Should
the ‘Take Posts’ scheme be re-introduced? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">8. Was the trouble caused by outside gangs
or by local thugs? Who organized them? Who led them? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">9. Was the trouble over or had the Police
seen only the shape of things to come? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">10. Let us not bluff ourselves. Let
us at least be honest by the service and not make excuses such as that Police
inactivity was due to:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(i) fear of commissions or</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(ii) the Prime Minister’s orders. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">11. The Police system of collecting
intelligence had miserably failed. How could this be rectified? Or were the
other organizations becoming cleverer than the police? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">12.How was Police
morale? How could it be stepped up in order to keep the police as one
undivided, efficient and effective unit? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 1 </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Kitto said that Police morale had
hit the very bottom— that the men were just dispirited and that they had
confidence neither in themselves nor in their officers. The officers in turn
felt that they were being let down by Headquarters like a ton of bricks, even
when they acted in accordance with the law. This was what he had been able to
gather from a number of officers. He however, wished to make it quite clear
that neither he nor the officers were referring to either the I.G. personally
or to any particular officer at Headquarters, but rather to the present H.Q.
set-up in general. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that if officers
entertained such a fear it was unfounded. He quoted several instances to prove
conclusively that he never for once hesitated to stand by the Service and by
the officers, even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the Prime
Minister or jeopardizing his own position as I.G. The D.I.G and some of the
other officers knew it. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It was therefore wrong for the
officers to feel that their superiors at H.Q. were prepared to sacrifice them
in order to curry favour with the powers-that-be, merely because the I.G. had
to carry out some unreasonable order such as the transfer of an officer or the
release of some miscreants arrested by the Police, etc., etc. He wished to
assure all present that he was convinced that hardly any of his predecessors
would have done what he had done to stand so firmly by the Service and by the
officers. If in the future a sacrifice had to be made for their sake, he said
that he would be the first to face the music as in fact, up to now, he had been
the one who had had to take in all the shocks. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Referring to the recent transfer of
Mr. A. C. Lawrence, D.I. G. Range One said that the move was vehemently opposed
by H. Q. although unsuccessfully and that beyond that there was little or nothing
they could do. Such cases should not, however, lead officers to think that they
generally lacked the backing and the support of Headquarters. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr. Wijemanne said that possibly one
reason for Police not acting as fairly as they should have done may be the
admonition to ‘use tact’ contained in the order that went out from H.Q. on the
declaration of the State of Emergency. He said that perhaps this admonition
might have acted as a brake on certain officers who might have acted
differently otherwise. This view was shared by several other officers
present. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. explained that the real
purpose in inserting this harmless clause was to convince the authorities,
Parliamentarians and Commissions, in the event of the Police being later
called upon to explain some of their actions that, in spite of the Emergency,
the Police did not go berserk but acted with firmness and restraint. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">[A
Superintendent of Police] said that he was personally aware of the extent to
which the I.G. had gone to stand by his officers and the Service with no
consideration whatsoever for personal repercussions. He felt that the fault lay
not with H.Q. but with the Prime Minister who did not permit the Police to do a
job of work as it should be done. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">He referred to
the case where he was ordered to move out some Police pickets who had been manning
certain points for a number of days and who, in the process, had got to know
very well the local thugs—the reason for the order being that these pickets
were getting rather ‘trigger’ minded whereas the real reason was that, in the
event of a show-down, these pickets could easily identify the troublemakers.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The net result
of this unnecessary interference was that when the balloon actually went up the
new pickets had no idea of the local ne’er-do-wells and could neither control
them effectively nor identify them when they created trouble. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Admin said that his view in
regard to inactivity by the Police when compared with the Army, was that the Police
probably thought further ahead and realized that they had to be on the scene
doing patrols, manning beats, etc., even after the Army had withdrawn, and due
to their morale having been so badly shattered during the past months, they
were compelled to adopt the line of least resistance so that they may not have
to face an unfriendly public when conditions reverted to normal and they had
to be on their own once again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two felt
that it was certainly the wrong way to look at it. When the occasion so
demanded it, the Police had to enforce the law without fear or favour, and the
Police Ordinance itself was very clear about the manner cowardly Police
officers were to be dealt with. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was because of this and in
appreciation of the risks to which they were exposed that very handsome terms of
compensation had been promised. If they could not carry out their duties as
they ought to, it was better for the relevant section to be cut out of the
Police Ordinance and also give up the claims for enhanced compensation. There
was no point, he said, in the Police taking action only when they were attacked
or when their Police stations or homes were attacked, and doing nothing when
other people’s persons or property were attacked or looted as the case may be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 2 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. C.I.D. said that in a service
of eight thousand-odd men there were bound to be some officers who were in
support of various movements, but generally speaking, he felt that the Service
was together and non-sectarian. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Admin. referred to an
incident at one station where certain disruptive elements were at work, and how
prompt action was taken to transfer the men concerned. He said that in all such
instances prompt and firm action was imperative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two said
that these were days which called for more and more contact between officers
and their OICC Stations, and between OICC. Stations and their men with a view
to binding the Service together, apprising the rank and file of the dangers of
the psychological warfare going on everywhere and which might eventually even
affect the Service, and boosting up morale to the highest pitch by way of
insulating against the disruptive forces at work. That was the only way of
keeping the brotherhood of the Service alive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No 3 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Wijemanne referred to May 26 when
assaults on Tamils and looting were going on before the very eyes of the Police
officers on duty near the Fort Railway Station, but who did nothing about it
saying that their instructions were to be near the railway station. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two said
that the Service had reached a stage when it was no longer prepared to carry
out orders blindly from anybody and that if it was necessary for the Police to
act in directions convenient to the authorities, the senior officers at H.Q.
would be the first to walk out with the rest. He quoted that D.I.G. Range
One had made the position quite clear to the highest authorities. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Admin. said that the Police
were apt to feel that the military would act as they liked and even run the
show on occasions. It was not so. The Army should work under the Police and the
Police must see to it that the Army did not behave as they wanted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that whether there was
an emergency or not, when the Army went out to a district the S.P. or the A.S.P.
