Working with Lalith A; and an Indian rope trick

(Excerpted from the memoirs of Chandra Wicremesinghe, Rtd. Addl. Secy to the President)

I assumed duties as Additional Secretary in the newly created Ministry of National Security sometime in 1984 and was shortly afterwards appointed Additional Secretary Ministry of Defence as well. The Minister of National Security was the late Lalith Athulathmudali and the Minister of Defence was President, J.R.Jayewardene. The Secretary to the Ministry of National Security was the late Mr.DBIPS Siriwardhana while Secy/Defence. was Gen. Sepala Attygalla.

Mr. Athulathmudali having been at Oxford University, where he had been the President of the Oxford Union, was a brilliant speaker with a sharp intellect to match. Endowed abundantly with these twin attributes, he was able to represent SL at international fora with aplomb and finesse. Many will recall his scintillating performance at a BBC interview where the BBC interviewer tried his utmost to embarrass him and SL over human rights issues et al. Minister Athulathmudali stood up to the barrage of questions with admirable sangfroid, giving cogent answers which left the interogator nonplussed and at a loss for words.

Despite his intellectual brilliance Minister Athulathmudali had his weak moments when he used to quite inexplicably go off at a tangent. This was, I must say, a little known side of his colourful personality. He used to be suddenly obsessed with some pet scheme of his or by some sudden hunch which used to be pursued by him with extraordinary tenacity. One such ignominious episode was the sudden infatuation he took to a confidence trickster called Kelly Senanayake.This man had inveigled himself into the Minister’s confidence promising to get the JVP to give up their armed struggle and come into the political mainstream. It took a while for the minister to discover that KS was a fraud and a cheap crook who had succeeded in leading him up the garden path!

Again, I remember the Minister summoning me to his office one morning and saying that he had a two pronged strategy to bring about reconciliation and amity between the Sinhala and the Tamil people. He outlined his strategy as follows:

1) The settling of Tamils in the South and Sinhalese in the North. He elaborated further that he had already worked out a plan to settle Tamil people in Agalawatte and in Kalutara to start with. He seemed convinced that his plan would bring about amity between the two communities.

2) The Minister also proposed closing down all Universities for a period of two years and converting them into Rehabilitation Centres for the JVP and LTTE cadres who were in detention camps.

I made known to the Minister my own misgivings particularly regarding his second proposal on the grounds that there would be a violent uproar over the proposal by the local undergraduates and the academic staff; while in the International arena, we would be accused of running concentration camps. He however dismissed my apprehensions as being groundless and wanted me to immediately meet Dr. Stanley Kalpage, who was the UGC Chairman at the time and sound him on the proposal.

Accordingly, I went over to the UGC office and met Dr. Kalpage and conveyed to him the plan the Minister had in mind. Kalpage was simply aghast at the idea of closing down the Universities for two years and said that it was a ‘crazy plan’! He also rang up the President and made an early appointment to see him telling me that he was keen on meeting the President before the Minister met him. In the absence of further developments on the matter thereafter, I felt that the Minister’s plan had been shot down by the President.

A few days later Mr. Athulathmudali called me and said that there was a Seminar on the ‘Rehabilitation of Terrorists’ scheduled to be held in Bangkok and added that he was not sending me for it as I did not seem to believe in such rehabilitative approaches. It amazes me even now how a person with such a brilliant mind could get carried away to the point of pursuing schemes which many would consider ill-conceived and highly impractical. It could perhaps be attributed to the streak of intellectual arrogance he had, despite being an eminently likable and personable individual.

Secy/National Security ,Mr. DBIPS Siriwardhana was a person with a keen intellect and a razor sharp mind. As he had many years of experience in high positions in the Public Service, working immediately under him was indeed a rewarding experience immensely beneficial to me. He was quick in attending to files and was famed for having a clean table devoid of files. A literally clean table was an obsession with him and one got the impression that he was waiting for papers to be placed in the in tray to pounce on them and dispose of them almost with undisguised glee! He was indeed phenomenally quick while at the same time being intensely focused on studying the papers submitted to him for orders (which he did in double quick time), attending to them with remarkable facility and promptitude.

