The Assassination Of Ranjan Wijeratne
By Rajan Hoole - April 11, 2014
Rajan Hoole
The 1990s: The Culture of Untruth and a Perilous Vacuum Part 2
To a Government used to thriving on crises, the assassination of Ranjan Wijeratne came as both a setback and an opportunity. He was killed in a car bomb blast in Havelock Road on 2nd March 1991. Killed along with him were 25 civilians and 6 STF men who were in his escort. Despite there being several reported complications, the LTTE were believed to be responsible. Several questions were raised in the Press at that time as to whether the LTTE could have acted alone. These concerned logistics and intelligence. There were also reports of anonymous telephone calls warning some persons in the area before the incident.
At one level, Wijeratne was a failed strategist. Trying the methods which succeeded against the JVP in the North-East had swelled the LTTE's ranks and got the Army bogged down. Yet it was he, who as minister, had regularly visited the soldiers in the front, kept a sense of movement and boosted the morale of the troops.
Wijeratne was not a normal politician. Blunt and straight talking, he remained the successful planter in politics. He was known to be honest. It was suggested by a senior journalist that Wijeratne was probably the only UNPer who, during the insurgency, did not maintain back-door contact with the JVP. A particular impression about him needs to be questioned - that he was content to play faithful second fiddle to Premadasa. However, others better informed maintain that he was ambitious and no less so than Gamini Dissanayake or Lalith Athulathmudali. Premadasa owed to him the presidency and repaid the debt by making him foreign minister and deputy defence minister. Equally, it was true that had not Premadasa been made presidential candidate through Wijeratne's efforts, the power the latter wielded would have been modest.
His role in suppressing the JVP insurgency and then fighting the LTTE made Wijeratne very powerful. Premadasa is said to have been unhappy about Wijeratne executing Wijeweera without referring to him. There was a difference of approach. Ranjan Wijeratne regarded rebels with an elitist contempt. Premadasa had no qualms about rights and wrongs and accepted power as an unscrupulous game, but he emotionally identified himself with the social underdog. He pandered to the ideological propensities of the Sinhalese elite as a means to power and not because they mattered to him. His private detestation of the Sinhalese elite sometimes surfaced in below-the-belt shots at the Bandaranaikes in Parliament. Read More
Rajan Hoole
The 1990s: The Culture of Untruth and a Perilous Vacuum Part 2
At one level, Wijeratne was a failed strategist. Trying the methods which succeeded against the JVP in the North-East had swelled the LTTE's ranks and got the Army bogged down. Yet it was he, who as minister, had regularly visited the soldiers in the front, kept a sense of movement and boosted the morale of the troops.
Wijeratne was not a normal politician. Blunt and straight talking, he remained the successful planter in politics. He was known to be honest. It was suggested by a senior journalist that Wijeratne was probably the only UNPer who, during the insurgency, did not maintain back-door contact with the JVP. A particular impression about him needs to be questioned - that he was content to play faithful second fiddle to Premadasa. However, others better informed maintain that he was ambitious and no less so than Gamini Dissanayake or Lalith Athulathmudali. Premadasa owed to him the presidency and repaid the debt by making him foreign minister and deputy defence minister. Equally, it was true that had not Premadasa been made presidential candidate through Wijeratne's efforts, the power the latter wielded would have been modest.
His role in suppressing the JVP insurgency and then fighting the LTTE made Wijeratne very powerful. Premadasa is said to have been unhappy about Wijeratne executing Wijeweera without referring to him. There was a difference of approach. Ranjan Wijeratne regarded rebels with an elitist contempt. Premadasa had no qualms about rights and wrongs and accepted power as an unscrupulous game, but he emotionally identified himself with the social underdog. He pandered to the ideological propensities of the Sinhalese elite as a means to power and not because they mattered to him. His private detestation of the Sinhalese elite sometimes surfaced in below-the-belt shots at the Bandaranaikes in Parliament. Read More