should assume command and it was his business to tell the Army what to do and
when precisely action was needed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 4 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that the Police must
once and for all get out of their heads the question of firing in the air or
over the heads of mobs. The experience of every country was that it was worse
than not firing at all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Range Two said that this
tendency might possibly be due to a feeling of ‘oneness’ created between the Police
and the thugs as a result of the latter winning over the goodwill of the Police
by openly declaring that they were with the Police and would not permit any
harm befalling them. This was an insidious way of getting round the Police and
the men should be duly warned against this line of approach.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 5 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was agreed that hereafter the army
should be called in only if they were absolutely necessary. It was felt that if
the Police were firm from the word go the need to call in the Army would seldom
arise. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt 43.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Range Two said that the Army was doing a good job of work in the
present emergency and that in a way they were helping the Police to get to the
top once again, but the great thing was that once the Police got to the top, it
should be possible for the Police to maintain that position and to be able to
tell the Army to stand-by.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt 43.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 6 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt 43.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Range One said that there were some true cases of thieving and also
aiding and abetting of looting by the Police and it was up to officers to see
that this was never again repeated; all those detected should be most severely
dealt with.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt 43.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 7 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. asked officers to consider
the feasibility of reviving the ‘Take Posts’ scheme as it had been very
effective in the past. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr. Vanden Driesen said that
patrolling by mobile armed parties would be more effective than ‘Take
Posts’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two
stressed that men who were posted at various points should know very clearly
what their functions were. He cited the case of some men at a particular post,
who, when questioned by him as to what they would do if their post was
‘rushed’, replied that they would go and report the matter to the local Police
station. The fear to use force must be discarded.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 8 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Several officers commented on the
fact that in most cases outside gangs of thugs were at work and that it was a
well-organized campaign. Everything pointed to that. These thugs had adopted a
code of their own to indicate whether the house or buildings occupied by Tamils
belonged to Tamils or to Sinhalese, the number of inmates in each house, etc.,
etc. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Kitto wanted to know what the
position of the Police would be in regard to Buddhist priests who were
participating in mob activities? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.9pt 43.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Range Two said that this point had already been thrashed out with
the Prime Minister himself who had sanctioned the action against the Buddhist
priests if they continued to flout the Police. He said that A.S.P. Bandarawela
had already got a priest remanded in a looting case, and that two priests who
were wanted by the Kalutara Police for interrogation were absconding. He said
that in view of what was happening in the country today the inviolability of
the Buddhist priests could not be retained any longer. He, however, made it
very clear that the so-called priests who participated in these activities were
not genuine priests but impostors masquerading in the guise of priests. He
referred to two hire-car drivers in Polonnaruwa who had shaved off their heads
[sic] and in whose possession the police found Buddhist robes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Vanden Driesen said that it would
be most helpful if the incidents referred to by D.I.G. Range
Two were published in the press. The I.G. promised to take up this matter with
Mr M.<span class="spelle">J.Perera</span>, the Information Officer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 9 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Hepponstall said that there was a
strong feeling that trouble would start again as soon as the Emergency was
over. All officers felt that even if the curfew was lifted, the Emergency
should go on for some considerable time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Admin. said that all Police
stations should now draw up plans for the effective patrolling of all areas
where there were minorities. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. exhorted all officers to
instruct their men to shoot without hesitation if looting was going on. He also
said that the task of restoring order should be given top priority and that
normal Police work should take second place for some time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was also agreed that sergeants
and constables on duty should in future be armed with Sten guns instead of
rifles. The I.G. promised to take up this matter. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. also said that in future
refugees should be housed in some camp far from Police stations, as the
presence of refugees at Police stations during the recent disturbances had made
things very difficult for the Police.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 10 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two asked
officers to have no fear about commissions into police actions. He reminded officers
of the Commission of Inquiry in connection with ‘Operation Ganja”<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></sup></b></span> and inquired whether the
Department took any steps against the Police officers involved? On the
contrary, he said that Inspector Liyanage had got his due promotion and was even
handsomely rewarded for his good work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. also said that several
times he had been asked as to what action he was taking against the Police
officers involved in ‘Operation Ganja’, now that the report was out, and he had
always replied that he was looking into the matter whereas, in actual fact, he
had not done so yet in the interest of morale at this crucial period. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.75pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Two said
that if anyone’s uniform was to be taken out, the uniforms of the senior
officers at H.Q. would first have to be taken out. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In regard to Orders by the Prime
Minister, he said that if they were in conflict with fundamental principles of
the Police, the Service should stand together and resolutely oppose them, and
there was nothing for the officers to fear. He agreed with the I.G. that
officers should not attach too much importance to events such as the transfer
of an officer, appointment of a Commission, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No.11 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G., C.I.D. said that the
intelligence received from the uniformed Police was very poor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that it was in their
own interests for uniformed officers to find out the trouble-makers and what
they were up to. He said that no piece of information, however insignificant it
might appear to be, should be ignored as these bits and pieces will help to
complete the picture eventually. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G., C.I.D. said that it would be
a good thing for gazetted officers and members of the inspectorate to go round
some houses and find out what was happening and whether the inmates had any
useful information to pass over to the Police in their own interests. The J.G.
commended this suggestion, asked officers to make a note of it and to feed
D.I.G., C.I.D. with as much information as possible all the time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Admin. said that there should
be a Special Branch attached to every P.I.B. and D.I.B. It was decided to
summon a Conference of all provincial officers next week so that D.I.G., C.I.D.
