Sunday Times 2
High drama at Bangalore summit; Prabhakaran gives Rajiv a slip
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Veteran civil servant, diplomat and politician Sarath Amunugama has published volume two of his autobiography ‘Paris and Back’. Covering the period from 1977 to 1990, he recounts the multiple roles he played during the JRJ years during which many a landmark event unfolded transforming the destiny of this country. Excerpts from the book published by Vijitha Yapa Publications:
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget” - JR Jayewardene
My far-reaching decision to come back to Sri Lanka entailed making several changes regarding personal affairs. Once again my family was to be broken up with my wife and children remaining in Paris. When I told JRJ and Gamini Dissanayake of this dilemma JRJ directed that my wife should be employed in the Sri Lanka embassy in Paris. He asked WT Jayasinghe to effect this decision immediately.
Hameed was not happy that he was bypassed but there was nothing he could do. He contented himself by saying that this was another appointment for Harispattuwa as we were registered voters in his electorate. He had infiltrated several applicants from Harispattuwa to the foreign office and was keeping a tally of the jobs given. My wife Palika proved to be one of the best officers in the Paris office and was praised for her services by Anura Bandaranaike in Parliament, even though he was in the Opposition at that time. My younger daughter Varuni suddenly decided to come back with me and she rejoined Ladies College in the University Entrance class. The elder daughter Ramanika stayed behind with her mother as she was in the final years for her Bachelor’s degree. It also meant that we had to give up the apartment in Rue Cambron, which was familiar territory as we had been regular patrons of the Cambodian restaurant which was next door to this new apartment. It overlooked an Accor Hotel and many of our friends including Lester and Sumitra Pieris stayed there to be in close proximity to our apartment.
There were the usual hassles with the FO which resented my wife an ‘outsider’ being in charge of a mission and as usual ‘leaked’ information to the Opposition, but Anil Moonesinghe whom they contacted gave them short shrift as did his leader Anura Bandaranaike. I moved back to my house in Siripa road and Varuni entered the Ladies College boarding but came home for weekends.
Sinhala Sentiments
The President was under great pressure at this time from the Sinhala majority which was indignant at the apparent inability of the Government to control the growing LTTE threat. The army which was led by commanders who were more inclined to ceremonial duties and had little or no battlefield experience in their days as subalterns could not cope with the situation developing in the north where the India-trained guerillas of the LTTE were able to strike at will. To make matters worse the refugees from July 1983 were not only strengthening the fighting force of the Tamils but also intervening in the west to hasten arms procurement and weapons training for the LTTE. Douglas Devananda told me many years later that their London contacts with the PLO helped them to train with the George Habash group in Lebanon.
Two new developments boded ill for our security forces and JRJ. One was the expansion of the battleground to the Eastern province, leading to the depopulation of the area by the Sinhalese and Muslims. A reign of terror was unleashed against the Sinhala and Muslims so that the Tamils who were not in the majority could dominate the province militarily. Our armed forces were pushed to a situation where they could not hold the North and East simultaneously. When pressed in the North, the LTTE could summon their eastern cadres to come to their rescue. The second distressing development was the escalating attacks on innocent civilians who lived in land settlement schemes and interstitial areas between Sinhalese and Tamils. These developments dented JRJs image among the Sinhalese and Muslims. It was reflected in the growing feeling among UNP Parliamentarians that they should align themselves with hardliners on this issue, like the PM and Athulathmudali. Unlike in his first term, JRJ felt that such undercurrents were at work if not against him and his advisors, at least in seeking alternative paths to satisfy their voters who were being subjected to a barrage of anti-Tamil propaganda by the Sinhala media. JRJ was not a man to be easily cowed but he now had to use all his experience to attempt to control the situation which was fast deteriorating. Having met and liked Rajiv during his visit to New Delhi for the Independence commemoration, he was looking forward to his ‘tete-a-tete’ with the Indian PM in Bangalore in November at the SAARC meeting of 1986.
