posted December 18, 2001 03:35 PM            

"Mr. Bandarnaike 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 1 and 2.

"The relevant section of his Presidential Address is:

"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 "leabel" 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)

"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."

"On the morning of April 9 a police message reached Mr.
Bandaranaike warning him that about 200 bhikkus or
monks and 300 others were setting out on a Visitation to
the Prime Minister's residence in Rosemead Place to
demand the abrogation of the Pact. They would arrive at 9
am.

"The Prime Minister left the house early that morning to
attend to some very important work in his office. The
bhikkus came, the crowds gathered, the gates of the
Bandaranaike Walawea were closed against them and
armed police wore hurriedly summoned to throw a barbed
wire cordon to keep the uninvited guests out. The bhikkus
decided to bivouac on the street. Pedlars, cool - drink carts,
betel sellers and even bangle merchants pitched their stalls
hard by. Dhana was brought to the bhikkus at the
appointed hour for food.

"In the meantime , the Prime Minister was fighting off the
opposition to the Pact among his own party colleagues with
desperate fury.

"At 4.15 pm the B-C Pact was torn into pathetic shreds
by its principal author".

"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.

"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.

"Then the Communist-party-inspired 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.

"The Government, unofficially of course, resorted to
thuggery to break the strike.

"A gang of thirty-eight thugs, imported, according to
police sources, from the Grandpass area and from Shanty
Town in McCallum Road, had been organised into a mobile
unit. They went round the city in a truck, beating up
strikers demonstrating on the streets."

"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 strike".

"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 traditional
unionism. The Prime Minister and the Labour Minister,
stout heartened by the defeat of the PSWTUF 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.

"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 after word. Instead of allowing the Employers'
Federation to make their last - ditch stand against the
Communists, the Prime Minister called for "negotiations".
The CEF took the iew 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 employees
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 performance to those on
strike, it was argued. The CEF replied they would cope the
best they could. That evening shocking and tangible
justification of the Prime Minister's concern for the danger
to the CEF was forth coming.

"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 of the dispute.

"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 supplied meals to the strikers for weeks, was damaged.
Several Ceylonese firms - Car Mart, United Tractors,
Tuckers, Bousteads - against whom the CNUF 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.

There was pandemonium for forty minutes. Then the
police returned and restored order. It was a very costly forty
minutes. Thuggery had scored another.

"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
nationalise 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.
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."
; &n bsp; (PP. 27-32)

"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 reconveyed in June.

"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".

"This in turn increased the fervour of the Tamils for
a separate State." (Emphasis added)

"In May - June 1957, confronted by the threat of a mass
Satyagraha 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 Sinhala Hamudawa or 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
politician, too, had then shown signs of remorse. The
Minister of Lands had instructed his official to set apart
4000 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.

"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 Wadiyas intended to
accommodate the Tamils who would camp there to clear the
land for settlement.

"The Ministry could or would do nothing to counter this
forcible occupation. Once again the Government, by inaction,
gave it tacit sanction to a fait accompli carried out deliberately
and openly by people who seemed to be confident of being able
to flout authority wtth impunity. The squatters formed Action
Committees and proceeded to clear the land and settle in
according to the pattern set by the official settlers.

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 Silzhalese labourers were ready and
began the treatment on razidom passers, by who happened to
be Tamil, even before the real trek to Vavuniya began.
"But events znoved 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".
; (PP. 33-35)

"Community life in Polonnaruwa was completely
disorganized. The bazaar was soothing 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"

"The thugs displayed a temerity which was quite
unprecedented. They had complete assurance that the
police would never dare to open fire. The "Apey Aanduwa"
(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 goondas had developed a slick
technique of throwing dynamite. They carried it in their
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. (Emphasis added)

"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
made him tick. The goondas burnt two men alive, one at
Hingurakgoda, and the other at Minneriya.