may tell them on what lines to work in order to obtain useful information
promptly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.2pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Item No. 12 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.05pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that he sincerely
hoped that officers were convinced now at least that they would always be
backed to the hilt by H.Q. He asked them not to lose heart if, at higher
levels, the Police were ordered to do certain things. He assured them that no
unfair order of transfer, etc., was ever carried out without setting out the
true position at a couple of interviews with the Prime Minister. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Who is the Master Brain? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G., C.J.D. said that he was not
prepared to answer that question. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G. Range Two said that, talking
of his Range at least, he could see the hand of the NLSSP in some places and at
others that of the VLSSP, the CP, the UNP, and even the MEP!<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></sup></b></span><sup> </sup></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">D.I.G.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Range</span><span lang="EN-GB"> One said
that he was following up some information and would be able to place before
the I.G., very shortly, some useful information in regard to the overall
plan. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The I.G. said that the fact remained
that certain mischief makers were at work to create trouble in the country, and
the pattern was more or less the same. Just now the Police have the advantage
of the Emergency behind them. It was the invariable practice, whenever there
was an emergency, to pass a Bill indemnifying everybody. This would include the
priests and so there was nothing for Police officers to bother about. However,
attempts to create dissension of one kind or another would go on, sometimes
even by a few unscrupulous men in the Police ranks, but it was up to the
Service to see that law and order was maintained at all costs. It was the
sacred duty the Police owe the country. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Under the emergency the Police had
extraordinary powers and the Police could not talk with their mouths but with
their guns. There might be minor unpleasant incidents such as requests to
release scoundrels arrested by the Police, but these were orders the J.G. was
compelled to carry out in the same way as junior officers had to carry out the
I.G.’s orders, however unpleasant or unreasonable they might appear to be. But
he said that unfair orders were never carried out by him without first putting
up a fight. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">When the Emergency was over, he
said, everyone should buckle down to the task of planning for the future. In
the meantime he urged all officers to have the fullest confidence in
Headquarters. He and the D.I.G. would be with them and, if one had to get out,
all officers could rest assured that all would go out together. He asked
officers not to take certain unpleasant incidents too seriously to heart, and
also to talk to their men and keep their morale always high. If a man had to be
rewarded for good work done, he said that the reward should both be handsome
and prompt. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In conclusion the I.G. said: ‘Let us
be together, deliver the goods, and let the whole country know that we have
done our duty. Go and hold your areas now and give your men the assurance that
all of us are together. If we have to go away we go out together.’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">These words were received with
applause by all present. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Sgd. S. W. 0. de Silva,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Inspector-General of Police.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Police Headquarters,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Colombo</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">, June 16, 1958</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Conclusion</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The broad picture is now complete. Race-relationships
which had endured for generations were breaking up under the pressure which is
inevitable in a country in which economic development had not kept pace with
modern needs and the high rate of population increase. Labour relations were
cracking under the strain of the new social forces which the MEP had released.
This second change, no doubt, was necessary and irresistible. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Unfortunately the Government made the mistake of
throwing the baby away with the bath water. While repressive legislation and
irksome, outmoded attitudes which had kept the masses in thrall had to be
hurled away without delay, it was vital for the peace and order of the country,
especially in times of rapid social change, to preserve and strengthen the rule
of law and the authority of the officers who enforce the law. This salutary
rule was ignored and even spurned in the extravagant mood of enthusiasm in
which the Government tried to meet the massive problems that challenged its
capabilities. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The terror and the hate that the people of Ceylon experienced
in May and June 1958 were the outcome of that fundamental error. What are we
left with? A nation in ruins, some grim lessons which we cannot afford to
forget and a momentous question: Have the Sinhalese and the Tamils reached the
parting of the ways? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1895243315541887371" name="Appendix"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Appendix</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">OFFICIAL DOCUMENT ENTRUSTED IN CONFIDENCE TO POLICE
OFFICERS ONLY </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">CEYLON</span><span lang="EN-GB"> POLICE GAZETTE</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">No. 5,444: Wednesday i6 July 1958</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">No. S.R. 250/58</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr B. Weerasinghe, Assistant Superintendent of Police,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">North-Central</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Province, and D. D. S. Ranasinghe, Head</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Quarters Inspector, Anuradhapura—Award
of the Ceylon</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Police Medal for Gallantry.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Reference notification appearing in Police Gazette, Part
i</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">No. 5,443 of July 9, 1958, page 75, on the above subject
the following correspondence is published for the information of all ranks:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">No. S.R.250/58</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Police Headquarters, Colombo 1, 2nd July, 1958.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">S/D & E.A.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Award of the Ceylon
Police Medal for Gallantry to Mr B. Weerasinghe, A.S.P., and Inspector D.
D. S. Ranasinghe.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">I
wish to bring to your notice and, through you, to the</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Hon’ble the Prime
Minister, the acts of gallantry performed by</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mr B. Weerasinghe,
Assistant Superintendent in Charge of</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">North-Central</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"> Province and
Inspector D.
D. S. Ranasinghe,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Officer-in-Charge,
Anuradhapura
Police Station.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">1. Mr B. Weerasinghe.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(a) During the period of the unprecedented December 1957
floods, North-Central
Province was one of the
worst affected areas in the island. A very heavy responsibility was cast on the
Police in the matter of rescue of large numbers of flood victims. Mr
Weerasinghe who was in charge, by leading his men in almost every dangerous and
risky rescue operation, acted with courage and with utter disregard for his own
personal safety in saving valuable lives. In appreciation of the outstanding
services rendered by him, the following commendation was awarded: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">‘Mr B. Weerasinghe, Assistant Superintendent of Police,
North-Central Province, is highly commended by the Inspector-General of Police
for setting up a high standard of leadership, initiative and hard work during
the entire period of the December floods. The example set by him went a long
way towards encouraging his men to renewed efforts. He also displayed courage
of a high order in rescue operations under hazardous conditions.’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Shortly after the floods this officer was faced with
incidents and problems arising out of the Anti-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sri</i> Campaign and the strike situation. These were dealt with by him
in the North-Central
Province with firmness
and tact. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(b) During the recent Communal Disturbances, Mr
Weerasinghe had again to carry the extremely difficult and trying
responsibility of suppressing violence and thuggery which broke out in the North-Central Province on an unprecedented scale. In
Polonnaruwa, Giritale and Hingurakgoda a critically tense situation unleashed
itself into frenzied violence which had never been experienced before in this
country, and conditions in these places on the morning of the 26th May, 1958,
have been assessed as being infinitely worse than what occurred at Gal Oya in
1956. Hordes of thugs and rioters, armed with shot guns, grenades, explosives,
swords, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">katties</i> and other dangerous
weapons poured as if from nowhere into the streets bent on murder, rioting and
looting. Hopelessly outnumbered and out-weaponed, this officer did not satisfy
himself with merely guarding his police station and his own skin, which
admittedly he might have done with some justification. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">He decided in the circumstances that his
first obligation was to protect the persons who were being murdered and
assaulted, and carried the fight right through Kaduruwela Bazaar, dispersing
mobs all along the road. At 9.30 a.m. at Hospital Junction his vehicle was shot
at, and the first Police shooting occurred when he and Inspector Carolis fired
at a man levelling his shot gun at them. Subsequently Mr Weerasinghe and his
men were attacked on numerous occasions. By noon a fair measure of control was
gained by the Police, but conditions worsened again when a mass attack was made
on the Polonnaruwa Police Station. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Weerasinghe averted this attack by
personally ordering fire on the rioters. Four were killed and two were injured.
