{"id":245164,"date":"2026-01-01T01:05:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T19:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=245164"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:28:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:58:33","slug":"alternative-take-douglas-devananda-rebel-sri-lankan-patriot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/alternative-take-douglas-devananda-rebel-sri-lankan-patriot\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Take: Douglas Devananda, Rebel & Sri Lankan Patriot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dayan Jayatilleka<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka<\/p><\/div>\n

I have no intention of even implicitly commenting on the legality of the ongoing incarceration of Douglas Devananda.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve no legal background, and that\u2019s because, having been selected for the Law Faculty at the University of Colombo on the basis of my A level results, I opted to study Political Science instead. I did so because I had an acute sense of the asymmetry between the law and justice and had developed a growing compulsion on issues of ethics\u2014issues of right and wrong, good and evil.<\/p>\n

However, as someone who has had a book published in the UK on political ethics, I have no compunction is saying that as a country, as a society, there has to be a better way than what\u2019s befalling Douglas Devananda<\/a><\/span>.\"\"<\/p>\n

It is morally and ethically wrong, indeed a travesty, that Douglas, a wounded hero of the anti-LTTE war, should spend New Year 2026 in the dreaded Mahara prison.<\/p>\n

Douglas should be honoured as a rare example of a young man, who having quite understandably taken up arms to fight against Sinhala racism and for the Tamil people, decided while still a young man to opt to fight on the side of the democratic Sri Lankan state and to campaign for devolution for the North and East within the framework of a united Sri Lanka and its Constitution. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Douglas was an admired young leader of the PLA, the military wing of the Marxist EPRLF<\/a><\/span> when he\u00a0 <\/span>began to be known. That\u2019s when I first knew him and the capacity in which I first knew him.<\/p>\n

Nothing is more ironic than the historical fact that in July 1983 he survived the horrifying Welikada prison massacres, during which Sinhala prisoners, instigated and incentivized from outside (Gonawela Sunil is a name that transpired), slaughtered Tamil prisoners and gauged out their eyes.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having escaped from jail in Batticaloa, Douglas came back to Sri Lanka in 1989, having had a change of heart after hundreds of youngsters belonging to the EPRLF, PLOT, and TELO had been massacred from 1986 onwards by the hardcore separatist, totalitarian Tigers. He was welcomed by President Premadasa and Minister Ranjan Wijeratne who took him and his \u2018boys\u2019 under their wing. There are photos of Douglas in shorts and carrying an automatic weapon, accompanying Ranjan Wijeratne and the Sri Lankan armed forces after the liberation of the islands off Jaffna from the Tiger grip.<\/p>\n

It is Douglas who kept those vital islands safe, together with the Navy, throughout the war.<\/p>\n

Douglas stayed with the democratic Sri Lankan state, remaining loyal to the elected president of the day, without ever turning on his or her predecessor. He probably still wears, as he did for decades, the fountain pen that President Premadasa gifted him.<\/p>\n

During the LTTE\u2019s offensive on Jaffna after the fall of Elephant Pass, the mass base built up by Douglas which gave the EPDP many municipal seats, helped keep Jaffna itself safe, with more Tamil civilians fleeing into Jaffna than out of it. I recall President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga giving him a satellite phone. Army Chief Lionel Balagalle gave him a pair of mini-Uzis for his safety.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Douglas was no paramilitary leader, pure and simple. His public speech on the occasion of the 50th<\/sup><\/span> anniversary of the founding of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, delivered without a teleprompter, is an excellent roadmap for the graduated implementation of the 13th<\/sup><\/span> amendment and the attainment of maximum devolution within a unitary state.<\/p>\n

Like Chandrika, Douglas has had his sight severely impaired by the LTTE. As a Minister he had visited Tamil detainees imprisoned in wartime, and been set upon by a group of LTTE prisoners who had planned for his visit, concealing sharpened handles of steel buckets in the ceiling, and slammed the pointed metal through his skull. Douglas still needs repeated daily medication for his eyes which were miraculously saved by the Sri Lankan surgeons who repaired his skull, but at a subsequent stage, he was also treated by surgeons overseas.<\/p>\n

No Sri Lankan, Sinhala or Tamil, civilian politician or military brass, has survived as many attempted assassinations by the Tigers as has Douglas. I believe the count is eleven. There\u2019s a video somewhere of a suicide bomber blasting herself in his office, yards away from him.<\/p>\n

Under no previous Sri Lankan administration since the early 1980s has Douglas found himself behind bars. He has served and\/or supported seven democratic Presidents: Premadasa, Wijetunga, Chandrika, Mahinda, Sirisena, Gotabaya and Wickremesinghe. He has been a Minister over decades and a parliamentarian for longer.<\/p>\n

He was a firm frontline ally of the Sri Lankan state and its armed forces during the worst challenge the country faced from the worst enemy it had since Independence.<\/p>\n

During my tenure\u00a0 <\/span>as Sri Lanka\u2019s ambassador\/Permanent representative to the UN Geneva, Douglas Devananda came from Colombo to defend Sri Lanka in discussions with high level UN officials including UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanethem Pillay. This was in April 23, mere weeks before the decisive battle of the UN HRC Special session on Sri Lanka which we won handsomely. The media release<\/a> <\/span>on his visit reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2018A high-level delegation led by the Hon. Minister Douglas Devananda, Minister of Social Services and Social Welfare, which also included the Hon. Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services, H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Ambassador\/ Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, and Mr. Yasantha Kodagoda, Deputy Solicitor General, Attorney General’s Department, represented Sri Lanka at the Durban Review Conference. <\/i><\/p>\n

Organized by the United Nations, the Durban Review Conference provides an opportunity to assess and accelerate progress on implementation of measures adopted at the 2001 World Conference against Racism, including assessment of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. On the opening day of this conference, Hon. Douglas Devananda made a statement behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka.<\/i><\/p>\n

On the sidelines of the Durban Review Conference which is being held from 20th to 24th of April 2009, the Sri Lankan delegation met with senior UN officials, and a number of dignitaries from diverse countries and updated them on the current situation in Sri Lanka against the backdrop of Sri Lanka\u2019s fight against separatism and terrorism.<\/i><\/p>\n

Hon. Devananda and Hon. Bathiudeen, along with the rest of the delegation, held meetings with Ms. Navanethem Pillai, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (and a former Prime Minister of Portugal) and Mr. Anders Johnsson, Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

In contemporary world history, a leader from a minority community who defends the unity of his country against a separatist terrorist force deriving from that minority is hailed as a hero. A leader who takes the side of the democratic state, arms in hand, against a totalitarian fascistic foe, is hailed as a hero. Evidently, not so in current-day Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

I know the JVP and I know Douglas. He can be killed, or his health can be made to kill him through criminal neglect, inattention, and conditions of incarceration. But he won\u2019t, can\u2019t be broken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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