Bangalore
It was in this background that JRJ prepared himself to leave for the SAARC summit in Bangalore which was held in November 1986. There was much drama at this meeting which I can describe now as I was personally present as a part of JRJ’s entourage. With the President’s permission, I left for New Delhi with Anura Goonasekara, the Director of Information, about a week prior to his arrival in Bangalore. My plan was to lobby the media and other vital contacts so that JRJ who had many difficulties with the negotiable up to now, would get a favourable coverage. My main contacts were Dilip Padgoankar who by this time had been coopted to Rajiv’s inner circle and Biki Oberoi who was a mover and shaker in the Indian capital. We were lodged in the Oberoi Intercontinental where we also met Miss Chibb who worked there. She was the daughter of Chibb who was the advisor to the Ceylon Tourist Board in the early days when JRJ was the Minister of Tourism.
The Chibb family were great admirers of our President and were drafted by me to help in my campaign to ‘win friends and influence people’ in the Indian capital. I can also now reveal that Miss Chib had been wooed many years ago by Lalith Athulathmudali. Later when I mentioned our meeting to Lalith, he told me that as an Oxford undergraduate he had pursued her all over Europe and India. It was a characteristic of Lalith that he would relentlessly pursue his objective at whatever cost.
Biki and his brother-in-law Gautam Khanna immediately made a grand gesture. The Bangalore Oberoi was completed but had not been declared open. The Oberoi family decided that in the lights of JRJ’s arrival they should open the hotel immediately and offer the best suite to our President. When the President and Mrs. JRJ arrived in Bangalore they were taken to the Oberoi hotel where the whole reception area was bedecked with red roses in honour of the Sri Lankan couple. JRJ was much moved by this gesture but I remember he was distracted by his wife’s illness during their stay in Bangalore. He had to interrupt his negotiations to go to his wife’s bedside from time to time. It was then that I saw the depth of love and concern that he had for his wife.
The Bangalore meeting was crucial in the light of subsequent events and needs to be described by me as a bystander. Firstly, the opening session was a great triumph for JRJ. He had crafted his speech carefully for Rajiv’s ears. He dwelt at length on his love of India and his memories of Nehru and his fellow Congress leaders during the pre-Independence era. He clearly established himself as the senior politician in SAARC, a position that the other members of the group who were wary of Indian intentions regarding their own countries, were more than happy to acknowledge. I saw with my own eyes the deference that other leaders, including Rajiv, showed to the old man. As the host, Rajiv was solicitous of JRJ’s energy levels and would get up to help him to stand and sit, which was keenly observed by the Indian bureaucrats who as mentioned earlier were apprehensive that a rapport between the two would undermine their Pro-Tamil initiatives. That was exactly what happened, and the two leaders established a trust which was seen in the crucial ‘behind the scenes’ activities that now became the main concern.
In fact, it was Rajiv who made an attempt to break the log jam. The Parathasarathy proposals had insisted on the joinder of the North and East. This was a ‘shadow’ of the TULF concept of their ‘traditional homelands’. No Sinhala leader could accept this ‘imaginary nation’ to use the celebrated phrase of Benedict Anderson and hope to survive not only politically but even as a living human being. ‘Kill the old man’ later became a JVP slogan inscribed on city walls. The Sinhalese and Muslims, and even sections of the Eastern Tamils who had been earlier ostracised by the Jaffna Tamils as low caste, were not willing to play second fiddle to the northerners. By now JRJ had accepted the notion of devolution and a second tier of Government by way of Provincial Councils which were originally proposed only for the North and East. In Bangalore, Rajiv shifted the Indian position by suggesting two Provincial Councils — North and East — which as two entities could evolve a system of cooperation at the ground level.
Then came the fatal shock for Rajiv. He wanted Prabhakaran who up to then was looked upon as a client of the Indians–whom RAW insisted could be whipped into line–brought to Bangalore to agree to this new formulation which had the consent of the other Tamil groups. Let us listen to Bernard Tillakeratne, our High Commissioner in Delhi at that time. “It was reported that Prabhakaran, who was then resident in Madras, had initially refused to proceed to Bangalore as desired by Gandhi, to meet Jayewardene and himself, should the need arise during their discussions. However, he was forced to be in attendance in Bangalore but reportedly refused to meet the Sri Lankan President. At this point, Gandhi decided to impose some restrictions on LTTE movement in Tamil Nadu and even sought to prevent Prabhakaran from leaving India, but he slipped across to Jaffna to continue his fight from there’’. This was a historic encounter which had fatal consequences. Some years later both Rajiv and Prabhakaran had premature and violent deaths as a consequence of the Bangalore impasse. Only JRJ died in bed after retirement at a ripe old age.