By evening, Police—with the invaluable assistance of two military units which
arrived in the nick of time—were on top of the situation. Resistance, which was
met at Giritale, Minneriya and Hingurakgoda, was overcome but without recourse
to firing. In all these operations Mr Weerasinghe was in personal command. By
the 29th May Polonnaruwa and Hingurakgoda were peaceful again. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">On his return to Anuradhapura
at 2 p.m. on 30th May, 1958, Mr Weerasinghe received information of a large
motorized unit of thugs on the rampage at Medawachchiya. He immediately set
out with a military unit under the command of Major McHeyzer. He was just in
time to prevent the wiping out of a small Police party under Inspector D. D. S.
Ranasinghe, who were holding them at bay. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr B. Weerasinghe had worked from 23rd May to the 1st of
June ceaselessly day and night, leading his men personally throughout the
length and breadth of the North-Central
Province. He has narrowly
escaped death on several occasions. He was in the forefront of the riots at
Kaduruwela, Minneriya, Mahadivulwewa in time to rescue a very gallant Inspector
and his six men from certain death. By his leadership, initiative and hard
work, he has set a splendid example to his men who responded magnificently to
true leadership. He has shown outstanding courage and devotion to duty. This
officer and his men of the North-Central
Province have created a
record for gallantry and devotion to duty of which the entire Service is justly
proud. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">2. Inspector D. D. S.
Ranasinghe.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(a) During
the period of the floods in December, this officer worked day and night in perilous
rescue operations, saving the lives of hundreds of refugees. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">His best achievement, amongst numerous acts of bravery,
was when he jumped from a helicopter into swollen flood waters to save the
lives of thirteen women and children marooned on a rooftop at Ratmalie.
Inspector Ranasinghe showed leadership and initiative of a very high order and
his actions were characterized by fearless devotion to duty.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(b) During the Communal Disturbances at Anuradhapura, there was large-scale arson in
the suburbs. Inspector Ranasinghe actively engaged himself in suppressing this
and worked with his men round the clock for many days. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">0n the 30th May, 1958, at about 4 p.m., Inspector Ranasinghe
and six men encountered a motorized unit of about 600 thugs armed to the teeth
on the Kebitigollewa Road
at Mahadivulwewa. His jeep was fired upon and his party was attacked by shot
gun fire and sand bottles. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Taking cover behind his jeep, Inspector Ranasinghe and
his men held this entire mob at bay with rifle fire until he was rescued by a Police
and military patrol unit. This motorized unit consisted of 8 Land Development
vehicles, 2 Euclids
from the Padaviya Scheme, a water bowser, a vehicle with petrol and an
explosives vehicle. An examination of these vehicles revealed huge bombs of
dynamite in 4 gallon tins, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails by the hundreds,
guns, swords and deadly weapons. These vehicles were manned by about 500 to 600
Land Development labourers. Mr C. C. Dissanayaka, Deputy Inspector-General of
Police, Range (One) who examined these explosives and weapons commented that
never in his experience of 24 years’ police service had he come across such a
vast quantity of death-dealing explosives. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In the capture of this armed convoy, 11 men were killed
by fire in a Police cum military action, whilst 26 others were injured. 393
rioters were taken into custody whilst about 200 escaped.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The plan of this convoy, as revealed by some of the
prisoners who were taken into custody, was as follows: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">They were to attack Anuradhapura by dark when they would be
received by supporters in the town who were ready to cut the power lines.
Having destroyed the Police Station, they were next to destroy the Tamil
refugees in the protective camp at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kachcheri</i>.
There were over 3,000 Tamil refugees at the time in Anuradhapura and a crowded refugee train.
After a blood bath at Anuradhapura, they were
next to proceed with added strength to Matale where, after similar orgies,
they were finally to attack Kandy. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">By this heroic action in combating this army of thugs,
Inspector Ranasinghe has prevented the destruction of hundreds of lives and
saved Anuradhapura
from a blood bath. Without doubt his achievement can be recorded as the bravest
incident of preventive action ever recorded in the history of the Ceylon Police
Service. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In combating this force which, if properly led, would
have taxed a full infantry battalion, Inspector Ranasinghe and his puny force
of six men have enhanced the reputation of the Service and earned the gratitude
and respect of the law-abiding sections of the public. It is a miracle that
this Police party is alive today. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I therefore very strongly recommend that these two
officers be awarded the Ceylon Police Medal for Gallantry both in recognition
of the services rendered by them and as an incentive to all other ranks of the
Service. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">S.W.
O. de Silva</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Inspector-General
of Police.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Queen’s House,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Colombo</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"> 1, 7th July, 1958.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Reference No.
