{"id":115479,"date":"2013-11-22T12:09:30","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T06:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=115479"},"modified":"2013-11-26T14:25:33","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T08:55:33","slug":"the-maduru-oya-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-maduru-oya-fiasco\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maduru Oya Fiasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Rajan Hoole<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Rajan<\/a>

Rajan Hoole<\/p><\/div>\n

The Rise and Fall of the Tamil Militancy and\u00a0the International Legal Implications of the Government\u2019s\u00a0Counter-Insurgency – Part 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the last chapter, we touched on the drive initiated by leading officials in the Mahaveli Authority pre-emptively to settle Sinhalese\u00a0in the Maduru Oya Basin in the Batticaloa District. This area was to be developed under the Mahaveli Project. The story of this takes much of Herman Gunaratne<\/span><\/a>\u2019s book For a Sovereign State (FSS). The author should be complimented for an unusually frank narrative where he has been true to his perceptions. But after five years \u2013 roughly the period covered by the book \u2013 it was clear that his perceptions were in crisis. This was true of a large number in his class. What is particularly interesting about his book is that without being aware of it he tells us much about how leading Sinhalese politicians thought and operated.<\/p>\n

\n

The scholar-detectives of the Mahaveli Ministry, T.H. Karunatilleke and Hemapriya, found an eager disciple in Herman Gunaratne who on Dissanayake\u2019s invitation took up the job of Additional General Manager, CECB. Karunatilleke was Director of Planning. The scholar-detectives saw no end of Tamil conspiracies during July 1983 and its aftermath. A particular discovery of Karunatilleke\u2019s was that cunning Tamil surveyors in the Survey Department had been altering Sinhalese place names in the North-East to Tamil ones. One example was the supposed alteration of Kokkila to Kokkilai by adding an \u2018i\u2019. Had any one of them cared to look up the 1824 Census or books on Ceylon by Prideham or Tennant written in the first half of the 19th century before there were Tamil surveyors, they would have found the same names and even more Tamil names. They were capable of locating a Tamil menace under every bush and every stone, and went on to become the leading lights of Sri Lanka\u2019s administrative bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

\n

Gamini Dissanayake was a sophisticated player who had use for such zealots in his power game. The prestigious and lucrative Mahaveli Authority placed him almost at the top of succession stakes. Reviving the ancient glories of the Sinhalese with foreign loans and putting the Tamils in their place was the stuff of the game.<\/p>\n

Dissanayake\u2019s use of these zealots may be compared with going on a camping expedition with children. One gets more life and work out of the children by making them believe that the camp is surrounded by ferocious lions, and that they would all pull through the danger if they do their part diligently. It was not like Dissanayake to dampen their zeal by pouring cold water on their delusions. He rather encouraged them.<\/p>\n

In early August 1983, an alarmed Gunaratne informed Minister Dissanayake about ongoing large-scale organised Tamil encroachment in the Maduru Oya (River) basin, as reported by Mahaveli staff. It was hardly the time for Tamils to venture out into an insecure area. If there was any truth in the suggestion, it was an easy police matter. When Gunaratne requested that the Army be sent in, Dissanayake replied that the Army was otherwise engaged \u2018dealing with problems in the South and fighting terrorists in the North.\u2019 Dissanayake obviously did not believe Gunaratne\u2019s reports. He instead encouraged Gunaratne to settle some Sinhalese there unofficially.<\/p>\n

The factual position as reported by M. Anthonymuttu, GA Batticaloa, is also given in the book. The old villages in the area were Kallichenai and Oothuchenai. Under a government scheme in 1958, 685 acres of Paddy, Highland and residential allotments were opened up. On an understanding reached by\u00a0K.W. Devanayagam, the MP for the area, 10 persons of Indian origin were allotted land on the scheme. 48 families of Indian origin sent to Batticaloa after the 1977 riots were also allowed to settle in the area. There were also about 200 encroachments by the expanding population from the two named villages above on 600 acres of land. This was the general situation in the country, and according to Minister Dissanayake\u2019s order of 1979, these long-standing encroachments would have been regularised had they not been in an area coming under the Mahaveli Scheme. According to what had been the practice in Sinhalese areas, they should have been the first to receive land under the scheme.<\/p>\n

\n

Gunaratne was approached by a monk from Dimbulagala who had tried to settle Sinhalese in the area in 1974 and was made to retreat after protests by Tamils. The two then spoke to N.G.P. Panditharatne, a cautious man, who was UNP chairman and director general of the Mahaveli Project. He listened to the alarming stories related by them of ongoing massive Tamil encroachment in Maduru Oya and of the Minister\u2019s unofficial go-ahead to Gunaratne on settling Sinhalese. Panditharatne told the monk to deal with Gunaratne in future and not to come to him again. He kept himself behind the scenes and ensured that money and vehicles for the task were released by the Mahaveli Authority. The monk shortly afterwards placed an advertisement in the Sinhalese daily Dawasa calling for applicants for land in Maduru Oya.<\/p>\n

The Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi, in the latter half of August, sent her envoy Gopalasamy Parthasarathy to talk to the different parties and to examine possible means to a political solution. Parthasarathy naturally called on Dissanayake. The discussion was no doubt conducted on the friendliest of terms with the utmost courtesy displayed by both sides.<\/p>\n

Hemapriya who was hanging about came in after Parthasarathy left and asked the Minister if Parthasarathy was \u2018zeroing down on land.\u2019 Dissanayake said gravely that it was so. Hemapriya told him anxiously that he held the keys to the problem and should not yield \u2018one inch of our land.\u2019 Dissanayake affirmed that he would yield nothing. He then dropped a strong hint meant for Gunaratne that he was disappointingly slow about settling people in Maduru Oya. Dissanayake could of course have told Hemapriya that India was committed to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

\n

and was constrained by international law, and so could be handled without fear by sensible dealing. But Dissanayake preferred to pretend to the children that the camp was being stalked by wild beasts. To the children, Parthasarathy\u2019s mission was presented as one to carve out Tamil Eelam.<\/p>\n

From 1st September 1983, a band rising to 40,000 Sinhalese poor trooped into Maduru Oya, led by the Dimbulagala monk. This resulted in pandemonium. There was protest by the Tamil leaders, adverse publicity in the Indian Press and crossfire in the local media between the Tamil Home Affairs Minister William Devanayagam, also MP for the area, and Gamini Dissanayake. Dissanayake had very likely wanted something more discreet and had not expected this sensational outcome. But he was clearly open to the possibilities the unexpected development offered his career.<\/p>\n

Panditharatne played his game from behind the scenes by telephoning a top defence official, probably the Defence Secretary, and getting the names of naval officers dismissed recently. The dismissals pertain to the indiscipline and arson in Trincomalee by naval personnel, during and before Black July. These persons were contacted by Gunaratne with a view to settling them in Maduru Oya. They were to spearhead the formation of a citizen army by finding another three dozen or so ex-servicemen and training the other settlers in armed combat. It had all the hallmarks of a crusade.<\/p>\n

In early October Gamini Dissanayake decided to cash in by playing the legendary \u2018Sinhalese\u2019 hero Duttu Gemunu (Gamini), and in the process steal a march on his rivals for the top job. He called a private meeting of leading Sinhalese businessmen. Dissanayake spoke to them about the prospect of Indian intervention. He then had an unnamed gentleman explain the threat of Tamil Eelam and their proposed means of thwarting it by establishing Sinhalese settlements in the Yan Oya (River) and Malwathu Oya basins (north-east and north- west respectively), thus breaking the contiguity of the Tamil-speaking region. Dissanayake added that he had recruited dismissed naval officers to organise the security of the Maduru Oya settlement and proposed that the settlements at Yan Oya and Malwathu Oya be done in the same manner.<\/p>\n

One cautious businessman, Dasa Mudalali, asked if this plan had the President\u2019s consent\u00a0and reminded the others that if not it was doomed. Dissanayake replied that not only did the President know, but that he would also get a contribution from the President\u2019s fund. Rs. 3.5 million was pledged between them. Dissanayake gave Nawaloka Mudalali the task of naming the fund and finding the astrologically correct time to inaugurate it. This was duly done on the morn of 16th October with Mrs. Dissanayake serving milk-rice and Nawaloka Mudalali presenting a cheque. The cheque was never cashed.<\/p>\n

\n

The next day Dissanayake panicked and disowned having anything to do with the Maduru Oya settlement. How Dissanayake misjudged Sri Lanka\u2019s position then is quite remarkable. Apparently, Dissanayake, a close lieutenant of Jayewardene, had never discussed the matter with him explicitly. According to Gunaratne, during Dissanayake\u2019s long silence, some of his rivals had persuaded Jayewardene that the Maduru Oya affair was a conspiracy against him. Jayewardene decided to crack down and appointed Paul Perera and a Colonel Benedict Silva of the Volunteer Force to have the settlers removed.<\/p>\n

One sympathises with Gunaratne, because he seldom sees through the deviousness of big- time politicians. It cannot be that President Jayewardene was fooled about what was going on in Maduru Oya from 1st September to 16th October. It had been all over the Press and was the talk in the diplomatic circuit. In such matters Jayewardene would not have known in full detail what was going on and would not have wanted to know. With Minister Devanayagam, among others, complaining, he would have had to go through the motions of sorting it out.<\/p>\n