"On the night of May 25, one of the most heinous crimes
in the history of Ceylon was earried out. Almost
simultaneously, on the Government farms at Polonnaruwa
and Hingurakgoda, the thugs struck remorselessly. The
Tamil labourers in the Polonaruwa sugar cane plantation
fled when they saw the enemy approaching and hid in the
sugar cane bushes. The goondas 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
katties, or pulped under heavy clubs.

"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 znass
murders on that night were frightening: 150 - 200 was a
quick guess on the basis of forty famillies 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.

The hoodlums were, now motorized. They rnamed the
district in trucks, smashing up kiosks and houses and
killing any Tamils who got in their way.

"On the morning of May 26, the expected Emergency had
not yet been proclaimed. The situation in Polonnaruwa
seemed beyond hope. Government Agent Aluwihare, A.S.P.
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." (emphasis added)

"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 goondas were enjoying themselves, hooting, hurling
obscenities at the police and 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." (Emphasis Added)

"They were still confident that Apey Aanduwa would not
shoot them down." (PP. 38 - 43)

"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 vigourously. 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:
(Emphasis added)

" 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. (Emphasis added)

"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 Sttion and the wrecking of the Batticaloa
- Colombo train and several other minor incidents."

"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."

"On Tuesday morning, May 27, at seven - fifteen a group
of citizens, 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." (Emphasis added)

"Even during the rush of communal killings that occured
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."

"While this discussion was going on, Colombo was on
fire. The goondas burnt fifteen shops in the Pettah and 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.

"The cry everywhere in the Sinhalese districts was
`Avenge the murder of Seneviratne'. Even the many
Sinhalese who had been appalled by the goondas' attacks
on Tamils and Tamil owned kiosks, now began to feel that
Tamils had put themselves beyond the pale. Across the
eountry this new mood of deep-seated racism surged. The
Prime Minister's peace call to the Nation had turned into a
war cry."

"While the Prime Minister was telling the citizens'
delegation it was an `exaggeration to call the situation an
emergency' in every village from Kalawewa to Nalanda
people's houses were in flames."
; (PP. 44 - 51 )

"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 flrm, urgent
action."

"Shortly after noon on May 27, the Governor General
proclaimed that a State of Emergency had arisen in
Ceylon."
; (PP.54 - 55)

"With the announcement of the emergency came the
simultaIieous imposition of press censorship and the
appointment of an Information Officer as Competent
Authority for this purpose.

Two hours later the editors of the newspapers were
invited to a conferenee by M. J. Perera, the Competent
Authority. He met them at the head of the stairs and by the
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.

" `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".

"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.

"That conference will live in my memory for a long while.
It was farce at it's most accomplished. Fróm the moment
we entered ueen'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. We were a motley crowd, perhaps the
most clad informally visitors to enter those marbled halls.
We were met at the door by a glamorous aratchi who wore
a quaint little tortoise - shell comb in his hair. He passed
us on to resplendent senior aratchi who wore a fancy
waistcoat of more intricate design. He wore his hair in a bun
and mantilla comb of enormous dimensions ornmented his
coiffure. The ridiculousness 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 ueen's House.

"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.,
K.C.V.O., K.B.E., was already trying out his lines.

"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'.

"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 it's cradle.

"I was defmitely 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.

"I watched silently marvelling at the facility with which
Sir Oliver had slipped into the old `O.E.G.' role which he
played with such extravagant distinction as Civil Defence
Commissioner during the World War Two.

"The only difference.
; (PP. 68 - 71 )

"News trickled out from Queen's House that the
Governor - General had announced, off the record at the
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. "' (Emphasis added)

"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 accomodated the
Sinhalese evacuees from Jaffna. Perhaps it was bad politics
for Sinhalese politicians to be seen commiserating with
Tamil refugees."
; (PP. 79-88)

"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 momentous question: Have the Sinhalese and the
Tamils reached the parting of the ways?" (P. 117)

"Emergency' 58 ends with a question: `Have we come to
the parting of the ways?'

"Many thoughtful people believe we have" (p.8)