R.157/51</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Sir,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">I am directed by
the Governor-General to inform you that, on the recommendation of the
Honourable the Prime Minister, His Excellency has been pleased to approve of
the award to you of the Ceylon
Police Medal for Gallantry. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">His Excellency has
asked me to convey to you his warmest congratulations and his appreciation of
the gallantry you displayed. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The announcement
of the award will be published in the Ceylon Government Gazette on
Friday, 11th July, 1958, and I am to request you to make no communication to
the press regarding it before that date. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">I am, Sir,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Your obedient servant,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">N.W. Atukorala Secretary to the Governor-General</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">B. Weerasinge,
Esq, A.S.P., N.C.P.</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">D. D. S. Ranasinghe, Esq, H.Q.I., Anuradhapura. </span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Note - </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(1) These Gallantry Medals will be presented at a
Special Parade.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(2) To be indexed under the above heading.
Colombo 1, 12th
July, 1958.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" color="#fee2a0" noshade="noshade" size="2" width="80%" />
<span lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Glossary</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apey Aanduwa’</i>
- ‘The Government is ours’</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Bhikku</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - Buddhist monk</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Chulu</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> light - Rough and ready torch of dried coconut leaves</span></div>
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<span class="spelle"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Dhana</span></i></span><span lang="EN-GB"> - Offerings to the monks</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Goonda</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - Hoodlum, unemployable vagabond</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Hartal</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - A mass disobedience movement</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Lokka</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - The boss</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mahdal </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">- Home-spun deep sea fishing nets</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Satyagraha</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - Civil disobedience movement on the Gandhian pattern</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Sri</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - A word connoting noble, holy or blessed</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Upasampada</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> - Ordination ceremony</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1895243315541887371" name="Footnotes"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;">Footnotes</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The delegation consisted of Messrs Stanley
de Zoysa, S. F. <span class="spelle">Amarasingha</span> (both Sinhalese
Christians) and <span class="spelle">Raju</span> Coomaraswamy (a Tamil Hindu).</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> On February 25, 1958 the suburban ‘office
train’ to Colombo was held up for two hours by a gang of men who lay across the
track refusing to disperse until their friends who had been taken into custody
by the Railway Security Officers had been released. The security men had raided
a first-class compartment and discovered many passengers carrying third-class
tickets. The Prime Minister ordered the men to be released forthwith and
rebuked the railway management for having insufficient third-class accommodation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[3]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">On October 4, 1957 a party of ‘pilgrims’—mostly United National Party
supporters—led by former Financial Minister J. R. Jayawardene, who were walking
from Colombo to Kandy to invoke the blessings of the gods for their campaign
against the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact, was ambushed at Imbulgoda by a
gang of men led by S. D. Bandaranayake, M.P. for Gampaha. A car had been placed
across the road. The Police would not allow the ‘pilgrims’ to proceed further.
The Government party saluted Bandaranayake as the ‘Hero of Imbulgoda’.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[4]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> These I O Us were all redeemed by the end
of June. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[5]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The Home Ministry received at this time a
gruesome souvenir from the Government Agent who was trying to wake the Central
Government to the danger in the N.C.P. It was a heavy club studded with
gramophone needles which had been laboriously set into the wood by a thug who
obviously liked to see his victims suffer. </span></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[6]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Later awarded the Ceylon Police Medal for
Gallantry. See Appendix for official record of this officer’s work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[7]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The deputation was composed of: Messrs R.
E. <span class="spelle">Jayatilleke</span>, M.P., A. H. <span class="spelle">Macan</span>
<span class="spelle">Markar</span>, M.P., Sir <span class="spelle">Razeek</span> <span class="spelle">Fareed</span>, M.P., Dr M. P. <span class="spelle">Drahaman</span>,
M,P., Sir Arunachalam <span class="spelle">Mahadeva</span>, Messrs Selwyn <span class="spelle">Sarnaraweera</span>, Chairman, L.C.P.A., R. F. S. de Mel,
Chairman, Sinhala Merchants’ Chamber, <span class="spelle">Devar</span> <span class="spelle">Suriya</span> <span class="spelle">Sena</span>, Stephen <span class="spelle">Samarakkody</span>, J. <span class="spelle">Tyagarajah</span> and Dr
M. G. Perera. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[8]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> ‘A common political game, perfected in
newly-freed Asian Countries where Expediency takes the place of Principle, and
politicians spend their time watching, like surf-board riders, for the wave
which is likely to carry them furthest. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[9]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> ‘When this was brought to the notice of
the Competent Authority with a plea that the story should be scotched before it
gathered further momentum, his answer was: 'The man who started that rumour is
now in jail. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[10]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> It occurs to me that the Prime Minister
himself would have fluffed this examination according to his evidence given at
the <span class="spelle">Theja</span> <span class="spelle">Gunawardane</span> Trial
at Bar in 1954 when he confessed in Court that he could not read Sinhalese
fluently. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[11]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> At the Press Conference on the afternoon
of May 28, the Competent Authority reported: ‘A preliminary report from Mr <span class="spelle">Gunascna</span> de Zoysa, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of
Defence and External Affairs, sent from the Jaffna airport after meeting Mr P. <span class="spelle">Kandiah</span>, M.P., states that there have been no Sinhalese
deaths in the peninsula. ‘A few Tamil
deaths occurred when the police opened fire in connection with two incidents
which took place the previous day. ‘The Permanent Secretary will be making a
full report to the Prime Minister immediately he returns.’</span></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[12]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Inspector <span class="spelle">Daya</span> Ranasinghe
was awarded the highest honour for gallantry in the Police service—the Ceylon
Police Medal. See Appendix for Police Gazette account of this episode. </span></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[13]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Until very recently Queen’s House servants referred
