Features

MY CAREER IN THE CCS

Published

1 year ago

2024/09/8

Thilina Walpola

Bogambara prison in Kandy

(Excerpted from Falling Leaves, an autobiographical anthology by LC Arulpragasam)

YOUNG CCS OFFFICER IN THE PROVINCES (1950s)

Any young officer in the government service should serve sometime in the provinces. This is necessary to observe the ways in which government services interact with the people. It is also a good preparation for higher posts in the government, where field-level experience is invaluable as a training to work at the national level. Moreover, at the field level, one can be lucky to see the results of one’s work; whereas at the departmental headquarters or ministry level, one’s work may be swept away by policy or other interventions. Hence, I was fortunate to serve in two Kachcheris in my cadetship of two years in the CCS, plus a posting of three years in a district. My stories spring from those years.

On Death Row in Kandy

One of the duties of the Government Agent (Kandy) was to ensure that the death sentences imposed by the Supreme Court were in fact carried out/executed. (I had always wondered how a man could be “executed”; in fact, it is only the sentence of death that is executed). Unfortunately, this too was a function passed on to me by the Government Agent, a very senior Burgher gentleman. He used to pass on many disagreeable functions to his podi putha, who was only a Cadet in training. So at the tender age of 23 years, I had to preside over the hanging of a man who had been sentenced to death by the Supreme Court for killing his wife.

In looking over the case, I found that the man concerned was an Indian estate laborer, who had committed a crime of passion. On entering his own house, he had found his wife sleeping with another man. In his rage, he had killed her – for which he had been sentenced to death by hanging. And it was up to me, as the representative of the government, to execute that sentence of death. According to the protocol, it is the forensic surgeon who has to certify that the victim is clinically dead, whereas I, as the agent of the Government, had to certify that the sentence of death had been carried out. Fortunately for me, I found that the forensic surgeon was Dr. Sourjah, who had been my team-mate in the University rugby team. So I hastily made a deal with him that I would not witness the hanging myself, but would depend on his certification of death to sign off on my duty – that the sentence of death had been carried out.

So early one morning at 5 a.m., with great trepidation, I entered the death row of the Bogambara prison in Kandy. I was taken to the sentenced man’s cell, but he was not there: for he was worshipping his God at the adjoining Hindu shrine. In accordance with tradition, the last night’s meal was to be a grand one, since it was to be his last on earth. But it was still on the table – untouched from previous night. Then the ‘dead man’ was brought in. He wore a white-hooded suit, with his hands and feet in chains. I looked at him – and I can hardly describe what I saw. His face, eyes and countenance were ethereal and luminous. He was glowing with a spirituality that I had never seen in any face before. In my mind, he had asked and had been given forgiveness by his God – and he was ready to go to the next world.

But what followed was even more devastating for me. He came up to me with his face glowing with this ethereal spirituality; he then fell at my feet and worshipped me, asking for my forgiveness. He had rendered his soul to his God: he was now rendering his body to Caesar, to me as the representative of the state. I rushed to raise him to his feet, almost apologizing to him for what I had to do. But he was ready to go and just wanted my blessing.

I did not look as he took his last walk to the gallows. But I could not avoid hearing the sickening drop of the trap-door, nor the jerk of the rope. As agreed with my friend the forensic surgeon, I did not look at the dead body. Based on his two-line report, I quickly signed that the convicted man had been hanged till he was dead, dead, dead – and rushed out of the building.

A sanitation program: But still taking to the bushes

My first appointment was as Cadet in the Kandy Kachcheri, under the Government Agent (GA) of the Central Province. The Government Agent happened to be Mr. N. E. Ernst, who was known to my father. He lived alone and was about to retire at that time. When I turned up at the Kachcheri, he found a ‘podi putha’ to whom he could delegate all his unwanted ceremonial work and disagreeable field inspections.

The Government had started a sanitation program in the 1950s making a grant to families for constructing toilets for their own use, to provided specifications. Payments could be made only after on-site inspections: so I could not pay the beneficiaries unless I inspected their toilets. Sometimes I had to drive 20 miles on winding roads and walk for about four miles over hills to inspect five toilets – so that the cost of my inspection was more than the cost of the toilets! However, I was being paid for the pleasure of walking over the beautiful hills of the Kandy district – although sometimes the going was tough!

Kallady Bridge, Batticaloa

When I finally did reach the few houses concerned, the owners would proudly show me their newly constructed latrines. Some were padlocked, with the owners’ names proudly emblazoned on them, while others were being used to house their goats at night! None of the latrines were in use for the purpose for which they were built. Their owners preferred to take to the bushes, as was their wont! I had to do my duty by certifying that the latrines had been built according to specifications and authorize payment to their proud owners! Needless to say, my back-to-office reports pointing out the futility of this exercise never made any impression on the Ministry of Home Affairs!

