By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

When the despotic J.R.Jayawardene completed his 12 year term in 1989, and became unable to contest for a third term, he sponsored R.Premadasa who was the Prime Minister at that time to contest as UNP’s presidential candidate in the 1989 election. The JVP which was carrying out a terror campaign during this time except in the Northern and Eastern provinces urged the people not to vote in the election and threatened to shoot those who proceeded to vote.  The UNP welcomed this dreadful JVP decree as it has been found by UNP intelligent sources that Mrs, Bandaranaike will get a massive voting percentage from the South, particularly from the village areas and the prevention of this Southern village votes to a maximum extent will ensure the victory of Mr, Premadasa.

When voting started in the morning those who proceeded to vote in several village areas in fact were shot and killed by the JVP and this prevented the people in the villages from casting their votes.  In certain areas including in the North and East and urban areas UNP hooligans stuffed ballot boxes and the security forces were also alleged to have helped in this rigging exercise. Ultimately Mr. Premadasa won in this barricaded election bya slim majority which did not reflect the true mandate of the people.  That is why Mrs. Bandaranaike without accepting the results of the election said that she neither lost the election nor Mr. Premadasa won the election.

The Premadasa period was a horrendous and dreadful era in Sri Lanka in which the JVP hooligans and the government sponsored terrorist groups such as ‘Pra’ ‘Yellow Cats’, ‘Black Cats’ and some other groups carried out a killing spree throughout the country except in the North and East excluding the Ampara district. Lives of many youth who could have been valuable assets to our country were lost untimely by these acts. It was well known at that time the ‘Pra’ group was led by a notorious Minister in the present government who received a sum of Rs.50,000/= per head of a slain youth branded as a JVP activist.

It was also extremely dangerous and unsafe to venture out from the houses during this time owing to rounding up and getting subjected to the scrutiny by Goni Billas, a new species of identifiers invented in the Premadasa era who checked one by one of the lined up people by remaining under the cover of a gunny bag with two holes parallel to the eye area for the man in the gunny bag to observe the man or the woman coming in front of him.  The Ratnapura district UNP MP the late Mr. Gamini Ratnatilleke stated in the Parliament prior to his demise that some of the JVP MPs in the Parliament functioned as Goni Billas and betrayed their own supporters.

Another significant event that took place during the Premadasa era was a despicable honeymoon he had with Tiger terrorist leaders at the Hilton Hotel in Colombo.  The heavily armed terrorist participants in the talks were provided air transport and with other forms leisure and sumptuous meals.

Subsequent to these honeymoon talks, the President at the request of the terrorists ordered more than 600 Police officers in the East to surrender to the LTTE saying that they will be provided safe passage to the South by the terrorists. Despite his promise what happened was the surrendered Police officers were rounded up, taken to the jungles with their hands tied behind, shot and brutally killed and buried in the jungle in mass graves by the terrorists.

Consequent to the notorious Premadasa-terrorist honeymoon, the President shamelessly provided sophisticated arms, ammunition, war material, cement and huge sums of money to the LTTE terrorists regardless of extensive opposition from the security forces.  These materials were used by the terrorists only against our security forces.

It was under the Premadasa regime that the LTTE terrorists expelled around 100,000 Muslims and several thousand Sinhala people who were living in the North for centuries and forced them to languish in the Puttalam, Kurunegala and several other districts. The expelled Sinhala people languished in the Matara district. It was also under the Premadasa regime that the LTTE terrorists carried out massacres of Muslims in the East and in the Polonnaruwa district including massacre to over 100 Muslim worshippers at the Kattankudy mosque.