to the Governor-General as <span class="spelle">Rajjuruwo</span> (the King). This
grated so much on the supra sensible ears of the Secretary, N. W. <span class="spelle">Atukorale</span>, that he issued a general order laying down a new
form of address: ‘<span class="spelle">Utumwso</span>’ (The Noble One or the
Supreme Being). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 8.5pt;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[14]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> In a population of 9,000,000 there are over 1,000,000
Ceylon Tamils and over 1,000,000 Indian Tamils. Most Moors also speak
Tamil. </span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[15]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> see footnote 8</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[16]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The
Police, with the aid of the Army, had been assigned two years ago to raid a
vast tract of jungle land where the villagers were suspected to have grown
ganja plants from which a potent narcotic is derived. A Commission of Inquiry
revealed later that the villagers had been subjected to inexcusable brutality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 10.45pt 43.65pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">[17]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="spelle">NLSSP:Nava</span> Lanka Sama <span class="spelle">Samaja</span> Party—the Trotskyite Opposition party.</span></div>
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<span class="spelle"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> VLSSP:The</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="spelle">Viplavakari</span> or
revolutionary Trotskyite party which forms the extreme Left Wing of the
Government.</span></div>
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<span class="spelle"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> CP:Communist</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Party.</span></div>
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<span class="spelle"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> UNP:United</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> National Party, which formed the previous
Government.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="spelle"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> MEP:Mahajana</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="spelle">Eksath</span> Peramuna,
or the People’s United Front, now in power.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"><img border="0" height="442" src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/RORYWI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image005.jpg" width="285" /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue;">http://tamilnation.co/books/Eelam/vitachi.htm</span></u></b><br />
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<br /></div>
Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-67299316827500968212011-12-18T06:48:00.001-08:002011-12-18T06:48:45.163-08:00<br />
<h1 class="title" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px;">
The psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus</h1>
<div class="superarticle node" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(135, 149, 57); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; clear: both; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">
<span class="submitted" style="color: #879539; font-family: Arial; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3136.html">By Dana Larsen - Thursday, December 18 2003</a></span><div class="taxonomy" style="color: #727272; font-size: 0.8em; text-transform: uppercase;">
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</div>
<div class="teaser" style="font-style: italic;">
Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans.</div>
<div class="content" style="line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<span class="inline inline-right" style="display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;"><img alt="" class="image image-_original " height="300" src="http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/files/images/3136-agaricallegory.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px;" title="" width="224" /></span>Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, most of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as "fly agaric." These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Most of the major elements of the modern Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, magical reindeer and the giving of gifts, are originally based upon the traditions surrounding the harvest and consumption of these most sacred mushrooms.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<b>The world tree</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
These ancient peoples, including the Lapps of modern-day Finland, and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes, believed in the idea of a World Tree. The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the "middle earth" of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The amanita muscaria mushrooms grow only under certain types of trees, mostly firs and evergreens. The mushroom caps are the fruit of the larger mycelium beneath the soil which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree. To ancient people, these mushrooms were literally "the fruit of the tree."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The North Star was also considered sacred, since all other stars in the sky revolved around its fixed point. They associated this "Pole Star" with the World Tree and the central axis of the universe. The top of the World Tree touched the North Star, and the spirit of the shaman would climb the metaphorical tree, thereby passing into the realm of the gods. This is the true meaning of the star on top of the modern Christmas tree, and also the reason that the super-shaman Santa makes his home at the North Pole.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Ancient peoples were amazed at how these magical mushrooms sprang from the earth without any visible seed. They considered this "virgin birth" to have been the result of the morning dew, which was seen as the semen of the deity. The silver tinsel we drape onto our modern Christmas tree represents this divine fluid.</div>
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<b>Reindeer games</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The active ingredients of the amanita mushrooms are not metabolized by the body, and so they remain active in the urine. In fact, it is safer to drink the urine of one who has consumed the mushrooms than to eat the mushrooms directly, as many of the toxic compounds are processed and eliminated on the first pass through the body.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
It was common practice among ancient people to recycle the potent effects of the mushroom by drinking each other's urine. The amanita's ingredients can remain potent even after six passes through the human body. Some scholars argue that this is the origin of the phrase "to get pissed," as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol by thousands of years.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the amanita mushrooms; they will seek them out, then prance about while under their influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushrooms. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The effects of the amanita mushroom usually include sensations of size distortion and flying. The feeling of flying could account for the legends of flying reindeer, and legends of shamanic journeys included stories of winged reindeer, transporting their riders up to the highest branches of the World Tree.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<span class="inline inline-right" style="display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;"><img alt="" height="300" src="http://www.cannabisculture.com/library/images/uploads/3136-resurrectionofsanta.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px;" width="263" /></span><b>Santa Claus, super shaman</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Although the modern image of Santa Claus was created at least in part by the advertising department of Coca-Cola, in truth his appearance, clothing, mannerisms and companions all mark him as the reincarnation of these ancient mushroom-gathering shamans.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