A Peeping Tom at Horton Plains

An Australian lady tourist had gone to the Horton Plains Rest House. Horton Plains sports a climate and scenery to be expected in the glens and moors of Scotland rather than in Ceylon, with mists, rain and wind-swept trees. In fact, it was one of my favorite places, even taking my wife there on part of our honeymoon. The Australian lady complained that during her stay in the Horton Plains Rest House, the Rest House Keeper had made a hole in the bathroom wall and was peeping at her through the hole when she was naked!

So she wrote a letter of complaint from Australia that was ultimately referred to the Government Agent, in charge of all Rest Houses in the province. As usual, the Government Agent ordered me to go to the Horton Plains Rest House to hold an inquiry and take action as required. So I set off gleefully, being paid to go my favorite haunt! I found the hole in the partition wall. I confronted the Rest House Keeper and warned him that a future offence would lead to dismissal. I did not dismiss him because I knew (and he knew) that no one could be found to replace him in that deserted, cold and lonely place.

So I fined him appropriately, stopped his annual increment for one year, got him to plug up the hole and proudly returned to station, my duty well done. I have no doubt, however, that as soon as my car left the gate, the Rest House Keeper gleefully reopened the hole, which he had plugged for my benefit – awaiting the next female tourist to arrive!

Taking ‘Bribes’

When I was Assistant Government Agent of the Batticaloa District, I had to go to the Unichchai Colonization Scheme to sort out various problems of land and water use. I had worked hard for the poor colonists – and probably they appreciated this. When concluding one of my visits, I found the colonists loading some fresh vegetables into my car. This may have been a traditional practice for lower-level officials, but in my best CCS tradition and with stiff bureaucratic upper-lip, I was outraged that the colonists were trying to ‘bribe me’! For if I accepted, I would be morally guilty of taking a bribe.

So I first upbraided the Colonization Officer for permitting this. Secondly, in my moral righteousness and bureaucratic ‘virginity’, I ordered that everything should be taken out of my car at once! The poor colonists, dumbfounded, did not know what to make of this, since they had probably been doing this for years, either through respect or appreciation. But I insisted, standing righteous and firm – and they bewildered, meekly and mutely obeyed! None of them had given very much, because they were poor. Each had put in some small thing- a small gourd here, a bunch of bananas there, or a few green chillies. But I insisted that everything should be taken out, with my car completely cleared of their ‘bribes’!

But one colonist said it all. While taking his five green chillies out of the car, he said: ‘Sir, I have put only five green chillies into your car. But in return for my affection and respect, you have in effect slapped me in my face, just for showing my respect!’ I became so ashamed that I had not accepted their ‘bribes’! But since I had already given my implacable bureaucratic order, I could not take it back. In hindsight, I was glad that I had made that order, for it served me in the future, not only here but all over the district – that I would not accept the practices of the past. But it would also help me to avoid the hurt of ordering all the things out of my car, as I had done in the current case. But I left, biting my lip for the bureaucratic prig that I had made of myself – for the hurt that I had caused them in return for their pains!

Communal Discord in a Colonization Scheme

I had to confront communal clashes in the Batticaloa District when the ‘Sri’ troubles broke out in 1956. Since the Sinhalese had killed Tamils in other districts, the word had spread to the Batticaloa District, where the Tamils now wanted to kill the few Sinhalese in the Scheme in retaliation. This was in 1956 when the Gal Oya colonization had just been started, and about 20 years before the Tigers took up arms against the state.

My story is about the colonists of the Unichchai Colonization Scheme in the north of the district. There were five Sinhalese there who, as former land development workers, had been allotted lands under the scheme. They, having married local Tamil women, had settled down there. But when news reached the locals (this was a 100 per cent Tamil area) that their people were being killed by Sinhalese in other districts, they threatened violence against the few harmless Sinhalese colonists.

The Colonization Officer rang urgently to warn me of impending violence. I summoned a meeting of all the colonists and drove immediately there (it was about 22 miles away). After assuring the Sinhala colonists in Sinhala, that I would look after them, I addressed the big meeting of colonists who were entirely Tamil. I told them that whether Sinhalese or Tamil, they shared the same problems of water shortage and poverty. They were hanging their washing on their same common fence and borrowing rice from each other in times of need. But now, just because some fools were killing others somewhere else, how did it affect their hitherto amicable relations with their neighbours who shared the same problems?

Instead, I asked why they hadn’t thought of killing me, who was richer than they, had power over them, etc, instead of trying to kill their poor Sinhala neighbours who had done them no harm? This leftist talk alarmed them – because they had never heard this kind of talk before. I also knew that I was a bit of a fraud, since I knew that they would not harm me. But it was a novel idea to them – and it worked: for it completely defused the tension.