Dissanayake must have given Jayewardene some hints of what was going on and received what he took to be implicit approval. There were no differences between Jayewardene and Dissanayake on the objectives \u2013 e.g. the Weli Oya Scheme that followed. The establishment is after all very familiar with such methods. In doing something controversial one encourages a subordinate to stick his neck out, keeps a safe distance and keeps one\u2019s options open on whether to take credit or to disown the affair. In the latter event, a minion\u2019s neck was sent to the chopper. That is what ultimately happened to Cyril Mathew, and to Gunaratne in the present instance.<\/p>\n

Consequently, in the power game of snakes and ladders Gamini Dissanayake took a tumble\u00a0down the belly of a snake. Lalith Athulathmudali sold himself as the man-of-the-hour and went up a ladder as Minister for National Security in March 1984. Gunaratne spent some days in a police cell to be interrogated by the rising star ASP Ronnie Gunasinghe, and then left the Mahaveli Authority. When Dissanayake went up a ladder again, it was as a favourite of India negotiating the Indo-Lanka Accord. Jayewardene let Athulathmudali and Dissanayake pursue their own courses and kept his options open. Such totally unprincipled pursuit of personal rivalries would prove the bane of peace in Sri Lanka for years to come. Going from anti-India to pro-India like Dissanayake was the most normal thing in this game. Often the people, and particularly the minions, were left angry and disoriented.<\/p>\n

\n

As regards the Maduru Oya fiasco, what very likely happened was that Jayewardene faced an unexpected crisis. The Government could have settled 500 Sinhalese in the area over a few months and possibly have got away with it. It has been happening much of the time around Trincomalee and it is tiresome for a minority community devoid of state power to follow these up and fight them out. But an envisaged armed camp of 40,000 settlers was too much. Sparks were flying and even the Government could not have made it viable. And what was a pittance of 3.5 million rupees raised from Sinhalese Mudalalis wary of planetary influences?<\/p>\n

Even worse, the Indian Government would have felt snubbed when it was trying to negotiate a political settlement. The Sri Lankan Government too would have looked utterly ridiculous and irresponsible, first hammering the Tamils in the South and then setting up armed camps of Sinhalese in the North-East where the Tamils had some security. Donor countries too would have been put off. When the seriousness of it was brought home to Jayewardene, he had no other option. It was a gamble of Dissanayake\u2019s that had simply gone too far.<\/p>\n

In early October when Panditharatne sensed that an evacuation of Maduru Oya was in the offing, he sent Karunatilleke and Hemapriya to the North to identify new areas where the crusaders in Maduru Oya could be moved. The evacuation of Maduru Oya was taken care of by the forces of nature rather than by forces of the State. The monsoon rains came down and the plain was flooded \u2013 a prospect which the\u00a0country\u2019s leading managers of water resources had overlooked. Blinded by ideological objectives high on their mind, these scientists forgot their very fundamentals, which every native peasant was keenly aware of.<\/p>\n

\n

T.H. Karunatilleke duly identified the Kent and Dollar Farms area in the Mullaitivu District where refugees from the Hill Country region had been helped to start a new life after the 1977 violence. There were also long standing native Tamil villages. Given the situation in the country, Tamil militants too visited the area. Although Karunatilleke makes much of this, he was then able to visit the area as a government official along with the Sinhalese Additional GA, Vavuniya, without anticipating any security risk.<\/p>\n

The main burden of Karunatilleke\u2019s report was from the same feverish imagination that launched the Maduru Oya fiasco: That there \u00a0\u00a0was continuing planned Tamil encroachment in the area that would prevent the Sinhalese colonisation scheme at Padaviya \u2013 another fait accompli in the 1950s \u2013 from expanding into the Northern Province. It was this mindset, backed by state power, which finally turned an essentially peaceful area into a killing field.<\/p>\n

\n

Karunatilleke\u2019s report of 12th October 1983 concluded thus:<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly request these illicit settlements and anti-national activities be probed into and suitable action taken. Their existence will not only prevent the expansion of the habitat of the people living in this area on a planned basis, but also would pose a threat to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helped to set off the kind of brutalisation\u00a0leading to the rise of the Liberation Tigers.<\/p>\n

To be continued..<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong>From\u00a0Rajan Hoole<\/a><\/span>\u2018s \u201cSri Lanka: Arrogance of Power<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0– Myth, Decadence and Murder\u201d.\u00a0Thanks\u00a0to Rajan for\u00a0giving\u00a0us\u00a0permission to republish. To read\u00a0<\/em>earlier parts click\u00a0here<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":96860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Maduru Oya Fiasco - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-maduru-oya-fiasco\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Maduru Oya Fiasco - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-maduru-oya-fiasco\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-22T06:39:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-11-26T08:55:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Rajan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"94\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"110\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-maduru-oya-fiasco\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-maduru-oya-fiasco\/\",\"name\":\"The Maduru Oya Fiasco - 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