His orders were brief and clear and written in a beautiful, flowing hand. Brevity and crystal clear clarity of expression, were his singular forte. I have no doubt that many who had the fortune to work with him benefited immensely by their interaction with him. He was however, at times cynical, often making snide remarks (in rather loud whispers) during meetings even with Minister Athulathmudali, which were strangely enough ignored by the latter. I was serving two Secretaries at the time, the other being General Sepala Attygalla who was Secretary/Defence. I had no problems with either of them and despite the trying times the country went through at that time with the LTTE and the JVP. I attended to the duties entrusted to me diligently and to their satisfaction.

I was appointed a Council Member of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board by H.E. the President in 1986 and continued to function as Council Member of NDDCB, till 1977. As a member of the NDDCB, I participated in several seminars overseas.

Bringing home Lankan refugees settled in India

It was in 1985, if I recall correctly, that President JR appointed me to Chair a Committee to arrange for the transportation and the resettlement of SL Tamils who had fled the island following the communal disturbances of 1983. The other members of the Committee were Mr. Nirupam Sen who was Deputy Indian High Commissioner in SL at the time, the Controller of Immigration and one or two other Senior Govt. officials.

The Committee had three sittings in all, which were held in the conference section of the room of Secy./Defence, Gen Attygalla. The meeting opened in a spirit of cordiality and candor, with the Deputy HC/India promising to extend all logistical support necessary to SL in having the Tamil refugees transported back to the island. Preliminarily, the Committee looked at the magnitude of the problem taking into account the numbers involved, the location of the refugee camps in South India, the transportation problems and finally, arrangements to be made at this end for their re-settlement. In the course of our discussions Mr. Sen ventured to say that as the Palk Straits were somewhat choppy at that time of the year and with the numbers to be transported being substantial, the crossing via the Straits may be quite risky.

Further, he suggested that rather than engaging many small boats for the purpose, it may be more convenient and advantageous to charter two big vessels to transport the refugees bypassing the Palk Straits. He suggested almost as a matter of course, going round the Southern coast and berthing the big vessels in Trincomalee and making Trinco the disembarkation point. This was the time High Commissioner Dixit was acting like a Satrap trying to treat SL like a colony of India. I for one, disliked Dixit’s overbearing demeanour and downright arrogance and whenever he walked into General Attygalla’s office, I made it a point to get up and leave the room abruptly, conveying in no uncertain terms my dislike of the man.

Having my own suspicions about Sen’s move to off load the refugees in Trinco, I immediately pointed out that we should use the traditional passage through the Palk Straits to bring the Tamil refugees back. If the weather was rough and the sea unruly I added, it would still be preferable to postpone their transportation till the weather improved and bring the refugees back via the Palk Straits. I also hastened to point out that the Tamil refugees were for the most part from villages in the Mannar and Vavuniya Districts and it would facilitate the logistics of their inland transportation and resettlement if they came through the Palk Straits and got off at Mannar.

The Indian Deputy HC thereupon requested me to fix the next Committee meeting giving about 10 days time for him to re-canvass the issues of the mode of transportation, the route to be taken and the point of disembarkation of refugees with his Govt. Accordingly, I requested him to inform me when he was ready to have the second round of talks so that I could convene another meeting of the Committee thereafter. He contacted me about a week later and said he was ready to have the next round of talks. Thereupon a date mutually agreed on was fixed.