One of the side effects of eating amanita mushrooms is that the skin and facial features take on a flushed, ruddy glow. This is why Santa is always shown with glowing red cheeks and nose. Even Santa's jolly "Ho, ho, ho!" is the euphoric laugh of one who has indulged in the magic fungus.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Santa also dresses like a mushroom gatherer. When it was time to go out and harvest the magical mushrooms, the ancient shamans would dress much like Santa, wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
These peoples lived in dwellings made of birch and reindeer hide, called "yurts." Somewhat similar to a teepee, the yurt's central smokehole is often also used as an entrance. After gathering the mushrooms from under the sacred trees where they appeared, the shamans would fill their sacks and return home. Climbing down the chimney-entrances, they would share out the mushroom's gifts with those within.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The amanita mushroom needs to be dried before being consumed; the drying process reduces the mushroom's toxicity while increasing its potency. The shaman would guide the group in stringing the mushrooms and hanging them around the hearth-fire to dry. This tradition is echoed in the modern stringing of popcorn and other items.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
The psychedelic journeys taken under the influence of the amanita were also symbolized by a stick reaching up through the smokehole in the top of the yurt. The smokehole was the portal where the spirit of the shaman exited the physical plane.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Santa's famous magical journey, where his sleigh takes him around the whole planet in a single night, is developed from the "heavenly chariot," used by the gods from whom Santa and other shamanic figures are descended. The chariot of Odin, Thor and even the Egyptian god Osiris is now known as the Big Dipper, which circles around the North Star in a 24-hour period.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
In different versions of the ancient story, the chariot was pulled by reindeer or horses. As the animals grow exhausted, their mingled spit and blood falls to the ground, forming the amanita mushrooms.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<span class="inline inline-right" style="display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;"><img alt="" height="300" src="http://www.cannabisculture.com/library/images/uploads/3136-contact.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px;" width="274" /></span><b>St Nicholas and Old Nick</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Saint Nicholas is a legendary figure who supposedly lived during the fourth Century. His cult spread quickly and Nicholas became the patron saint of many varied groups, including judges, pawnbrokers, criminals, merchants, sailors, bakers, travelers, the poor, and children.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Most religious historians agree that St Nicholas did not actually exist as a real person, and was instead a Christianized version of earlier Pagan gods. Nicholas' legends were mainly created out of stories about the Teutonic god called Hold Nickar, known as Poseidon to the Greeks. This powerful sea god was known to gallop through the sky during the winter solstice, granting boons to his worshippers below.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
When the Catholic Church created the character of St Nicholas, they took his name from "Nickar" and gave him Poseidon's title of "the Sailor." There are thousands of churches named in St Nicholas' honor, most of which were converted from temples to Poseidon and Hold Nickar. (As the ancient pagan deities were demonized by the Christian church, Hold Nickar's name also became associated with Satan, known as "Old Nick!")</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Local traditions were incorporated into the new Christian holidays to make them more acceptable to the new converts. To these early Christians, Saint Nicholas became a sort of "super-shaman" who was overlaid upon their own shamanic cultural practices. Many images of Saint Nicholas from these early times show him wearing red and white, or standing in front of a red background with white spots, the design of the amanita mushroom.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
St Nicholas also adopted some of the qualities of the legendary "Grandmother Befana" from Italy, who filled children's stockings with gifts. Her shrine at Bari, Italy, became a shrine to St Nicholas.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
<b>Modern world, ancient traditions</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Some psychologists have discussed the "cognitive dissonance" which occurs when children are encouraged to believe in the literal existence of Santa Claus, only to have their parents' lie revealed when they are older. By so deceiving our children we rob them of a richer heritage, for the actual origin of these ancient rituals is rooted deep in our history and our collective unconscious. By better understanding the truths within these popular celebrations, we can better understand the modern world, and our place in it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Many people in the modern world have rejected Christmas as being too commercial, claiming that this ritual of giving is actually a celebration of materialism and greed. Yet the true spirit of this winter festival lies not in the exchange of plastic toys, but in celebrating a gift from the earth: the fruiting top of a magical mushroom, and the revelatory experiences it can provide.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
Instead of perpetuating outdated and confusing holiday myths, it might be more fulfilling to return to the original source of these seasonal celebrations. How about getting back to basics and enjoying some magical mushrooms with your loved ones this solstice? What better gift can a family share than a little piece of love and enlightenment?<span class="inline inline-right" style="display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;"><img alt="" height="27" src="http://www.cannabisculture.com/library/images/uploads/3136-leaf.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px;" width="30" /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
FURTHER LINKS AND REFERENCES:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
- <a href="http://jamesarthur.net/mushroom_new.html" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">The Hidden Meanings of Christmas, Mushroms and Mankind</a>, by James Arthur<br />- <a href="http://www.uio.no/conferences/imc7/NFotm99/December99.htm" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Who put the Fly Agaric into Christmas?</a>, Seventh International Mycological Congress, December 1999, Fungus of the Month<br />- <a href="http://www.psms.org/sporepr/sp348.html" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">The Real Story of Santa</a>, The Spore Print, Los Angeles Mycological Society, December 1998<br />- <a href="http://www.christmaspast.info/stories/realstory/hallucinogenic.html" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Santa and those Reindeer: The Hallucinogenic Connection, The Physics of Christmas</a>, by Roger Highfield<br />- <a href="http://fungus.org.uk/nwfg/funmay98.htm" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Fungi, Fairy Rings and Father Christmas</a>, North West Fungus Group, 1998 Presidential Address, by Dr Sean Edwards<br />- <a href="http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/dec99.html" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Fly Agaric, Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for December 1999</a><br />- <a href="http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/abstracts/L4.cgi?mode=keys&kwand=fly%20agaric%20father" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Father Christmas Flies on Toadstools</a>, New Scientist, December 1986<br />- <a href="http://www.lycaeum.org/drugs/abstracts/L4.cgi?mode=keys&kwand=fly%20agaric%20sacrament" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Psycho-mycological studies of amanita: From ancient sacrament to modern phobia</a>, by Jonathan Ott, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs; 1976<br />- <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/05/features-vallance.php" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Santa is a Wildman</a>, LA Times, Jeffrey Vallance</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
BOOKS WORTH READING:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.9em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
