By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

The 1970 UF government carried out a tremendous volume of work to make Sri Lanka a sovereign State, towards making the country self sufficient in food items and establishment of industries and State institutions covering major fields of activities.  When many countries in the East African region called the Sahel rehion and other parts of the world faced a severe food crisis and people in those countries were suffering from malnutrition and scores of people died due to lack of food, people in Sri Lanka were saved from this calamity due to the extensive food production programme launched by the government to make the country self sufficient in food items.  Imports of chillies and onion were banned and the farmers in the North were provided facilities and incentives to grow these items and they became rich overnight. The World Food Programme (WFP) in due recognition of the food production programme of the government issued a Gold Medal with Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s photograph.

The Parliament forming into a Constitutional Assembly extensively discussed on adopting a new constitution for the country and thereby remove all vestiges of the imperialist domination and made Sri Lanka a free, independent and a sovereign State and restored the sovereignty of the people ending more than 5 centuries of foreign domination of the country. It also made Buddhism the State religion with due recognition for the religions worshipped by other communities in the country and thereby guaranteeing the religious freedom in the country.

Sri Lanka which was a prominent leader in the non-aligned world held the 5^th non-aligned summit of the Heads of States in September 1976 with the participation of 96 leaders of the non-aligned countries and this Summit accorded a massive recognition to Sri Lanka all over the world. During this time, the despicable opposition led by the UNP and supported by the west launched a massive disinformation campaign totally obscuring the progressive measures taken by the government and overtly highlighting the hardships faced by the people which was mainly due to the oil and food crises that prevailed all over the world at that time.

It was under these circumstances the UNP under the leadership of authoritarian J.R.Jayawardene launched its campaign of blatant lies, and illusory promises which included provision of 8 kilograms of cereals per person per week, establishment of a job bank to provide employments for everyone, etc, and a promise to establish a Dharmishta Rajya.

It created the most repressive regime in the country’s history, disenfranchised the citizenship rights of the Opposition Leader Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike and some others on concocted charges despite a huge opposition from the people of the country, unilaterally amended the constitution without any consent from the people and created an Executive Presidential Systen and the President claimed that he then posses all the powers except the power to change a man to a woman and vice versa.

The despicable J.R.Jayawardene destroying the whole demographic picture of Sri Lanka and shamelessly submitting to the request of CWC leader S.Thondman halted the repatriation of 625,000 Estate Tamils to India as it was agreed under the Sirima-Shastri agreement and granted all of them Sri Lanka citizenships.  This short sighted measure will deny the Sinhala MPs getting elected from the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts and from certain electorates in the Colombo, Kandy, Matale and Moneragala districts in the future.   The self appointed Indian Origin Tamils leader Mano Ganeshan has claimed that they should have 14 IOT MPs, and they will secure this number very soon. There is all possibility that they will also claim for an autonomous IOT enclave in the hill country in the near future thereby further compounding the horrendous ethnic problem.

Subsequently the government then held a bogus referendum to extend the term of Parliament and it was extensively rigged. For the first time in the history of Sri Lanka this repressive autocratic regime obtained undated resignation letters from all the government MPs to prevent any dissension and made the MPs subject to the dictates of the President.  Even the judiciary was subjected to high handed activities of the pro-government thugs such as Gonawila Sunil, Kalu Lucky, and several others having names of mammals, reptiles, and sea monsters as adjectives of their names.  The house of a judge who gave a ruling acquitting Mrs. Vivienne Gunawardene, the veteran LSSP politician from a case filed against her on an spurious charge was stoned by a mob led by Ranil Wickremasinghe’s chum Gonawila Sunil who was rewarded by making him an all island JP. Similarly other thugs and scoundrels who carried out filthy work for the government and the government politicians were rewarded with handsome gifts and privileges.

Parallel to the mob rule, Police repression were also rampant and widespread. People were unable to seek justice from the Police and the government MPs and their cronies ruled the areas and the Police officers who aided and abetted these activities were rewarded with promotions and other perks.

In the economic sphere, an open economic policy detrimental to the country was adopted, the value of Sri Lankan Rupee was floated against U.S.Dollar and other currencies, imports were liberalised thereby allowing imports of all any goods and material destroying all local industries established during 1960 – 1965 and 1970 – 1977 periods and most of the state industries and Corporations were privatised selling them to political cronies.

In 1983 following an ambush carried out by the tiger terrorists in the North 13 soldiers were brutally killed and this led to a pogrom against the Tamils, in which hundreds of Tamil civilians including women and children were killed, their residences, properties, business establishments and places of worship in Colombo and its suburbs were torched. These activities were carried out under the leadership of several government Ministers mainly assisted by the Minister of Industries Cyril Mathew with the connivance of JR who did not take any action to quell these riots for almost one week.

These atrocities forced many Tamils to flee the country to India, Britain, Canada, U.S.A, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and several other European countries in which they received immediate asylum.  This scenario led to their settlement in those countries and they became a staunch anti Sri Lankan community known as Tamil diaspora who are carrying out horrendous activities against Sri Lanka and are determined to destroy the Sri Lankan nation.  They have no intention to return to Sri Lanka leaving behind their luxurious lives in those countries and it is they who financed the LTTE war against Sri Lanka and partly financed the steps taken to depose Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse from power as he was responsible for vanquishing the LTTE militarily. They have already become powerful vote blocks for the Conservative and Labour parties in Britain and they have several elected members in the Canadian Parliament including Gary Anandasangaree, the son of former Kilinochchi MP V. Anandasangaree.

By 1987 our gallant security forces were successfully battling in the war front to liberate the country from the tiger terrorists under the Wadamarachchi operation with the wholehearted backing of the National Security Minister Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali and the tiger terrorists were on the verge of facing their waterloo under this operation.  It was at this crucial juncture J.R.Jayawardene ordered to halt the Wadamarachchi operation due to the threat posed by hegemonic India with their so-called ‘Parippu’ invasion.

JR with greediness to save his Presidency and remain in power consented to hold negotiations with the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, being totally unmoved by the sit-in protests held in Pettah against these negotiations under the leadership of Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike and joined by leaders of all political parties and people of all walks of life and the Maha Sangha.  The negotiations ended with the introduction of the despicable 13^th amendment to the constitution which paved the way for temporarily merging the Northern and Eastern provinces and for the establishment of the white elephant Provincial Councils under which Police and land powers can be granted to these Councils and enable them to function as independent federal units uncontrollable by the central government.  The negotiations also paved the way for sending several thousand Indian forces to Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern provinces as ‘Peace Keeping Forces’ to function independently under total Indian command.` Even some Ministers of the government such as Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Jayasuriya opposed these measures and  Mr. Jayasuriya being a patriotic politician relinquished his Ministerial portfolio and quit from politics.

(Continued on Part III)