To my surprise Sen arrived at the meeting accompanied by a couple of others, one of whom was introduced to me as the Dy/Secy. of the Ministry of Rehabilitation in Delhi and the other as a Senior official in that Ministry. This Dy./Secy who was a big made individual, sat in the chair next to mine and without any further ado tried to commandeer the meeting by saying authoritatively: “Gentlemen, Mr. Sen has been briefing us on certain issues that have arisen concerning the transportation of the SL Tamil refugees in India back to SL. The Indian Govt. has chartered two ships to transport the entire lot of refugees in the different refugee camps in India to SL in one operation. The ships will leave the Indian ports the day after tomorrow with the refugees and will go round the Southern coast of the island and anchor in Trincomalee harbour where they will disembark”.

Realizing that this unprepossessing gentleman was trying to bulldoze his way through with bludgeoning tactics, I maintained a straight face throughout this unexpected outburst. The moment he stopped his harangue, I looked him straight in the eye and said quietly that the SL Govt. was not agreeable to the arrangement which had not been even discussed nor mutually agreed upon by the two sides. This gentleman thereupon said that there was no going back on the arrangement as the two ships which were already chartered, would be leaving India in two days time. At this stage I told him that the only thing for the Indian Govt. to do was to cancel the charter as SL will not permit the disembarkation of the refugees in Trincomalee.

Realizing that we were not going to give in on the issue, he asked me whether any other alternative could be suggested. I conveyed to him that if the refugees could not be brought via the traditional route of the Palk Straits the only other alternative was for the two ships to circumnavigate the island and proceed to Kayts. He immediately said that the Kayts pier could not berth the two large vessels to which I replied that arrangements could be made for the ships to be anchored in mid–ocean so that the refugees could be ferried ashore in barges. Knowing that he would not be able to have his way, this gentleman whose name I have forgotten, got up abruptly saying tersely ” This will not do!” and stormed out of the room with the other Indians including Dy/HC Sen following close on his heels.

I brought what transpired at the meeting to Gen. Attygalle who said that it was good that a firm stand was taken by us not to permit the vessels to proceed to Trinco and disembark the refugees there. I fixed the final meeting of the Committee to take place five days later, inviting Sen for same. As expected, he failed to attend the meeting. In consultation with the other members of the Committee, I wrote the report and sent it to Mr. Sen for his signature. Expectedly, Sen refused to subscribe to the document (quoting a line from Rousseau) and returned it saying that he would not be signing it as he did not agree with the recommendations made in the report.

I submitted the Report to Gen. Attygalla who read it and said he agreed fully with the recommendations made as the Indian Intelligence arm RAW was up to tricks in SL and the insistence on Trincomalee as the port of disembarkation was one of their machinations to bring in Indians in droves to Trincomalee along with the SL refugees and set up a little Indian colony there. This was the time Dixit, who was acting like a Satrap, had prevailed on the SL Govt. on various dubious grounds, even citing SL’s own security interests, to permit Indian officials and even Indian Service personnel to enter SL sans visas.

Secretary Defence had, I was told, handed over the Report to the President at the weekly Security Council meeting. On being told by Gen Attygalla that Deputy HC Nirupen Sen had refused to sign it, the President had startd reading the document smiling to himself occasionally. This was told to me by Gen Nalin Seneviratne the Army Commander, who also told me that the President had spent a good 20 minutes reading the Report and had not proceeded with the meeting till he had finished it. (Nalin also told me jokingly, not to write such lengthy reports as the Service Commanders had been kept twiddling their thumbs till the President finished reading the report). He also said that President JR had given the Report back to Secy /Defence saying that it was a good report.

While in the Ministry of Defence, I was able to associate closely with Gen.Nalin Seneviratne and IGP Cyril Herat, two rare gentlemen who headed the Army and the Police Force respectively. They were officers who possessed outstanding leadership qualities and were widely respected for their unimpeachable integrity and the high principles they followed in the discharge of their official duties. IGP Herat in fact, took a scrupulously principled stand by opting to retire prematurely, rather than yield to the importunate insistence of President JR, to promote a certain Police Officer, whose promotion, the IGP felt strongly, would have been grossly unfair by certain other officers who were far ahead in seniority and who in many other respects, merited promotion much more.

(To be continued)