Yet I had to move from the theoretical to the practical, since passions were running high. So I named the four surrounding Tamil neighbours of every Sinhala family, telling them that I would hold them responsible for the safety of their Sinhala neighbor. I warned them that if they allowed anyone to touch even a hair on the head of their Sinhalese brothers, they (the four Tamil neighbours) would be expelled from the Colonization Scheme forthwith. The result was a resounding success: no Sinhala colonist was ever harmed. I was even more richly rewarded when I found within four months that the Sinhalese and Tamil neighbours were again hanging their washing together on their same common fence – a good indicator of communal harmony!

Presiding at an Election

Actually, I did not preside over the Parliamentary elections: the Government Agent did. However, as ‘Returning Officer’, I had definite duties: first, for staffing the polling booths with government staff officers; second, for supervising the actual elections in the polling booths; and third, for the counting of ballots after the voting was done.

On Election Day, I set out to monitor most of the polling booths. On one of these monitoring missions, I went to Kattankudi, a Muslim town just south of Batticaloa, where I was able to witness an act of impersonation at first hand. A pregnant Muslim woman, with a sari pulled over her face with only the eyes showing, was challenged. To my utter surprise, ‘she’ was unveiled to reveal a man with a beard and a pillow around his waist, pretending to be pregnant!

I had to cast my own ballot for the Batticaloa town seat. Fortunately or unfortunately, I knew all the candidates for that seat. When I came to the polling station, each of the candidates bowed, smiled and shook hands with me, each of them expecting me to vote for them. I was an LSSP supporter at that time and since there was no LSSP candidate in the race, I did not know whom to vote for. I went into the polling booth and impulsively drew a caricature/ cartoon of each of the three candidates against their names.

On that night, there was a grand counting of votes. I was dreading that my ballot (with the cartoon of the candidates) would come up for my own ruling. Indeed it did. And I was the first to shout, “Spoilt Ballot”. I heard one of the candidates muttering loudly “bloody fool” – aimed at the person who had cast that ballot! I hastened to agree! I had acted irresponsibly as a presiding officer. On the other hand, it was my own ballot – and if I chose to spoil it, that was my own indisputable right!

Presiding at a Ceremonial Function

I had just begun my term as Assistant Government Agent of the Batticaloa District in 1955, when the Government Agent asked me to carry out a ceremonial function on his behalf. Since the office of the Government Agent was held in peculiarly high esteem in that district, candidates seeking election to Parliament would often try to make out that they were on very good terms with the Government Agent. With this intent, a Muslim Parliamentary candidate for the Kalmunai seat invited the GA to ceremonially open a multipurpose cooperative store.

This was an invitation which the GA could hardly refuse, since the establishment of cooperative societies was a high priority of the government. Seizing this propaganda opportunity, however, the prospective candidate got thousands of his supporters to attend the opening ceremony, making it into a huge political tamasha. He even had songs to be sung at the ceremony, which included the Government Agent’s name (Mr. Pullenayegum) and his many ascribed virtues printed on the ceremonial song-sheets. Unfortunately, the GA had to cancel at the last minute and deputed me to attend this ceremonial function on his behalf. Without batting an eyelid, the wily candidate had Mr. Pullenayagam’s name erased and my name ‘Arulpragasam’ substituted on all the printed sheets, accusing me falsely of all the virtues originally ascribed to Mr. Pullenayegum!

But even I, who had undertaken this venture lightly, was somewhat awed by the event. Crowds lined the streets, which were decorated with bunting and gokkala. Formally attired in coat and tie, I was received amidst fanfare by a big orchestra playing Tamil music and was ceremoniously escorted to preside at a massive meeting. Here, I had to make a ceremonial speech, in which I managed to praise the government’s cooperative program, while artfully and judiciously avoiding any mention of the candidate!

I was then taken in procession to the site of the new cooperative building. But this was no simple procession: it was led by an orchestra playing Tamil music with the blare of the nagasalam and flutes, accompanied by an obsessive beating of drums. The orchestra was followed by a group of dancing girls dressed in flamboyant colours but modestly so, because this was a very conservative Muslim area, while lustily singing my false virtues, as printed in the song-sheets.

Next came I, walking regally on white pavada (white ceremonial cloth) along the main Kalmunai-Batticaloa Road, on which all traffic had been stopped for over two hours. Meanwhile, pavada was being laid continuously at my feet, while Chinese crackers (cheena-patas) were being set off all around me, while layer upon layer of garlands of flowers were being landed on my neck continuously. To add to my problems, my pants were a little loose, so that I had to hold onto them with one hand while marching pompously on the pavada, jumping at the crackers exploding around me, being garlanded with flowers reaching over my nostrils, while keeping a discreet eye open for the dancing girls!

