KAMALIKA PIERIS

MADURU OYA FIASCO 2

Tamil Separatist Movement  was not able to  nip the Maduru Oya  project in the bud.  India   sent  an envoy, G Parthasarathy in August 1983 to scuttle the project. His visit was secret. He met Gamini Dissanayake   and discussed the issue of  Mahaweli settlements. [1]    But Gamini   did not give in  and the settlement took place as scheduled on September 1^st.

Tamil Separatist Movement had to go to India again  to get the settlement  removed. JR  definitely knew of the project. Gamini Dissanayake had informed him. It was only when India voiced strong objection to the settlement  , that JR got alarmed and ordered the project dismantled. the illegal Tamil settlements in the same area were  allowed to continue.

 Work on the Right Bank channel was discontinued. No work had been done at the time of JR’s death in 1996, said GH Peiris. [2] JR was condemned  for his  action in dismantling the Sinhala settlement, he added.   

The Tamil Separatist Movement was determined to see that an operation like Maduru Oya ,    ugeopen, enthusiastic, popular, well supported, huge, 40,000 persons, would never  take place again  in  their Eelam. The Maduru Oya  project, which was a straight forward   land  settlement  project was  therefore distorted into a criminal    operation. It was blown up into a conspiracy against JR .

The President was told  that the Maduru Oya operation was a conspiracy against him.  He was told that Cyril Matthew, Gamini Dissanayake and  NGP Panditeratne were  creating  a massive Sinhala movement to unseat him.  Tamil Separatist Movement would have been responsible for this tactic. JR fell for it.  He wanted Gamini and Panditeratne  punished.

Gamini Dissanayake was close to the President and  was considered his successor. He held the prestigious  Mahaweli  Ministry. But after Maduru Oya, JR sidelined Gamini   and gave Lalith Athulathmudali the job of managing the Yan Oya  settlement.  Gamini was surprised and  upset. He washed his hands off  Maduru Oya  . He asked Malinga Guneratne not to contact to him and made no attempt to help the arrested Mahaweli officials.

Panditeratne and  Gamini had  initially wondered why  JR  was taking such a serious view of this settlement. Gamini said that he could not understand  this inquiry. He had  informed the President of the Maduru Oya operation.   Why did the President have to unleash the police on us.   Then they found out why. President   is convinced this is a conspiracy   by Cyril Matthew and me. Nothing will convince him that  this is  not true, said  Panditeratne. 

JR  asked UNP to investigate Panditeratne’s involvement in the  Maduru operation. The UNP committee exonerated Panditeratne and stated that the  President had been mis-directed.  Though ‘officially’ exonerated by a presidential sub­committee on Maduru Oya, Panditeratne resigned from the position of Chairman UNP and DG Mahaweli, in 1984. 

The  Tamil Separatist Movement    had to ensure  that there would be no repeat of this type of operation. Therefore,  the Maduru operation was converted to a   tainted operation. This was probably  done through the media where there had been much discussion on  the subject, making it look controversial and suspicious. 

At state level,  the  Maduru Oya operation  was treated as a criminal activity. The charge was that state funds were used to  for the Maduru Oya operation. It was illegal to do so. State funds should not be used for Sinhala settlements in the east.

The police were asked  to investigate the matter . The Criminal Investigation Department was brought in. They identified Malinga Gunaratne as the leader. He was told, We know how you mounted this operation, how you used government funds to send people to the Right Bank.  Dimbulagala was merely a figure head, you were the chief man behind it. 

 The main charge was that  he had used state funds for the Maduru  operation.     They were only interested in how it was funded, not the settlement itself  or how it was mounted, observed Malinga.    

Malinga Herman Gunaratne was  a tea planter who owned his estate.  He  had  held several  other positions as well. He was the Chairman of Lanka Fabrics at the Sri Lanka Ministry of Textile Industry Development. He had been an Independent Non-Executive Director at Kahawatte Plantations Plc, and  a Senior Plantation Manager at Sterling Securities.[3]  

Malinga Gunaratne had joined the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau (CECB), of  the Mahaweli Ministry, in 1980 as Additional General Manager, on the invitation of  Gamini Dissanayake.  Malinga was   put in charge of the high-powered battery of media men at Mahaweli Authority.

