Dignity and Honour of the Nation
In bringing out this work, the primary intention of the author, Edward Gunawardane I believe was to speak out his heart on a matter which had been weighing heavily on his conscience. The choice of the sub-title ‘The Jaffna Library Fire’; makes it amply evident. As such let me straight away affirm that with this work he has laid to rest, for good, the ignominious diabolical propaganda, that had plagued us over the last three decades.
In presenting these ‘Memorable Tidbits’ he provides not
only the insight, but the facts too for the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the burning of the Jaffna Library. He has thus not only vindicated himself but the entire Sinhala community. He has removed our unfounded collective guilt that has been weighing heavily on our conscience.
Before I dwell on it I would like to touch on another aspect contained in this work, his growing up in Battaramulla and his childhood memories. Those fascinating memories took me back to my own childhood.
These childhood memories deal with his life in Battaramulla which he has presented as ‘life in this wonderful village’. He has recreated that village with such love and nostalgia; we are taken back almost physically to these surroundings-that beautiful rural country side with swamps, streams and paddy fields, interspersed with shrubs and an abundance of fauna and flora. The sounds and smells that we have known begin to haunt us. However it is with a sense of sadness and loss that the writer depicts the changes that have taken place with urbanization over the last few years.
The swamps are no more, the rivulets are no more, the flora and fauna have disappeared giving way to monstrous multi storeyed buildings, harbouring hotels and business centres. There is that monstrosity the Water’s Edge, the exclusive preserve of the privileged, the Elysium of the Colombo elitist class.
It is not a mere sentimental attachment that has prompted the author to take us back to that past. He sees much of this urbanization and development as a wanton destruction interfering with the eco-system as well as the livelihood of the poor rural folk.
This is what he says in this regard. ‘The wanton destruction of the wetlands in particular has led to the pollution of these water ways and immeasurable environmental damage in general…Apart from the damning exposure of the corrupt and illegal acts of President Chandrika Cumaratunga et al the Water’s Edge judgment has very forcefully brought into focus the importance of natural wetlands mainly from the point of view of flood protection and water retention. Indeed as acclaimed by the entire nation this is a landmark judgment that reminds every citizen of the importance of the preservation and nurturing of the environment…This judgment should strengthen the hands of policy makers and enforcers of environmental laws. Writers of textbooks on environmental studies for school children could also draw inspiration from the observations made in the judgment.The sections of the judgment that dwell comprehensively on the environmental significance of wetlands with reference to erudite judgments of Indian Courts were of particular interest to me; the simple reason being the fact that I have seen and enjoyed the wholesome beauty of the pristine Wetlands of the Battaramulla –Kotte areas from the my childhood in the late thirties of the last century’.
These observations made by the author should open the eyes and minds of those who fly past in their limousines and are dazzled by man-made atrocities, and help them to distinguish the grotesque from the ‘wholesome beauty of the pristine Wetlands’.
Every time I pass this area I go through those same sentiments that have gone through my friend Eda’s mind. In addition I cannot escape being possessed by that poem Bronze Horseman by that great poet Alexander Pushkin. I see many similarities between what happened to this ‘wonderful village ‘, and that village on the bank of the river Neva. Since I am obsessed by Pushkin’s poem, let me present the gist of it.
The figure on the bronze horse is Peter the Great, who built that great city Petersburg, full of pomp and grandeur on the banks of the Neva, and opened a window to the West, making Russia a modern state.
The poem consists of two parts, a prologue and a tale.
In the prologue the poet is full of praise for what Peter the Great has done. He too is infected by the pomp and grandeur of the new city. I am sure many of us too are infected in the same manner by the glitter of those neon lights, by the gaiety and revelry that descends there by dusk.
In the tale that follows we see quite a different picture. With the floods in 1824 the river Neva overflows inundating the entire area, destroying the cottage in which the poor peasant girl Parsha lives, and dreams of getting married to Eugene, a poor clerk living in the city. There is no trace of her or her cottage. Eugene goes mad, and in his madness comes one night before the bronze horseman and threatens the figure on it. In his imagination he sees the bronze horseman chasing after him and he runs for life. A few days later he is found dead on the threshold of a cottage which has been washed ashore; it’s probably the cottage in which Parsha had lived.