Meanwhile crowds had lined the roads on which all traffic had been halted. Fortunately, my face could not be seen for most of the time, since it was covered with garlands of flowers. But just when we were passing the Karativu junction (where the Amparai Road meets the north-south Batticaloa Road) my garlands were removed to pile on new ones, leaving me unmasked for a moment. As my bad luck would have it, the first two cars held up on the Amparai Road carried some guys whom I knew at the ‘Varsity. They were returning from a hunting trip in the Gal Oya area and had been cursing at this procession that had delayed them for over two hours.

But when the garlands were removed for a moment, they found that I was the cause of all their trouble! So they started hooting: ‘Ado Aru, Hoo! etc’, accompanied by appropriate expletives. Thus holding on to my pants, jumping for the firecrackers while walking ceremoniously on the pavada, trying to breathe through the garlands, I was also hooted by my friends. As soon as I reached the cursed co-operative store, I hastily cut the ceremonial ribbon and fled the scene as fast as I could – with all the roads opening up behind me! Thus ended an embarrassing episode of my short ceremonial life!

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Features

The Paradox of Trump Power: Contested Authoritarian at Home, Uncontested Bully Abroad

Published

1 hour ago

2026/01/11

Thilina Walpola

Protests and a vigil have been held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the shooting of Renee Nicole Good occurred on Wednesday (photo courtesy BBC)

The Trump paradox is easily explained at one level. The US President unleashes American superpower and tariff power abroad with impunity and without contestation. But he cannot exercise unconstitutional executive power including tariff power without checks and challenges within America. No American President after World War II has exercised his authority overseas so brazenly and without any congressional referral as Donald Trump is getting accustomed to doing now. And no American President in history has benefited from a pliant Congress and an equally pliant Supreme Court as has Donald Trump in his second term as president.

Yet he is not having his way in his own country the way he is bullying around the world. People are out on the streets protesting against the wannabe king. This week’s killing of 37 year old Renee Good by immigration agents in Minneapolis has brought the City to its edge five years after the police killing of George Floyd. The lower courts are checking the president relentlessly in spite of the Supreme Court, if not in defiance of it. There are cracks in the Trump’s MAGA world, disillusioned by his neglect of the economy and his costly distractions overseas. His ratings are slowly but surely falling. And in an electoral harbinger, New York has elected as its new mayor, Zoran Mamdani – a wholesale antithesis of Donald Trump you can ever find.

Outside America it is a different picture. The world is too divided and too cautious to stand up to Trump as he recklessly dismantles the very world order that his predecessors have been assiduously imposing on the world for nearly a hundred years. A few recent events dramatically illustrate the Trump paradox – his constraints at home and his freewheeling abroad.

Restive America

Two days before Christmas, the US Supreme Court delivered a rare rebuke to the Trump Administration. After a host of rulings that favoured Trump by putting on hold, without full hearing, lower court strictures against the Administration, the Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority decided to leave in place a Federal Court ruling that barred Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Chicago. Trump quietly raised the white flag and before Christmas withdrew the federal troops he had controversially deployed in Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles – all large cities run by Democrats.

But three days after the New Year, Trump airlifted the might of the US Army to encircle Venezuela’s capital Caracas and spirit away the country’s President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Celia Flores, all the way to New York to stand trial in an American Court. What is not permissible in any American City was carried out with absolute impunity in a foreign capital. It turns out the Administration has no plan for Venezuela after taking out Maduro, other than Trump’s cavalier assertion, “We’re going to run it, essentially.” Essentially, the Trump Administration has let Maduro’s regime without Maduro to run the country but with the US in total control of Venezuela’s oil.

Next on the brazen list is Greenland, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who manipulated Maduro’s ouster is off to Copenhagen for discussions with the Danish government over the future of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark. Military option is not off the table if a simple real estate purchase or a treaty arrangement were to prove infeasible or too complicated. That is the American position as it is now customarily announced from the White House podium by the Administration’s Press Secretary Karolyn Leavitt, a 28 year old Catholic woman from New Hampshire, who reportedly conducts a team prayer for divine help before appearing at the lectern to lecture.

After the Supreme Court ruling and the Venezuela adventure, the third US development relevant to my argument is the shooting and killing of a 37 year old white American woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, at 9:30 in the morning, Wednesday, January 7^th. Immediately, the Administration went into pre-emptive attack mode calling the victim a “deranged leftist” and a “domestic terrorist,” and asserting that the ICE officer was acting in self-defense. That line and the description are contrary to what many people know of the victim, as well as what people saw and captured on their phones and cameras.

The victim, Renee Nicole Good, was a mother of three and a prize-winning poet who self-described herself a “poet, writer, wife and mom.” A newcomer to Minneapolis from Colorado, she was active in the community and was a designated “legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities,” to monitor interactions between ICE agents and civilian protesters that have become the norm in large immigrant cities in America. Renee Good was at the scene in her vehicle to observe ICE operations and community protesters.