Malinga had direct access to the Minister, whom he seems to have known personally and  also access to the Director General of the Mahaweli Authority, NGP Panditeratne. Panditeratne and Gamini  messaged each other through Malinga.

Malinga had complete freedom to enlist the support of any official in the Ministry from Secretary downwards to complete the tasks allotted to him.    He was able to cut through  red tape and get many things done at Mahaweli.   He had  a certain amount of clout at Mahaweli.

  But Malinga was quite unprepared  for a police inquiry on the Maduru operation. I truly believed that the Madur Oya was an  operation that had the blessings of all, he said.  We were wondering why we were being persecuted for puncturing Eelam.   A seasoned politician  would   have  crushed the inquiry and chased the police out, but not Malinga. 

Malinga underwent a   protracted ordeal. He was put in a police cell and interrogated. He was also summoned to the 5^th floor of the CID  where  questioning went on for 15 hours nonstop.  He was  kept under house arrest.    He was asked to make a confession . Otherwise he would face a court case on the matter. JR had wanted this   matter taken to court, though it was an internal Mahaweli matter, because, he said,  everybody at Mahaweli  had  supported the   activity.

Malinga  fiercely resisted all this. He spoke to various influential people  He related the whole story to Ranil Wickremesinghe    who conveyed it  to JR . JR wanted a written statement from Malinga  which Malinga  readily provided.  Then in May 1985  JR summoned Malinga to his home in Ward Place , exonerated  Malinga of any wrongdoing and asked Malinga  to  come to him if Malinga needed any help.

Tamil Separatist Movement was   also smarting over the fact that the Mahaweli staff had enthusiastically supported the Maduru operation. They had to be scared off from  setting up any more  Sinhala settlements in the east.

The police launched  a massive  investigation over Maduru,    over 500 people were questioned.   They included friends and relatives  of Malinga  and minor officials of the Mahaweli.  Four senior Mahaweli officers  including Hemapriya and  Karunatilleke  (whose MPhil research I supervised,) were arrested and kept incarcerated for almost a year, said GH Peries.This was clearly punishment for meddling in Tamil Separatism.

The police were able to clearly establish the presence of Mahaweli officials in Maduru Oya area in August 1983. The PROs   had not been told to be secretive  and they had left a trail  of evidence behind. There were photos of the PROs measuring the land. The police had  also easily obtained full disclosures  from them.

Those who had worked enthusiastically for the Maduru  operation were scared, they were reluctant to talk.    The one other official  present  when Gamini suggested a Sinhala settlement at Maduru Oya now said he could not remember such an instruction.

Gunaratne was  very resentful about the way he was treated. We had committed no crime. We had mounted a massive settlement . We who moved  45,000 people at the cost of only 2 lakhs were now running like rabbits.  We should have been congratulated, not pursued by police. 

Malinga commented that while had he had been kept in a  prison cell, Amirthalingam and Sampanthan,  who had illegally settled  Tamils in  Vavuniya, were given police escorts and protection and stayed as honored guests in    hotels when in  Colombo.

When Sampanthan says he had settled  estate Tamils in north and east he is given a police escort in Colombo.  When we settled 45,000 Sinhala in Maduru Oya  we were arrested.

When armed terrorists slaughter innocent civilians on Dollar and Kent farm they are called freedom fighters and liberators. When a priest leads a weaponless people, he is called a rabble rouser said Gunaratne indignantly. ( continued)

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[1]  Malinga Gunaratne. For a sovereign state (  this is the main  source  for this essay).

[2] https://thuppahis.com/2017/01/14/gal-oya-addressing-errors-in-ajit-kanagasundrams-recollections/  G.H. Peiris

[3] https://www.marketscreener.com/insider/MALINGA-HERMAN-GUNARATNE-A1LJ6Q/