During this time, in 1988/1989 there were massive repression of youth in the South and the sight of youngsters being burnt on tyre pyres on either sides of the main roads, and dead bodies of youth floating in the rivers were a common daily sight.  The son of a cousin brother of mine in Weligama was killed since his father was a staunch SLFP supporter.  The son of a Sinhala lady from Karagoda-Uyangoda, in Thihagoda known to our family was rescued at the last minute by the intervention of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa from a torture camp in Ranna. He was a vegetable seller and his crime was to be in Ranna area possessing an NIC bearing a Matara address when there was a Goni Billa roundup in Ranna.  After he was rescued, I found that he had several burnt marks and fresh wounds on his body and he said that those marks and wounds were caused by hot iron rods placed on his body during interrogations.

Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse told a media conference once that he personally saw 28 bodies of youth being burnt on tyre pyres on a single day between Meddawatte in Matara and Nonagama Handiya in Hambantota. There were many torture camps similar to the Ranna camp throughout the South and the Batalanda camp, that was allegedly being operated under supervision of Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe became very popular due to the fact that the Attorney at Law Wijedasa Liyanarachchi from the Beliatte area was taken there and killed after being subjected to severe torture   Two SLFP candidates who were contesting for the 1989 General Election – Mr. Hussain Hadjiar of Weligama and Attorney at Law Ratnayake of hakmana – were also killed during this period. There was also a torture camp in the Akuressa area being carried out under the supervision of the then Minister Dayananda Wickremasinghe. The JVP rebellion, its 2^nd uprising by them was quelled on 11^th November 1989 by the arrest and killing of all its politbureau members except Samawansa Amarasinghe, who fled the country by boat. It was claimed that the JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was killed by throwing him alive into the cremation chamber

at the Kanatte cemetery.

It is believed that over 60,000 youth lost their lives during this two year period.  The so-called international community without any concrete proof claims that 40,000 Tamils lost their lives during the last stages of the war.  Why these nincompoops are totally silent about the 88-89 massacres? Why the JVP hooligans, most of itd leaders have become super rich by now, are also not talking about these massacres despite most of these youth lost their lives because of the support they blindly extended to the JVP

President Premadasa was so engrossed in superstitious belief and it was said at that time that he bathed some virgins with several gallons of milk and sacrificed them somewhere in the Kataragama area to overcome his bad omens.  It was also stated that there was a Malayali Guru, spiritual leader working for him and he did everything as per the advice of this spiritual leader and this Guru used to chant some sutras to President’s chair daily before he sat on the chair..

Meanwhile, on the request of the LTTE, as the IPKF was very harsh on LTTE carders and killing them using the Tamil National Army created by them, Premadasa suddenly ordered the IPKF to leave the country. It took some months for them to leave the country.

In the mean time, opposition to Premadasa’s rule mounted within the UNP itself and Ministers Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake submitted an impeachment motion against Premadasa citing many malpractices and atrocities committed by him misusing the powers of the President.  The impeachment was not successful and it forced Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake to leave the UNP and form a new political party under the name of Democratic United National Front, the DUNF, with the support of many UNP MPs and party stalwarts.

However, the LTTE which accomplished all their requirements through Premadasa had doubts about him and believed that he would certainly turn against them very soon and the UNP should be led by one of their confidantes.  Therefore, they groomed one suicide cadre named Babu in Premadasa’s house itself as one of his trustworthy assistants to be used at the right time. It is said that the megalomaniac Prabhakaran only trusted Ranil Wickremasinghe as a trustworthy person in the UNP hierarchy since he had cordial relationship with many prominent Tamils in U.S.A and Singapore.

When the right time came Babu went into action at Armour Street junction while Premadasa was performing crowd controlling of the `May Day participants. Many of the President’s loyal colleagues and the President lost their lives in this suicide bomb blast.

Mr. D.B.Wijetunga who was the Prime Minister at that time became the Acting President  following the killing of Premadasa and he had no intention of continuing in the post or contest in the next presidential election.  Subsequently, the LTTE carried out suicide bomb attacks on Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake when he came forward as the next presidential candidate of the UNP thereby eliminating all rivals of Ranil Wickremasinghe in the UNP and making him the undisputed crown prince of the UNP.

(Continued on Part IV)