Could we honestly say that there could not have been similar tragedies when those swamps and fields were filled, and those poor folk had to leave their cottages? There would have been many Parshas and Eugenes.
Now let me come away from those nostalgic romantic memories to hard facts and realities, that Edward wants to unburden with those memories.As I said at the beginning the most valuable contribution contained in these memoirs is the insight it provides in unraveling the mystery behind that barbaric act-the burning of the Jaffna library.This barbaric act and the universal condemnation to which the Sinhala people was subjected to as a result has not been properly challenged either through ignorance or design. As you know our enemies, Elamists, and their supporters, NGO fraternity Western powers have made capital out of it. Mr. Amirthalingam who was the leader of the opposition made a statement in Parliament to the effect that Minister Gamini Dissanayake was behind it, which was confirmed by none other than President Premadasa when he fell out with Gamini Dissanayake, over the impeachment motion. Further the CID investigations by the CID chief Tyrrell Gunatilleke and findings of the Truth Commission headed Shravananda have all gone to consolidate this view in the minds of the general public. No amount of evidence adduced by Edward Gunawardene senior DIG who happened to be in Jaffna at the moment in the thick of those events has been able to erase this misconception. He has categorically stated that Gamini Dissanayake was nowhere near at that time and that there was no policeman on the streets on that fateful night. He was supported by Mr. Lalith Gunasekera who was the Head Quarters Inspector of Jaffna and was the one who knew most about police movements. The information given to Edward by the petrol shed keeper that some youngsters had forcibly taken away three cans of petrol which was passed on to the CID was ignored. The CID investigations were meant not to find the culprits but hush up things.
The vicious campaign to exonerate the Tigers and apportion blame on the police and the DIG had been so successful that fifteen years after the incident one Mr. Balachandra, an obvious Tiger sympathizer had the audacity to come out with this statement in a letter written to the Daily Mirror of 21st March 2006. ‘The retired DIG is none other than one Edward Gunawardane who was responsible for the most diabolical act of cultural terror perpetrated in this country in burning the Jaffna library is an open secret. In fact this act has been seen as an act of cultural genocide and universally condemned’.
The reply to Mr. Balachandra’s statement by Edward Gunawardane published on 4th April 2006 throws adequate light on the conspiracy hatched out making a scapegoat of him and the police. I will only quote one paragraph by the author which would make things very clear.
‘It did not take long for the government to realize that the backlash of this, arson or not was going to be disastrous. The hunt for a scapegoat began. The top officials were either political appointees or kinsmen of the President. The DIG Jaffna was a Tamil. Edward Gunawardane had to be the first in line. Backed by unseen official hands the rumour began to work, and the parrots that Mr. Balachandran spoke of were in business. But I must say to the credit of all Tamil politicians of the time, Tamil policemen and all others affected no accusation was made against me. A worried President let loose all the investigative agencies of the State to fix somebody. But even the Head of the CID who had fixed Mukthars and Thahars and even transformed a much loved actor to a Naxalite could not make up his mind to question me or record my statement. I even appeared before the Truth Commission headed by former CJ Sharvananda .The only question that was asked, was whether the late Mr Gamini Dissanayake was in Jaffna the night that the library was burnt. My answer was an emphatic,’ No’.
Going through this whole episode as told by Edward Gunawardane, there is a question which had baffled me, to which no plausible answer had been given. What need was there to find a scapegoat and exonerate the tigers? The author has not gone into this question.
To find a satisfactory answer, I think one has to go back in time to the earlier eighties and to JR’s modus operandi to bring about peace. Though the Tigers were capable of a few terrorist attacks they were not all that powerful at that time. Power was in the hands of the vellala leaders -the TULF.The Tigers were ‘our boys’, treated with affection and admiration. JR was making a deal with the vellala leaders. If that deal was to come through he had to exonerate ‘our boys’, and find a suitable scapegoat at any cost. The universal condemnation that the Sinhalese will have to face did not matter to him, as long as he could make a deal with Amirthalingam.
This attitude of JR’s should not come to us as a surprise. This is how all our leaders have acted. For them, Truth was never objective; it was always relative, relative to their own ambitions and schemes. President Premadasa pointed his finger at Gamini Dissanyake on this issue and exonerated the Tigers. When Lalith Athulathmudali was killed the leaders of the opposition pointed their finger at Premadasa and exonerated the Tigers. When a vessel was seized by the Tigers, the Government at that time kept mum, and exonerated the Tigers so as not to jeopardize the Peace Talks. There are so many examples that could be quoted. The forces had to contend with the wishes of the politicians. This has been our political culture throughout. No wonder Prabhakaran could carry on for three decades terrorizing the entire nation.