In video postings that last a matter of nine seconds, two ICE officers are seen approaching Good’s vehicle and one of them trying to open her door; a bystander is heard screaming “No” as Good is seen trying to drive away; and a third ICE officer is seen standing in front of her moving vehicle, firing twice in the direction of the driver, moving to a side and firing a third time from the side. Good’s car is seen going out of control, careening and coming to a stop on a snowbank. Yet America is being bombarded with two irreconcilable narratives – one manufactured by Trump’s Administration and the other by those at the scene and everyone opposed to the regime.

It adds to the explosiveness of the situation that Good was shot and killed not far from where George Folyd was killed, also in Minneapolis, on 25^th May, 2020, choked under the knee of a heartless policeman. And within 48 hours of Good’s killing, two Americans were shot and injured by two federal immigration agents, in Portland, Oregon, on the Westcoast. Trump’s attack on immigrants and the highhanded methods used by ICE agents have become the biggest flashpoint in the political opposition to the Trump presidency. People are organizing protests in places where ICE agents are apprehending immigrants because those who are being aggressively and violently apprehended have long been neighbours, colleagues, small business owners and students in their communities.

Deportation of illegal immigrants is not something that began under Trump. It has been going on in large numbers under all recent presidents including Obama and Biden. But it has never been so cruel and vicious as it is now under Trump. He has turned it into a television spectacle and hired large number of new ICE agents who are politically prejudiced and deployed them without proper training. They raid private homes and public buildings, including schools, looking for immigrants. When faced with protesters they get into clashes rather than deescalating the situation as professional police are trained to do. There is also the fear that the Administration may want to escalate confrontations with protesters to create a pretext for declaring martial law and disrupt the midterm congressional elections in November this year.

But the momentum that Trump was enjoying when he began his second term and started imposing his executive authority, has all but vanished and all within just one year in office. By the time this piece appears in print, the Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s tariffs (expected on Friday) may be out, and if as expected the ruling goes against Trump that will be a massive body blow to the Administration. Trump will of course use a negative court ruling as the reason for all the economic woes under his presidency, but by then even more Americans would have become tired of his perpetually recycled lies and boasts.

An Obliging World

To get back to my starting argument, it is in this increasingly hostile domestic backdrop that Trump has started looking abroad to assert his power without facing any resistance. And the world is obliging. The western leaders in Europe, Canada and Australia are like the three wise monkeys who will see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil – of anything that Trump does or fails to do. Their biggest fear is about the Trump tariffs – that if they say anything critical of Trump he will magnify the tariffs against their exports to the US. That is an understandable concern and it would be interesting to see if anything will change if the US Supreme Court were to rule against Trump and reject his tariff powers.

Outside the West, and with the exception of China, there is no other country that can stand up to Trump’s bullying and erratic wielding of power. They are also not in a position to oppose Trump and face increased tariffs on their exports to the US. Putin is in his own space and appears to be assured that Trump will not hurt him for whatever reason – and there are many of them, real and speculative. The case of the Latin American countries is different as they are part of the Western Hemisphere, where Trump believes he is monarch of all he surveys.

After more than a hundred years of despising America, many communities, not just regimes, in the region seem to be warming up to Trump. The timing of Trump’s sequestering of Venezuela is coinciding with a rising right wing wave and regime change in the region. An October opinion poll showed 53% of Latin American respondents reacting positively to a then potential US intervention in Venezuela while only 18% of US respondents were in favour of intervention. While there were condemnations by Latin American left leaders, seven Latin American countries with right wing governments gave full throated support to Trump’s ouster of Maduro.

The reasons are not difficult to see. The spread of crime induced by the commerce of cocaine has become the number one concern for most Latin Americans. The socio-religious backdrop to this is the evangelisation of Christianity at the expense of the traditional Catholic Church throughout Latin America. And taking a leaf from Trump, Latin Americans have also embraced the bogey of immigration, mainly influenced by the influx of Venezuelans fleeing in large numbers to escape the horrors of the Maduro regime.

But the current changes in Latin America are not necessarily indicative of a durable ideological shift. The traditional left’s base in the subcontinent is still robust and the recent regime changes are perhaps more due to incumbency fatigue than shifts in political orientations. The left has been in power for the greater part of this century and has not been able to provide answers to the real questions that preoccupied the people – economic affordability, crime and cocaine. It has not been electorally smart for the left to ignore the basic questions of the people and focus on grand projects for the intelligentsia. Exhibit #1 is the grand constitutional project in Chile under outgoing President Gabriel Borich, but it is not the only one. More romantic than realistic, Boric’s project titillated liberal constitutionalists the world over, but was roundly rejected by Chileans.

