In our account of the events at Kanatte, we reached certain conclusions. The Government had decided to make the funeral a rousing occasion to be splashed in the media (including television). Ratnatunga’s account points to a different conclusion. Ratnatunga argues that Jayewardene intended a quiet and discreet funeral, and did not intend to capitalise on the deaths of the soldiers. While it may be true that the Government was vacillating, in the end, they decided on a public funeral. The responsibility for this decision must lie with Jayewardene. Ratnatunga argues that the decision to hold a public funeral was taken for practical reasons over which Jayewardene had no control.

According to Ratnatunga, it had been planned that the bodies would be sent to a funeral parlour, where members of the Cabinet could pay their respects discreetly. It is then claimed that Jayewardene’s security officer, Neil Weerasinghe, made an objection to the funeral parlour for security reasons. However, it appears that it would have been easier to ensure secu- rity in the funeral parlour rather than in the presence of a large crowd at the cemetery. It seems unlikely, however, that such an important decision during an extremely sensitive time could have been made without considering Jayewardene’s political motives. It must be re- membered that after these soldiers had died, some soldiers had gone on the rampage in Jaffna, killing 51 civilians. Honouring the dead soldiers in such a public way in the heart of Colombo was a crucial gesture. At the same time, the Gov- ernment refused to acknowledge the enormity of the massacre in Jaffna.

According to Ratnatunga another reason for a public funeral was the fact that the bodies were badly mutilated, and it was difficult to distin- guish individuals or even body parts (i.e. ‘what [part] was what’) (pp.12,14). According to the uncle of one of the deceased soldiers, whose tes- timony was referred to in Sect.9.4, this was not the position. The head of the lieutenant was out of shape, but the others were readily recognisable and certainly not in pieces. The decision to hold a military funeral in Colombo with full honours was ultimately taken in a discussion headed by Jayewardene without consid- ering the natural wishes of the families. The rea- son given to the families for a military funeral in Colombo was that the bodies had been mangled out of recognition, something that was untrue. This decision to have a public funeral led to great anger, since it prevented the fami- lies taking the bodies home for the customary private funeral.

The reasons given by both Ratnatunga and T.D.S.A. Dissanayake for the delay in bringing the bodies to Colombo for the funeral sched- uled for 5.00 PM are unsatisfactory. Ratnatunga cites a police message from Jaffna at 5.00 PM to the effect that JMO Jaffna caused the delay by wanting to perform autopsies on at least two bodies before releasing them. As with the bodies of the Welikade victims, it had evidently become awkward to dispose of the bodies without a legal procedure under ER 15A once they had come to the mortuary. But it would not have taken more than an hour or so to com- plete autopsies on two bodies. The real reason for the delay therefore lies with confusion among the organisers.