For everlasting remembrance – Mr. Joseph Jayamanne, Chartered Mechanical Engineer
Posted on October 5th, 2013
By Mario Perera, Kadawata
‚ They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Today the 6th October is the 26th death anniversary of Mr. Joseph Jayamanne who was the General Manager of Lanka Cement and the principal project manager and constructor of the Kankesanturai Cement Factory. The account of his tragic death is narrated in the book -ËœThe broken palmyrah-â„¢ under the heading: The night of shame. Here is the quotation.
The Broken Palmyrah (University of Jaffna, Jaffna, Sri Lanka). The Night of Shame -” page 90.
-At that time Mr. Jayamanne, the General Manager (GM) and Mr. Gajanayake , the Deputy GM of Lanka Cement Ltd (or L.C. L.) were in Jaffna for the recommissioning of L.C.L.-â„¢s plant at K.K.S. The plant had been closed on 22nd April when an LTTE attack on K.K.S. harbour had resulted in the deaths of 18 Sri Lankan troops and the reprisal killing of five L.C.L. employees by the Sri Lankan Army. Seventy other employees then working at the harbor were saved by the timely action of the ship captain, a Sinhalese, who fearing reprisals by Sri Lanka troops, promptly took the aboard his ship and put out to sea. ‚ The two cement plants at K.K.S. suffered considerable damage during the shelling of the subsequent months. In an unprecedented move which earned him the gratitude of the employees, Mr. Jayamanne took the lead in ensuring that even the casual employees of the two cement plants were paid during the long period of closure. Even those who did not agree with his methods of management, respected him as an able and enthusiastic engineer. On the previous day, Mr. Jayamanne had seen off some C.E.B. (Ceylon electricity Board) engineers whom he had persuaded to come to Jaffna in order to commission a new transformer for L.C.L. MR.Jayamanne was amongst those Singhalese who believed that Jaffna had a great future following the Indo-Lanka Accord. H was hopeful of restarting the L.C.L Plant the following day.
On the 5th night, Jayamanne and Gajanayake were having a friendly after-dinner chat with several colleagues including engineers Sothilingam, Velayutham, and Arivalagan at the L.C.L, guest house. Around mid-night several armed men burst into the guest-house and wanted to take Jayamanne and Gajanayake away. Their colleagues protested. Velayuthan who protested strenuously was badly assaulted. Jayamanne and Gajanayake were finally taken away and their dead bodies were found opposite the Cement Corporation gates the following morning-.
For the record, Mr. Jayamanne and Mr. Gajanayake were brutally murdered, shot through their foreheads and their sarong clad bodies were ignominiously and humiliatingly exposed to public gaze. Such was the brutal end of a man who provided sustenance to a sector of the Jaffna Tamil population. The bereaved wife and only daughter waited in vain for something or anything of their beloved husband and father for burial, but no intimation ever reached them from Jaffna from the perpetrators. This was all the more heart rending considering that Mr, Jayamanne had left his wife and infant daughter to live in Jaffna and personally supervise the construction work of the cement plant. Such was his sense of dedication.
A short time after the brutal murders, I met S. J. Emmanuel, Catholic priest and terror ideologist of the L.T.T.E., the male counterpart of Adele Balasingham, for just as Adele B tied the cyanide capsule around the necks of suicide squads, Emmanuel preached the opening of the gates of heaven for them. Emmanuel it will be remembered is presently the head of the Global Tamil Forum now living in Germany. My casual meeting with Emmanuel took place under an arcade of Fort, Colombo. I requested information from him regarding that fateful night. He answered with a passive face and emotionless voice that he -ËœKNEW-â„¢ of it but could not say anything more! To this day the Jayamanne‚ and Gajanayake families are in the dark as to the sequence of events that followed this wanton unpardonable crime.
It is reported that the K.K.S. Cement Factory is due to commence work soon. Now that the new provincial council has become operative, I would request the Chief Minister to fill the void of the last 26 years, by offering his regrets and condolences for the dastardly act of the L.T.T.E to the wives and children of the slain personalities. I further request him to recognize the immense contribution of Mr. Jayamanne towards the establishment of the K.K.S.Cement factory and harbour (also constructed by Mr. Jayamanne) by erecting a statue in his honour on the Cement Factory site.
Mario Perera, Kadawata
October 5th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
Govt. doesn’t have the backbone to restart the KKS cement factory.
It can replace all cement imports.
October 6th, 2013 at 5:11 am
Thank you Mario P for this in memory of those who scarified their lives for the development in the North. I hope the GoSL will now embark to restart the project with a technical / financial package of instruction to the Chief Minister of the North. Let us see how he performs for the benefit of his immediate subjects and those at large – S de Silva – London
October 6th, 2013 at 12:32 pm
Mario,
You expect Vigneswaran, the dedicated Eelamist who spoke volumes praising Velupillai Prabhakaran during the PC Election, to honor Mr. Jayamanne with a statute?