More importantly, and sooner than later, Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and his intended takeover of the country’s oil business will produce lasting backlashes, once the initial right wing euphoria starts subsiding. Apart from the bully force of Trump’s personality, the mastermind behind the intervention in Venezuela and policy approach towards Latin America in general, is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former Cuban American Senator from Florida and the principal leader of the group of Cuban neocons in the US. His ultimate objective is said to be achieving regime change in Cuba – apparently a psychological settling of scores on behalf Cuban Americans who have been dead set against Castro’s Cuba after the overthrow of their beloved Batista.

Mr. Rubio is American born and his parents had left Cuba years before Fidel Castro displaced Fulgencio Batista, but the family stories he apparently grew up hearing in Florida have been a large part of his self-acknowledged political makeup. Even so, Secretary Rubio could never have foreseen a situation such as an externally uncontested Trump presidency in which he would be able to play an exceptionally influential role in shaping American policy for Latin America. But as the old Burns’ poem rhymes, “The best-laid plans of men and mice often go awry.”

by Rajan Philips ✍️

Features

Unsuccessful attempt on President Chandrika’s life

Published

1 hour ago

2026/01/11

Thilina Walpola

Town Hall bomb scene after 1999 attempt on CBK’s life

The Presidential election campaign was drawing to a close. We had campaigned hard but everyone knew that it would be a keenly contested election. A final meeting was scheduled for Saturday December 18, 1999. It was to be held near the Town Hall in Colombo and CBK was to be the chief speaker. I was accommodated in the front row of the stage together with other party leaders.

Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, the Prime Minister, had invited me to be a speaker at his final meeting in Horana. I waited till CBK arrived, spoke briefly to her and left for Horana. I had barely reached Havelock Town when I heard the sound of a blast from near the Town Hall. It was a well planned attempt on the life of CBK by the LTTE. Suicide bombers had come into the well packed grounds with a group of supporters of a Colombo district SLFP MP. Fortunately they had been prevented from coming close to the stage by the barriers set up by the Police.

CBK had finished her speech to a packed audience and was going down the gangway from the stage to her car when the bomber had detonated his bomb killing himself, several policemen, CBKs driver and many onlookers. But for the fact that her driver had driven up to the steps, thereby interposing the steel reinforced Mercedes Benz car between the bomb and CBK she would have been torn to shreds.

When we inspected the Benz it was a mass of twisted metal like a futuristic sculpture. I forgot about Horana and immediately rushed to the general hospital where to my relief I was told that the President was alive and out of danger. Since I had experience of the bombing of the UNP group meeting in Parliament during JRJs time, I rushed to Temple Trees to find that Sunethra Bandaranaike had fortunately promptly come there and was with the children upstairs.

The Temple Trees staff congregating downstairs were wandering about in shock till the arrival of President’s Secretary Balapatabendi. I urged that we should immediately get down Anuruddha Ratwatte -the Deputy Defence Minister, who at that time was in Kandy. A problem arose because helicopters could not fly at night. He was asked to come immediately by road and he did arrive in the shortest time.

Town Hall bomb scene CBK’s

In the meanwhile I suggested that Balapatabendi should broadcast the news that CBK was alive and out of danger as we had done with JRJ after the Parliament bombing. Already news about the attack was swirling because international media was using it as “Breaking News”. Bala and I went to the TV station and as he was getting into the studio I noticed that he was dressed in a black shirt which could have given a bad message to the country. I quickly took off my shirt and exchanged it for Balas black shirt. He then spoke on camera trying to calm the country wide audience dressed in an over-sized shirt.

We went back to Temple Trees and found that the PM and other Cabinet Ministers and relatives had arrived there and were taking charge of the situation. I then went to the General Hospital to see GL Peiris and Alavi Moulana who were in a state of shock and awaiting medical attention. Alavi’s shirt was blood stained and his sons were helplessly moving around asking for immediate medical attention.

After that both sides did not campaign in the remaining few days. The whole country was in a state of shock and disbelief. To the credit of Ranil Wickremesinghe he immediately visited CBK to wish her a speedy recovery and virtually called off his campaign. The shock of the Town Hall blast was compounded when almost at the same time a bomb was set off by the LTTE in Wattala where the UNP was holding a propaganda meeting. Major General Lucky Algama who was in charge of security was killed in this blast together with several UNP supporters.

Presidential Election December 2019

The presidential election was held as scheduled. We witnessed a clear shift of the sentiments of voters towards CBK after the bombing. I went to Kandy to cast my vote early as usual at the Nugawela voting centre. Immediately after that I left for Colombo. All along the road women of all ages were gathering in great numbers to cast their votes. It became clear that a sympathy vote was in the offing, especially among women. They could empathize with CBK who had lost a father and husband and now nearly lost her own life in the cause of public service.