There is a piece of information I had received on this barbaric act, which I think is worth revealing here as the issue has come up. There was a friend of mine teaching History at the Jaffna University at that time. He was firmly convinced that the culprits were pro Tiger students, some of whom were in his class. When I asked him why he did not come out with this information, the answer he gave me did not surprise me. ‘Do you want me to be killed like the Petrol Shed owner who gave the information to the Police?’
Lastly I would like to touch upon the motive behind this barbaric act?
Edward Gunawardane has come out with this hypothesis in this regard. ‘To the world the Jaffna library was symbolic of the Tamil Hindu culture. It was the repository of the classical Hindu treatises and the pedigrees of the Hindu Vellala aristocracy. But the world knew little or nothing about the rigid class structure that dominated the social fabric of Jaffna.
It was certainly not an institution to be admired or venerated by the non vellala low caste Tigers. It stood for the hegemony under which they had suffered for generations.
By burning the Jaffna library Prabhakaran killed two birds with one stone. It destroyed the symbol of the Tamil upper class vellala hegemony that kept them down, and it also gave him the opportunity to portray the Sinhalese as barbarians. Our friend Francis Peters who had been the GA in Jaffna who knew of that inhuman class stratification has this to say on this matter in his Foreword.‘ There have been much speculation about the burning down of that library. Edward examines them all with the sure touch of the policeman, and provides very plausible arguments to show that it was the work of the LTTE. It could have served a dual purpose. The blame could be put on the government and a despised monument of the high castes would cease to exist. From time immemorial the caste factor has had a strong impact on the lifestyles of the Northerners. It could even be said that the resurgence of the non vellalas led to the birth of the militant LTTE. It is significant that the library episode led to worldwide publicity for what the LTTE was ostensibly fighting for. This was precisely what the terrorists desperately wanted. Undoubtedly, the only beneficiary from the burning of the Jaffna library was the LTTE.’
Finally let me thank Dr. Neville Fernando who has come forward to publish this work which at long last would redeem our nation and restore its honour and dignity.
-Resh3neg Lanka News
In presenting these ‘Memorable Tidbits’ he provides not
only the insight, but the facts too for the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the burning of the Jaffna Library. He has thus not only vindicated himself but the entire Sinhala community. He has removed our unfounded collective guilt that has been weighing heavily on our conscience.
Before I dwell on it I would like to touch on another aspect contained in this work, his growing up in Battaramulla and his childhood memories. Those fascinating memories took me back to my own childhood.
These childhood memories deal with his life in Battaramulla which he has presented as ‘life in this wonderful village’. He has recreated that village with such love and nostalgia; we are taken back almost physically to these surroundings-that beautiful rural country side with swamps, streams and paddy fields, interspersed with shrubs and an abundance of fauna and flora. The sounds and smells that we have known begin to haunt us. However it is with a sense of sadness and loss that the writer depicts the changes that have taken place with urbanization over the last few years.
The swamps are no more, the rivulets are no more, the flora and fauna have disappeared giving way to monstrous multi storeyed buildings, harbouring hotels and business centres. There is that monstrosity the Water’s Edge, the exclusive preserve of the privileged, the Elysium of the Colombo elitist class.
It is not a mere sentimental attachment that has prompted the author to take us back to that past. He sees much of this urbanization and development as a wanton destruction interfering with the eco-system as well as the livelihood of the poor rural folk.
This is what he says in this regard. ‘The wanton destruction of the wetlands in particular has led to the pollution of these water ways and immeasurable environmental damage in general…Apart from the damning exposure of the corrupt and illegal acts of President Chandrika Cumaratunga et al the Water’s Edge judgment has very forcefully brought into focus the importance of natural wetlands mainly from the point of view of flood protection and water retention. Indeed as acclaimed by the entire nation this is a landmark judgment that reminds every citizen of the importance of the preservation and nurturing of the environment…This judgment should strengthen the hands of policy makers and enforcers of environmental laws. Writers of textbooks on environmental studies for school children could also draw inspiration from the observations made in the judgment.The sections of the judgment that dwell comprehensively on the environmental significance of wetlands with reference to erudite judgments of Indian Courts were of particular interest to me; the simple reason being the fact that I have seen and enjoyed the wholesome beauty of the pristine Wetlands of the Battaramulla –Kotte areas from the my childhood in the late thirties of the last century’.
