Madness In The Air
By Rajan Hoole –October 8, 2016
Dr. Rajan Hoole
Count Down To July 1983 – Part V
On 22nd July, Appapillai Amirthalingam made his final speech in Parliament until his brief reappearance six years later. It was the speech of a man plumbing the depths of despair. He was helpless against a State bent on a vindictive course against the Tamils in general, resorting to state terrorism. A news black-out too was in force. He asked, “Has the Government by exercising powers under Emergency restored food supplies to the North? The Government has failed to provide essential supplies to the North… Letters sent by the TULF to the President have not been published in the English Press… The burning of the train [by militants] is an act of madness. But an attempt is being made even to stop private buses going to the North. At Iratperiyakulam near the army camp, six private coaches plying to the North had been smashed. A bus from Pt Pedro to Colombo was shot at by the Army and the driver, who was a Sinhalese, has been injured…”
Amirthalingam was far from being a man without faults. But from 1981 his conduct had been so restrained as to bring about dissension within his own party. His statements had been factual, for the most part avoiding emotional overtones. He had put his weight against provocative gestures such as a UDI. His appeal to Tamil sentiment across the Palk Straits had been minimal. All this was held against him by his erstwhile followers. Apart from practical considerations, he had worked in the belief that a satisfactory political solution could be arrived at through dialogue. He was too much of the leader to run away. He was later very much a party to the Indo-Lanka Accord. In trying to make it work, he would even take on his erstwhile protege, Prabhakaran, calling him a ‘Pol Pot’. It was Prabhakaran who finally determined Amirthalingam’s fate by the only weapon he had come to believe passionately in.
There was more than a touch of madness in the air, even a touch of the ridiculous. On the same day (22.7) the Sun gave a very short summary of the 33 page report prepared by SSP Tyrell Gunetilleke of the Special Investigation Unit on the ‘Naxalite Plot’ which was used by Jayewardene to override parliamentary elections. “The report”, it said, “has not set out any concrete finding, but has set out a tale of intrigue full of juicy tit bits and reveals several contradictions in statements of opposition personalities”. The report said in conclusion: “If the information being investigated is correct, the conspirators [apparently intending to harm Jayewardene, Mrs. Bandaranaike and her son] would have been acting from a position of power after their anticipated victory at the presidential polls. In these circumstances, there need be no external preparation and the principle of ‘need to know’in a coterie of hard core miscreants. In these circumstances if the conspirators were in power, all they had to do was to ensure that the Police and the armed services looked the other side.”