The election results when announced proved that our hunch was correct. The declared results were as follows;

CBK

4,312,157 Votes [51.1 Percent]

Ranil

3,602,748 Votes [42.71 Percent]

Nandana Gunatillake

[JVP] 344,173 [4.08 Percent]

CBK then took a courageous decision which unfortunately backfired on her many years on as I will describe in a succeeding chapter. In the light of possible confusion following the bombing she decided to take her oath of office as the new President immediately though she had several months more to serve in terms of her earlier mandate. Though she had a team of brilliant lawyers including H L de Silva and R K W Goonesekere to advice on constitutional matters such details were not analyzed by her political staff. She took oaths before Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva and on the following day left for UK for medical treatment.

(Excepted from Vol. 3 of the Sarath Amunugma autobiography) ✍️

Features

My experience in turning around the Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL)

Published

1 hour ago

2026/01/11

Thilina Walpola

LESSONS FROM MY CAREER: SYNTHESISING MANAGEMENT THEORY WITH PRACTICE – PART 29

The last episode covered the final stages of my work as Advisor to the National Productivity Drive at the Ministry of Industrial Development. Soon after, in September 1998, I accepted the position of Managing Director of the Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL). This chapter shares key events and lessons from my time there.

First few weeks at MBSL

The Board agreed that, for the first month, I would work only half-days, as I still had obligations I could not abandon. I was organising the International Convention on Quality Circles 1998, which attracted many foreign participants, and although we had appointed an event organiser, numerous arrangements still required my involvement. I will write more about that Convention later in these memoirs.

Those half-days turned out to be useful. They allowed me to quietly observe and understand the situation. MBSL was in worse shape than I had expected. The financial problems were visible to anyone who read the statements. The bigger crisis, however, was the staff’s morale and the rapid loss of staff members.

During the interim management period, many staff benefits had been cut, and several senior executives had already left. In the first few months, farewell gatherings became routine. It felt like rats leaving a sinking ship. And indeed, the organisation was sinking. Yet I had accepted the challenge — largely because I sensed that the Chairperson could secure government support, which she had already begun to do.

The broader environment added to the tension. The LTTE conflict was still active. Our office building, a very tall building located near the Colpetty junction, was a prime target. It had an Air Force unit with anti-aircraft guns on the rooftop one floor above he boardroom.. No one was allowed there without special permission, even though the area had originally been designed as a rooftop function space.

The first board meeting was quite hilarious because, while we were discussing important strategic issues, the upper floor was reverberating with a baila session, with boots tapping the floor keeping time. Apparently, the unit had an assurance that there would be no air strikes, and they could take a break.

My own office was spacious, but the windows were blocked because Temple Trees — the official residence of the Prime Minister — was clearly visible if not. At first, working without any outside view felt quite oppressive. Eventually, I grew accustomed to it.

Once I began full-time work in October, I carefully examined the situation with the help of my capable team. Several senior employees were not leaving for higher-paying opportunities or foreign jobs — they were committed, though uncertain about the future.

Then came investigations by the Central Bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Much of my time was spent responding to information requests and ensuring that all releases of information were approved. Many years previously, MBSL had unintentionally become a subsidiary of the Bank of Ceylon (BOC) when BOC’s investment arm purchased shares that pushed ownership above 50 per cent.

Hence although we were not a deposit taking institution and therefore not under the regulatory oversight of the Central Bank, we were under the Central Bank scrutiny because we were a subsidiary of the BOC. Although we were independent in operations, the customary practice was that the BOC Chairman would also chair MBSL, together with other BOC directors serving on our board. Our Chairperson, Mrs Dayani de Silva, was determined to turn MBSL around.

At that time, we operated two main divisions:

· Corporate finance, including advisory and investment banking; and

· Leasing, including trade finance.

In addition, there were the service divisions such as Human Resources, Secretarial and Finance and Accounting

Staff matters and the trade union

Morale was low. staff resisted the benefit cuts and the shift toward rules that resembled those of government departments. Signing an attendance register was particularly disliked.

I reviewed the situation carefully. Some of the removed benefits saved only trivial amounts. I reinstated those. I also installed an electronic time-card system for everyone — including myself. I announced clearly that I would clock in every day, just as they did. Naturally, the first few months were not easy.

I began holding monthly staff meetings to explain what we were doing, why we were doing it, and where we stood financially. Communication had clearly been lacking earlier, and these meetings helped rebuild trust. I also operated an “open door” policy, welcoming any employee who wished to meet me. The performance appraisal system was another issue. Instead of motivating staff, it had become a source of resentment. I suspended it for two years and asked everyone to work together as one team.