These observations made by the author should open the eyes and minds of those who fly past in their limousines and are dazzled by man-made atrocities, and help them to distinguish the grotesque from the ‘wholesome beauty of the pristine Wetlands’.
Every time I pass this area I go through those same sentiments that have gone through my friend Eda’s mind. In addition I cannot escape being possessed by that poem Bronze Horseman by that great poet Alexander Pushkin. I see many similarities between what happened to this ‘wonderful village ‘, and that village on the bank of the river Neva. Since I am obsessed by Pushkin’s poem, let me present the gist of it.
The figure on the bronze horse is Peter the Great, who built that great city Petersburg, full of pomp and grandeur on the banks of the Neva, and opened a window to the West, making Russia a modern state.
The poem consists of two parts, a prologue and a tale.
In the prologue the poet is full of praise for what Peter the Great has done. He too is infected by the pomp and grandeur of the new city. I am sure many of us too are infected in the same manner by the glitter of those neon lights, by the gaiety and revelry that descends there by dusk.
In the tale that follows we see quite a different picture. With the floods in 1824 the river Neva overflows inundating the entire area, destroying the cottage in which the poor peasant girl Parsha lives, and dreams of getting married to Eugene, a poor clerk living in the city. There is no trace of her or her cottage. Eugene goes mad, and in his madness comes one night before the bronze horseman and threatens the figure on it. In his imagination he sees the bronze horseman chasing after him and he runs for life. A few days later he is found dead on the threshold of a cottage which has been washed ashore; it’s probably the cottage in which Parsha had lived.
Could we honestly say that there could not have been similar tragedies when those swamps and fields were filled, and those poor folk had to leave their cottages? There would have been many Parshas and Eugenes.
Now let me come away from those nostalgic romantic memories to hard facts and realities, that Edward wants to unburden with those memories.As I said at the beginning the most valuable contribution contained in these memoirs is the insight it provides in unraveling the mystery behind that barbaric act-the burning of the Jaffna library.This barbaric act and the universal condemnation to which the Sinhala people was subjected to as a result has not been properly challenged either through ignorance or design. As you know our enemies, Elamists, and their supporters, NGO fraternity Western powers have made capital out of it. Mr. Amirthalingam who was the leader of the opposition made a statement in Parliament to the effect that Minister Gamini Dissanayake was behind it, which was confirmed by none other than President Premadasa when he fell out with Gamini Dissanayake, over the impeachment motion. Further the CID investigations by the CID chief Tyrrell Gunatilleke and findings of the Truth Commission headed Shravananda have all gone to consolidate this view in the minds of the general public. No amount of evidence adduced by Edward Gunawardene senior DIG who happened to be in Jaffna at the moment in the thick of those events has been able to erase this misconception. He has categorically stated that Gamini Dissanayake was nowhere near at that time and that there was no policeman on the streets on that fateful night. He was supported by Mr. Lalith Gunasekera who was the Head Quarters Inspector of Jaffna and was the one who knew most about police movements. The information given to Edward by the petrol shed keeper that some youngsters had forcibly taken away three cans of petrol which was passed on to the CID was ignored. The CID investigations were meant not to find the culprits but hush up things.
The vicious campaign to exonerate the Tigers and apportion blame on the police and the DIG had been so successful that fifteen years after the incident one Mr. Balachandra, an obvious Tiger sympathizer had the audacity to come out with this statement in a letter written to the Daily Mirror of 21st March 2006. ‘The retired DIG is none other than one Edward Gunawardane who was responsible for the most diabolical act of cultural terror perpetrated in this country in burning the Jaffna library is an open secret. In fact this act has been seen as an act of cultural genocide and universally condemned’.
The reply to Mr. Balachandra’s statement by Edward Gunawardane published on 4th April 2006 throws adequate light on the conspiracy hatched out making a scapegoat of him and the police. I will only quote one paragraph by the author which would make things very clear.