If you do, I have a suspension bridge in New York I would like to sell to you … Going Cheap … cents on the dollar!
These Racists of the TNA will now show their TRUE COLORS at the helm of the Northern PC. Let us give them ENOUGH ROPE to HANG themselves.
In the meantime, even MR is anticipating that the Tiger Nominated Agents of the TNA CANNOT be TRUSTED to shed their separatist STRIPES; that is why he is putting in place a District System of local administration (he has appointed a “District Minister” for each district cutting across PC administrations) to replace the Provincial Council System.
Watch closely how the Provincial administrators lose power and funds as the District administrations grow to supplant them … Now you see it, now you don’t!
I had long advocated physically smaller units of governance, such as Districts, directly administered by the central government … as a barrier to the separatist tendencies of the Eelamists. I FERVENTLY hope & pray that the DISTRICT System will be fully implemented and the PC System torn down by revoking the 13th Amendment in the future.
October 6th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
My latest broadside in the debate with the Unqualified Critic at Economist.com article “Harder Lines”:
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Unqualified Critic in reply to Ananda-Sinha Oct 4th, 18:14
If I’m just unqualified, what does that amount your false logic to? Also, if the Tamils are NAZI’s (to which I stick to my guns in that that analogy is about as tired as your logic must be in coming up with random nouns for a “comparison”), then the Sinhalese aren’t exactly exuding themselves as much better. Unfortunately, in the context of history, people are not judged by their ancestor’s full resume, but rather what they last did. Example being Germany.
For history will judge the Sri Lanken Sinhalese not by their victory, but by how they treated the Tamils afterwards.
The cap is decent, but personally I always preferred; if the shoe fits, wear it.
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Ananda-Sinha in reply to Unqualified Critic
Unqualified Critic,
You still have not logically explained where my logic is false; Just repeating the assertion does not make it so.
The Sinhalese have acquitted themselves very well in the Eelam war. Even the 1983 riots for which the Eelamists pillory the Sinhalese came after years of hit-and-run attacks against the Sinhala community and was triggered when the bodies of 13 soldiers killed by the LTTE Eelamists was brought from Jaffna to Colombo. Since then, there has not been ONE riot against the Tamils in Sri Lanka despite 30 years of murder and mayhem inflicted by the Tamil Eelamists after that 1983 riot.
During those 30 years, buses and trains were bombed blasting hundreds at a time to shreds; entire villages of people were sliced and diced in the dark of the night to inflict maximum terror in their ethnic cleansing program; the World Trade Center was bombed in Colombo killing and maiming hundreds of people … well before the terror of 9/11 in New York; the Central Bank was truck-bombed killing and maiming thousands as in the the Oklahoma City bombing; Mumbai style attacks were launched against places of religious worship to kill as many people as possible, including Buddhist priests; political leaders … moderate Tamils and Sinhalese … were assassinated routinely to terrorize the political leadership of Sri Lanka into impotence; car bombs became commonplace until the citizens of Sri Lanka could not expect to return home on any given day; and blood ran in the streets until over 150,000 of Sri Lanka’s innocent citizens were sacrificed on the altar of the Racist Apartheid Tamil Eelam. But yet, the Sinhala people gritted their teeth, abided by the law and did not attack Tamil citizens.
Furthermore, when the LTTE terrorist army was skilfully cornered after a sustained 3 year military offensive and decisively crushed by leaf, branch, trunk and root along the banks of the Nanthikandal lagoon in May, 2009, the human shield of 300,000 Tamil captives they sought to hide behind were skillfully rescued by the Sri Lanka Army in the worlds largest hostage rescue operation. These people were housed, fed, medically treated, their children educated, given funds to rebuild the houses the LTTE destroyed, and were restored to their livelihoods by the Sinhala-majority Govt of Sri Lanka at largely Sinhala taxpayer expense. No other rehabilitation program in the world comes close to the rapidity of execution, and quality of care, and level of the rehabilitation of these war affected Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
These then, are some the reasons why your left-handed swipe at the Sinhala people of Sri Lanka smacks of ignorance and bias. It is that display of ignorance that makes you truly “unqualified”. Sticking to your guns on indefensible ignorant and false statements neither excuses you, nor redeems you.
The people of Sri Lanka are committed to equal rights for all of its citizens, but will not give additional benefits to any community that is unavailable other communities in Sri Lanka in the name of “diversity” that will ultimately pit its citizens against each other, as in India. Sri Lanka … which remained only one of two real democracies committed to equal rights for all citizens through 30 years of unremitting terrorist conflict … does not need the self-serving advice of foreign nations and Eelamist surrogates still plying their time honored agenda of divide-and-rule. Sri Lanka is committed to achieving its own native vision as ONE Indivisible Nation, of ONE Inseparable people, sharing ONE National Destiny on its way to transforming itself into the next Wonder of Asia.