Most employees up to the Deputy Manager level were unionised, affiliated with the Ceylon Bank Employees Union (CBEU), headed by Mr M. R. Shah. The collective agreement was due, and the union presented a long list of demands — many of them impossible, given our financial state. Normally, negotiations take place between the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) and the CBEU. The Director General of the EFC, Mr Gotabhaya Dassanayake, advised me first to build mutual confidence, especially as I had never met Mr Shah before.

I invited Mr Shah to my office. Over tea, I openly explained the crisis we were facing, our restructuring plan, and the management approach we intended to adopt. He listened carefully and asked sensible questions. We parted on friendly terms, and more importantly, with a shared understanding.

A month later, negotiations began at the EFC. To my surprise, Mr Shah began by saying that, after speaking with the new Managing Director, he understood our difficulties and accepted the direction we were taking. He then withdrew several demands on the spot. I was relieved, not because demands were dropped, but because he had recognised our sincerity and our plan. Later, Mr Dassanayake telephoned to say he had rarely seen such cooperation. In time, as restructuring succeeded, we gradually restored many benefits. That entire episode reinforced a powerful lesson: honest communication and genuine leadership build trust far faster than confrontation.

Expanding leasing

The board was deeply concerned about the leasing division. Non-performing loans were very high, and they urged me to restrict new business and focus solely on recoveries. I informed the board that management was partly to blame because the staff was pressured to meet stretch targets, and all we got were substandard leasing facilities. Targets without safeguards are never beneficial.

My thinking differed. Aggressive recovery efforts often demoralise good customers and overburden staff. In addition, the customers were already in great difficulty because they had no financial means to meet their leasing obligations. Instead, I believed we needed to build a new, healthier portfolio, while also expanding fee-based advisory work with lower risk. I had also abandoned my consultancy business when I joined MBSL, and proposed creating a new subsidiary to bring that kind of business into the bank. The board rejected it – understandably, given past failures with subsidiaries, including one in Nepal.

We decided that if our leasing operations were to grow, they needed to feel more connected to ordinary Sri Lankans. Research revealed that many people viewed us as an “English-speaking bank.” That perception alone discouraged potential customers.

So, we refreshed our leasing brand. The new logo carried the Sinhala word for “leasing,” applications were printed in Sinhala, and signboards carried both languages. Even the telephone operator’s greeting changed. Instead of the polished “Good morning, MBSL,” which sometimes intimidated Sinhala-speaking callers, we switched to “Ayubowan, MBSL.” It was friendly, respectful, and immediately accepted across all segments.

When an SME business owner comes for a lease, they have already selected the vehicle, and the decision is more based on ego than on a business requirement. We would discourage them and enlighten them that the vehicle does not match their requirements, and advise them to select a smaller one. They look unhappy, but they finally agree when presented with the maths of repayment.

We also organised short educational sessions for our customers on how to maintain vehicles, extend tyre life, the importance of the correct lubricants, and improve customer service. These simple initiatives created goodwill, strengthened customer relationships, and soon, the leasing business began to grow. At the same time, we were tough on recoveries, and some unpleasant moments included we seized a vehicle when a couple was on their honeymoon. The board, while pressuring me to recover, also constantly reminded me that no strong-arm tactics should ever be used.

Improving cash availability

Before I joined, two government institutions had agreed to provide debentures, with Treasury comfort letters. However, a condition required us to build a monthly sinking fund for repayment. To me, this made little sense. We were already short of operating cash. Locking more away would only weaken us further.

The head of finance had faithfully followed the rule. I instructed him to stop doing so and to use the funds for business expansion. When the board asked how we planned to repay the debentures, my answer was simple: growing organisations borrow when repayment comes due — that is how business operates.

We also began selling off our minority shareholdings from our share portfolio wherever possible even at a loss. The market was depressed, and those investments in shares contributed nothing to our survival. We retained only the Merchant Credit of Sri Lanka and divested the others. Gradually, liquidity improved, and operations stabilised.

The thorny bonus issue

Before my arrival, the board had approved bonuses despite the 1997 crisis. I was surprised how it happened soon after chalking up a billion rupee loss. However, just three months into my tenure, the board refused the December 1998 bonus. I found myself in a painful position. The EFC warned that withholding payment was risky because bonuses were written into appointment letters. Yet, reality was clear — we simply could not afford it.

I addressed the staff personally, explained the situation frankly, and announced the decision. The disappointment was visible everywhere. But given the circumstances, they accepted it.

There were more challenges and many more lessons still to come. In the next article, I will continue the story of how, step by step, we navigated those difficulties and rebuilt the organisation.

(The writer is a Consultant on Productivity and Japanese Management Techniques

Retired Chairman/Director of several listed and unlisted companies
Recipient of the APO Regional Award for Promoting Productivity in the Asia-Pacific Region
Recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays from the Government of Japan
Email: bizex.seminarsandconsulting@gmail.com)

By Sunil G. Wijesinha ✍️