‘It did not take long for the government to realize that the backlash of this, arson or not was going to be disastrous. The hunt for a scapegoat began. The top officials were either political appointees or kinsmen of the President. The DIG Jaffna was a Tamil. Edward Gunawardane had to be the first in line. Backed by unseen official hands the rumour began to work, and the parrots that Mr. Balachandran spoke of were in business. But I must say to the credit of all Tamil politicians of the time, Tamil policemen and all others affected no accusation was made against me. A worried President let loose all the investigative agencies of the State to fix somebody. But even the Head of the CID who had fixed Mukthars and Thahars and even transformed a much loved actor to a Naxalite could not make up his mind to question me or record my statement. I even appeared before the Truth Commission headed by former CJ Sharvananda .The only question that was asked, was whether the late Mr Gamini Dissanayake was in Jaffna the night that the library was burnt. My answer was an emphatic,’ No’.
Going through this whole episode as told by Edward Gunawardane, there is a question which had baffled me, to which no plausible answer had been given. What need was there to find a scapegoat and exonerate the tigers? The author has not gone into this question.
To find a satisfactory answer, I think one has to go back in time to the earlier eighties and to JR’s modus operandi to bring about peace. Though the Tigers were capable of a few terrorist attacks they were not all that powerful at that time. Power was in the hands of the vellala leaders -the TULF.The Tigers were ‘our boys’, treated with affection and admiration. JR was making a deal with the vellala leaders. If that deal was to come through he had to exonerate ‘our boys’, and find a suitable scapegoat at any cost. The universal condemnation that the Sinhalese will have to face did not matter to him, as long as he could make a deal with Amirthalingam.
This attitude of JR’s should not come to us as a surprise. This is how all our leaders have acted. For them, Truth was never objective; it was always relative, relative to their own ambitions and schemes. President Premadasa pointed his finger at Gamini Dissanyake on this issue and exonerated the Tigers. When Lalith Athulathmudali was killed the leaders of the opposition pointed their finger at Premadasa and exonerated the Tigers. When a vessel was seized by the Tigers, the Government at that time kept mum, and exonerated the Tigers so as not to jeopardize the Peace Talks. There are so many examples that could be quoted. The forces had to contend with the wishes of the politicians. This has been our political culture throughout. No wonder Prabhakaran could carry on for three decades terrorizing the entire nation.
There is a piece of information I had received on this barbaric act, which I think is worth revealing here as the issue has come up. There was a friend of mine teaching History at the Jaffna University at that time. He was firmly convinced that the culprits were pro Tiger students, some of whom were in his class. When I asked him why he did not come out with this information, the answer he gave me did not surprise me. ‘Do you want me to be killed like the Petrol Shed owner who gave the information to the Police?’
Lastly I would like to touch upon the motive behind this barbaric act?
Edward Gunawardane has come out with this hypothesis in this regard. ‘To the world the Jaffna library was symbolic of the Tamil Hindu culture. It was the repository of the classical Hindu treatises and the pedigrees of the Hindu Vellala aristocracy. But the world knew little or nothing about the rigid class structure that dominated the social fabric of Jaffna.
It was certainly not an institution to be admired or venerated by the non vellala low caste Tigers. It stood for the hegemony under which they had suffered for generations.
By burning the Jaffna library Prabhakaran killed two birds with one stone. It destroyed the symbol of the Tamil upper class vellala hegemony that kept them down, and it also gave him the opportunity to portray the Sinhalese as barbarians. Our friend Francis Peters who had been the GA in Jaffna who knew of that inhuman class stratification has this to say on this matter in his Foreword.‘ There have been much speculation about the burning down of that library. Edward examines them all with the sure touch of the policeman, and provides very plausible arguments to show that it was the work of the LTTE. It could have served a dual purpose. The blame could be put on the government and a despised monument of the high castes would cease to exist. From time immemorial the caste factor has had a strong impact on the lifestyles of the Northerners. It could even be said that the resurgence of the non vellalas led to the birth of the militant LTTE. It is significant that the library episode led to worldwide publicity for what the LTTE was ostensibly fighting for. This was precisely what the terrorists desperately wanted. Undoubtedly, the only beneficiary from the burning of the Jaffna library was the LTTE.’
Finally let me thank Dr. Neville Fernando who has come forward to publish this work which at long last would redeem our nation and restore its honour and dignity.
-Resh3neg Lanka News