- <a href="http://jamesarthur.net/book2.html" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mushrooms and Mankind</a>, by James Arthur<br />- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0156838001/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6569839-1247312?v=glance&s=books" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality</a>, by Gordon Wasson<br />- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0716726009/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-8462747-6143124?v=glance&s=books" style="color: #004400; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mushrooms, Poisons and Panaceas</a>, by Denis R. Benjamin</div>
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</div>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-15992078696712839682011-04-29T03:12:00.000-07:002011-04-29T13:21:22.792-07:00<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wool Bwitannia</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCn3S4P6BWA5AMEvFaBleBX5kfGP6EJOTGTCrNELH26x8cvdDVOQK9VuYmELk1ZxYAZR8bKAIxmBZlcYuldAR8uMI6FKLhvo529VlnG6tOhnOFrLJ5uDNFZfuUEBNj8iflMOi1-jnMZa8u/s1600/image-196904-galleryV9-susq.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 397px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCn3S4P6BWA5AMEvFaBleBX5kfGP6EJOTGTCrNELH26x8cvdDVOQK9VuYmELk1ZxYAZR8bKAIxmBZlcYuldAR8uMI6FKLhvo529VlnG6tOhnOFrLJ5uDNFZfuUEBNj8iflMOi1-jnMZa8u/s400/image-196904-galleryV9-susq.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5600946006899945682" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The Pomp and pageantry that draws the Wool over our eyes ... In a time of mass unemployment, homelessness & poverty you can almost hear our dear Royal Family echo the words, "Let them eat cake"... <br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-2323182570113438472011-04-23T12:29:00.001-07:002011-04-23T12:29:48.025-07:00<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >Keiser Report on RT</span><br /><br />Every week on <a href="http://rt.com/">RT</a> Max Keiser looks at all the scandal behind the financial news headlines. This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert report on downgrades, gold bars and third worlds. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Taki Oldham, director of The Billionaires Tea Party, about tea parties, “astroturfing” and Ayn Rand.<br /><br /><object width="370" height="277"><param name="movie" value="http://rt.com/s/swf/player5.4.swf?file=http://rt.com/files/programs/keiser-report/episode-140-max-tea/keiser-report.flv&image=http://rt.com/files/programs/keiser-report/episode-140-max-tea/image-479.jpg&skin=http://developer.longtailvideo.com/trac/changeset/643/skins/beelden?old_path=%2F&provider=http&abouttext=Russia%20Today&aboutlink=http://rt.com&autostart=false"><embed src="http://rt.com/s/swf/player5.4.swf?file=http://rt.com/files/programs/keiser-report/episode-140-max-tea/keiser-report.flv&image=http://rt.com/files/programs/keiser-report/episode-140-max-tea/image-479.jpg&skin=http://developer.longtailvideo.com/trac/changeset/643/skins/beelden?old_path=%2F&provider=http&abouttext=Russia%20Today&aboutlink=http://rt.com&autostart=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="370" height="277"></embed></object>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-48579791441771742102011-04-19T19:00:00.001-07:002011-04-19T19:03:02.464-07:00<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Decentralized Global Rebellion against Neoliberal Economic Policies</span></span><br /><br />In this edition of Press TV's On the Edge with Max Keiser, Max discusses the link between the worker's struggle in Wisconsin and the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia with the journalist and blogger, David DeGraw.<br /><br />DeGraw believes what we are seeing in Wisconsin, Egypt, Tunisia and all over the world is a decentralized global rebellion against neo-liberal global economic policies. He believes the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, the IMF and the World Bank are the constituents of this destructive force.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/w2kiprZTG0g&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/w2kiprZTG0g&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Watch Max Keiser's excellent <a href="http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-139-keiser-max/">Keiser Report on Russia Today</a> (available on Web, Youtube and Freeview)</span><br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-77525070844602089812011-02-15T11:08:00.000-08:002011-02-15T11:09:13.969-08:00<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who they're working for</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shocking new financial manouevres by the British government show who it’s really working for. </span></span><br /><br />[Y]ou must first understand that the government is not managing the economy for the people of this nation. It is managing it for a tiny transnational elite, a kind of global gated community. To the people inside the gates, who fund the Conservative party, who own our politics, the media and the banks, the rest of us are an inconvenience, to be bribed, threatened or fooled.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.monbiot.com/2011/02/14/stripped-bare/">more...</a><br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-14673071169680408302011-02-14T04:06:00.001-08:002011-02-14T04:06:58.674-08:00<a href="http://orwellsmemoryhole-tony.blogspot.com/2011/02/blame-britains-foreign-policy-for.html?spref=bl">Orwell's Memory Hole: Blame Britain's foreign policy for the terror thre...</a>: "In her excellent novel, White Teeth, Zadie Smith reminds us that Britain has never been inhabited by one homogeneous tribe with one homogen..."Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-83052646806086449662011-02-02T01:40:00.000-08:002011-02-02T01:42:42.641-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zddYZWWEN08HKaJoUDUVQpWiTWGlUavc6kcoO5AYeAoPcpxIf9g-8VuvTS8odhWHvdELlz-drvR5E95zM-xIZiACj_enXEyL6diTh_eGsl0FFcQteMFS80dBF02JE_D_hIcZ6_2L3q6r/s1600/Egypt+2011.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zddYZWWEN08HKaJoUDUVQpWiTWGlUavc6kcoO5AYeAoPcpxIf9g-8VuvTS8odhWHvdELlz-drvR5E95zM-xIZiACj_enXEyL6diTh_eGsl0FFcQteMFS80dBF02JE_D_hIcZ6_2L3q6r/s320/Egypt+2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569024216330687938" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >Egypt on the brink of a bloodbath</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">by Thierry Meyssan</span><br /><br />The mainstream media are enthralled by the demonstrations in Egypt and are heralding the advent of a Western-style democracy throughout the Middle East. Thierry Meyssan refutes this interpretation. According to him, antagonistic forces have been set in motion, the outcome of which will turn against the order imposed by the United States in the region.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article168319.html">more...</a><br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-5840380837593435332011-01-26T06:56:00.001-08:002011-01-26T06:56:38.772-08:00<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Crisis of Civilization</span></span><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4nP2mTuTX6g" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><a href="http://crisisofcivilization.com/film/">The Crisis of Civilization</a> is a documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.<br /><br />Weaving together archival film footage and animations, film-maker Dean Puckett (The Elephant In The Room) and international security analyst Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It - take you on a surreal journey through an alarming tapestry of global systemic failure.<br /><br />Offering a stunning wake-up call proving that ‘another world’ is not merely possible, but on its way, they warn that the inability to recognize the interconnections between different crises is preventing us, as a civilization, from saving ourselves.<br /><br /><a href="http://crisisofcivilization.com/film/">http://crisisofcivilization.com/film/</a><br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1895243315541887371.post-46939068751410629312011-01-17T11:02:00.001-08:002011-01-17T11:02:31.312-08:00<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Real MLK</span></span><br /><br />Martin Luther King Jr. stood for revolutionary transformation; he is used today to support policies that he fought against.<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" height="258" width="425"><param name="width" value="425"><param name="height" value="258"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AqM2YpCaOe0&fs=1&rel=1&showsearch=0"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AqM2YpCaOe0&fs=1&hl=en&showsearch=0" allowfullscreen="true" height="258" width="425"></embed><br /><a href="http://therealnews.com/">More at The Real News</a><br /></object><br /><br /><span></span>Rory Winterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05576969819210177312noreply@blogger.com0